Your donations are our thanks
.
We appreciate you!
Horizons Magazine
SEPTEMBER 2002
Spiritual dry spells; keeping yourself in motion; our hopeful anticipation
continually draws opportunities to us
Hello and welcome to the Sept 2002 issue of Horizons Magazine. The weather has
been kicking up some heavy rainstorms lately, and my yard is loving it. Best friends
and next door neighbors Doug & Trish and I have, between us, a couple of acres of
wooded sanctuary, and it's looking like a rainforest these days. The two of them are
master gardeners and everything they touch grows and blossoms and bears fruit. A
walk through their compound is a delight to eye and tongue, and in our tropical climate,
the heavy rain makes the plants grow to giant size.
I noticed as I was checking the weather that while here in Central Florida we're having record rainfalls, much of the western US is experiencing extreme drought right now. That reminded me that what someone else is experiencing doesn't necessarily hafta be my own experience. I briefly wondered what good might come out of such continued dryness. I remembered being told that dryness in a plant is essential to its being able to flower. Ann Haymond Zwinger said, in The Mysterious Lands: "Dryness promotes the formation of flower buds; flowering is, after all, not an aesthetic contribution, but a survival mechanism."
I was reminded that the beautiful bougainvillea plants in the Florida Keys are much more brilliant in color there, due to the dryness of that area. I was reminded of artists, poets and writers who go through dry spells of their own, and produce magnificent works as a result of their experience. Their artful expression could be considered a survival mechanism as well. I know as an artist and writer that sometimes what is inside me just has to be expressed. It's as though I can't NOT put pen to paper and allow it to flow out. Much of it remains unseen, even by close friends, but I don't do it for anyone else. I do it because I can't seem to not do it. It's like a pressure valve, and I laud its value as a survival mechanism.
I thought again about dryness - as in spiritual dry spells - and am reminded that just as a potted plant thrives when cared for properly, just so our personal degree of emotional or spiritual dryness depends on how well saturated we keep ourselves; how nourished we keep ourselves. We can drink in a lot and, if we have no capacity to hold onto what we've taken in, it will drain right out and despite being flooded, we'll still remain dry. If we've got good root structure, that helps because roots help hold nourishment in long enough for it to be of value. My roots are my connection to my family, my friends, and my spiritual practice. Once we've developed roots, we can count on our roots to take hold of whatever small drops of nourishment we give it and make the most of them. When I?m feeling saturated, a few pages a day of spiritual study or a few minutes of meditation may be all I need to feel topped off. The drier I allow myself to become, the more I allow myself to get caught up in overwork and other people's stuff, and the farther off the path I step. During my own dry times, I have learned that the more I stick to a daily discipline of spiritual study, prayer, meditation and reflection, especially when I least feel like it, the quicker I make it out of the dry spell and begin blossoming again.
How can we hasten the blossoming stage? By keeping the energy flowing, by putting ourselves in service to others and getting involved with people and things that excite and inspire us. By finding out what we like to do. By putting ourselves in motion, even though we feel stuck, uninspired, lethargic. By noticing when our energy begins to wane and our spirit begins to wilt.
As in gardening, a good rule of thumb is to give yourself a good soaking just before you reach the wilting stage: a giant infusion of whatever nourishes you, will keep you from wilting. It's kinda like a blood sugar thang: you don't always notice you've gone too long without eating, yet when you become tired and low energy, it's time to refuel. You might get a little cranky. Your mind feels unclear. You may start to wonder if you're coming down with something. But all it is is that you are wilting, you've let yourself go beyond your capacity and need some re-fueling before you continue on. We're told to let the soil in our potted plants become dry on the surface before watering again, because this maintains a good balance of air and water. Water represents our emotional state of being, and air represents our expression outward, and how we communicate to the world. Just so, we too need to maintain balance between taking in what replenishes us and makes us feel psychologically and emotionally satisfied, and with expressing it outward and sharing it with others.
Just as the flight attendant demonstrates how to use the oxygen mask in an emergency, showing how if you've got a child with you, you place the first mask over your own face, and then place the second mask over your child's face, just so you must keep yourself replenished if you are to have any nourishment to offer anyone else. If you run out of breath trying to convince a frightened, struggling 3 year old to let you put the first oxygen mask on him, neither of you have a chance of survival. Only after your own vital air supply is in place can you have the calmness, clarity and presence of mind to effectively help the one sitting next to you.
We all know people who we?d like to make sit still and listen to what we have to say, because if they take our advice, it will solve their problems and they'll be happier. Or so we think. The truth of the matter is that when what you know fully saturates you and becomes part of you, then you won't have to convince anyone to listen to what you have to say. They'll want to listen to you. And you don't have to go out and find them; they'll find their way to you. They may not know how or why, but they'll know how inspired they feel afterward, and that's just what we're talking about. What you're saturated with is always overflowing out of you onto everyone around you, and leaves a very tangible wake. (Hmmmm, what are you oozing out?)
My experience is that having dry spells has to do not so much with my environment, but my reaction to my environment. In the midst of a dry spell, I may feel I'm hitting bottom, and years later - finally - I realize that can be the good news. Sometimes I need the momentum of that bottom to springboard me back up, back in the running. And I know it's never my circumstances that dictate how I feel, rather it's how I choose to react to my circumstances. How I choose to react to the dry spell I'm having and what steps I might take in order to nourish me, and replenish me so that I?m once again fully saturated.
As one essential step to spiritual nourishment, I'd suggest reading Horizons Magazine each month * hehe * This month we've got a fine spiritual buffet for you. And, as with any smorgasboard, you can pick and choose what you?d like, and leave the rest. In this issue, Jean Houston says, "People and ideas are fast becoming interconnected in ways that create a new environment - virtually a new world mind." Hmmm, the Hundredth Monkey!
Aluna Joy Yaxk'in answers the question, "Why is it that you still don't have what you want, after you'd done all the right things to get there?" She points out that God helps those who help themselves. Spirit works when we go into action.? It's not always easy to overcome past programming, and it's not even easy to recognize that you're programmed in the first place. It's helpful to take the time to consider what your beliefs are right now, not necessarily what you grew up believing, but what you believe right now. It's helpful to know what your beliefs are and to review them often.
Michael Mirdad writes about aligning with Divine guidance, and says, "Everyone has moments when they doubt even the clearest messages or fail to heed warnings that might have saved them a bit of misery." Sometimes the nudge from Spirit is so subtle, that we mistake it for our own hopeful thoughts and as such disregard it as guidance. An important reminder is that opportunities are presented to us over and over and over and over again. Our hopeful anticipation continually draws to us opportunity after golden opportunity. Often, though, as in snow blindness, we can't see what's clearly before us. And although opportunity is always being offered to us, we're not always programmed to receive. How do we program ourselves to receive and allow? We look for something to appreciate in everything and everyone we see. Swami Beyondananda suggests lightening up; having more fun. Finally, advice I can take!