Sometimes This Happens ...😴 🌠
Sometimes this happens: I wake inside a dream, and I am writing. I can see and hear words, streaming from somewhere, as if seeking an open journal, a receptive page.
This summer I’ve been immersed in the sea – that great expanse of water – the element of intuition, emotions, dreams. I notice my writing is flowing, more clearly and easily, vivid images, like dreams; photographic memories of recent and distant experiences relived with all my senses:
Standing on a Costa Rican beach at sunset, the watercolor sky as the light fades, creating clouds of fire and gold – reflected like a mirror in the same sand where I stand, as if I too inhabit the painting; the scent of salty sea air rises up, the brine from the fishing boats, floating along the horizon, coming in, coming home, with their a catch of the day; and the sound of the waves, rising and crashing, lapping at the shore, at my feet, an invitation I cannot resist, to enter this dream-like seascape I see in my mind's eye, so I dive in, and become part of it all again.
“Have you ever seen anything more wonderful
than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon …
and have you ever felt for anything such wild love?” ~ Mary Oliver
Another image reels through my mind ... last weekend’s birthday fête for a treasured friend. Sun-splashed light on the landscape, lovingly curated with succulents, palms, pink hydrangeas, a pot of tall black-eyed Susans; scattered feeders, welcoming the birds to join us – scrub jays, woodpeckers and hummingbirds – a sweet cacophony of wildlife and human revelers; and the vibrant umbrellas – verdant green and sunny yellow – shading the tables covered in white linens, popping with rose folded red napkins, festive flowers in the centers. It was exquisite beauty at its finest, the interplay of nature and artists, creating a palette of harmony.
"A golden afternoon of August: every breath from the hills so full of life that it seemed whoever respired it, though dying, might revive.” ~ Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Through writing, we become the characters in our dreams, our memories, our imaginations, re-creating possibilities enhanced with new light, shifting the angle, refining the lens. Writing brings it all to life again in images on the page, inspiring prose more poetic than the original moment.
"In English, we say, ‘The sunset is beautiful.’ But in poetry, we say, ‘The sky spilled gold on the edge of day, And brushed the clouds in soft decay — The sun bowed low with one last flame, As if it whispered out my name.’” ~ @English Literature
Writing from reflection is like dreaming awake — offering perspectives not visible until later. Dreams are typically “time-free,” nonlinear, cryptic, mysterious. If I linger in the liminal space before fully waking, I can retrieve more: unexpected wisdom bubbling up from the deep, as if clamshells on the sandy floor cracked open!
There is an exchange between the conscious mind and a deeper source of knowing – discoveries that follow me to the “morning pages” – as if from below a horizon within, just as the sun is rising.
This is inspiration, and magic — the "source-ry" of intuition, imagination, memory, and dreams. Accessible awake or asleep. Which simply requires the same thing: paying attention, perceiving, listening, and seeing. Invitation and intention.
“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
~ Mary Oliver
These are ways we're able to connect with the soul and all of its facets, multiple lenses, through which to perceive inner landscapes and outer possibilities.
I believe we are dreaming a new world into being, each of us choosing the lens through which we see — love, beauty, harmony. Glimmers of light, prisms reflected in one another.
I wrote these "Divine Inklings" in the middle of the night this week, awakened within a dream to words I had been seeking, inviting before I went to sleep. It's all continuous, the conversation between the soul, intuition, imagination, dreams.
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~ Rumi
This week, as the Moon rests in her balsamic phase, dreams are heightened in the fertile darkness. Potent seeds stirring, readying to be revealed.
We have one more lunar cycle before autumn — summer wanes, August flares and fades, light flickers, recedes, returns and sparks — inspiration comes again.
“Sky answers lake with light and lake,
sky, with a white and blue light
that fountains up through itself,
wild and still.” ~ Noah Warren
Words of wild inspiration from the wise Dana Gerhardt at mooncircles.com — (my monthly source for all things lunar and skyward):
Surrender to the wild! This is one of the best New Moons for installing the wild and pure qualities of Nature and its source: the Divine Feminine. Virgo is the Virgin, the Goddess. The true meaning of ‘virginal’ is free; the Virgin is possessed by no one but herself. Virgo’s spirit is everything we imagine when we think of ‘Nature.’
This is also a wonderful lunar cycle to affirm and honor your own “true nature,” and the goddess you are!
REFLECTIVE WRITING PROMPTS: ✨✍️✨
Dreaming awake …
Inviting the muse …
Surrendering to the wild …
My true nature …
If I am free …
Thank you for reading my "Divine Inklings" ... I always love to hear from you.
And please feel free to share this blog post with anyone who might enjoy it. 📧💫
💖 Janet
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