text to self...

Dream - I look at my phone. I have a text. At the top of the screen is the letter “I” in the middle of a band of my brown paisley shawl. The message says, “Are you going to want to do this the easy way?” For some reason I think it’s a group text.

As we worked this dream together, my dream teacher, Rodger Kamenetz, made me laugh immediately…”your shawl is texting you.”

What is it about this brown paisley shawl that is special enough to me that it comes as an imago in my dream, inviting me into a teaching and a feeling? 

It is luxurious and elegant. I found it in a re-sale shop, abandoned because it had a small tear. I unhesitatingly bought it and attentively and tenderly re-wove the tear, a mending that somehow makes it even more special to me…

For many years it sat on the back of my meditation chair, to be wrapped around me on chilly mornings as I sat in meditation or in the early morning dark with a cup of coffee moving from the world of my dreams gently into the world of my day, the two less and less dissimilar.

A couple of years ago, when I opened my dream center I brought the shawl into this new space and hung it on the back of a chair, hoping its elegance and tactile presence would be part of the welcoming atmosphere for the dreamers who come here to share dreams.

My personal dreamwork of late, my inner work is this call that is a struggle for me. It is calling me from my desired solitude into the increasingly shared space with others. My fear rises here strongly, a fear that I will lose myself.  Can I do this? 

The ‘I’ that desires solitude and the ‘I’ that is in the middle of a band of paisley, part of the group text. Can I be more and more with others as my work is asking of me and still be me? The dreams seem to think so and I trust them…thoroughly.

The message, “Are you going to do this the easy way?” was both teasing and poignant for me. I don’t live in the mountains by chance. It is a conscious decision to live in a way that is close to the earth and to silence. 

The easy way for me is to withdraw into my solitude, the cloistered place of meditation and retreat to the mountain, both the physical mountain I live on and the remote mountain of inner solitude. The hard way is to both remain true to my self, my soul and at the same time be with others, spending so much time in the dreams of others. 

Can I take my self as I took my shawl from the inner space to the outer space…to a place where I can be increasingly more with others? I don’t know, but I do know that is what I’m being invited into…

As Rodger observed, the ‘I’ that’s alone and wraps itself in meditation is now an ‘I’ in the middle of a band of paisley, in the middle of a group text. The ‘I’ is still there but in a different context. It’s there with and for others, where I am with others face to face…present…in the moment…the the space between words and the space between breaths…in the depth…and all that I am...now part of this field of paisley.

Mary Jo Heyen is a certified Natural Dreamwork Practitioner working with clients in person, phone or Skype. Learn more about her work with dreams at www.maryjoheyen.com.