“I found it better to speak to God than about him.” ~St. Therese of Lisieux
This quote has been on my mind a lot lately. It certainly fits this current place in my faith journey well. There isn’t much that I can currently say about God with any sense of confidence or certainty, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t speak to God.
The challenge for me, though, is getting a clear idea of who it is that I am speaking to.
“The thing to do when you’re confused is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is watching you.” ~Don Juan
I’ve never been good at making decisions. I tend to get lost in the considering and weighing of all the possible options for so long that the actual making of a decision seems to slide ever-forward into the mist of confusion as I stay paralyzed in the endless loop of pondering. I need to find a way to exit this loop more quickly if I am ever going to make progress in the direction of my goals.
So after my message yesterday from the synchronicity rabbit, I spent last night dreaming of koala bears. I don’t remember much about the dream(s) except that there was constantly a koala bear in it. Either I was carrying around the koala bear on my hip like a small child—or someone else was carrying it—at any given time in the dream. Even in the dream, I kept having this nagging sense that the koala bear was important for some reason, but I didn’t know why or what it meant.
Since I left my full-time employment, I have been trying to let myself take my time to figure out what I will do next. This part-time grant job I have is only funded through the end of next year, so I have moments when I panic because I feel like I’ve made no progress toward creating a workable model of self-employment, and time is marching on! But for the most part, I’ve been able to let that go and wait for answers to spring up on their own.
I’ve been watching for hints of new life to spring up from the ashes. I’ve been listening for those quiet little whispers coming up from my intuition. I’ve been waiting for a signal to show me where to take a step forward. I’ve been hoping for that inner urge to action to bring life to my dreams.
“Always ask yourself, in every situation, whether you’re just repeating an old pattern … or stepping up your game.” ~Marianne Williamson
As the pace of life has slowed for me and the level of stress has diminished over the last weeks, I am noticing that my ability to tap into my inner curious observer-self is increasing. I have finally reached a point where I have slowed and stilled enough that this self-observation is becoming second-nature almost without me realizing it.
I was writing in my journal earlier today about several situations and conversations that had provoked an emotional response from me. As I did so, I found that two phrases kept popping up over and over again.
“Tomorrow, do EXACTLY what you want to do. Say No when you mean No, and Yes when you mean Yes. What survives is your right life.” ~Martha Beck
My first reaction to the whole idea of doing exactly what I want to do is that it seems sacrilegious to me. “How selfish, how self-centered, that would be!” my inner monsters scream. I was well-trained as a child that I should always think of everyone else first. After all, if we are all born as horrible sinners (as my childhood faith proclaims), then the very fact that I want to do something automatically makes the impulse suspect. Being a good person, then, is all about how well we are able to discipline ourselves into denying ourselves what we want to do. Therefore, doing what I want to do just because I want it must be the epitome of evil. Right?
I’m not so sure anymore.
It’s once again time for Synchronicity Friday where I review the moments of synchronicity that I encountered during the last week. This week’s list is an odd mix of things, but every one of them is meaningful in some way. I’ve also included one intuitive incident that I can’t yet fully explain but that clearly has some synchronicity built into it.
