Lesson Four:
Dreams by themselves are only one part—it is like one person dancing. Dreams require us to pull them into a grounded, manifest, and physical reality through our conscious attention and effort. Dreams and consciousness are two partners in a complete dance.
The work of manifestation may be to engage in the dream, such as making the commitment to paint each day if our inner is leading us to paint, or to write letters as I did to ask for a lead to an interview. The work of manifestation is also the work of developing the inner to remove the blocks that impede our progress.
I have worked with people who have seen their dreams clearly, and even taken a step or more to manifest them. But, they came to me because of a pattern of shutting down just as the manifesting of the response began to unfold. For example, a call would come from a letter sent to a place of possible employment, or an invitation to speak at an event would arrive in the email, but these responses went unanswered for days or even weeks. My clients had hit a block. Eventually many of these offers expired altogether—jobs were filled by other applicants, other speakers were chosen, and so forth—and the opportunities to manifest were lost because of an inability in that moment to actively respond to what their dreaming had put into motion.
Whatever blocks or issues you have in your business and creativity are exactly the same issues you have in all aspects of your life. This is another reason why exploring blocks around our business and creative lives is a path of inner development.
The blocks that impede our progress take many forms; for example, fear, insecurity, feelings of being undeserving, what you perceive to be your mother’s belief that you can’t make money as an artist, your father’s belief that you’ll never be good enough at anything, or the belief that it is your sibling who is the creative one. You might carry a belief system that says only your father can be the star, or that you don’t deserve happiness, and so forth.
We have to do the work to clear ourselves of our blocks in order to bring dreams and manifestations into being. This is another way that manifestation, or miracles, are things we co-create. Co-creation means doing our part to clear the path to be able to both respond and receive. We have to clear ourselves of the belief systems of others we have chosen to pick up, or the tangled associations we have fashioned when faced with life’s challenges, in order to become who we truly are.
Manifesting our deepest passions requires developing our inner being. We have to clear and sweep ourselves of emotions, residues and the beliefs of others much like the Aboriginal women had us clear the space for the sacred ceremony. To do this means recognizing clearly who we are—the outer garments in which we may have cloaked ourselves, in addition to our deepest, truest Selves. In order to sweep out that which does not serve us, or is not part of our true selves, we have to see it. The process of developing one’s inner Self involves a brave and honest look at all the patterns that we have drawn in our life. This can be done through working with images and dreaming.
Once we have cleared the space of inner blocks, stagnant emotions, and old belief systems, the True Self can powerfully step forward. This is called Selfhood and it is being a fully realized person. That’s maybe the biggest reason why I believe that choosing to find and follow our deepest passions is a path toward personal and spiritual development.We each have a unique place and contribution to make on this planet and it is only by coming to the Self that we do so. The imagery exercises in “Part II” will help you begin to do this work of clearing and discovering.
In the Jewish Torah (Genesis 12:1 & 2), Abraham is told by God to leave his native land and his father’s house to go to the land that God would show him, and there, he would be made a great nation. Curiously, the directive God gives him is “Lech Lecha,” which means “go to yourself.”
As I dream this Abraham story as a dream, it is when we go deeply within ourselves that we reach our true “land,” land being the body and that which is the bound Self (bound as in having geographic bounds; or, as in the body, physical boundaries that separate us as individual beings from other beings). From our true land—that which is our truest Self, our deepest embodiment of Self—we become abundant and fertile in our creations. Creations are our “nation,” meaning our progeny or that which we create from our deepest passions, and it is they that become fecund or great; creations are anything we beget from our unique Selfhood, such as a book, a painting, or a family.
In order to go deeply into our truest Self, we have to leave the culture and history of all that is telling us what is supposed to be, or how we are supposed to be; in other words, our “native land”—our upbringing.
We also have to leave the house of our father, which is to say, leave the story of our father (parents), the belief systems, the expectations, and all that our parents have placed on us of their wishes and expectations, their doubts, and all the patterns of behavior we have taken on from them that impede our individual expression. It is only by freeing ourselves from expectations and all that would influence, sway, or demand of us, all that we have taken on from others as our own, that we reach the Self of our own land.
By being completely “naked” of all the imprints of our upbringing, we find that which is uniquely, undeniably, completely original in our Selfhood. Like our fingerprints, Selfhood, is completely individual.
The Abraham dream is also one about the action of manifesting. How can we understand that God is telling Abraham to walk toward the land God will show him, after he’s started walking? It’s a contradiction. Wouldn’t it make more sense to be shown where to go first, so that the step is at least pointed in the right direction? Where in the heck is Abraham supposed to go?
As I continue to dream this dream, I feel that God is asserting that we are in relationship. Meaning, when we take the step to move toward our greatest inner true Self, the direction unfolds and becomes increasingly clear. Once we take the action—the step of moving forward—then God will show us the details.
Going is the movement that starts the journey—it is the inner impulse and intent that causes us to raise our foot toward stepping. Before the foot steps down, in the time and space between intent and physical step, where the foot lands will be directed. Taking the first step is our commitment to the relationship, and the work of it. It is the action of bringing the Dream into the tangible, into the grounded, manifest physical world. It is our agreement to engage in the journey, our response to the “I’m here.”
It is also by taking that step into the unknown that we are most empowered. Like any good teacher knows, the student grows the most when they are enabled to find the questions and the answers for themselves, rather than being told how to think. And, because in this reading God will show us, taking that first step is entering into a covenant of the promise of how the Dreaming world works. We both dare and trust, we hear the quiet Inner Voice and we step forward where we are met, in response, and are shown space and fertility greater than anything we alone could have imagined.
There is no other human being like us on this planet, never before nor ever will be. Selfhood is both birthright and obligation. Each of us is given the possibility of coming to Selfhood. This is inherent in our beingness. We are obligated to engage in the process because by coming to the Self we bring to the world that which we uniquely are fashioned to bring. Do we need to carry forward what made our parents, our parents? Or, to compromise our own possibilities by living out the life someone else dreams on our behalf? Our uniqueness is necessary for the world, and expressing our uniqueness creates abundance. This is how I dream the dream of the Abraham story.
In my early thirties, I was a founding partner in a real estate development company. Our company bought historic apartment buildings which we then restored, rented out, managed, and then eventually sold.
