Last night I had one of my semi-annual tornado dreams. In this one, as usual, people were running from the approaching storm. I locked myself safely in a house I didn't recognize and I tried to hide in an interior room but realized I had left one window open about four inches. A gray swirl of smoke ominously entered through the window and strengthened in the middle of the room, picked up my little Chinese Crested boy, and began to suck him out into the funnel. I tried furiously to fight the storm and grab Frankie, screaming, as in mid-air, he was slammed again and again against the wall. Then the dissipating mist retreated as silently as it had entered, moving to the next house. I awoke this morning with serious lower back/hip pain, barely able to walk. I feel somehow like Jacob, afflicted.
(What's my argument with Judaism? I never wanted to be Rachel or Leah or Rebeccah. I wanted to be Elijah or Joseph or even the dreaming Pharoah.)
Back to waking reality, where these days I struggle to rise above engulfing loneliness. I know and appreciate the distinction between aloneness and loneliness. The former is spiritually impossible and the latter temporary and conditional. I know I am not really ever alone. None of us is.
When I close my eyes , the spirits present Divine community. I see no darkness and am greeted instead by varying degrees of light, wafting orbs in soft, muted hues. They surround me like an embrace, one after the other, gently, lovingly. There exists no earthly partnership so sweet. During emotionally distressing times, their visitations are soul-mending.
We know our animals experience these same spiritual gatherings. More than a few cat owners have told me they find their cats staring into space the same time every night, seemingly communicating with an etheric presence. Many of us have enjoyed meditating with our dogs and returning to waking consciousness much more quickly than they do, as they like lingering in the spiritual forest.
For the past eighteen years I've focused on a professional track that allowed me to grow as an educator, creating innovative curriculum in the college classroom while advancing my sideline work as an animal communicator. Six years ago I began traditional graduate study in theology to enhance my "real world" credentials and learn more about organized religion. I have been the only unaffiliated minister in a program populated by serious Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians AME, and even MCC (a GLBT church) ministers. I have responded to regular questions about my denomination with "interfaith, metaphysical" but had no central meeting place other than the celebration that takes place when I close my eyes.
Recognizing the onset of loneliness, I determined it was time to open my eyes and find a physical center, so I located a metaphysical chapel whose web page invited practitioners and ministers to attend and serve. I answered the call and spoke with the pastor.
"Can you do a meditation?," she asked.
"I could," I said.
"Can you talk for more than 5 minutes?," she asked. "Some people have trouble speaking for longer periods."
"No problem there. My students wish I would stop at 5 minutes."
"Do you give messages?," she asked.
"I can; I've done it before," I answered.
But I was nervous. For over a decade I laid these gifts aside and instead worked on maintaining employment with a pension and attending to a marriage with diminishing potential.
So I went to the church on Sunday, where I comfortably led a healing meditation and spoke for twenty minutes on spiritual communion with animals. We sang hymns and recited some beautiful prayers, one of my favorites attributed (questionably) to St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy...
It is no coincidence that St. Francis of Assisi is hailed as the first known animal communicator in western religion.
Then I gave messages. Well, I didn't give them. I delivered them. I closed my eyes and there they were, ready for articulaton.
In my meditation today, I approached an opening door and answered the call to enter. I knew I would not and could not be alone either en route or on the other side. The room was a womb of palpable love, a homecoming of Dorothy Gale proportions.
It took me 55 years to get here. Can't wait to see the miracles of the next 30.
(What's my argument with Judaism? I never wanted to be Rachel or Leah or Rebeccah. I wanted to be Elijah or Joseph or even the dreaming Pharoah.)
Back to waking reality, where these days I struggle to rise above engulfing loneliness. I know and appreciate the distinction between aloneness and loneliness. The former is spiritually impossible and the latter temporary and conditional. I know I am not really ever alone. None of us is.
When I close my eyes , the spirits present Divine community. I see no darkness and am greeted instead by varying degrees of light, wafting orbs in soft, muted hues. They surround me like an embrace, one after the other, gently, lovingly. There exists no earthly partnership so sweet. During emotionally distressing times, their visitations are soul-mending.
We know our animals experience these same spiritual gatherings. More than a few cat owners have told me they find their cats staring into space the same time every night, seemingly communicating with an etheric presence. Many of us have enjoyed meditating with our dogs and returning to waking consciousness much more quickly than they do, as they like lingering in the spiritual forest.
For the past eighteen years I've focused on a professional track that allowed me to grow as an educator, creating innovative curriculum in the college classroom while advancing my sideline work as an animal communicator. Six years ago I began traditional graduate study in theology to enhance my "real world" credentials and learn more about organized religion. I have been the only unaffiliated minister in a program populated by serious Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians AME, and even MCC (a GLBT church) ministers. I have responded to regular questions about my denomination with "interfaith, metaphysical" but had no central meeting place other than the celebration that takes place when I close my eyes.
Recognizing the onset of loneliness, I determined it was time to open my eyes and find a physical center, so I located a metaphysical chapel whose web page invited practitioners and ministers to attend and serve. I answered the call and spoke with the pastor.
"Can you do a meditation?," she asked.
"I could," I said.
"Can you talk for more than 5 minutes?," she asked. "Some people have trouble speaking for longer periods."
"No problem there. My students wish I would stop at 5 minutes."
"Do you give messages?," she asked.
"I can; I've done it before," I answered.
But I was nervous. For over a decade I laid these gifts aside and instead worked on maintaining employment with a pension and attending to a marriage with diminishing potential.
So I went to the church on Sunday, where I comfortably led a healing meditation and spoke for twenty minutes on spiritual communion with animals. We sang hymns and recited some beautiful prayers, one of my favorites attributed (questionably) to St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy...
It is no coincidence that St. Francis of Assisi is hailed as the first known animal communicator in western religion.
Then I gave messages. Well, I didn't give them. I delivered them. I closed my eyes and there they were, ready for articulaton.
In my meditation today, I approached an opening door and answered the call to enter. I knew I would not and could not be alone either en route or on the other side. The room was a womb of palpable love, a homecoming of Dorothy Gale proportions.
It took me 55 years to get here. Can't wait to see the miracles of the next 30.
Comments
They used to scare me and keep me scared when I woke up. Now they're sometimes still scary while I'm dreaming, but usually I'm no longer scared after I wake up.