On the last day of June, I committed to 30 days of spending 2 hours each night moving my work forward. I decided to offer a 31 day meet up for $30 and have created a recurring Zoom meeting for that purpose. I have begun thinking about the resources at my disposal instead of remaining paralyzed in despair about personal, local, national and global events and circumstances. For that I must give myself some credit.
I am now redirecting my energy to my projects and solving my problems. Period. And on that note, I have reviewed my calendar and recaptured 12 hours each week, almost 50 hours during the month.
That is a lot of time to devote to my own projects!
Furthermore, I have scheduled my email checks, online social media and Duolingo interactions to avoid spending the day bleeding out my time and energy to empty activities.
Day 1 was hard.
Lots of death and suffering this week. I have a funeral to attend on the 7th. I visited my godmother and while still lucid, her quality of life isn’t great spending most of the day in bed and darkness. Her daughter is taking excellent care of her. During our visit I learned of other elders who are suffering or in a holding pattern on this plane. An ‘uncle and aunt’ with dementia and blindness in their 90s living alone; an aunt who was alone mostly and neglected who needed both legs amputated and has a colostomy and hole in her hip from infection. The mother of another friend who lost everything to a lover, had a stroke and is now in a nursing home with dementia. I prayed for the graceful and compassionate transition of those souls in divine timing.
Later in the evening, while excited to start my Creative Intensive, I couldn’t focus. I sat judging myself and my lack of progress in my work and life, in comparison to others. Without realizing it I was still working through dark experiences of death and suffering around me. I felt less than, like I hadn’t done enough or made wise decisions in my life.
After about 90 minutes of berating myself, I realized that his energy was not my own. I took responsibility for my feelings of frustration that had been carried over into my late night work session. I chose to acknowledge the feelings and the energy and to allow it to continue to exist outside of me. I readjusted my boundaries and went to bed. I laughed at myself and then I was able to fall asleep.
That night, as usual, I had many dream sequences. There were people who seemed to be looking out for me at work and fond of me. I had a final dream sequence with the people in my workplace being offered what I thought of as communion from a bowl by a man. (I don’t know those people or that place in my waking life.) When he came to me I was surprised when he kissed me on my lips, blew air into my forehead and told me that I had earned bodhisattva.
I am reminded of what a Peruvian shaman said to me about finding the antidote inside the poison - or the gift inside adversity. If the opportunity to be of greater service and a higher « reason » for both visiting my godmother and having a conversation with her daughter, was to become aware of the suffering of others in order that I might offer prayers on their behalf, let my prayers be fulfilled. If I reframed the conversation and information as a lesson instead of punishment and critique, I could model greater success in my own life, instead of finding failure in comparison of myself to others. And I have.
I will continue to cling to the elders and ancestors for knowledge and support in making wise decisions for my family and taking wise action in the world.
