It's past midnight on a Sunday night. I just got home from watching chick flicks (Jane Austen bookclub namely), at a friend's house. I've had a busy week, but that's no excuse for not keeping up with my Artist's Way stuff.
Time to check in after a little over two weeks of Artist's Way work: how am I doing?
I have to say, this stuff works! Have you ever read The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne? It is one of those trendy self-help books that claims it can solve all your problems by teaching you "the law of attraction." What you put out comes back to you, basically. A friend introduced me to it a couple years ago. since I'm into the Tao and Yoga, I read it for purely amusement... or that's what I thought. Then, as I pondered what I read, and started really researching and thinking on the Tao, and upon lessons offered in my Yoga journeying, I began to see the truth and the wisdom in the words. Put a thought or a wish out there, and you don't need a gini to make it happen. What you need is positive thinking, courage to believe, and conscious work toward your goals. IT doesn't make every dream come true on your time table. (You are not in charge. God is.) But it does happen. If you pray, it is the veritable answered prayer. If you call it the law of attraction, it's your change manefesting itself. Whatever you call it, karma, reflections of thought... It works. .
Before you write it off, try it and just watch what happens. Don't expect the universe to bow to your every whim (nothing about life would be a surprise then, and things would get really boring). But the things that have happened since I started the Artist's Way are just too coincidential to be all chance. Or, as Skif reminds us in Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the
Queen (great read by the way), "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is conspiracy." For me, these prayers have far exceeded the conspiracy stage, and it's just on to plain miraculous. Only God could dream up this stuff, and make it happen like this.
A good friend called me this week, and told me about an Irish fair happening this weekend. I went online to check out the band list and see if there was anyone going I could network with, new or old. Just by chance, a band I used to sing with was going to be there. I was excited to catch up with them, but I really wanted to meet some new musicians--(drop a few demo CDs and cards... make nice...). It was just chance that I walked in to the LA Irish Fair, and there they were. We literally ran into one another! We haven't seen each other in well over a year. They invited me to reunite with them for a couple songs, and i was a bit unsure of it, since I haven't done their music since the autumn of '07, but once we got onstage together and got the vocal blend going, it felt like I had never left. All the old music came back with just a little memory jog, thankfully. Our voices sounded great together in spite of the time and the sound system, and even though there were carnival rides and bagpipers nearby, you could have heard a pin drop in our pavillion during the last verse of each of the acappella songs we did.
I've been offered a small business opportunity that's a once-in-a-lifetime chance. I can't talk more about it yet, but this is the chance I've been waiting for, and I'm going for it.
So many other things have happened recently that have just brought my mind to bear on how much things change for the better when you stop the mad rush of chaos and actually pay attention to your life and what you want out of it. I wasn't necessarily thinking of performing again with The Muses, but I have been wishing there was a bigger Celtic presence in Southern California, and thinking a lot about how much I miss playing the music I love so dearly. Low and behold, the Celtic Arts Center has a jam session every week just a couple miles from my house! They have a Gaelic choir, and tons of other opportunities I've been missing. Just goes to show what happens when you leave yourself open to possibility.
We let ourselves get so caught up in what I like to call the "what-the-world-wants" insanity. We rarely stop, turn in, and listen or respond when we do hear something. Those things we want, those conversations we feel we should have... we become so good at putting them off for a better time.
If surviving cancer three times has taught me anything, it's that there will never be a better time. That old proverb of don't put off tomorrow what you can do today! You'd better believe it, and heed it, and please, act upon it! When I was told this past summer that I'd have to have neurosurgery to remove three brain tumors, I felt like the world had come to a screeching halt. I was shattered inside--scared, angry, sad... I didn't know if I'd get another chance to do all the things I still wanted to do. I put those feelings aside, and just did what I had to do in that moment. I just fought the cancer, loved my family, lived for nothing but the moment I was in, and treasured that moment, good or bad. I've never been one to take life for granted, but I'll never forget the lessons I learned this summer, or the things I learned about the people in my life. IT took living in the moment to a whole new level for me, and made me see some things about myself and those I love I hadn't wanted to face. I find that when I live like that--open to possibility, reaching for the things I want--life goes into full bloom. I'm not the greatest at this; I lose sight of what's important quite often, but when I do things right, I'm always amazed to watch what happens.
I've always had my mind on what's ahead, what could be, what I could have done better. They call this vriti in Yoga. Our mind is like a two-year-old, or a colt in the field. Mind likes to run everywhere and get into everything, but it rarely likes to sit and stay in the moment. It's planning or remembering, never just doing the dream. I finally reached a point where I grabbed the little hellion and said: "Si'down, mind, and shut up! Live right here, right now!"
So, what would happen if you took that dream of speaking another language fluently, and acted upon it, instead of sitting on it. What about that portrait you've always wanted to paint, or that instrument you've always liked but never tried to play? I bet it looks and sounds a whole lot better when your butt isn't smothering it. We all have these things we want to do, but there's always some reason to keep using them as mental cushions instead of making them realities. Don't you think those dreams are there for a reason? Is it so hard to believe that those dreams you have held for so long might be things God plantedin you and expected you to nurture and grow?
Hello!
He would not have put them there if he didn't want you to take care of them! Dreams are like flowers, or fields of wheat. You sit on the seed, it's dark under there! It's not going to do anything but wither and die under your backside! Give it water, room to grow, and light, and you can feed yourself for months on the fruits of the field, or walk in your garden for hours with the smell of God's plans for you in the air. How cool would that be? Just a suggestion! Get up off your dream, and do it! Today I was sitting in Church, and a missionary got up to speak. He reminded us that living life is like going up a down escalator; if you stop, you go backward, and you watch the things you want drawing farther and farther away from you. You have to work twice as hard to get to where you want to go.
He read us the footprints poem. A man is standing on a beach, looking back at the footprints he made in the sand throughout his life. For most of his life, there are two sets of footprints in the sand--his and God's. Then the man points to the places where there is only one set of prints in the sand. He turns to God and says: "During the times when I was lowest in my life, there are only one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, would you abandon me and not walk with me?"
God says: "I did not abandon you, my child. I love you. Those are the times when I lifted you in my arms and carried you."
Amen.
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