Which Reality?
Cycling back to January 1976 at age forty-three, when I stood on the deck of the modest home Jim and I helped build in the Sierra foothills of northern California and had moved into the previous month, I knew everything had changed. The roles that absorbed so much of my time previously were over. I remember telling myself that I was no longer a wage-earner and teacher; due to Jim and my decision to drastically scale down our living standards, I would no longer be a consumer as I had been; and I no longer had responsibilities as a mother such as I had before. My daughter was living with her boyfriend and another couple in a home they were renting, and she was enrolled in some freshman college classes. I told Jim, “I’m not going on in my usual ways. Instead, I’m taking the opportunity I have now to find out what all my choices are.” As I see it from today, that emphasis had enormous ramifications for both Jim and I and our body organisms in all of the time frameworks and dimensions of our beings.
Another emphasis I had energized when I was about twenty had also brought forth large-scale results: I decided that when I got to the end of my life I would be able to look back and have no regrets. I used that as an evaluator for decades with which to choose what to do and not do. Then over the years, I think it naturally transformed into my focus of playing my part and getting my life as right as I can in an “all things considered” sense, for the highest good of all being everywhere.
Experiencing the changing leaf colors here in northern Michigan this recent fall as I drove to town when it was my turn to do our weekly grocery shopping, I was freshly impacted with the contrasts the evergreen trees provided, often as a backdrop for the oranges, golds, reds, and all the other hues. From there, I associated to our current-day culture. It seems to me that with all of us having the multitudes of contrasts there are available in just about every way now in the present, the question arises to my conscious awareness— which reality does each of us choose to energize? And what does it mean to be realistic?
“Being realistic” has been an emphasis that’s been used during recent years here in the United States, especially regarding some of the assumptions our government has made about the Middle East and the war in Iraq. When I think about being realistic, some of my thoughts go to assumptions made about female/male relationships and household activities. Jim had recently talked about how much time he and I spend on daily/weekly routines and indoor/outdoor seasonal upkeep activities. He noted how they all added up in terms of both time and attention.
From my perspective, our society’s entertainment industries oftentimes show only a slice of life—the glitz, sex, and various forms of violence—while there really is so much more that takes place. I think this is where many young people get into trouble about reality: by using unrealistic models about some basics, they aren't prepared with Understandings and skills regarding how much focused effort each person in a significant relationship has to put forth in many ways to keep the partnership healthy, to be able to negotiate with fairness, and to take care of daily routines without a hassle.
In the early morning hours of Saturday, December 2, 2006, I experienced a delightful dream about planting seeds in the Earth, telling me to not be too linear. Even though it was harvest time within the natural world sun-cycle, some seeds do germinate and grow in late fall; and in divine time, spiritual, mental, and emotional seeds can be planted in any season! The dream set the stage for what follows.
Sunday, December 3rd, while still amidst the November moon cycle, “we” went through an extensive evaluation process. The evening before and then dreams from the next morning were a repeat of the previous weekend, when we had also watched a college football game and had disturbing dreams during the night. Afterward, we experienced depletion the following day. The first decision I/we made was similar to a portion of the one I made in the Sierras in January 1976, when I said I wasn’t going on in my usual ways. This time it was primarily my body organism’s choice that I agreed with: “We” were not going on in our usual ways, and contrasted with the abrupt changes in 1976, we would phase it in. The emphasis was upon purposely increasing activities that brought about health and well-being, while decreasing those that didn’t.
Some of what else was going on December 3, 2006, was that because of my body’s recent choices, including its great interest in word-processing and editing the chapters that were coming forth for “our” manuscript, materials that had been recently culled from newspapers and magazines to read later were beginning to pile up in our personal room. In addition to those, there was a group to file. And even though we had done some household cleaning that week, there was still the living room and kitchen to do. From my body organism’s point of view, it was all too much!
Along with “our” evaluations, there were also three dynamic conversations with Jim that day, where me and my body organism and Jim and his body organism came to some decisions. Jim and I looked at our past together in terms of how many scripts we had co-written and had roles within, where at times each of us had felt controlled by the other person’s designs, and in some situations we had both simultaneously felt dominated by the other one. He and I decided we were really different spirit-beings in different matrixes now, where each of us and our body organisms could be much freer and less subject to one another’s focuses and time frames.
Overall, I know that by energizing these intentions, a new world will be opening up for Jim and I and our body organisms, as happened after we moved to the Sierra foothills thirty-one years ago.
That evening while doing the dishes, memories of a delightful past came into the immediate present. Me and my body organism happily remembered playing around for a few months, decades ago, with living our lives in a self-created matrix that was based upon different patterns than those used in our culture as we knew them. And from those experiences I had written a small book I just loved. Two of the designs I used were simultaneous happenings and interrelatedness. Jim was involved in his own way with those focuses, and he also typed what I wrote. He loved the book, too, but when he and I read it a few months later, we agreed it wasn’t substantial enough to make a difference in the world—we both knew we had more to do. (All of that was before Jim and my extensive study and writing process for Something Different.)
Anyway, the evening of December 3, 2006, my body and I smiled a lot as we thought about that decades-ago segment of our lives of living amidst a self-created matrix. During that time I/we were also weaving free-form circular pictures, spinning some of our own yarn, gardening, dancing, and hiking. In the present, I felt my body becoming very enthusiastic about a future where we would be able to create our own self-chosen belief structure, experience within it, and then write about “our” life.
Later, when I shared with Jim what had been happening, I said, “What I know at this moment is that my body and I love to have fun, to play, to be creative in ways that are healthy for all being, to write, and to free-style dance! And together, we’re excited about what else will emerge that is also delightful!”
The day of the full moon on December 5, 2006, I/we recalled a book we had read about ten years ago that had described a group of aboriginal people in Australia. One of their patterns-for-life was for each person to choose the roles he or she would perform in the community. Then when the person decided their level of skills and interest in same was achieved, he or she would have a celebration and move into another role.
I could see that this was a great design for “us” to use in the near future. It was really up to me and us to decide if we had achieved the amount of substantialness and Understandings we had been seeking, actually all of “our” Life within the DCBA reality. When my body and I evaluated that evening, we were in full agreement we would have achieved our goals when we finished what we currently had in motion. So more than likely, sometime in the future I/we will have such a celebration.
That night “we” were enjoyably awake a lot as ideas and inner pictures came forth to our conscious awareness. What we saw was that over the forthcoming months, fluidly and easily we could go through materials in our personal room that were associated with our Understandings and writing process. This would include many folders, both in and out of filing cabinets there. And whatever we decided to read, see, or hear that were within the three baskets of accumulated materials could be done smoothly as part of that process. Then we would move what was completed into the basement.
Another realization that came forth in the early hours of December 6, 2006, was that we wouldn’t be developing an Essential I, personal-workshop CD such as we had thought we would be doing to go along with these writings. At least this wouldn’t take place soon—maybe later. Recently I had felt dwindling interest in it. When I reflected, it seemed that since I/we had been continuously expanding, that focus had been appropriate within a different matrix than the one we were within now. It had served its purpose as an energy focal point for the past few years, and whatever was wise to be communicated at this time would just naturally be incorporated into our writings. This thought connected with inner guidance that was saying, “less is more” and “open the whole thing up!” At present, it seems best for other people to take their lives into their own hands, be original, and create their own workshops for exploratory experiences, if they choose to do so.