Plateaus and Love Letters

Art by at pom

I think I have hit a plateau on my spiritual journey. It isn't that I don't still have things to learn, as I don't believe we ever finish having opportunities to learn about ourselves, it's just I am at a point where I think my biggest lessons have been achieved.

I have climbed mountains on my journey back to self and I have changed completely. I am not the same person I used to be when I started all of this. I am so much better now. I am so much more balanced and secure in who I am now.

When I started all of this, falling in love with myself seemed like an impossible task that I had no idea how I would achieve, and yet somehow I did achieve it. I followed the guidance and here I am nearly nine years later and I can honestly say I am in love with me. I like the person I have become. I enjoy spending time with her.

But lately, I don't feel like the mad scientist trying to feverishly figure things out and processing it all in front of everyone who cares to read about it here. It's not that I have either of my puzzles completed. I don't. It's that it doesn't seem to matter all that much to me anymore. I don't know when the shift happened or why.

The dreams I share here now are more for the sake of a single person so that he can read it because my dreams are often for both me and him. I hope the dreams I share offers him guidance for his own journey of self discovery and back to self love.

The situation with the one who I reserve the top spot in my heart space for is complicated. And so I think I may use my blog as a place to write love letters to him.

Expressing my love for him and all that I want to say is just as much a part of my journey as all of the rest of it. Opening my heart to love and be loved has been quite a huge accomplishment for me. My heart was once very dead and closed off. I am open and giving now.

My soul partner is at the forefront of all of my thoughts. There are very few moments in my day where I am not thinking of him in some way. He is my muse canoe. He is my inspiration to create and express through prose and images.

Art by Mark Loeher

Dear Soul Partner,

Thank you for the poems and song lyrics you shared with me. They mean the world to me. It's the little things that mean so much to me and they certainly gave me a lot of pleasure. They are the sustenance that helps me gently unfurl my petals one by one. I was astonished to discover how much it fills a person up with joy to receive such tokens of love. I have never been given them by a living person before. I love you. 💙

Dream: Moving Into a Heart Space, Going Home

Photo by William Helburn, 1957

Dream Journal Entry: January 17, 2020

So many dreams last night. I kept dreaming of being somewhere that I was being held against my will. I kept trying to escape this place. I would make it out of the place, wake up out of the dream and then go back to sleep and go through it all over again in different ways. At least three different times I was being held against my will. It feels prison-like and I would make my escape to the outside away from it. Sometimes "enforcement" would see me but I am being helped and I would always find my way out and away from this place.

I considered, when I woke at one point, that maybe this was showing me someone who is a prisoner in their own mind escaping the prison inside their mind.

Later, I dreamed again about the apartment I was moving into where George is the landlord and he had been holding the space for me.

In this set of dreams, I actually moved into the space. Again, the apartment is at the top of building and is the best space in the building. This time all of my things have been moved in but apparently this other person I have to share the space with has unpacked all of my stuff for me which I find a little annoying. I identify her as my old friend, Jenny Marshall, who I haven't actually spent time with since we were both in our 20s. She has already placed all the furniture for me. I didn't love the placement and noticed some antique wood desk type thing in the front window. On closer inspection, it looked like it was a sewing station but could double as a writing desk.

I told Jenny I didn't like that it was blocking the best window and wondered if we could maybe move it. Jenny got really upset about it and I conceded that it was fine where it was. I hadn't realized she was going to be here too and it left us both with not a lot of space. I had with me Inara and my dog so my things took up a significant amount of space. Most of the stuff in the space belonged to me.  I noticed my king sized bed had been brought in and jenny had a twin sized bed on the opposite side. I was curious how they were able to get my large bed and heavy furniture inside. I asked if they had to bring it through other people's apartments and they said they had.

There was a communal living area for everyone who lived there. Some of my stuff had been brought into the space, one item being a very large green couch. Some of my clean laundry was being folded and sorted there. Some people were complaining about the crowding and things changing. I apologized but stated it was always planned that I would be moving back to this place and explained that I had lived there in the same space a long time ago before any of them. They would have to adjust and get used to it.

I decided to go out and explore. The street the building was on was really quiet but it wasn't far from the college campus. Apparently there was something going on at the campus...a farmers market and music at the center. I chatted with some of the people of the community and then went back to my apartment. I was feeling really happy to be back here. It had been a very long time since I had been home and I wondered why I had stayed away so long because I really liked it here now.

I met some of the residents outside my apartment building. One of them I recognize from my past and mention that we met a long time ago and I told them I met them through Shannon, my ex BFF. Once again, I mentioned that I had lived in the same location a long time ago but I have come back to stay. I noticed some foot and handprints in the concrete on the sidewalk in front of the building.

Inside in the communal space, I talked to more of the residents. One woman had a baby and I offered to help her with the baby sometimes if she needed. I told her I know what it is like to need help sometimes. She asked about payment and I told her the only payment I wanted was her to be willing to help me with Inara when I needed it.

Some cat was scratching to get in and I assumed it belonged to someone who lived there so automatically went to the door to let it in and the cat immediately attacked me. I think it was an orange fat cat and it wouldn't stop trying to bite me. When I discovered it didn't even belong to anyone there, I moved to put it back outside and asked if someone could help me with it.

I went back up stairs to my apartment and noticed that there were 4 styrofoam squares attached to a wall. They were the same as the imprints out on the sidewalk and considered they were used to make the prints in the concrete. One was a snow shovel print, one was a woman's shoe print, one was a man's shoe print and one was a hand print. My large heavy dresser had been nailed to the wall next to them. It was elevated and the feet were not on the floor. I asked Jenny about it and why she did it that way. She got defensive about it.

I think there were some people who came into the space we had been talking to earlier down stairs. We quickly developed a friendly relationship and Jenny was getting upset that everyone seemed to love me. She made some remark about feeling very dim and invisible next to me. I saw myself as being illuminated with light all around me and people being drawn to me because they could sense it. Jenny was very jealous of it, said something negative about it and then went away by herself. I felt mildly annoyed with having to be faced with this kind of situation again. I remembered I had experienced something similar with friends in the past.

I remember talking to someone about how I was going to go out the next day to find a job but I didn't have concern that I would have any trouble finding a job.

What took place with my new/old apartment was actually two or three dreams together. I would wake up and go back to sleep into the same dream.

Art by Robert Jahns

"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea."

e.e. cummings