Richmond, VA

Merry meet Friends!
Michelle here, bringing lots of love and light!

"Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears"  ~ Les Brown

"All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." ~ Walt Disney

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." ~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I was speaking with a friend last night.  We hadn't spoken in some time but spoke as if we had not had a break.  We spoke about finding our purpose and living our passions.  I said to her that I wasn't sure of my passion.  I know what I believe is my purpose but I am not sure exactly how to implement it.  I've known her for more than 25 years and we have had these same types of conversations for most of that time.  

As she spoke she made a comment about something she wondered if she should do.  I was immediately reminded of something I wanted to do back in the 90's and of something she said that I should incorporate into that idea.  I told her and she remembered, she said she never forgot. Then she went on to talk about the idea and the name I wanted to use.  I told her that I had forgotten all about the idea and the name until this conversation and her saying the name.  I asked, "How do we forget our dreams?  Was it not important to us? Was it really a dream?"  We concluded that the dream is still within us, (because I remembered as soon as I heard a reminder) but we place them on the back burner as we move on with life.  

I think, though, that the deferred dream is deferred because of fear; of failure, of success, of not measuring up, etc.  Langston Hughes, in his poem "Harlem" (also known as "A Dream Deferred") says
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-
like a syrupy sweet/
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
To defer something means to suspend or withhold for or until a certain time or event.  Sometimes we consciously defer and sometimes we don't.  We allow other things to take precedence, which in a sense is a conscious choice.  

I mentioned to a coworker that there were things I wanted to do in the past and sometimes in the present but allowed fear to stop me. She said that she never would have thought that about me; that I didn't present myself in that way.  I responded that I became better after reading Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers.  I tackled some things that had paralyzed me for years.  Fear is crippling and will cause one to defer their dreams.  I think deferred dreams do all of the above in Langston's poem.  I think mine dried like a raisin in the sun.  

I was happy and sad to remember that dream.  Happy because I could revive it and sad because I forgot it.  Our dreams can become a reality if we let them.  "Nothing beats a failure but a try" is something I've always heard.  Dreams don't always come to fruition on the first try but persistence can make it happen.  We can not allow our negative self talk and the negativity of others to deter us from our dreams.  Wikipedia says that dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur usually involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.  Maybe we have these images, ideas, emotions and sensations during sleep which stay with us long after we awaken.  We then daydream about them.  Daydreaming: a short term detachment from one's immediate surroundings, during which a person's contact with reality is blurred and partially substituted by a visionary fantasy,especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imaged as coming to pass, and experienced while awake.  Whew!

I think many inventions are the result of daydreaming.  How do we know whether it's a blurred vision of reality and not reality itself? Do we know whether or not our dreams are 'real"?  The "thing" exists somewhere.  It cries out to be brought into existence in the physical realm.  The poet Rumi said "That the thing we seek is also seeking us."  I love that!  When we let our dreams defer, we must pick them up again so that they can exist; they are after all seeking us. Continue to dream but allow the dream to come forth and live.  Let's "live our dreams and not our fears" as Les Brown said.  Let's start today, NOW, in the present moment.

Until next Sunday,
Merry part and merry meet again,
Blessed be,
Gypsi Mama Michelle

Richmond, VA

Merry meet Friends!
Michelle here, bringing lots of love and light!

"Living in the moment without attaching yourself to regrets about yesterday or worries about tomorrow, goes a long way toward cutting through the chaos of everyday life."....Eve Adamson, PhD.,Gary R. Mcclain~

"Never allow waiting to become a habit.  Live your dreams and take risks.  Life is happening now."  ~ Author unknown

"We are always getting ready to live but never living."   ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Life is now.  There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.  ~ Eckhart Tolle

"Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none."  ~ Albert Einstein

"Life is available only in the present moment." ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living.  We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today."  ~ Dale Carnegie

"Be Here Now." ~ Ram Dass

When I read my "about me" and I come to the part about traveling from place to place as led by Spirit, I sometimes wonder why I'm writing this blog since I am not physically traveling.  But then the light bulb comes on and I know, once again, that I am traveling as led by Spirit.  I am traveling the path to higher consciousness, to enlightenment, to my center,  to whatever we wish to name it...the bottom line is - I'm traveling and so are we all whether we know it or not.

My travels this week have taken me to a familiar place that I have been before but have not taken advantage of what this place has to offer.  I feel that I have driven swiftly through it or stopped to linger for a while but didn't stay long enough.  This place is called Living In The Present Moment.  This place has many "cities" to see; the one that I drive through hurriedly is called "risk taking".  I visited two places on the outskirts frequently.  The one that I visited the most is called, "waiting"; another is called "someday".  

What makes us/me so afraid of taking risks and truly living?  Henry David Thoreau said it best: "If one advances confidently in the direction of one's dreams, and endeavors to live the life which one has imagined, one will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."  Some of us are afraid to dream because we think it will not happen or if it does we may fail.  But life is about living and all that it implies..the highs, the lows and everything in between.  Life is messy sometimes; it's not always neat and clean.  It definitely is not meant to be placed on a shelf and not used.  Use the good china, if only for yourself.  You are special!

The fear of failure and the fear of success has kept me from truly living.  There are things that I feel called to do but I allow fear to take root.  I'm not moving "confidently in the direction of my dreams" and I am not fully trusting Spirit to get me to the place that Spirit is leading me.  Hmm, that's really the same thing isn't it?  If I trusted Spirit, I would move confidently.  A perfect example of this is when I first started this "Gypsi Journey".  I knew that I was supposed to go wherever led but before I went anywhere I allowed fear in its many forms to enter.  I said to Spirit, "I can't see at night, and I don't have much money, I need to kind of know the direction and kind of, sort of, where I'm going.  I said these things as if Spirit didn't already know them.  I didn't trust Spirit to take care of me.

I have decided to drive straight through "waiting" and "someday" and enter Living In The Present Moment with wild enthusiasm.  My first stop in this place is  "risk taking" and I intend to stay for awhile. I am anticipating with excitement and nervousness (same root), to jump off this very high diving board and land in the pool of infinite possibilities and swim with them over to action.  I've felt this before and probably said it also but I am determined to "live the life I've imagined", enjoy the present moment and BE!

Until next Sunday,
Merry part and merry meet again,
Blessed be,
Gypsi Mama Michelle