The Diver: This is a painting on the cover to a tomb in Paestum, an ancient ruin in southern Italy. It represents death, and the dive into the unknown.
As we enter into yet another new year, for it to be a truly new year, we must die to all of the old ways that we have used to engage with this world. Otherwise, we will remain entrapped by last year’s, or by all prior year’s, agendas, and miss out on much of the beauty, and the mystery, of a life lived in freedom from our knowns.
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I had a conscious dream on December 29th where I actually died (the REM phase just before the pink spike in the sleep profile).
In the dream I was open, curious, and accepting, and I had no fear, even though I died among strangers. Through other symbology, I saw that the “strangers” were people from my past and present that chose to live life without deep roots into their Spirit, primarily guided by only their past, and exhibited an almost complete indifference towards me as I approached my own death.
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A difficult truth here is that a subconscious part of me feels like that I either have already died to people that I once considered to be acquaintances, friends and family, or they have already died to me.
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Psychologically interpreted, my death in the dream means that I am experiencing
MAJOR CHANGES
in life, in all ways possible, as well.
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Does a pending 4-month trip around the world qualify? How about the aging process? How about my creativity and the direction it might take?
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I know that between the trip, and a nearly finished book, big changes are in order. Book #8 has drawn very little interest from my blog site, or from many Facebook followers. Few people that I now know outside of those connections are curious about my story either, perhaps thinking that they already know enough about me and/or my subject matter. Or, they may have other reasons, but I am certainly dying as an interactive participant in many other people’s lives.
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New acquaintances that become interested in Book #8 may fill in the increasing gaps within my present spiritual circle of friends. Or, maybe they won’t. But the book, once it is published, will open me up to exposure from a totally different part of humanity than I am accustomed to connecting with.
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I am even dying to the need to present my material to the world. As I look upon the, literally, thousands of pages of writing, I witness a written legacy that will die with the death of my body. I have no heirs, and I presently mentor no one.
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I am at peace with that. I am not here to save the world, except from myself.
(note: the night of December 30th, I had another dream, where my subconsciousness corrected me about dying to the need to present my book to the world. It showed me that there are some that will greatly benefit, even though they are presently accustomed to other forms and styles of spiritual healing work. These unfortunate souls continue to starve spiritually while feeding off of the ignorance of their peers, or even of their teachers).
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Add to all of this the fact of my “aging” body, and the deluge Iof troubling conditions I have experienced this past year, and which may continue to unfold into the next year..
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Though death can bring great challenges, there is a great beauty in death, for those who can see it without fear.
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My wife’s two children from a previous marriage and their spouses are often indifferent towards me, and hateful at their worst. These relationships are on life support, with a poor prognosis of recovery at best.
I say this with tongue in cheek, but I am spending my children’s inheritance, the children who I never fathered or raised, and who never knew me, loved me, or hated me. Donelle, the woman that I would have had children with when I was younger, had she found good mental health, died on my birthday this year. So now whatever birthdays I have left will have the reminder to me of the death of my first love, as well as my own inevitable physical death. I remain grateful for Donelle, and the lessons her disease taught me. I am grateful for my Spirit, for my wife Sharon, for my entire life experience, for my parents and my mother’s parents, and for all of my ancestors, who inspired me to become who I am today.
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My childhood ego was formed as a direct response to a world that appeared incapable of loving itself, loving each other, and loving me. My adult self still witnesses a world with its basic inability to achieve a lasting, loving state of existence. Yet, my adult self has made the commitment to love the world, and all people within it, whether it has earned it, or deserved it, or not. That is not my idea, but the idea of a Spirit which indwells me. I continue to die daily to all that is unlike its divine nature. To be reborn of the Spirit is my living reality.
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Today I have no attachments to a past where I was trapped in the labyrinth of the human mind, and where I brought harm to myself or to others, or others brought harm to me.
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Today I remain dead to the idea that I have to compete for others’ attention and the futile need to earn their love.
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I have died to all of that suffering.
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Today I am free.
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May we all die to what no longer works for us, find our freedom to explore new options, and have a happier new year.
