Gaining Control by losing control. How does this make sense?

We have all heard of that expression "one day at a time." I am getting an exercise in that right now as I continue to live where I live without a lease and without knowing what will happen until someone buys the property and announces their intentions. So each day I get up and give thanks for the opportunity to live here and for having another day of life. Whether I get to stay or have to move will be a decision that is out of my hands at this time. I appreciate each day for what it is and I do what I need to do every day.

It takes a lot of courage to trust that things will work out without knowing the answers to all our questions. It also takes a lot of courage to be open to possible developments that we had not anticipated. Actually, doing some research now is revealing some patterns that I had only been vaguely aware of before. At this moment I am keeping those discoveries to myself until I see how they all add up and how they may influence future choices. Suffice it to say that I am making discoveries because these factors are causing me to research and reconsider what I know and what I prefer.

Face it, it can be unnerving when we have a plan and it unfolds in a different manner than we expected because it took a different turn.

We all like it when things go according to our plans. But sometimes, it just happens that someone else makes a decision or takes an action that sets in motion a chain of events and next thing you know, your schedule has changed and your plans have changed.

Be patient. The changes work out just fine. Just like that old saying about when one door closes and another opens.

Sometimes we gain control when we lose control. Here is a simple example of a fun way to experience this. I used to lead drumming circles and still use the drums with people who want a different kind of meditation experience. By just listening and following what we hear, we feel the music and our minds are just following that track. Malidoma Some, an African drummer and shaman whom I had the pleasure of encountering says that "a person who has trouble with drumming has trouble with listening."

Consider that for a moment. When we become more aware and pay attention to the signs we pick up from all around us, we find new paths. We learn melodies that we did not know. Fresh thoughts come to us. And we learn to work with others more beautifully, more harmoniously. We play together, listening to each other, we find a groove and that frees our mind to travel. And we would never have discovered those paths had we not opened our ears to listen.

So you are not drumming, you say? All drumming comes back to the first drum, our heartbeat, our breath. As we are more observant and aware of our surroundings, we perceive in ways that were once not visible to us. Hidden in plain sight is also revealed by listening to things that we have not been tuning into before.

It's also interesting how sometimes pieces of information come to us that help us make decisions that we were not even searching for. Guess all you can say is that the guiding influences in our life must have intended for us to have those, whether we call those guiding influences God, Goddess, spirit guides, ancestors, angels or something else. So here we are. Once again making a decision that veers off our original course. Is that bad? No. Making changes often leads to finding a better way to do things.

If we allow things to come to us, they will. Sometimes not being certain will get us where we want to be, except that the process of discovery reveals that we are in a place that we did not know we wanted to be but it is working out well although it was unexpected.

And we can gain control by losing control.



* A note about the photos. The image on top is the 4 of Wands from Ciro Marchetti's Tarot of Dreams which is one of the decks I read with all the time. The bottom photo is Layne Redmond, one of my teachers in the world of drumming.

Is Your Heart As Light as a Feather?

In the Egyptian mythology, the goddess Maat weighs a person's heart, which they equated with the soul, at the time of their death, and if their heart is light as a feather, that person gets to move on to the next level of consciousness, the next level of existence.

Is your heart as light as a feather? Do you do the things that make your heart sing? Or do you plod through life not believing that you could be more or do more? Have you ever said things like "I hate my job, but at least it's a paycheck?" Have you ever said "My marriage really sucks, it has been that way for years but I don't want to leave until I get a better offer?" Have you ever said "I have always wanted to dance, but I don't think I am coordinated enough?" Have you ever said "I have always wanted to see that place, but no one wants to go with me?" Have you ever said "I have always wanted to learn more about that, but I never seem to have the time?"

Your heart will never be as light as a feather until you ask different questions and get different answers.

All of us can make our hearts light as feathers if we choose from love instead of fear. We can make our hearts lighter if we are kind to other people. We can make our hearts lighter if we do things that bring more joy into our life.

When we are living with joy and love, we are radiant and others can see that inner light glow through us. When we are living with light in our hearts, we enjoy all aspects of life: our work, our relationships, our play, our life in this world.

Changing our thinking is the first step on the way to lightening our heart. Positive thinking can light the light. Would you like to make your heart as light as a feather? How do you think it would feel to live that way?

Transforming One Moment at a Time

Removal of self doubt is one of the greatest ways we can advance our own cause. How many times have we come up with an idea only to let it drop because we don't think that we can do it? Or we share our idea with someone who discourages us.

Those are obvious interferences. But often our failure is subtle. For example, when we tell ourselves that one day, we will do what it takes to get in better shape, or one day, we will have our own business. Or one day, we will have a relationship that works well. One day we will dance. One day we will sing. One day we will walk with someone who shares our dreams. One day we will make love like there is no tomorrow. Today is that one day, if we choose it to be so, and then follow through with action.

All it takes to shift the energy on these desires is to keep reminding ourselves that there are things we can do to make a difference now. That we are becoming what we have been thinking about, now.

As we remind ourselves that we are transforming now, becoming our future now, then the changes begin to take place immediately. Perhaps we do not get everything the way we want today, but we can feel our progress towards it today. Keep remembering to thank our spirit guides and the universe for all the good we have received so far, and be open to whatever they can do for us going forward.

And with each bit of progress, our dream becomes reality. Bit by bit, moment by moment, we make it real.

Everybody Dies, But Not Everybody Lives

When we put off doing something we really feel a connection to, it can suck the life out of us. If there is something you have felt compelled to do, that may be part of your destiny.

So when that happens, that you keep on pushing something that keeps coming to mind to the back burner, you may feel drained of energy because spirit keeps sending you messages and showing you omens and you keep ignoring them.

Of course, we can always exercise our free will and say that other things are a priority for us now. We can always decide that the idea that seemed great some time in the past is no longer as vibrant or powerful a motivator for us.

If that is true and we are really ready to let go of the old idea, we need to send a clear, conscious communication to spirit and to our selves. A good way to do that is to create a ritual to let go of the old dreams, the old ideas, and clear the space to make way for the new, for what is important to us now. Then we will no longer carry around the baggage of intentions that are not sincere, not acted on, and we let go of those things and move to the front burner that which we really are going to do.

When I was getting out of the advertising business, I gave my portfolio to another freelancer so that she could use the actual display case and try and get business from any of my former customers. I took all my suits and ties to a Goodwill store. I have never had a need for a suit and tie again in all the years since then. When decided to no longer play the sports I used to play, I sold all that equipment. It was very cathartic to do these things.

Another guy I knew burned a drawing of a planned real estate development he had been working on when he got out of the real estate business.

When I used to teach creative writing, people used to sign up for my classes all the time because they had been thinking about writing, but in many cases, not doing it. Actually coming to a class where they had to bring in something they wrote every week created the opportunity to either do it or drop out and forget about it.

I have seen people who changed their spiritual path, so they reorganized their personal library to reflect the path they were currently on, and traded in their old books to used book stores, so that what they had at homes was very focused and supportive of their new direction.

The actions we take reflect what is really going on within us. When we do a personal ritual of transition, we free up our energies to move more swiftly along in the direction we are going.

Let us not live a life of regrets. Let us live a life that reflects our aliveness and the fulfillment of our destiny. If we are not clear on the direction we will take next, we can also do a personal ceremony to ask for direction.

The Power of Enthusiasm

It has been said that to enjoy swing dance, all that is required is joyful enthusiasm and a ready partner. Much of the pleasure and adventure in life only requires these same two ingredients.

How many times have you wanted to try something new but hesitated because you didn't want to go by yourself?

But sometimes, that beginning of the new journey is all about you deciding to get up and go, and in so doing, finding others who enjoy the same things as you do.

Part of the adventure is simply being willing to get started and trust that you will meet others who share your enthusiasm.

How many of the things in life that give you pleasure and satisfaction are things that you simply had to learn by doing? Yes, most of them. Of course, at times we need teachers to show us the way to do things and give us knowledge about subjects we want to learn more about. But in the end, it is still all about getting up and putting one foot in front of the other.

How many things can you do that only require joyful enthusiasm and a ready partner?

If we remove all the other considerations from the picture and just get going, how much more joy would there be in our life?

Fortune Telling Is Not As Mysterious As We Are

We live in the present, but the future is all around us. Everywhere we look there are choices we can make that will shape what is to come next.

If we take a look all around us, we find the seeds of what is next. The choices we make each day determine what options will follow. We can track where our energy flows. Once we place our attention on something, we will either get confirmation of that choice or an omen to choose something else.

The flow of energies follows the patterns we set and we have the ability to alter that flow with every choice we make.

So in a reverse sort of way, the future has left clues all around us to what is in store for us later.

Consider that what we like to do now. There are indications of that all around us. So what happens if we pursue that course? Consider the kinds of activities we enjoy. Will we keep on doing them, or choose something else?

Are we open to adventure? Are we ready to embrace new concepts, new friends? New relationships? What are the things we are going to finally get up and do, and the things we will scratch from our list? There are clues in what is right here, right now about what is to come next. We might not always recognize them, because maybe something will happen that causes us to choose differently later today or tomorrow.

Fortune telling itself is not as mysterious as we are.

Winter A Little Further Into Spring

It can be easy to forget what season it is here. Sunday it was snowing, cold and windy. Today it is sunny and windy. The turning of the seasons from winter into spring is always kind of jerky, a sequence of shifts back and forth before finally opening up into planting weather and blossoming into the new growth.

Some of that new growth has been poking up for a while now, but the dips back down into low temperatures and snow remind us that we are still in winter.

I keep thinking that it is time to garden, but last year, it snowed until the end of May.

And this reminds me of how our own progress looks sometimes. We start moving forward and we have setbacks and speed bumps, then we get going again. Even though we may have a clear vision for ourselves, our path, our plan, our work, our pleasure, we still have to redouble our efforts at times to keep us getting to where we are going.

Our growth, just like the return of spring, is not always smooth. It goes in fits and spurts until finally the new growth gains momentum and stays up.

Manifesting Magnificently

One of the important things to remember about manifesting is that it is the goal that is important. We need to state what we want in clear terms and be open to creative solutions.

At the same time, we want to state our desire in such a way that we rule out ways of manifesting that may be detrimental to us.

Focus on your goal, take action steps to get there, and let the strength of your desire shine through.

When magic is happening, manifesting can take mysterious shapes.

It is not tricky. You just have to be clear.

Your action steps, willfully expressed, help define, as does the desire. As a result, we may find that at times we need to redefine our vision.

When those three sides of the triangle are firmly in place, they are powerful. If you are not getting what you want, check those three sides to see how strong they are and if one or more of them needs to be rebuilt or reinforced.

What We Are Capable Of Doing

Many of us are feeling called by the situations of our lives to rise to a new level of awareness, to a level of being more, doing more. Why now?

We are now at a new level of evolution and it is time to look at not just what we have done, but what we can do.

Just like job hunting on the web has changed the way people look for work, with robots scanning resumes to decide who might get the job, we cannot do things the way we used to. Used to be that you had an opportunity during an interview to make the case for why you should get the job. The resume stated your history and experience.

Today, robots scan for keywords, and if they are not on your resume, you will not be interviewed. Yes, I share the opinion that this is an inferior way to find the best person for the job. But there is another choice. We can choose to create a better way of doing things, by not participating in that system and charting our own path.

That may be the whole message of the changes in a nutshell. The universe may be encouraging us to do things in a way that makes sense for us. That requires extra energy, but the rewards are greater, not just in terms of money, but in terms of how we spend our time and energy.

By choosing to go to the next level, we do take risks, and we challenge ourselves to do things we have not done. We may find ourselves calling on reserves of strength and resources we did not know we had, but this is part of our initiation into another world.

Every time we ask to go to the next level we are expressing our will and desire to engage with the universe in a new and different way. It is another way of breaking new ground and presenting ourselves so that the world can see what we are capable of, not just what we have done.

It is new every day when we re-create ourselves. It is always about what we can do now, not just what we have done in the past.

Supercharging the Rituals of Career Change

When we come to major crossroads in our lives, we need to take both practical and symbolic actions to help with our transition into the next phase of our life.

For example, if we are changing career paths, or changing jobs, it is a good time to de-clutter and clear our living space of the old energies and invest it with new energies.

Job hunting can be depressing if you let it get you down, so make time to go for a walk or swim or dance, or whatever form of physical activity you enjoy, because it will help keep your spirits up and keep your body energized by getting your heart pumping and the oxygen flow can stimulate new ideas.

Taking time for meditation every day helps restore calmness and clarity too.

Many people like to put up a poster board and place words and pictures on there that express what they want and even just glancing at that is a form of visual affirmation every day.

Another powerful step is to get in touch with your spirit guides, God, Goddess, guardian angels, ancestors or whoever you call on for help and do something symbolic to ask them for their help. By that I mean choose some physical symbol of the successful change you want to make and keep one with you and keep one where you see it every day.

We have to call on every bit of help we can when we need it. Every one of these exercises dovetails.

When you clean your space and discard what is no longer important, you have room for what is important. When you reaffirm your intentions and do the rituals that keep mind and body strong, you keep moving forward. When you ask for help, you acknowledge that you don't have all the answers, so you trust that your helpers will provide some for you.

Communicate your desires to everyone you meet, not just close friends. People like to help other people, and they will be better able to help if they know exactly what you are trying to do, what your goal is, what you are open to, and what might work.

We all have rituals that we follow every day. In your time of need, find a way to supercharge them and gear up so that the changes work in your favor. There may be doors opening that we have not seen. There may be opportunities that we have yet to unearth. There are connections yet to be made. Put in place a set of daily rituals that really support you. If you need help with this, ask me.

Creative Thoughts

Did you ever stop to think about how amazing certain aspects of evolution came to be? Have you thought about how or why it might matter to you right now?

Imagine the early days of history when the first people thought of making holes in a reed to make the first flutes. Or when the first people thought to make a drum. Imagine the progress, or process they went through making the first music with their inventions. From all indications, these instruments first had ritual uses, and making music just for fun came later. Who was the first person to make this transition? No one knows the answer to that, of course, but try and imagine what that process might have been like.

Seems like we might need to reimagine how various aspects of our evolution happened. Why? For one, it is interesting to think that we did not evolve all that slowly from people who could just manage to kill a wild animal with a spear and roast it over a fire to being people who could create complex architecture and understood complex concepts, or at least approached them if they did not understand them.

Consider, for example that Newgrange in Ireland, which was build thousands of years before the pyramids, is made from stones fitted together, and the roof of the inner chamber, which is vaulted, and has no mortar, has never had a roof leak. Can any builder today claim such success? Another feature that was built in was an opening over the front entry that allows the inner chamber to be illuminated by the rising sun only and exactly on the Winter Solstice every year.

Or how about all the various ancient people, all the way back to caveman days, who somehow just knew that when a person dies that the invisible part of them that kept them alive has left the body that the person was going on to some other level of reality, and so they developed rituals to recognize the death and somehow through their symbolic acts help the person transition into whatever is next. Imagine the thought processes of the first people who began to grasp this.

If we can begin to grasp these concepts, among others, it may offer us other ways to see our own evolution. It is often the far out thoughts that can create results close to home.

Right Time, Right Place

Tonight I had a great time listening and dancing to some reggae music in a great theatre in Boulder. What makes it more interesting than just a night out with some good music was the fact that it was customer appreciation night sponsored by a company that sells supplies to indoor gardeners.

Of course there are all kinds of things that people take pleasure in growing indoors, like orchids, tomatoes, herbs, fruits and vegetables, but the real boom in gardening entrepreneurs came with the legalization of medical marijuana in Colorado.

After enjoying the pleasures of smoke illegally most of my life, it feels very interesting to be living here while this happens and watch the cultivation and consumption of smoke become on the one hand, a gourmet experience, and on the other, a sort of every day above ground business.

Growers have advanced their art so far that smoke is no longer referred to simply as smoke. It now has names for the various strains that these geniuses have cultivated.

Other companies may have customer appreciation golf outings or customer appreciation banquets, but how appropriate for the growers to have a customer appreciation night in a theatre with reggae bands.

I am just smiling about the whole thing. How lucky I got to happen to be living in a state just when legalization happened. It's a weird reality. A whole new crop of green entrepreneurs are doing their part to create local businesses to boost the economy. The reality kind of zings again when talking someone in another state where these things are not legal and they are still worried about hiding everything and not getting caught. And when you remind them that it is not that way everywhere any more, they go "oh, that's right. You're in one of the states where it is legal.

Eventually it will happen. Just like beer could not remain illegal forever. Eventually, politicians will wake up and decide that it is smarter to legalize it and make money taxing these new legal businesses instead of spending tons of money trying to prevent people from doing what they want to do and will do, no matter what their status is. One of these days there will not be legal and illegal states, and there will be customer appreciation concerts featuring reggae bands everywhere.

Progress

So today, I finally figured out how to do the newsletter. The guy at the help desk was helpful and we got the problem solved. So soon you should be seeing it in your email.

Just as I was wrestling with the curve ball from the mailing list, then came another one. The organizer of the the event I was going to read at this weekend fell and broke his neck, so the show is canceled. Hopefully Charlie will have a successful surgery and the event will be rescheduled.

In the meantime, I got my newsletter out and tonight I dance again.

There are always setbacks. The question is how to bounce back from them. As I book my events for this year, I am taking some off my calendar and replacing them with new ones. Got to keep trying new things. Booking more private parties now, more private sessions, more everything.

This year is already full of surprises and it is only two weeks old.

I have been laid off my day job for a month now, and I am pursuing new options. Perhaps I am done with that forever. This is not how I pictured my transition, but it is what it is.

What a perfect time to invest more energy into making dreams come true.

Taking Another Road to Get There

Have you ever experienced a time when you felt that your situation would reach a favorable conclusion, even though you did not know how?

There is a magical, surreal quality to the progress of events. Perhaps the source of that is that we are really connected to the source. Being connected to the source, we know that whatever course of events we find ourselves following, that it will turn out alright.

We can imagine several options, and any of them could be pleasing.

It is exactly when we let go of thinking that there is only one solution that we are free to welcome other solutions.

Going with the flow, we tap into the life energy all around us and take the path of least resistance.

Trusting that there will be a good outcome to our situation eases our struggles. We still have to make efforts in our own behalf, but allow that there are a number of good possible outcomes. When we do that, we find more freedom.

It is not that we do not set goals, rather it is that we trust that there is more than one way to achieve our goal. In so doing, we might find ourselves restating or redefining what the goal is.

The closer we tap into the source of energy, the more we can feel that we are riding the wave instead of pushing against the current.

If our energy is flowing swiftly, and we are making progress, so what if it took a different route than we planned?

It is like driving down a road toward the place we want to go, and we see that an accident or road work has jammed up the flow of traffic ahead, so we detour and find another road that will get us there.

Look at how that same analogy works in other places in your life.

A Word About Weed

It has been interesting living in a state that has made medical marijuana legal. People are officially recognizing its use as a healing herb, which vindicates the views of many people since before the law changed.

Of course, there are many who still have the opinion, that people who use marijuana are addicts, even though marijuana is not an addictive substance. Some of these people share the opinion that it should never have been legalized.

And now the politicians have changed the laws that govern this new home grown industry. Yes, home grown in the sense that it is creating new jobs here.

Of course, there are many people who enjoy smoking marijuana just for fun and those people look forward to the day when full legalization will come, and people will just be able to go and buy it like a pack of cigarettes, and the government will make money on the taxes.

It certainly has less side effects than drinking. If we simply penalize users for their errant behavior, then it will be the same as drinking in terms of the way we set limits on it.

One irony of all this is that although the so called War on Drugs has attempted to wipe out marijuana consumption, that battle has long been lost, medical marijuana or not. The other thing is that the growers became expert botanists and gardeners with a very scientific approach because when aerial recon and spraying forced growers indoors, they found ways to grow more productive plants in less space, without natural light.

So the failed war on drugs not only created better and better generations of growers and plants to supply an ever increasing demand. It is like what happened when politicians got the bright idea to outlaw beer and alcohol. People didn't quit drinking and organizations sprang up to slake their thirst.

Funny how we have to keep on learning the same lessons over and over.

Right now all the wrangling over new laws is about who is controlling the money. The debate is no longer whether marijuana is good medicine. And the debate is no longer whether there is growing popular support for it both as medicine and for recreation. it is just a matter of time until more minds change.

It is interesting to watch such a momentous change in action. It must have been that way when our grandparents watched alcohol was declared illegal, remained popular and then return to legal status.

From caveman days to less than a hundred years ago, people freely used it as medicine, ceremonial herbs, and for fun. They never would have thought that we would be going through contortions like this over it.

We look at lessons like this from within the memory of our grandparents time. The same types of lessons can be learned from past lives. But that is another story.

Making the Shot

Last night I decided to do something I had not done in a quite a while, so I went out to shoot pool. My game was really off.

There was a time when I was pretty good when I worked a job at night and one of my buddies also was off in the afternoons and we used to go shoot. Uncle Phil was a good at the game and he taught me lessons that I just had to start remembering to get my game back on track. He wasn't really my uncle. It was just that we used to call him that because he was a bit older than the rest of us, and he was a better shooter than the rest of us.

We also used to play chess, and there is a carryover between the two. In chess you learn to think several moves ahead. In pool, good shooters do that too. You want to sink your next ball, but you also want to know where that places you after that ball sinks, otherwise you can leave yourself in a place where you don't have a next shot. It sort of relates to that other axiom when you are playing someone else: if you can't sink it, hide it. That way your opponent will be as stuck as you are now and will be forced to leave you a good opening.

One of the first ones was that you have to visualize the shot before you can make it. If you want it to go a certain way, you have to cut it or bank it a certain way. When you miss it's because that's the direction you sent the ball in when you hit it.

If you want to get better control of where you are sending the cue ball, you have to have a tight bridge, which where you set your sights over the left hand.

You get the best leverage holding the cue in your right hand where you can balance it perfectly.

When you feel the tipping point of the balance and you have good aim, then just hit the ball hard enough to get it where it is going. This way you have more control over what happens next and will leave yourself in a good position for a follow up shot. People who hit way harder than necessary just make a mess.

There's another reason why the light touch works better. Uncle Phil taught me that the closest shot on the table, no matter how tough the angle, or how tight, is always a better percentage shot than the long shot.

If you can see the shot you can make it. If you can't see it you can't make it.

So as I was shooting last night, I started to get my game back on track. It's a long way back to my previous skill level. But that's what happens when you don't practice for a while.

The pool shooting then became a meditative practice for me and I started thinking about how to get a better aim on my business expansion.

It pays to play and get your mind off business so that you can come back sharper, with some fresh ideas. Who would have thought I would have gotten some new business ideas while trying to pocket a few balls.

And I am sure that was part of what old Uncle Phil had in mind while he was teaching me about shooting.

Dance is the Desire, Expressed

Dancing, any kind of dancing, works to still the mind while you move the body. Once you get up and dance and start to work up a sweat, all the things that were stressful about work, school, or anything else, just seem to fade away.

In this way, it has a cathartic effect. Cleansing, deep down to the bones. By the time I come home from dancing and take a shower or a bath, I feel so clean, so peaceful, so happy, that a state of relaxation sets in, now that the body has stopped moving and the muscles are feeling that good kind of exhaustion from being taken to the limits, and sleep comes easily.

Dancing can be a moving meditation. Why do you think that since ancient times, rituals and ceremonies included dancing? It can alter your state of mind and make an event special.

The body takes on a mind of its own, as it becomes entrained to the music and develops movements that ride the waves of the music. As the body pursues that single focus, there is nothing other than the present, the dance.

You have this moment, this music, this movement, this joy, this peace, this energetic shift that has changed your consciousness. As the body does what the body does, the mind is quieted, and the joy of living comes to the surface, front and center. In this moment, where there is nothing but the dance, there is nothing else to desire, except to feel the dance. The dance is the desire, expressed.

What We Thought We Would Be

The first time I ever remember someone asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up was way back when I was in grammar school. The question kind of stumped me, because at that time the farthest I was thinking ahead was to a softball game after school.

So I did what most kids did and just said whatever came to mind. I think I said that I wanted to be a lawyer because the night before I had watched a TV show with a lawyer in it and that sounded like as good a thing as any to say. Sure, I want to be a lawyer.

Of course, I forgot about that as soon as they got done asking me about it. Not once in my life did I ever think of going to law school. Heck, there were more important things to think about, like softball or basketball.

Then again in high school, they asked what I would like to be and what I wanted to major in when I went to college. At that time, I was just getting acquainted with the charms of the opposite sex. Why would I want to think about what class I would like to take in college when I wasn't even done with high school?

I have no clue what I answered then. Maybe newspaper reporter because I used to deliver newspapers, and I used to read them all the time, and the one I delivered had a great columnist by the name of Mike Royko. Back then, when you rode the subway or the bus home from work, you could tell that everybody was reading his column because they had the paper folded back so that they could read the left side of page 3, which is where Royko's column always was.

So at some point, I chose majors in college and chose jobs when I got out of college, then every so often, I chose to change jobs and change careers when something looked interesting.

There were times when I set goals and then achieved them and then moved on. Then I would choose some other career goal and achieve that.

Sometimes when we look back and reflect on what we have done and remember all those times when we said things about what we thought we would be, we notice that we still have time to choose again.

I figure I will live to be 150, so I haven't even had my midlife crisis yet, so I still have time to think about what I would like to be.

Yes, it has changed several times already. But hey, who says you only get one chance to choose in 150 years?

All these vitamins and supplements they keep coming up with keep working so well that maybe if I take enough Horny Goat Weed, vitamin C and Niacin I can live to be 250. Why not? I still have plenty of time to think about what I would like to be!

2 Hands & 2 Feet into the Future

What Does It Mean to Have a Personal Goal? The answer to this question is both obvious and not.

When we have a personal goal, it gives us something to aim for. It motivates us to try harder, enlarges both our vision and our reach.

So while personal goals can serve to get us something we want, it is also stretching us beyond that.

Working toward personal goals can move us into bigger realms, into evolutions of our body, mind and spirit.

Having a personal goal is an engine that drives us into our future. We do have a hand in our future. Two hands, in fact, and two feet.

In the course of our life, we will set goals and achieve them and then set new ones. We can also fail to meet goals we set and then reset them. There is wisdom, strength and victory in either outcome.

So take a look at your goals. You have two hands and two feet to get you into the future. These are your magic wands. These are your tickets to ride. Your imagination sets the course, and your hands and feet get you there.

Personal goals hold the keys to our imagination. Are you ready to unlock it?

Dancing Omens

Omens come in many forms. When something comes to your attention at least three times, you are being advised to take action by your spirit guides. This is an example of how it worked for me to get busy dancing again.

Earlier this year while I was reading at a festival, a couple who I used to see at dancing came to me for a reading. They asked me why I quit dancing. They reminded me that I have to do what feeds my soul.

One day last month at the rec center, I saw a familiar looking woman on the track. It took me a moment to recognize her. She asked me if I used to go contra dancing, and I said that I did. She asked me why I quit dancing. She said that was too bad and wondered if I would come back.

When I went dancing in one of the bars the other night, I ran into a healer I know from working fairs, and I know that she always liked to dance a lot. She talked to me a bit and so I decided to stay and dance. Until that moment, I wasn't quite sure if I would stay or go.

I was having dinner with a woman the other night and mentioned dancing to her and she encouraged me to go back to it, and said that she would like to go and see what it is like too.

Dancing was the first exercise I got besides walking after my heart attack 10 years ago. I feel like it helped me recover. They say that if you are going to have a relapse and another heart attack, it will happen within one or two years. I was dancing through that whole period, with no relapse.

It took me a month to be able to walk around the block for a half hour after my heart surgery. About four to six months later (can't remember exactly), I was introduced to contra dancing, and I was able to dance for three hours a night every week.

I could not believe that it took that much effort to get back on my feet at first, then later, I found myself wanting to dance at every opportunity. I am sure that dancing did me good. During that period, I never lifted any weights or walked on any treadmill. Just danced.

So I am being prompted to dance again. When you pay attention, omens help you choose. My spirit guides are clearly saying that this is part of my path for now.