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November 10, 2019

Peeling Back Projections & Percolating Patience. ~Bedhead Mystic: Eat. Play! Stumble. {Chapter 5}

*Editor’s Note: This piece is part of a series—lucky you. Head to the author’s profile to continue reading.

 

You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.”

― Frida Kahlo

 

My morning musings tease my dreams to life and in the light of day, illuminate my projections. 

 

Dreams do not give rise to reality, yet I am fed by my dreams. Drinking coffee and deciphering dreams is the key ingredients in my morning ritual, an interlude before the day intrudes. 

 

I wrap my thick-red robe round me, padding down the dark hall from my bedroom. Stand at the stove, waiting for water to boil. The sun is not yet up, sleepy sun.

 

I must be patient if I want my mocha proper. I must be patient in my experience of love. Patience is a virtue. Especially if I want a mocha the way I like to make it, with the dark-cocoa-nibs ground right into my organic, Colombian Womens’ Co-op, French-blend. I make a pour-over in my glass beaker Bodum, which requires a bit more finesse to operate than a French-press. The grind of the bean must be just-so. Add cocoa nibs to the grinder, and the little basket that sits atop the glass beaker, can become a bit overwhelmed. Cocoa dust sticks to the filter more than the coffee does. 

 

I pour slowly, letting my need for caffeine give way to my desire to have a truly sensual coffee encounter. I meditate as I pour—at first. Then I get eager and flood the little basket and make a mess. Curse at the coffee. Grrr becomes a purr. I laugh, and remember this means nothing and all messes can be cleaned up! 

 

Good coffee, like love, is worth waiting for. 

 

 

I’m not really waiting for love, anyway, what a silly thought. Why wait for what I am? I am love and I love my life, nearly every nuance of it. 

 

I’m not waiting for someone to complete me. Not waiting for life to begin. I have begun, again. And in this beginning, I find myself alive, whole, wild. Satiated in my solitude and yet, some mornings I like to imagine that there is a love not just in here—  in dreams and musings, but out there as well. A man real in the world, who might like to share in various rituals with me. Who might like drinking coffee and being fed.

 

If he were here, he might be quiet, reading the paper. He might be playing with the dog, who I tend to ignore in the morning beyond letting him out and feeding him. Sometimes I make space so he can cuddle me, as he always wants to do. I like my mornings quiet. I could make space in my morning reverie for breakfast in bed, long dreamy kisses, limbs entwined. That all sounds like a lovely fantasy. 

 

I was speaking with my counselor last night exploring a truly fabulous not- too- heavy but, deep dream. In the dream, I was out at the hot springs I love. A group of men chatting loudly dropped the name of someone I’d love to meet. My current geek-crush, who is a certain author, whose words and dedication have awoken a literary lust in my soul. 

 

In the dream, I looked for him near the pool then outside and I see a man wearing a ‘Make Love Great Again’  hat and riding a lawn mower.

 

“That’s not him.” I thought to myself.

 

Looked up at the clock, ten ’til eleven and realized, I was about to be late for class. Rush to get to where I need to be, which is in front of my computer. Ten minutes is plenty of time to make it; only my silly dog, Grommet, leaps into the pool and though he can swim, I’m concerned. 

 

In I go in after Grom, retrieving him just in time and hurrying to get on the weekly call, which is important to me. Structure is important to me. Spontaneity can be misleading but structure grounds me into this reality. This class I’m taking is giving me a structure that I need, that I asked for, time and dedication, reinvigorated passion for my writing.

My shamanic soul-sister-guide informs me: the hot springs in this dream, represent the source to me. She also informs me that people dream their whole lives and may never dream of water in this way. This is how important connection with source is to me. The class, in the dream, is a distraction, drawing me away from the water— my source. I turn to water like a I turn to writing for connection, they both bring me into me, into source.

 

The distraction element presenting in this dream does not surprise me. I have been a bit obsessed with the writing course I am taking. Finding a groove for this obsession that is creative, feels good. Finding community, feels good. I can see how even though in waking life, all this is good for me, in the dream, as in life— presence is what really feeds me. 

 

My presence is being drawn into the source, into the water. Attention shifting form chasing the man or trying to beat the clock, both recurring themes in my waking life. What I really long for is source, the spring of my own well-being and creativity.

 

The man I long to meet, my beloved, is actually there, doing what he does, tending to my inner spaces without need for recognition, without need for reward, without need for me seeing who he really is. My projection on my geek-crush, though an admirable and worthy target, is as all projections are— a distraction. 

 

In the dream as in life, the invitation is to follow the animus into the depths. In this case, my little dog, who in life, is my witches familiar (and can swim just fine) and who, in the dream, is in no danger of drowning but is showing me where I need to go— down. Go into the water, into the source. 

 

I resist this pull into self, as so many of us do. I want those external things, that validation, that sense of accomplishment, to be embraced by real arms that can hold me, seen with eyes that can truly see me, and heard by a heart that is also— open.

 

My kitchen is warm, flooded with light. Coffee is satisfying, sun sparkles— real. Dispelling fantasy the Pug snores, his purple, stuffed elephant sticking out of his mouth. Probably not dreaming of swimming in pools he has no business being in. Most likely dreaming of summer or bacon

 

My geek-crush and all the other men I am playing with right now, are far more admirable than the ones I am healing from. And though I do want to meet a man in this waking life, it is this dream-man, my inner masculine, who calls me. 

 

It is he who I feel night and day and day and night and in those liminal spaces in between. When loneliness rises, I feel him and miss him. It’s a beautiful paradox, for though this inner Adonai cannot hold me, he is showing me how to hold myself and never leave myself behind again. 

 

As we wound up our session, I shared this final insight with my counselor, “There is more and more permeability between my inner and outer world than ever before! The inner love, is at least matching in quality and admiration, the outer reflections, and the thoughts and feelings flow in between, what is dreaming and waking life. It is beautiful and sweet, and it moves me to tears. This is indubitably, the result of all the ways I am opening!” My counselor’s voice, through the phone, warms me, “That’s beautiful, Justice.”

 

Basking in these reflections, at my breakfast table, blue-sky showing through an ice-encrusted northern-facing window, I sip my slowly made mocha and savor it, as I will one day savor a true love. I savor the love that is already mine, the love I cultivate in care, with kindness to myself and others and with a bubbling patience, every day. 

 

A thought plays through my mind…it is Friday! A friend sent me a package that is supposed to arrive today. Just as the thought takes flight, a grumble sounds in the street outside my house. I open the door to find a UPS truck idling, and little square cardboard box resting on the reddish-reclaimed-barn-wood steps of my front porch. 

 

Now, I have an actual gift, as a reward for completing my writing that I get to open! 

 

Talk about permeability! 

 

Is this a sign? If I let myself think gently of my love he will simply appear on my porch, or maybe in the teahouse, or maybe on a hill, or in line at the co-op? Maybe we will meet reaching for a brown-paper-bag to fill with mushrooms, and I will look up and say, “Well, aren’t you a fungi!” And he will laugh because he too, is a dork. Then we will go on talking about all the fun things to do with mushrooms, culinary and otherwise—perhaps! 

 

Those fantasies are fun. My dreams draw me into what I need to see and feel, peeling back the projections and letting me see myself and others more clearly, and with true-heart and appreciation. 

 

My coffee is damn delicious today, patiently percolated, cocoa infused magic. It was well worth waiting for, worth being patient for. 

 

Good coffee, like love requires patience

 

Just as the delicate chocolate fibers cannot be forced through the filter to acquire a faster brew, people need time and care and patience— to open!

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