Do you ever feel dead, unalive? Does that feeling keep you from ever being and doing your best? In a twelve class series on meditation, one class focused on aliveness. Everyone was asked to share an experience of aliveness and one of its opposite – a sense of unaliveness. Everyone then took that feeling and allowed it to first take a color and then a shape, which was then interviewed. Here is one example of that process.
What are three fundamental life issues that you are dealing with now in your life?
1. Luminosity
2. Cosmic Humor
3. Abundance!
Interviewing unaliveness/deadness (deep, dreamless sleep)
If those feelings had a color (or colors), what would it be?
Black
Imagine that color filling the space in front of you so that it has depth, height, width, and aliveness.
Now watch that color swirl, congeal, and condense into a shape. Don’t make it take a shape, just watch it and say the first thing that you see or that comes to your mind: An animal? Object? Plant? What?
A Broom
Now remember how as a child you liked to pretend you were a teacher or a doctor? It’s easy and fun for you to imagine that you are this or that character in your dream and answer some questions I ask, saying the first thing that comes to your mind. If you wait too long to answer, that’s not the character answering – that’s YOU trying to figure out the right thing to say!
Broom, would you please tell me about yourself and what you are doing?
I am floating in the air. I am a sturdy but ancient witches broom, made to fly on.
What do you like most about yourself? What are your strengths?
Well, can you fly? Do you do magic? Can you levitate? Can you support the weight of a person and take them anywhere they want to go? I’m pretty impressive!
What do you dislike most about yourself? Do you have weaknesses? What are they?
As a witches broom, I’m excellent. Actually, I could be used by anyone who would think to use me. But it’s generally only witches who are wise enough to see my utility and take advantage of it.
Witch’s Broom, you are in Joseph’s life experience, correct? He created you, right? Broom, what aspect of Joseph do you represent or most closely personify?
Normally non-accessed, available access to freedom, objectivity, and witnessing.
Broom, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be and take any form you desired, would you change? If so, how?
I would have Joseph on me and we would be having fun, a la Harry Potter!
(Continue, answering as the transformed object, if it chose to change.)
Broom, how would you score yourself 0-10, in confidence, compassion, wisdom, acceptance, peace of mind, and witnessing? Why?
Confidence: 10 I’m not going to fall. I am not afraid of fire. I can avoid it. What’s there to fear? I can go anywhere and do anything! I could transport an elephant!
Compassion: ? I just have a good time!
Wisdom: ? I am not about wisdom; I do what I’m told to do.
Acceptance: 10 What’s there not to accept?
Inner Peace: 10 I am very alive yet I am totally at peace!
Witnessing: 10
Broom, if you scored tens in all six of these qualities, would you be different? If so, how?
I suppose I would be Joseph with my abilities.
How would Joseph’s life be different if he naturally scored like you do in all six of these qualities all the time?
He would feel powerful, magical, and free like I do and he would use that to expand, grow, and experience in waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.
If you could live Joseph’s life for him, how would you live it differently?
I would be me! That means flamboyant, audacious, powerful, fearless, confident, and playful! Oh – and totally unconcerned about ethics or how I am used. That’s not my job. That’s his.
If you could live Joseph’s waking life for him today, would you handle his three life issues differently? If so, how?
1. Luminosity: It takes mergence with luminosity for me to operate, so of course being me will amplify it.
2. Cosmic Humor: I am by nature amusing and playful! Be me to have more absurdity and cosmic humor!
3. Abundance!: I provide an abundance of experiences and access to whatever is needed or required! Be me and you’ll experience it!
What three life issues would you focus on if you were in charge of his life?
These life issues are good. I would only add that they will overcome or minimize mental fuzziness, personalization, and scarcity, which are their opposites.
In what life situations would it be most beneficial for Joseph to imagine that he is you and act as you would?
Only when he wants to experience magic, freedom, luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance!
What would happen if Joseph became you when he meditated?
He would experience greater luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance.
Why do you think that you are in Joseph’s life?
I’m here as an antidote to unconsciousness and to help him wake up!
How is Joseph most likely to ignore what you are saying to him?
Go to sleep! Go back to his unconscious dreaming! Forget to be me! Forget to use me!
What would you recommend that he do about that?
Remember me! Particularly by welcoming me into his meditations!
What have you heard yourself say?
I could do worse than be it if I want to wake up and experience more luminosity, cosmic humor, and abundance. Also freedom, in waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.
If this experience were a wake-up call from the most central part of who you are, what do you think it would be saying to you?
What you seek is not out of reach! You can do it! You have the tools you need at hand!
This Witches Broom is a part of Joseph that clearly has strengths and abilities he needs. Why was he not previously in touch with it? Why do those strengths show up as a Witch’s Broom? Does he need to become a Witch’s Broom to access those inner potentials? Will there really be any significant improvement in his life if he does? Why trust an imaginary, absurd, irrelevant, impractical image instead of doing something else that is more concrete and real, as most everything else is? Because from the perspective of the Witch’s Broom it is more real; it scores higher than Joseph does in qualities he desires; and it is harmless, unlike many “more real” things we can and do spend our time on. The worst we can do by following Witch’s Broom’s recommendations is to waste our time; however, we may find that instead we move toward our inner compass and discover that we can access our inner strengths more often and in ways that are of greater benefit to ourselves and others.