First blog post

Seeing with New Eyes…

Kansas is a drab and colorless place. Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are gray, the house is gray inside and out, and the landscape is gray. There aren’t any trees, birds, grass, or water. All is sun-parched, flat, and devoid of any signs of life. The couple adopt Dorothy because they cannot have children.

Uncle sits on the front steps of the house, Auntie is inside, and Dorothy stands upon the threshold on the day the winds of change begin to stir. Now you might think those winds would come out of the East and West, where the Wicked Witches reside, but they do not. The winds come out of the North and South, the territories of the Good Witches, which suggests these transformational winds are motivated by the good.

The winds increase , Uncle senses the coming of a storm, and moves into action. He goes to the barn to prepare the animals. Dorothy walks inside as Auntie dives into the storm cellar, or what we might call the unconscious. As most of you know, Toto runs off and Dorothy chases him, when the tornado hits. The house is lifted off the ground, ascends high into the sky, and is carried far away to the inner land of Oz.

Dorothy is jolted awake when the house lands. She opens her eyes, stands up, walks to the door, crosses the threshold, and sees life in full technicolor. Babbling brooks, chirping birds, fruiting trees, the Munchkins and Good Witch. Dorothy has a new vision.

In depth psychology, we perceive stories as symbolically teaching us about life. I have taken some creative liberties here to make a point. We often, at one time or another, have a vision of what is possible for us. The vision may appear through what seems like a great difficulty. For Dorothy, it was when the house landed in Munchkinland that she got a glimpse of what her life could be like, which was the opposite of the way things were in Kansas, her outer life.

Visions can come in many ways. They can appear through story, dream, or imaginal occurrences. They may feel like deep longings for something that remains just beyond awareness. Dorothy has her vision in Munchkinland of what is possible, but cannot remain there. In order to realize her inner vision as the outer world, she has to make a journey. Everything that happens along the way is meant to assist her in uniting these two worlds. Every encounter, experience, and dream are taking us to the place Dorothy fondly calls Kansas, or home.

This blog will address a variety of experiences along this journey home to ourselves. There will be writings about dreams; stories, myths, and fairy tales; the divine feminine and Spirit; our truth; spirituality and material life; as well as our Selves. How do we continue to challenge old paradigms, stories, beliefs, and conditioning so that we might open to a life that is so much more than we are living? These and other topics will be explored as we journey for a time together on this path and remember, “There’s no place like home.”

What is your vision?