You Might Not Believe in Unicorns Now, But Keep Reading.
The power of our desires
We live in a small mountain town paradise. As we turn down the road a block from our home on the way to school there she is.
Glowing. Towering.
I ramble on to the kids, “I told God to paint the Blue Ridge Mountains purple for you this morning. She did a great job don’t you think?! God is a good listener.”
I can feel our daughter's eyes roll at me, “You’re a good storyteller Mom.” She has no idea this was the theme of my thoughts this week. But the universe heard my dreams. And she sent me the message through the mouth of a beautiful creative child.
Our son says,”How did she paint them purple?”
Well, I explain, “She has all the colors of the elements to work with. Blazing Yellow Sunrise. Crystal Skyblue. Towering Treegreen. She knows how to mix them to Perfection Purple. One of my favorite colors!”
Where unicorns live
On the way to pick up the kids from local theater rehearsal the night before, my husband gave me the writing prompt, “You might not believe in unicorns now, but keep reading.” I brought it home and plugged it into my headline analyzer and it got 82%. Wow that’s good. I usually get in the 40s first try.
I had been dreaming, complaining, griping to him about how I wanted to be a great storyteller one day. He said how about now? Tell me a story about that Gold Exchange store we just past.
So I started my story.
“Oh right! I went in there the other day and there was this man sitting there wearing a monocular. It was very peculiar. And unexpected. He looked out of place in the store that gives pawn shop vibes every time we pass it. But seeing him there was like a step back in time…”
I am queen of making up stories when the kids ask me some question. Like I have all the answers in the universe. When actually I only have like 3 answers total.
So I make sh!t up. I start rambling. It’s fun. Letting the creative juices flow with no agenda. A refreshing moment of play.
And they usually catch on pretty quickly that I’m spinning a tale again. We all laugh and sometimes they add to the story and it rolls out organically into a game.
Coloring is for babies and old ladies
Adult coloring pages are for bored old ladies who have lost all interest and ability to participate in anything meaningful in life. My mind always has it all figured out so quickly!
So when I met a woman in the local theater world and she texted me some pictures she had colored and told me she was pretty much obsessed with coloring in all her spare time I quietly chuckled inside. “What a geek”, I thought with a mix of guilt and righteousness.
Turns out she’s not a geek. She is delightful. She listens to my rambling about my dreams of reaching Enlightenment. She asks questions to feed the conversation. I feel seen. I feel heard. Welcome sister friend!
And guess what I’m doing now? Coloring pages.
I live in the crazy-busy-Mom world. Working full time as a nurse. Heavily involved in managing the kids, our home and food and meals and the cats and the finances and the car and the aging mother. And a budding writing habit. Why would I pick up a hobby? Coloring?
Turns out my original judgment was just that. A mental ego story trying to lead my life. Trying to make me feel better than. Trying to pump me full of “I’m good. You suk.” so I have some false sense of power for a minute.
That’s what our judging mind does. All day. Every day. Belittles our world. The people in it. The situation. So we can have a sense of feeling safe and secure. Secure behind the walls that keep us cocooned. Separate. Living in our head.
Like just about anything that we choose to add to the agenda of our life, it can become a distraction leading us further from the trust. Or it can be a tool to lead us to the light.
I’ve been using my few minutes a day of coloring my next masterpiece as time to be present in the moment. Letting everything melt away. Feeling the spaciousness that we all originate from.
And this is what came to me out of the ethers this week.
I live in a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
The fastest way to squash a dream is to tell yourself it's not possible.
This is embarrassingly obvious.
But we do it all the time. Otherwise, our lives would be overflowing with manifestations of our dreams.
When we start the vision of our dream with, "I want..." we are telling the Universe that we don't believe it's possible.
I want to live in a home that feels like Frank Lloyd Wright designed it.
What we are saying is, "I want that over there. I don't want this that I have. I'm not happy with this that I have."
We're not holding the vision of our desire. Rather, we're feeding energy to what we're not happy about.
We're craving. Feeling hopeless. Not believing we can have our hearts desire.
So that's what we continue to create.
To hold a vision like this we have to walk around our current home feeling what it feels like to be walking in a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The groundedness. The earthiness. The openness. Clutter free. Rich. Warm.
As we wrap ourself in all this goodness, we are holding the vision. Or rather, the vision is holding us.
And these will be the qualities that begin to show up in our life.
I’m no writer
If we have a dream to be a great storyteller, the place to start is to feel what it feels like…
“I’m sitting at an old wooden desk. Looking out the window at, well the Blue Ridge Mountains of course. The quill in my hand holds the magic of flight from the bird it used to belong to. My calligraphy deserves to be on the walls of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. I’m relaxed. Flowing words from beyond my personal reservoir.”
Every time I feel the “wanting.” Every time I sit to write. Every time my head tries to tell me I suk. I’m no writer. She’s so much better than I am.
I quiet the chatter. It has no power over me.
I pull up the feeling of me. The storyteller. And I let myself be wrapped in the deliciousness.