The Power of Words as Worlds
I never thought I'd be writing a dictionary! But here I am, working diligently to meet my deadlines for a new book, DREAM DICTIONARY FOR DUMMIES, due out at Christmas. There are a variety of lessons in writing something that on the surface seems so tedious, analytical, and detailed. I am defining each word, each dream symbol, on three levels. What would it mean, for example, if you interpreted "acorn" at the physical level? How does it connect to your body? Or work? At the emotional level — how does it connect to the kind of feelings we have? The mental-spiritual level — how does it relate to habits of thought or higher-dimensional experience?

It turns out that each word becomes a powerful intuitive exercise in merging into the core essence of what the word really means, what its essence is. It's like traveling into little worlds, exploring the terrain, learning the rules, then writing a travel journal about the trip. I begin the M's or S's, which have lots of words, and it looks daunting. Then: Be here now! Don't jump ahead. Enjoy each thought. Be surprised with each insight. Craft the nugget so it glows. I am swimming in language and what's beneath language.

I am reminded of a quote from Rev. Charles H. Parkhurst, who was me in my last life: "Faith is a great word, too great to be put to small uses. Language, as a whole, and its individual words, shrink in consequence of being made to render menial service. They mean as much as they are made to mean by the one who employs them. Language is something into which meaning has to be put as well as something from which meaning has to be drawn out... That, then, is what I mean by calling faith a great word, a capacious word. It holds all the meaning the soul is capable of breathing into it."

I'm also thinking of the film with Richard Gere, The Bee Season, which I saw recently and enjoyed very much. In it he explores, with his daughter, the secret mysteries of the Hebrew names for God, the penetration into words and their interrelationships and core sounds as a way to find the literal Voice of God. They touched into it for real, took the viewer a good way into the experience, which also relied on the capacity to be silent and still. I was intrigued. And here I am, with a chance to practice it! The way the soul works as "engineer of life experiences" is so amazing!

My Jury Duty Day: Mind Over Intuition?
I spent the day at the county civic center waiting through the interminable process of possibly serving on a jury. I had a number of things in mind for ways to get out of it, things I'd say to be disqualified: I know police officers, I believe you create your own reality. I wasn't let go at the first weaning, when half the people got to leave. So I surrendered to whatever Spirit and my higher self wanted to do with me. I'd just "be in the moment" — nothing else better to do, right?

We went into a courtroom, and I wasn't called to be in the first 18 to go through voir dire. I sat in front, though, so I could feel like I was participating, imagining myself telling the court what I do for a living ("I'm a professional intuitive, your Honor"), in front of the many doctors, lawyers, and financial planners present. I kept reminding myself that I didn't necessarily want to go home, that we live in an amazing country where we do get to have the fairest possible trials (and I was witnessing the tedious care that is taken in the jury selection process), and I might learn something I didn't know I needed to learn.

They called the next batch. Did I want them to call my name? Yes! No! Surrender, surrender. Let a higher force create this day. I wasn't in that group either. Then another few folks were called and I was still sitting in the peanut gallery. At 4:30 we were all released. Driving home I thought: Today — What's the Point? I got that I was looking at a structure for finding truth amidst duality and conflict, clarity amidst the "monkey mind," that doesn't, and at this stage in our human development, CAN'T, involve intuition. The justice system is amazingly complex and detailed, almost a monkey mind in itself, but it is all the mind has for approaching divine harmony and teaching people about universal laws. And yet, how much more nourishing to live by Spirit's ultra-simple, perfect, mindless system.

As for me, I practiced being fully present, letting myself be surprised by the flow of events, and watched my mind with its silly biases, as well as witnessing other people and their clever ploys, including the attorneys and judge. Actually, quite an entertaining day after all!

Is Your World View Based on Love or Fear?
1. Pay attention to the conversations you have with other people this week. What do you choose to talk about? What do the other people choose to talk about? Which points do you react to? Which ideas do you reinforce during the conversations?

2. Make a list of the themes and core ideas underlying these conversations. How many are love-based? How many fear-based?

3. Rate the following options from 1 (least)-10 (most). Be honest with yourself. How much energy and sense of self do you get from:

• Complaining and getting sympathy?
• A crisis or emergency?
• Being spontaneous?
• Learning something totally new?
• Criticizing others?
• Creating something new from nothing?
• Being kind and of service to others?
• Refusing to participate?
• Being out in nature?

Mysticism and Realism
One of the hardest balances to achieve is to maintain equal experiences in myself of my direct connection with the divine — my mystical rapport — and my immersion in and engagement with three-dimensional life and all the constructs we agree on societally to get along with each other and be "successful." It seems I bounce back and forth and never seem to have enough of each. I know the trick is to blend them and make it all one. A little trickier than it sounds! I once again have found a nice comment by Frederick Franck in The Book of Angelus Silesius:

"Just as there never was a group of painters who called themselves "Impressionists" (the word was coined by a critic as an epithet) there was never a "mystic" who considered himself anything but a realist. He had seen Reality with his own eyes, had been in living contact with it. Suddenly the merciless "realism" of politicians, the know-how without wisdom of practical men, seemed wildly unrealistic, a dangerous conceit. He had seen how it constantly made for false appraisal of situations, and hence habitually missed its targets, causing frustration, suffering, and catastrophe. Against this disastrously naive realism the mystic proclaimed the mature realism of the awakened heart which is both Wisdom and Compassion."

And from an early 20th century philosopher, Andrew Pringle-Pattison, "When religion begins to ossify into a system of formulas and observances, those who protest in the name of heart-religion are not infrequently known by the name of mystics."

Today I vow to sink into the tasks I'm doing and find a deep core of silence and sweetness, and the inspired motive that comes from soul!