“We humans cling to our knowing. We think we have power. We think it is the way to hold onto love. Yet I have been told that the only power I really have is to let go. This loss of control deepens with each turn of the journey downward. At each turn more energy is released. Letting go is the transformation process. It is a process that makes a home for the mystery.” - Anne Hillman
I dreamt that I had access to the grave of a loved one. I went into the place where the body was buried, I picked up the body and placed it on a table. All day I lovingly cared for this beloved dead thing. Talking to it. Holding it. Being with it. As the day was ending, I wrapped it back up in beautiful blankets and gently placed it back in its tomb. I did the same thing the next day and felt more attached to it. I did it again the next day, but this day was different. The body started to smell a bit, but I was adamant that I was going to love this thing and keep it “alive”. A deep feeling of trepidation settled in my being, knowing that this was the last day that I would be able to love this precious thing. With a heavy heart, I knew it was time to let it go. I very tenderly wrapped it up for the last time. I held it very close as the faint smell of death surrounded me. Too absorbed and engaged in loving this beloved to really be attentive to the smell, I just knew it was there. A sense of despair settled into the final moment. Reluctantly I returned the body to its place of rest, and I left.
This dream is as vivid and clear today as it was three months ago when I woke up wondering what it was all about. I have been left guessing what the message within the dream is. Using my normal curious nature I was looking for a complicated message. The message is so simple. Not easy to do but simple nonetheless.
One of my dearest friends recently lost her twenty year old son two weeks before his twenty-first birthday. He was killed in a senseless freak accident when his motorbike hit a curb outside a house they had lived in five years ago. The devastation of loss of this amazing person is too immense for words.
Sharing the same birthday week, my niece’s boyfriend turned twenty-one.
I am privileged and honored to have been given a unique glimpse into two worlds. One of such unimaginable loss and one of great exuberance.
Stepping back I see how we human beings hold tightly to our experiences. We love the joy and easily hold onto those moments. We hate the fear of loss but we hold tightly to that too.
We don’t let go, we can’t let go. We don’t want to let go.
We don’t have control! My most terrifying reality!
B–U–T
We have free will!
Luke 22:42, “...nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” One of the most powerful moments leading up to the crucifixion. One of the greatest sign posts that I was not ready to accept, until now!
I have never really got the real concept of “Free-Will”. I saw it as my right, a tool to demand my own way. It also is my most powerful life source when correctly managed. Free-will is a gift that contains a warning! When I give it away to another; I become that one's bonded slave.
I don’t have control of anything but my free-will. This is the only thing I can give away. Transformation is essentially giving up my will. Willingly entrusting it to Love. Letting go and trusting in the uncertainty of what this life holds.
The moment I choose to put my free will into the hands of the Divine, that is the moment things change and I become bonded to Love. The perception of my life is no longer a collection of positive and/or negative experiences but a very real acceptance of what is. It is no longer good and bad, it is just as it is.
Simply letting go of it all. Letting go of the past, letting go of the future and being in this moment right now. Being overwhelmed by pain and joy but holding this reality gently and trusting that everything is as it should be, in this moment. Being at peace and walking one step at a time being true to who I am. For this is Love.
I am free to be intentional with life, to have dreams for the future. Actually, it is advisable for my longevity. I can be specific with each intention but I also have to let go of the expectation of my right to have what I think I deserve. The attachment to the expectation keeps me going back to the “if only” and the “what if” of my life.
Anne Hillman says it so well, “We look with uncertainty beyond the old choices for clear-cut answers to a softer, more permeable aliveness which is every moment at the brink of death; for something new is being born in us if we but let it. We stand at a new doorway, awaiting that which comes, trailing what may seem flimsy garments; a less defended posture, a willing stance, naked without our beliefs, our judgment. Daring to be human creatures. Vulnerable to the beauty of existence. Learning to love. Inquiring into the mystery. Loving Life”
What the dream means: It’s not about a specific or separate thing. It is about the whole thing, the whole life. Transformation happens when I let go.
The only thing left to do then is– to let go but hold on tight. This is going to be a bumpy ride.
But not my will but yours, be done!