Beyond the Dream

At times we are moved to change something in our patterns of behavior, work, or relationships. This instinctive urge drives us on in spite of the discomfort we know our change will inevitably bring.

These silent nudges are the clarion call of Soul, as it urges us from a resting place on our journey home to God.

Soul's goal and only goal is to travel back home to God and to become a co-worker. The Law of Growth spurs us on to our greatest goal of spiritual freedom.

The call of Soul asks that we respond with inspired leaps of faith into unknown territories of our inner landscapes. For many who believe in fate, there is an unknown and ominous future waiting around each corner. But soul is a creative entity that brings dreams into reality via our creative imagination and not some outside cause.

The call of Soul came to me one day. At the time I was in a "good" relationship. We both were "happy". Then a distant echo began to shake my spiritual foundation. At first it came like a faint breeze that signals the change of seasons. Then the call grew louder and settled in like the first frost of autumn.

I felt a tug at my innermost being telling me to move on. Two months later I was still trying to ignore the impulse while a terrible discomfort grew inside me.

Then one evening I went to the movies with a group of friends. The film, called Always stars Richard Dreyfuss as Pete, a daredevil pilot who's passion is fighting forest fires. Pete enjoys the thrill of living life on the edge. It isn't uncommon for him to fly until his fuel gage reads almost empty. Once in a while he even runs out of fuel and has to "glide" his heavy metal plane above the treacherous tree tops to make an emergency landing.

Dorinda, Pete's girlfriend, is a dispatcher and often waits breathlessly each time Pete narrowly escapes his demise.

Dorinda, exasperated by the numerous times she's witnessed his stunts, gives him an ultimatum: Either Pete hangs up his wings and takes a job offer as a Commander at a training school in Flatrock Colorado, or their relationship is over. Pete jokes with Dorinda about how her life would be without him and says, "Your never going to be with another man because your never going to get over me."

The next morning, as he boards a small plane in preparation for the first flight of the day, Dorinda hops on her bike and rides furiously over to where Pete is. Climbing the ladder up to the cockpit, she tells Pete, "I don't want you leaving the ground without telling you I love you."

They banter back and forth as Dorinda tries to get Pete to say the words he's never been able to. As Dorinda walks away Pete calls after her, "I love you," but the engine roar drowns out his words.

He takes off and once more flies into the furnace like flames. Pete's best friend, Al, experiences a fire in one engine when his plane catches the flaming tree tops. Pete uses ingenuity by flying over Al, releasing the load of red watery mud intended for the flaming forest below.

Pete’s' plane is caught in a dive, and while struggling to pull up, he hits the tree tops and ignites his own engine. In sudden blast, his plane explodes.

A "moment" later, Pete "awakens" in a burned out forest. He is met by an angel name Hap on a grassy island. She fills Pete in on his recent demise; then gives him an assignment back on earth. Pete is to serve others by giving back some of what he has learned.

Hap says, "Pete, you've had your life. Now anything you do for yourself is a waste of spirit." Pete is then assigned to go back to earth as an “angel” to guide another pilot who will fill Pete’s place at the same air station he had worked at in his former life.

This isn't easy when he realizes his job is to guide Dorinda's new love interest, Ted Baker, in the art of flying. He's in training at The Attack Training Base where Al is now the Commander.

Pete finds his ability to imprint on other peoples thoughts amusing, and finds an assortment of ways to play havoc with their lives, even guiding Ted to dump a load of the thick red mud on Al during a practice run.

When Pete tries to keep Dorinda's affections fixed on him, Hap calls him back to remind him that, "Anything you do for yourself is a waste of spirit.” She continues, "I sent you back to say goodbye and until you do, Dorinda won't be free and neither will you."

And so Pete is beginning to understand the difficult lesson he must learn.

In the final scene, Pete conveys to Dorinda, "I could never tell you the way I felt but I'm telling you now, I love you." Pete finally understands that all the events of his life and death were to learn the lesson of true freedom and says, "To gain your freedom you have to give it. The love we hold back is the only pain that follows us here"

With the lesson learned Pete says, "I'm releasing you Dorinda. I'm moving out of you heart. Go to you new life."
* * *

When leaving the movie I found myself in a state of shock. My face was a shade of pale white, and I walked as if in a trance. Friends showed great concern but I could offer no explanation for this strange and eerie reaction the movie had inspired.

After returning home I found a note on the kitchen counter saying, "Meet me in the theatre to see Always." While watching the movie, Always in one theatre, my partner had gone to another theatre to see it at the same time.

The whisper that had gnawed at me for several months was now a clanging bell. Each of us had a lesson to learn. I felt like Pete, forced to find out about the deeper lessons of freedom.

I knew that my job was to let go and let my partner have another experience. Like the pilot in the film I wasn't to try to alter events.

And so that evening I told my partner I would have to go. He seemed to understand that this was necessary but letting go wasn't easy for either of us.

This was just the beginning of my lesson around granting freedom to others.

My next relationship had a similar theme as my partner had his own compelling need to move on. Once again I was forced let go of someone I loved.

And the next relationship had the same theme with the same whisper haunting me to move on. Many years later, I began to draw a correlation between the film Always, and the deep lesson of freedom. This spiritual theme was the root lesson of this life. I had come here to learn to grant freedom to others in the most difficult circumstances.

As I learned the difficult lesson of letting go, a deep loneliness began to heal. This "loneliness" was an inexplicable hollowness, a feeling of total and unending isolation.

Sometimes our changes begin with simple knowingness.
"Knowing" is often harder to master than "dreaming", for with knowing there is an absence of explanation. Knowing requires a leap of faith for the test which accompanies the gift of knowing is total trust in spirit.

The purpose of that leap may remain unclear for quite a while and this is the time where the mind argues a great deal. At these times dreams are important for they can provide needed information to knit together the space between what you knew to be true and the time it takes to fully manifest physically.

As time went by I would begin to see the reasons why change was necessary. I came to understand that after every leap of faith there was an inevitable void.

A void is a place where the rules seem to change and many of the spiritual tools we have used up until then no longer work. In time the space will be filled with gifts, but not necessarily of the nature one would expect.

It took many cycles of this nature for me to recognize how spirit was working with me. At times I would be filled with terror as I struggled to hold on to what I knew to be true. I came to see that each time I let go of something I no longer needed, I was rewarded with fresh insights and greater strength for the journey ahead.

Excerpt from Dream Yourself Awake. Available in E-book and softcover.