|
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
Dialogue with Cathy on Her Path Yesterday my creativity coach asked me about my longings. At least, that's how I remember her putting it. Eventually I told her how for some time now, I've had the sense that I'm on a path running parallel with my real path. It's close but I'm not on it. I can almost touch it, but can't quite get to it. She suggested that I do a dialogue with the Cathy who's already on that path. This was a new idea to me. I do occasional dialogues with my Dream Studio self, but she's much older, far in the future. My coach was talking about the present time. I agreed to do it. The process is the same as for the Dialogue with Bowls. This morning I started writing. This is the result. I'm visualizing the path. Is it always on one side of me? No. It's always - on our land at least - to the west. Well, that's a clue. West is the direction for feeling, dreams, metaphor, imagery. With whom is this relationship? With a potential self who's on this path now? A sort of ghost self? I've never seen myself there before, only the path. Can I see a self there now? OK, yes. It's the Cathy from late 1994, out at the medicine wheel with the bowl "Circle of Reenchantment." That's basically the last time I felt on my path for sure. Current relationship: She is a kind of shadow or ghost figure to me. I don't really see her in the present, only as glimpses, flashes from the past. Even the path she's on is a kind of shadowy, ghostly, transluscent image - a glimmer - in peripheral vision. Suddenly I know what I need to do. "Let the bowls lead" is a phrase I used to use all the time then. I have a glimpse of letting the bowls lead now - instead of whatever I use to lead myself now - plans, advice from news groups and message boards, books, etc. So much "etc.!" OK, call her "Cathy on the Path?" I see that she's also "Cathy of the Woods." Stepping Stones: - In 1984, on November 1 (All Saints Day) I had the experience of perceiving the trees perceiving me - the trees where now there's a medicine wheel. - In 1986, I started meditating for guidance from my Inner Woman - also learned how to work with my dreams. - In 1987, I received an image of a bowl to make, at a campfire at the medicine wheel. (I made the bowl.) - In 1990, I had the dream about the studio scrap pile being the source of my creative power - and bought the rattle with the spiral snake. I began claiming my studio as woman's creative space-time, calling in the Four Directions, circling the studio with the rattle, smudging the studio. - In 1994, I wrote the "Manifesto for Ecstasy." Earlier that year I was on my path - I was one with Cathy on Her Path. I don't know if the Manifesto was falling off the path, or not. - In 1995, I felt very much off my path, and have felt off ever since. Sometimes it's felt as if the gap veered very large - huge - and at other times as if I could almost leap across to the other path, to my real path. Dialogue: Cathy (C): Sometimes it feels hopeless because I don't know how it happened, how I got lost. I've thought about it so much, tried to find my way back by retracing my steps in my mind and in writing. C on Path: When you were working every day, in 1996, you were very close. I know this is bad news to you, but it's your ambition that drives you off the path - pulls you like a magnet. Swish! C: Ambition how? To be recognized? Prosperous? C on Path: [Sigh.] Analyzing it won't help. C: So what's it like, living on the real path? C on Path: You remember, don't you? Everything feels very simple and true. Whole. Rich. You can let your checking account get down to fifty cents and laugh about it, sure that everything will work out fine. C: I knew absolutely that the Universe supported me in making my bowls. C on Path: Now you're trying to do it all yourself. C: Someone has to fill the gap, take up the slack. I was running out of money. C on Path: Yes, you only had two or three thousand left in the bank. C: OK, I know. Fifty cents. I don't know how I did it. C on Path: Yes you do. You did it by believing in your path. By knowing. By believing in inner guidance more than outer guidance. C: Ooh - that hurts in my gut! Ouch! It's true - somehow I mistrust inner guidance now. C on Path: There's no way to reach this real path, without it. C: What if I interpret it wrong? C on Path: Now you're whining. C: True. Maybe you and your path are just oversimplifications, or a childish approach to life. Maybe I've learned to adapt better to my society now. C on Path: Maybe so. C: I see. You're the one who's content. Are you content? C on Path: Yes. I'm happy, more than happy. C: OK. And I guess you feel no special desire to help me? C on Path: No. C: Me particularly, or anyone? Are you like my artist self Marla, who doesn't try to help anyone? C on Path: That's another time you were so close to your path, when you were Marla. You really could have stayed on it then. C: Still in 1996. C on Path: Yes. C: I'm not very comfortable in this dialogue. There are long silences. I feel as if the initiative is all up to me. C on Path: It is. C: Well, can you tell me how to get over onto my real path? C on Path: Decide. Choose. Ask. C: I feel all whiny. C on Path: That's a sign you're not here on the path. C: Yes, I've gotten acquainted with all the signs of not being there on it - a feeling of not having enough time, of rush - fragmentation - feeling pulled apart in two directions - worry about money - anxiety - despair. I know how it feels to not be on the path. C on Path: And how it feels to be on the path. C: Yes - as if my fate and my heart's desire are one - so I'm perfectly free and perfectly supported by the Universe. As if the Hounds of Heaven have chased and herded me into the place I need to be. Now - I feel as if the Hounds of Heaven have given up on me. C on Path: Really. C: Maybe they show up in my physical discomforts - various chronic pains. In my restless, anxious mind. But earlier, I didn't think the Hounds of Heaven would let me get too far off the path. Why did my computer coaching business take off so well, if the Hounds of Heaven were on the job? C on Path: Because you know enough now to be responsible? C: Mmm. Maybe. I wish I knew enough to have faith again. C on Path: It doesn't show up at the Lost and Found. C: No. So where does it show up? Why do you keep faith? How? C on Path: A tiny bit grows into a lot if you let it. You have a tiny bit or you wouldn't be talking to me. C: I'm afraid of being weird - ostracized, cast out of my society. C on Path: Oh nonsense. That's bullshit C: [Sigh.] So are you saying that if I do now, the things I used to do when I was on my path, that it will sort of appear under my feet? Or has the path moved, and the only way to get to it is to do something new? C on Path: Drop your ambition. Take off your ambition, your goals, your expectations - like clothes that don't fit any more. C: I don't want to hear that! C on Path: So? Not my problem. C: Damn! I want so much! C on Path: It's keeping you from going through the eye of the needle. It's not even what you have, although that too is too much. Mostly it's your greed, your bulging goals and lists of what you want. C: Well, all that is supposed to work, you know. It's supposed to help it all come about. C on Path: Fine. C: So it's up to me to choose what I really want? C on Path: [Silence] C: OK, that's obvious. You said "Decide. Choose." I guess that's why this drags on and on. Because it's all up to me to decide, to choose. And I choose things not on my path. C on Path: [Silence] C: Well, damn. I have it all worked out on paper. My plan. What to do when, so I'll succeed in making bowls fulltime again, succeed in supporting myself as an artist - prosper - etc. etc. So - I guess I could drop the plan - but if I do it grudgingly, resentfully, I have a feeling it won't really work. I have to really want to be on my real path enough to let other stuff fall away. C on Path: Or just do it. You're thinking about it approximately a million times too much. It must be incredibly boring. C: Compared with making bowls. C on Path: Compared with almost anything. C: I can think of a million excuses for not getting back on my path. C on Path: Congratulations. C: What about the website? C on Path: Why not ask the bowls if they want a website? Then if they do, you can make one. C: Let the bowls lead. C on Path: Let the bowls lead. C: I can still be pretty happy, you know, even way off my path. C on Path: Good for you. C: So I don't have to get back on my path. C on Path: No. C: I could probably work like hell and make a lot of things happen the way I want. C on Path: Maybe so. C: Do I have to give up the Dream Studio too? C on Path: You can have everything you want - if you release it as a goal, as an ambition. I don't know how to get it across to you. But yes, give it up if you think about it instead of making bowls. Do you see? You're putting all this stuff you want, between yourself and the bowls. Between yourself and your path. C: Oh - I start to see what you mean. I could just make bowls and see what happens. C on Path: Exactly. Do that and you're on your path. Make your bowls and see what happens. See where they lead you - us. C: Gee whiz, I have all these books on how to succeed as an artist, how to sell my work, etc. C on Path: That's where the sense of humor comes in handy. C: I could just do it. C on Path: Sure. You could. You can. Your choice. C: Do I have to decide now? C on Path: Yes, and again and again and again. Moment to moment, it's your choice - as to where you place your attention. C: Right now, I could be placing my attention on what these bowls want next. What the dogwood leafing out bowl "seed" wants next. C on Path: Yes. ---------------------- |
