Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Resilience...Being a Spirtual Gumby
I am repeatedly amazed by the resilience of the human spirit. What I mean by resilience is the organic, natural ability to reconnect with the truth of one's self. Knowing that ones inner strength will not only help them survive a challenging situation, they can triumph in a stronger state than that which they began. The spirit may be stretched, but it's original form cannot be permanently harmed as it grows.
There are countless examples of this type of spiritual resilience experienced every day. We each have had our own personal experiences of moving through daily struggles, health challenges, personal tragedies and sometimes even catastrophes, and not only survive, we are often stronger for the experience.
I recently had a dream where a white Gumby appeared (remember the pliable, stretchable toy from the 60's) to me. Gumby was a friendly sort and was apparently showing up in my dream to teach me something. My pliable friend spoke with a British accent and without question was there to be a supportive friend. When I awoke, after laughing at my subconscious mind's creativity, I wondered about the message.
What I came up with is that if we remember how pliable and stretchable we are as we go through life, the situations that challenge us will be more easily met, allowing our resilience to more easily be exercised. We wouldn't be resisting whatever challenge is before us, but meeting it, trusting nothing is too big for us to move through.
Yes, my friend Gumby's lesson is well taken. I get it. I can meet whatever manipulation, pull, bending or twisting my life's path takes. In fact, it can help me to remember how strong I really am.
One more thing about my Gumby messenger.....he was white, symbolizing purity. This I also understand since our spirits are pure.
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I had a dream last night that was so profound I had to look up the words that were said to me, placed between quotation marks, on Google!
I was the observer of this character, who I recognized to be a 30's-something Al Pacino. I watch him enter this '60's-style 3-story house, which was decorated as if right out of a Peter Max movie!
I then actually become him, as he watches people, who appear as shadows, walk in and out of walls, across the floor, and then to disappear through another wall.
Then, I am observing him again, as he gets into an elevator. The doors slide shut, and it immediately starts to ascend so fast that it throws him onto the floor, as it flies past the floors! I watch him, as if in the elevator with him, and he's still on his stomach and paralyzed by the G-forces.
He looks under the crack of the elevator door while laying on his stomach, watching with astonishment as the floors zip by. Light, dark, light, dark,light, dark, unnumbered floors go by. While this is all happening, once in a while, a shadow being would just walk through the elevator wall to disappear through another.
The elevator stops, and he gets pulled through a wall; sliding backwards on his stomach, and disappears from sight. I then become him again, and I am looking through his eyes as I walk into this empty, dimly-lit large room. All of the old studs on the four walls are showing, as if the drywall had been removed from them. It had an unfinished feeling to it all, as if under construction.
As I stand there and focus in onto the back wall, many beings start to materialize all at once, probably 20 or so. Their forms were very hazy to me at first, but as they start to glide, not walk, toward me, their outlines became much more distinct.
They all were completely hairless on their heads and necks, and all wore flowing white robes, which totally covered their arms, legs and feet. As they continued to approach, one of them, who appeared to be the leader, came closer to me than the others, and his tan, smiling face and features then came distinctly into view. As he stood before me, he was no more than maybe six feet tall. He asks me, "What do you desire, my Gumby messenger?" When he said this, I was immediately pulled back here to a waking state.
I was so affected by this dream, that as soon as I could, I look up “gumby messenger” on Google, and there is only one link that shows up.
This is such an encouragement for me today! This tells me to now take on the feeling of being and having the quality of this white Gumby – which reflects back to me the peaceful, joyful qualities that I observed in these ascended beings, who were clothed in pure white. This one saw me as already being a “Gumby messenger”, as already being pliable. Even though I feel of myself that I have such a long way still to go.
The shadow beings remind me of what William Blake wrote, “Imagination, the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow. And into which we shall go, into our eternal, or imaginative bodies, when these vegetable mortal bodies are no more.” And also, “Awake, awake, oh sleeper of the land of shadows. Awake! Expand! I am in you, and you are in me, mutual in love divine.”
As Kate has written here, “...being resilient and pliable in all situations” is the message that I want to focus upon today. If a movement is not comfortable, then one is not treating oneself kindly. Just as, we cannot force drinking water to flow, without suffering unhealthy vibrational consequences. As well, this art of Gumby resilience encourages me to perform each act as if it were the first and last.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” The Greek work “pure” means clear, open, free, unlimited. It is used for a tract of land that has been cleared of trees, being unobstructed and unlimited. So, fortunate and happy are those whose mental horizons have been purged of traditional wrong thinking, that they discover their own “I am” to be the God of the scriptures!
In other words, to be free of the tyranny of second causes; in a belief in a God outside of ourselves. A pure heart is the consequence that happens to us when we recognize who, not what, is our wonderful human imagination! It is not the condition of seeing God (or “I am”), it is the consequence that happens as the result of shedding the old, dead skin of religious teachings, that seem to always place a God or a Jesus outside of Man!
Imagination is not just some little essence in our heads, but imagination created everything! And there are certain laws that go along with this creation process. And that is where flexibility, patience, and kindness come in to play.
Henry James once said to his young nephew, "There are only three things important in human life: Be kind, be kind, be kind.”
Everything that happens to us has a hidden spiritual meaning, if we are awake in this waking dream, to see it. The Gumby form today reminds me of the importance of staying relaxed, never rigid, with an eye toward the Taoist wisdom that, a tree that does not bend with the wind, will surely break.
Thanks for sharing your gumby related experience, Darin. I love how we are all connected!
Blessings,
Kate
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