Inspiration
Articles to inspire authentic living on the topics of resilience, spirituality, and self-growth with touches of storytelling, depth, and humor.
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When the plane goes down
I don’t remember when was the first time I had a dream, but I can assume that I was still a little girl. Up until this day, my dreams can be quite entertaining, to the point I sometimes wake up exhausted because I have long, energetic visions that seem as I got to relive in my sleep a Tarantino movie on a nightly basis. Other times, these oneiric experiences are nothing short than pieces of wisdom. I receive messages for others, process complex problems and even get to meet cool people and places I have never met before. I also get repetitive dreams and continuing dreams, complicated stories that are paused when I open my eyes to be continued later as if I had just pressed some kind of mental pause.
Months ago, I had one of those dreams whose wisdom was meant for a friend but up until today its moral still haunts me.
Kindness Is a Two-Way Road
It was a warm Summer day, the kind that warms your skin and lifts your mood. But a call later in the afternoon made the world stop on its track. They were not good news, at least not the ones that we ever expect to get. From that moment on, the world, my world at the very least, was going to look a little bit different and scarier
But I don’t scare easily. In fact, my body is wired to fight so when things get difficult I put on my boxing gloves or my armature, whatever is needed before I face the ring. That day, though, I could not move much. After the initial shock, I went to my studio to try to process the news in the best way I know: through prayer and meditation. I lit up a candle, turned up the music and sit down in silence while tears started flowing down. I sat with the fears, with the pain and the uncertainty. I let it all flow while I observed from a distance in a intent to be mindful while I allowed the numbness to shake out of my soul. I felt the hands of a thousand angels holding me up; I felt the warm embrace of loved ones surrounding me; I felt the certainty that the journey I was about to embark on was not going to leave me unchanged. All of that had proven to be true.
As I opened my eyes, aware of the significant moment I was experiencing, I took my journal and wrote my goals for the journey I was about to embark on. What was I going to learn? What was I willing to master? What parts of myself I was going to surrender and what parts I was going to embrace? Two answers came to mind, and I wrote them with big letters, the way one signs a declaration of independence:
1. I am going to learn to be selfish
2. I am going to learn to receive the help I need.
The Wake Up Call
Technology has great advantages. Being woken up every morning by a voice-controlled speaker seems like one of the Jetson episodes I used to watch as a kid. Alexa turns off an alarm every morning and half asleep, we have to try to make her understand that we are not ready to wake up yet and we need more time.
“Alexa, wake me up in five minutes,” the instructions sound very clear in one’s mind but they come up as a non-sense slurp of words that all of the algorithms put together by Amazon can’t come close to decipher.
Instructions are usually repeated several times until Alexa finally understands, which means that by repetition we have awaken ourselves from deep sleep. The alarm usually goes off five minutes later, and five minutes after that in an endless story. In a way, I miss the snooze button on a conventional alarm clock. Just one hand was enough to shut the alarm and guarantee a later reminder.
Being a night owl most of my life, I usually despise waking up in the morning. Fortunately, I also suffer from the 20th century’s disease called “obsession with productivity,” so after only two tries I am out of bed and ready to seize the day. However, I have thinking lately of the importance of wake up calls, not necessarily as it pertains to voice-controlled speakers but mostly about life events that shake us to our roots and kick us out of our dormant state as a bucket of cold water. When we remain apathetic and paralyzed by life’s circumstances, what does it take us to wake up? What makes us answer the call?
The place where all dreams come true
When I was fifteen I discovered that sometimes life showers us with gifts that might come in an unrecognizable wrapper.
I was a - maybe unusual - serious teenager. Great student, president of the Student Government, was already studying painting so I could become the artist I wanted to be. I was basically a good, responsible girl. I don’t mean it in an arrogant way because the truth is that I was so mature that I feel I never got to experience what I was suppose to live during the precious years of adolescence. That was actually my handicap.
Stargazing was one of my favorite pastimes those days. Every night I would stay for hours in the window with my binoculars learning the name of the constellations with the help of an Astronomy book my mom had bought. Soon after I started learning about the stories that originated the stars’ names. That is how my obsession with Greek Mythology started.
They are always leaving, but they are never gone
It could have been the heat, the thirst or maybe the fact that I was exhausted. This morning I attended a very restorative yoga class where we were practicing mudras that represented gratitude. It was impossible not to feel the heart opening up.
But at the of the practice during the final relaxation an image came to me. As much as I tried to quiet it down it just insisted on staying. So I let it, I stop resisting and paid attention to what it wanted to show me.
I saw the most delicious creek…
The art of paying forward
The cashier interrupts me, “you have a good karma, mam. Very good karma indeed.”
The Wizard of Us
How do you react when somebody mentions one of your favorite books of all times in the most random circumstances? Where does your mind go considering that is one of the most spiritual enlightening books you have ever read? What if this story let’s you confront your own ideas about magic?
I am not talking about potions and bewitching spells. Rather, I am referring to the magical encounters that give us goosebumps, to the synchronicities, to the sparks that begin with a kiss, in the rejoice found in the perfection of watching a baby sleep, in a stranger’s smile in the moment you must need it. I have always believed in magic and cherish it, not as a way to avoid reality but to elevate our existence by believing there is something greater than ourselves that we can’t explain and that its only mission could be to make ours lives brighter and fuller.
So came the casual reference today to the Wizard of Oz. It was not about the search for courage, heart, brain or home; it was about the moment the curtains opened up and revealed the big Wizard of Oz, the one expected to solve everybody’s problems with his gigantic, powerful skills, was actually a big fraud.
Coincidences
I love how the universe works and never leaves a thread loose....
While I have spent several hours in the studio lately trying to finish my latest painting, I have been going through several audiobooks. Today, half an hour before I had to put the brushes down I decided to start another one, “synchrodestiny” by Depak Chopra. I smiled when ten minutes into it I heard a quote that had appeared on the last chapter of the book I had just finished. Coincidence? Perhaps.
My encounter with Mr. Kent
Today I went to Costco, an experience I usually repudiate because I always go for celery and leave with a cart full of things I did not even know I wanted and most likely didn’t need.
But it was there, while pushing my cart among lemons, pineapples and batteries that I saw him. He was tall, probably 6 ft tall, with two extra inches of white hair that moved with the same vibe than a slow-moving shampoo commercial. It was a full set of hair.
Over his blue eyes, black rectangular and very hip eyeglasses. He was wearing a very puffy, long coat, the one you use to go pick the mail in Manitoba. But it was understandable. He was standing in front of the Costco Freezer. Checking his phone, a smile peeking in his face. It is not like I was shamelessly studying him, but it was impossible to not notice him. And then I noticed….
Under his blue shirt, only a few buttons open. Actually it would have been appropriately open if he was attending a party at at Caribbean resort; it was definitely too open for a New England winter. But I could not see his chest. Timidly peeking at the bottom of his neck there was a blue t-shirt. The yellow and red lines were distinctive. Under the heavy coat and the blue button down, he had a Superman T-shirt.
About truths and lies
When the truth steps out to the light for the first time, it is usuallly mistaken with a lie. But only the truth perseveres the pass of time, becoming trees that grow taller and stronger everyday.Lies on the other hand are like weed that reproduce quickly but only become annoyances. When you decide to stick with the truth you are free to enjoy the forest, but when you decide to follow the lies, you are bound to walk looking down in a pasture full of nothing worth enjoying.