Tag — dreamboards
Stepping out of the Struggle
the small lake at my local park, from my February dreamboard.
We recently passed the one year mark of life here in Copenhagen. Baring lay-offs, we have a mandatory two-year assignment. But given Paul’s ship cycle, and what he needs to do for and with his team, we’re looking down the barrel of being here at least three years. … Can you tell by my metaphor how I am feeling about this?
For a long time I thought I would get used to being in Denmark. I was eager to live abroad, and I knew from experience that I like learning and living in cultures that are not my own. Plus, my graduate school was very international, and I enjoyed that mixed-culture experience very much. So I’ve been surprised at my inability to adjust to life abroad.
For the past year I’ve been on the “accentuate the positive” bandwagon most days– listing all the things I like about living here and trying to embrace the bits that I enjoy. But the reality is, while I like living outside of the U.S., DK is not the best fit for me.
February in northern winters is by far the hardest month. So much so that at my Seattle college our advisors told the freshmen to “never change your boyfriend, your haircut, or your major in February.” Nonetheless, February is when it struck me that maybe I am not going to come to terms with it. Maybe this is never going to fit right, to become my community, to feel like home.
I was listening to a story on This American Life recently in which the narrator was describing a heated debate between two political opponents. He noticed that the only time the crowd seemed to be experiencing something as a joint experience was when photos of the war were put up on a screen. When that happened stillness filled the room. What he said about this still space was this:
“Forget all the arguments. Let’s just sit by this lake, and try to figure out its name.”
At first I didn’t understand why this phrase was capturing my heart. Then Jena pointed out that the whole story was using the language of struggle and that I have been living in midst of two great struggles: the struggle to live cross-culturally; and the struggle to live with chronic pain. For a long time I’ve thought that there were only two choices about how to respond to these struggles: “Stand and Fight,” or “Lay Down and Die.” But what if there is a third way? What if it involves sitting in the place where stillness pools. What if it involves turning around, looking into the face of loneliness, and saying, “Okay, so you’re here now. Have a seat.” What if it involves—not a frantic search for meaning—but just sitting on a park bench and waiting to see what happens. What if? What if?
I want to step out of the struggle. I want to stop trying to like it here. I want to stop trying to be brave about being in pain. I want to step out of the energy of the struggle, sit by the lake, and see if it will tell me its name.
How to Build a Soultribe: Step Two, Use Your Words
My dreamboard for January, embodying my new mantra.
How’s that experiment with making space for your Soultribe going? Have you baked some bread? Cleared some clutter? Made the place smell good? Good for you! (If not, that’s okay. It’s not a race or anything. We’ll wait up.)
Step Two: Using your Words to Creating Emotional Space
Now that you’ve made some physical space for your Soultribe, it’s time to create some emotional atmosphere as well. You know how sometimes you walk into a room, and it just feels right? Maybe it’s someone’s living room that always feels like a hug. Or maybe your massage therapists’ practice room is just the right balance of professionalism and coziness. Or it could be that your yoga studio is just so perfectly Zen. You can create that kind of emotive space for your Soultribe too!
Have you ever heard a parent working with a screaming toddler? You might hear the parent say: “Honey, you have to use your words.” Emotions can be big, very big. Even the good ones can be hard to pin down. So what we are going to do in step two, is find some words that will nuture the kind of emotional feel you want your Soultribe to have.
Here are three kinds of energy that lives in some of the Soultribe spaces I’ve visited. These are just ideas to help you get a picture of what you might like to see grow now that you’ve vested your charming space.
1) The vibrant, challenging energy that encourages discussion and intellectual discourse.
2) The passionate, hot energy that flows amongst a group dedicated to social action.
3) The warm nurturing energy that pools in a group dedicated to encouragement and discernment.
Each of these groups would have a different vibe, a different emotional temperature or texture. Anchoring yourself now in the emotional texture you would like to experience with your Soultribe will help put you solidly on the path that’s unfolding in front of you. And thankfully, it’s not that hard.
How to Write a Mantra
So get quiet for just a minute and ask yourself this question. When I am in this room with my Soultribe, what kind of emotional feeling do I want to be sitting in? Okay, just think about it for a minute or two. Now start writing down emotive words. At least ten, I think. Don’t over-think it. This works best quick and dirty on a piece of scratch paper. If any sneak in there that make you feel like you have to include them to “do it right” or “to be official” or because “you should”, toss those puppies out right away. Those are most likely institutional leftovers you don’t need. We are working with fresh ingredients here.
Once you’ve got your list, scan it and circle the three words that seem to float up to the top. Again, don’t over-think it. This is intuitive work. We don’t want our monkey minds getting in there and stirring things up.
Now this is the best part, which I just recently picked up from the Other Laura. Make your three words into a mantra. For instance, mine right now is warmthgentlenessstablity. (That’s how I see it when I chant it—all as one word/breath like that.)
Now, for the next few weeks try saying your mantra at least 4 times a day:
1) Say your mantra upon waking up. The bedroom is the nest of your home. Speak these words into it and root your day in that emotional reality.
2) Say your mantra at the door when you return home and in your entry way. The door and entry are a symbol of welcome. Bath them in this emotional atmosphere – as a sign of welcome to yourself and your Soultribe.
3) Say your mantra when you sit down for dinner. The table is a symbol of hospitality and gathering. Wrap it in your good intentions by “setting” it with the gift of these words.
4) Say your mantra at bedtime. This layers the very place where you lay your head with these positive emotions and brings the day full circle. (If your mantra is very energizing, you may want to skip this time so it doesn’t disrupt your sleep.
Finally, say your mantra whenever you practice vesting your space, or whenever thoughts, dreams, or worries about your future Soultribe arrive.
Why it works
Now, this is not a researched answer or anything. It’s just my opinion based on personal experience. I think saying a mantra works in the following ways:
• It affects the way your brain is thinking about a given situation. Now you are not just a person lacking a tribe, but a person who is creating a sacred atmosphere for your Soultribe to gather. It literally changes your reality. I think it shifts something on the cognitive and the behavioral level. It’s good stuff!
• It solidifies your values to create a solid base on which to build something new, giving you more stability and confidence.
• It opens your eyes, heart, and thoughts to opportunities and possibilities. Gradually you will start noticing the resources that are in front of you, the intriguing people that are crossing your path, the articles that mentioned just what you needed to hear, and the dozens of kismet moments that cross your path. You tune in to what God and The Universe are doing.
Okay, so now we are two steps in towards creating our Soultribe. Please let me know how things are going: What’s working for you, and what’s not. What questions are coming up for you. What tools you are realizing you need in your kit. What unexpected tasks come up along the way. Together, we will find our way to our Motherland.
Yours on the Journey,
Rachelle
December Dreamboard: The song my heart sings.
This month’s dreamboard was hard won. First I was in great pain and unable to create. Then I was lost in a chorus of whispers in which no clear voice could be heard. But eventually, when I got still enough long enough, I heard one of the song my heart is singing to me now. The verses are not yet clear, but the chorus is “tribe, tribe, tribe.”
Jen says, I can be honest about what I know now. And what I know now is that is need my soulsisters –or mabye my soulsibilings. I need them around me all the time, sending me messages of hope and speaking affirmation in my ears. I feel sheepish about it — this constant need for feedback and assistance and the exchange of ideas. But it’s okay to do things and get support at the same time, rights? As Jena says, is it functional? Because if it is, then why fight it?
It is functional for me, this communal way of life, the ebb and flow, the give and take. Even in the midst of my love of the solitary, I also need this chorus of voices. So I’m trying to listen to my own internal voice of authority and no matter what the experts say about rugged individualism, I’m recognizing that I need a hand to hold.
This month when Suzie asked The Universe what she had in store for me, she pulled the Nine of Cups not once, but twice. Two wishes for me! For the longest time I couldn’t decide what to wish for. I knew one wish had to be “Body”– for my health, for my pain, for the way I see my physical self. But the other one remained elusive. I got stuck in that loop of endless decision-making to which I am so prone. What if I made the wrong choice? What if I spoke the wrong word into being, then regreted wasting my wish?
I believe, even on my most doubtful days, that nothing is ever wasted. Or at least, I try to believe. (“Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.”) So whatever wish I make must be right, right?. And like Jaime says, if you move towards something and you don’t feel like backpeddling as fast as you can, move closer. So this is the word that has settled into my tongue, and I speak it into exisitence. “Tribe.”
Who do you need in your tribe? Truth tellers? Cultivators? Dreamers? Cuddlers? Champions? Warriors? Withmates? All of the above? Do tell…
Introduction: Sea Change
A page from the little book I made for my November dreamboard, and a chapter from the book I am drafting this month, tentatively titled something like Edge Dwellers: finding your way to a new kind of faith.
Introduction: Sea Change
There’s was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy
They say he traveled very far, very far
Over land and sea
And then one day, one fateful day he came my way
And though we talked of many things, fools and kings,
This he said to me:
The greatest thing, you’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved in return.
Nature Boy
Nat King Cole
Once there was a girl. This girl was a good little girl. She was a Christian girl. It’s true that she was a bit of a mutt, having been raised in a Lutheran church and sent to a private school run by the Pentecostals. The latter were rumored to be found swinging from the rafters. In proper religious circles this was just shy of snakes handling, but still, she made the cut. She had, after all, prayed the prayer and studied the catechism, filled her memory verse chart with shiny silver stars, and taken first communion. She got up at 6am to be a teenage prayer warrior and responded to altar calls in the school gym (for what reason she was never quite sure.) She even sang in the choir.
After a while this girl grew up. She went to more private Christian schools and got letters after her name. She met people who thought that the Holy Spirit was still afoot, and she learned about healing and prophecy and things that, frankly, acted a lot like magic and miracle. She met a wizened old man who everyone called a guru, but who called himself “Eugene.” When the girl talked to Eugene, his faced curved upwards into swoops because he smiled at the questions that only made other people look worried. He told the girl lots of stories, this Eugene, and some of them the girl seemed to remember like a mist in her memory. She thought she might have heard them once a long time ago. Only the stories were more interesting when Eugene told them. (When Eugene told them it was they were full of trolls and fairies, she was sure of it. There! Behind the sackcloth and ashes!). The felt she might be a part of these stories, and that maybe that everybody got to play, that things weren’t quite as scary as they were meant to be–or maybe they were more so–but the ending was even better than she had first understood, so the scariness of being in the story was worth it.
November Dreamboard: Fear? Jump!
My dreamboard book for November. Isn’t it charming. More pics here.
I’ve been working with life coach Jena Strong of Strong Coaching for the past few months and things are starting to break out all over. After years of driving Jen Lemen crazy with my whining, I’ve finally realized that the only thing left that’s keeping me from publishing is fear itself. Fear that I can’t sustain a book length project. Fear that I can’t get around to finsihing. Fear that I don’t have enough material. (In rational moments, that one really makes me laugh!) Fear that once I get something out there no one will buy it. Fear that once I get something out there everyone will buy it and I’ll be pigeonholed as the “girl who writes about X” for the rest of my live long days. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear. Fear.
As I wrote in one of my answers to the birthday questions, fear is the one thing I am working hard to shed from my self-definition. Instead, I’m ready to embrace whimsy, to do the impractical and live the impulsive life.
So, I decided to write a book this month. Yes, an entire shitty first draft in one wonderful month. And when darling Jena asked me what I was ready for this list poured out:
I’m ready to be seen as an expert.
I’m ready to get paid for my work.
I’m ready to publish.
I’m ready to embrace whimsy.
I’m ready to jump.
My former neighbor and soulful friend Claire Mack is an amazing artist, and I blame and praise her for introducing me to the playground that is mixed media art. (I’m just a novice, but she’s a real pro, as you can see here. I helped inspire the birdcages! Woot me!) When Claire went to Greece a couple of years ago she took a travel art kit with her and made a lovely little abstract book about her adventures. I’ve always adored it, so this month for dreamboarding, with the November Book Experiment on my mind and Claire in my heart, I made not a board but a book. Some of the pages are already filled with the things I need to get to bookville. Others are waiting for words. Every page is lovely. Every page is full of color, and life, and hope. (I’ve scanned them in here, if you’d like to see.)
I’m so enthralled with this charming little number — it kind of reminds me of those little dance cards women used to wear on silk threds around thier wrist in the era of Jane Austin, only with more chutzpah. It’s completely captured my fancy. I carry it around from room to room. Yesterday I even put it in a ziploc bag and carried it with me in my purse!
Sacred Suzie says that the Tarus moon in November is good for breaking boundaries. So here’s what I think. Let’s break the boundary of fear. What fear-free adventure will you dream into reality this month? What will you ask of the Universe? In the words of my beloved Joseph Campbell, “Jump!”
Kid’s Dreamboarding: Sweet November
I’m working on a longer post about my dreamboard for this month. It’s a real juicy dreamboard and I want to tell you all about it. In the meantime, may this lovely dreamboard bring you some jollies today. Cate, age 8, always joins the dreamboarding circle. Here’s her wish for a sweet November.
Sacred Sunday: Commune Home
This is my dreamboard for September’s full moon.
I believe: time around the dinning table is sacred; lighting candles on the windowsill is ritual; a flock of friends in a cozy home is essential.
Since moving to Denmark 9 months ago we have been lonely. A lot of our time has been spent adjusting to a new culture and just learning our way around, so at first we were okay with the solitude. Hiding out with our nuclear family was sort of novel and refreshing those first few weeks, but now it’s “ikke sa godt.” (not so good.) When we first came here I was burned out from over-hosting — too many dishes, too many personalities, too much dirt tracked across the living room floor. It was good to rest for awhile. But now we are ready to gather a little flock in our home. Flock gathering is kind of my superpower.
We are accustomed to being the hub for friendly gatherings, and I have sent out an invitation for monthly gatherings in our home through the Fall and Winter. I’ve also invited a group of women to come dreamboard around my dinning room table each month. Monday is our first one and I made a dreamboard in advance, because I know my hostessing energy will be too bustle-y to make mine on the actualy night. So here it is — my dream of a tiny flock of lovlies in a cozy home. The words on the left are in Danish and mean “welcome,” “sacred,” and “cozy.” You can see the whole thing better here.
Well, shall we say “Amen, let it be so”? I think so. I do indeed.
Sacred Sunday: Health is My Withmate
This is my dreamboard for August as I pray/wish/hope for shalom in my physical self.
Last month’s dream of curtains and spotlights is still alive and kicking. I’m still playing guitar, and I’m working with a life coach to figure out what that mysterious phrase might mean for me.
For more information about dreamboarding click here. Good shabbat to you!
Dreamboard: I Was Meant for the Stage
A dreamboard with milagros from Artchix Studios and lyrics from The Decemberists The fortune cookie paper at the top says, “Your curiosity may mean your success.’
Update 5/08: After making this dreamboard I started guitar lessons and sang this in front of a live audience (sans guitar.) Yeah me!
Over at Suzie’s Sacred Space, Miss Suze has once again invited people to make a Dreamboard. Using the Full Moon as a reason to focus, and images and colors as a means to communicate, people join Suzie every month to make their dreams a little more concrete and to offer them up to — well– to God/ess, The Universe, their own internal strength and Divinity…(It’s flexible…you get the idea.)
This is my first dreamboard, made on the only painfree afternoon I’ve had in a fortnight. Realistically, I should have made something envisioning health. But instead I followed The Muse deep into my six month obsession with the lyrics of a song–determined that, somehow, I Was Meant for the Stage.
I don’t know precisely what this means, but I am very curious. Is it as simple as my newfound longing to sing and play at some small open mic for my 40th birthday? Or is it more subtle — maybe something about teaching and preaching again someday? I’m not sure.
All I know is that when I watch Alanis impart wisdom to the crowds, I weep at the wonder of it. And when I speak into my microrecorder for some tiny podcast, my heart soars. And that in addition to my longing to write, and write, and write some more; another lover stands patiently in the shadows. He looks like a mic-stand and a stool, and the dimmed lights of a room full of listeners. And in my better moments, when the pain and strain of day to day life makes way for dreaming and vision, I know in that strange clear stillness, that “I was born to raise these hands with quite all around me.”
So here it is, for what it’s worth, for God and the Universe. Amen, may it be so.
What are you dreaming into reality? Write it in the comments below, or make a dreamboard and link us up to it. Watch for an interview with Suzie this Monday or next in my weekly column at BlogHer.com.
