Spirit And Opportunity
Halloween brings to light our memories and our apprehensions and enlivens our imagination. Each year we honestly portray ourselves as something other than who we are, and venture out into the night fearlessly asking for what we want from strangers and friends. The chant, "Trick or Treat!" resounds on neighborhood streets, with a telltale confidence that our abundant rewards, sweet and freely given, fill the largest container we dare to hold.
Life, too, offers us the opportunity to boldly request our desires from others as well as the Universe. Just as our expectations of creepy "things that go bump in the night" sometimes come to fruition at Halloween, other evidence of things outside of ourselves interjecting with our humanity, finds its way into our daily experience.
Knock Knock
More than just a childhood formulaic riddle, spirit knocking on the door of our consciousness forces us to awaken to new possibilities. My friend Ann's condo, replete with sounds and noises from unearthly visitors, resonates with a loud knock, or rap on her wooden front door. The wooden door is closed and behind a locked metal security door so no one can make contact with the wood, yet the sounds echo throughout her living room - loud enough that her neighbors hear it, too! Ann gave up going to the door to see her anxious caller because after dozens of times, she found no one there.
Spirit knocks on our door, too. Many times Spirit is there asking for an invitation to enter our lives, yet finds us not home to answer. Over and over, we hear the call to a greater life, and either ignore it or find we cannot face the greatness it offers. We must prepare ourselves equally to knock on the door of opportunity and to answer the call when opportunity beckons us. Take the initiative to dare for a great life and you may just receive a "treat!" you weren't expecting!
Bump
From fender benders, to bumper cars, we often equate a bump with a collision in transportation. We've all heard the "bumps in the night" which startle us from sleep yet we dismiss such noises as the house settling or our pets rousting about. Bumping into unseen forces, we sometimes feel a hovering entity or looming feeling surrounding us, daring to collide with our circumventing comfort zone. With our bodies as vehicles transporting us on the planet, collisions occur naturally with others and with Spirit around us.
Nothing to fear, these gentle bumps into our beingness serve to remind us and alert us of the awakened world in which we roam. Like the bumper in a pinball machine, Life stands there, solid and immovable, waiting for us to bump into it. We dart off in a different direction, most times not due to any epiphany of understanding, rather from the shock of the bump itself - the bump we created.
When Life or Spirit bumps into us, it renders a touching reminder for us to awaken to the events and emotions around us while we make our way on the planet. From the premonitory diversion to avoid an accident, to the gentle nudge into something better, Life reminds us of the power of the Infinite as a gentle teacher.
Whoosh!
The older we grow, the quicker time passes. Our perception and vantage point change as time reflects against the accumulation of our experience. Time, as we interpret it through man-made dials and clocks, remains constant and some say, circular or infinite. Unseen thoughts, entities and even energies wrap around us, check us out, and whisk away - in an instant. The indescribable feeling of deja vu, or the instinctive choices we make, represents our higher selves responding to Life.
When life streaks by us in our unaware state of the daily banal, we waste precious time in the coma of disengagement. Awaken from the sleep of drudgery and live the life you want to live! Too often we "wake up" and we find our children getting married - wondering where did their childhood go? Could twenty years pass without your conscious awareness of it? Worse yet - did those years whoosh by without our enjoyment and fulfillment of precious moments?
Halloween reminds us to step outside of our normal persona to experience something new. With the eerie knocks, bumps and whooshes, we attract that which we fear but know is real. It's easy to blame playful ghosts for the pranks they often wield on us, when our true fears lie within us - and we're too afraid to face them.
As nurturer of our spirits and benevolent guide, Life knocks on the door of our consciousness offering us a deeper existence, bumps into us and diverts us onto a higher path and whooshes by us reminding us it's never too late to wake up!
Copyright © 2009 Marlene Buffa
Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene offers insight through her words from experiences. A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life's inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways.www.wordsofmind.com