Last night in my Life Planning seminar at Hollins, the facilitator brought in Aretha, a massage therapist and inner light sort of lady.
Aretha's message to us was to find our inner purpose. Find our rhythm, our bliss, our peace.
She then played a CD with the sounds of the ocean and lead us through a short guided imagery so that we could all then pick up our pens and paper and begin the hard work of figuring out who we are and what we want out of life.
During the imagery I slipped into something akin to a trance. I have long used imagery techniques and can quickly fall into my "safe place" when I am feeling frustrated and upset, provided I remember to do it. Sometimes I forget.
As I listened to the sounds of the waves, images of turtles came to me,* totally unbidden. Dark green and serene, floating along in the water. They were safe in their shells, carrying their homes on their backs. They had no worries for everything they needed was with them or right in front of them. They were smiling.
Perhaps I then fell asleep, because suddenly there appeared a turtle without a leg. No blood, but no leg, either. And that turtle too was swimming along, but not doing quite as well as his peers. He was missing a back leg, after all. And then as I looked I noticed that others were missing parts, too. Some had no front leg. Some had cracked shells. One was missing an eye. They were all injured in some way.
The turtles continued to forge through the water, their turtle faces still wearing what I was interpreting as a smile.
I came back to myself with a start, feeling bewildered and confused. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote "turtles without legs?" on it so I wouldn't forget. Shortly thereafter, still feeling as if I were in a dream, I wrote "Lose the Fear" and circled it. And then I wrote "Find Your Courage" and circled that.
This morning as I look over my page, written while I rested in a different space from that which I normally dwell, I see other things:
Time for myself
Just be
Be Love
Beloved
Love
Leave it all
Start anew
Create my own dance
Laugh
Live because you must
What does the heart say
*The facilitator said absolutely nothing about turtles, so I don't know where that came from.*
I think you may have been having a 'Nemo' moment... LOL Cute dream!!
ReplyDeleteDi
The Blue Ridge Gal
Makes me think of the Rumi quote: "Let Yourself Be Silently Drawn By the Stronger Pull Of That Which You Really Love." The rest will fall into place.
ReplyDeleteThe turtles were all incomplete, missing parts, but seems like in your dream, they were contented, working (swimming) together, despite their limitations. We each have our limitations, but if you are able to swim, instead of try to hike, you are going to have better success, just like the turtles.
ReplyDeleteYou have been given everything you need to live your full life. No fear, you might be limited, but then, so is every one else. The key is finding your place to swim. And make sure you are swimming forward with a group of others, because you will need each other to complete your woundedness.