Looking Back, Looking Forward

This is the time of year when we reflect on the past and plan for the future. Stephen Hawking provides his own perspective on it.

It's easy to think of the future as a spectrum of possibilities because we understand the opportunities we have to choose our next step on a forward-moving path. We perceive time as linear: from our point on the timeline back is the past; from our point forward is the future. The point itself is the present. Is it truly so cut and dry? Or are there bumps or cycles or turns in that timeline?

Have you ever, when first being introduced to a person, discovered you already knew they had three siblings? Has an unknown person sitting next to you on a plane voiced a question you just thought? Have you walked past a stranger on the street and turned back to find them turning to look at you as though in recognition? We've all experienced moments like these. We brush them off with comments like:

He kinda looks like my ex.
I must've muttered my question.
Her coat is the same color as my boss's.
Maybe we saw each other in the parking lot before
It couldn't be anything more than a fluke.

Because, of course, the past is fixed on that timeline. It already happened so what we're seeing now, what we're thinking, what we're experiencing, can't be real. Reality fixes time in a linear, clearly-defined path, doesn't it?

If Hawking is correct, and the past is also indefinite, then perhaps we have met that person before. Or that sense of having experienced this moment before? We have a phrase for that: deja vu. We shake our heads, smile with embarrassment and mutter an apology.

When we look back at our lives, we rarely think of it in linear terms. One story reminds us of another that happened years before. Or the scent of cookies takes us back to several childhood holiday baking memories that run together like watercolors. Did I burn my hand when I was six? or eight? Did we make marzipan with cousins or alone?

2016 has been labeled by many people as a year of troubles to leave behind. Was the entire year that way? Or was it only sections of it? Are our feelings accurate? And what does accurate mean when it comes to emotions?

My personal experience of the year was a bit of a roller coaster. I had several high points, including submitting my resignation and beginning the next phase of my life. Several low points, including a distressing election season and a broken toe, happened closer to the year's end and made leaving 2016 behind much easier!

What were your high points in 2016? What were your low points? Did they balance out? Did their proximity to the end of the year change how you viewed 2016? What are you looking forward to in 2017? What experiences of deja vu have you had recently? How do you feel about them? How do you perceive Stephen Hawking's comment on time?

Created by Our Past

When we are in the midst of growing up, everything around us helps build us into the person we will eventually become. Some things are simply part of our nature: introvert or extrovert, tall or short, spontaneous or ponderous, etc. Either by genetics or some other natural event, these characteristics are within us from birth.

Then there are those events that happen to, with and around us that shape us as well: critical significant adults, abuse, illness, socio-economic status, etc. These are different sorts of variables in our lives. Yet they shape us as surely as our genetics do.

Yesterday, I had a conversation regarding someone with whom I've worked fairly closely for a number of years. Whenever this person feels pressure, someone else also feels it ~ and I've been one of those someones. As I'm leaving the situation where all of this has occurred, our conversation revolved around two of the latest encounters as well as who may be their next someone or target.

I realized as we chatted was that, although I've felt hurt and even angry after the encounters, my long-term residual awareness was of their woundedness. Something in the past left an ugly, painful mark. The pains from my own past were also reflected in our encounters. I allowed the hurt and anger to rise. I talked about the encounters to others in order to feel better about myself. I played out the poor me role to whatever extent my hurt feelings projected it. I acknowledge we are both playing out roles created somewhere in our past. I am interested in growing beyond the need to play those roles, in letting go of the elements in my past that created them. We'll see if I can do that before I leave.

What wounds from your past create upsets in your present? How can you let go of them? or heal them? What purpose do these upsets serve in your life? What can replace them?

Darkness Dreaming

Our dreams are the place where we meet each facet of who we are. Our past arrives there with all its regrets, joys and lessons. Our future peeks in with all its possibilities. Our alternate universe self shows us the 'what ifs' continuing on elsewhere and elsewhen. Our angst, fear, grief, anticipation, elation, and every other emotion creates the background music. Dreams carry us deeper and farther than thoughts.

Over the past several nights, I've awakened from strange and somewhat disquieting dreams. In many of them, I am leading or herding people ~ sometimes through a woods, sometimes through a crowd, sometimes through a dark room.... the settings were all different, the movement similar, always through. Relating these to a friend, we joked that I was either Moses or an Australian shepherd.

I call the dreams somewhat disquieting because when within them, I am happy. That juxtaposition of setting/action and emotional response lead me to the conclusion that there is a deeper movement happening. I see an outcome or source or destination that creates true joy within me.

This morning's was no different ~ I was seated, leaning against a brick wall. A basket of gleaned apples was being passed around. The apples were bruised and wormy, but mostly edible. I nearly let the basket pass when a voice nearby said, "Ya might wanna take one and eat. Ya never know when food will come our way again." So I took the basket, grabbed one of the apples and joked, "I guess the worm could be counted as extra protein." A few chuckles ran through the people around me. Through this entire exchange, I was feeling content ~ as though I knew something better was in the offing.

The disquieting part of these dreams is waking from them with the sense of peace within me along with the mental images and the logical recognition that the scene should be disturbing. I thought, What's wrong with me? That quiet voice nearby calmly replied, Not a thing. More to come. So I wait. Acknowledging as I do that stars can't shine without darkness. Ready for the next installment.

What images surface in your dreams? How do you determine if it's a dream or nightmare? What do you feel within the dream? Does it match what you see or hear? Do you listen to what comes in the Darkness? Why? or why not?

Build Windmills

I recently dreamed about windmills. I walked up the rise of a grassy hill. Although the sky was a swath of deep blue velvet with scattered twinkling sequins, the land was lit with an ethereal blue-white glow of the Full Moon. The earth sparkled with diamond dewdrops.

As I topped the rise, an expanse of mostly flat land lay before me. A river ran from the northeast to southwest, its banks lost from sight below low, chiseled cliffs. I caught glimpses of white-capped waves swirling along the line of cliffs.

The land was dotted with windmills of all ilk:

Old World brick buildings

They took a significant amount of space on the wide plain. Their large blades churned methodically, rhythmically, visible only as the large crossbeams slipped through the dark air. Their varieties were plentiful, amazingly beautiful across the land.

Midwest/Great Plains farm/ranch towers

These towers were most familiar to me. I spent my youth in the North Central states and saw them dotted across fields with dairy cattle gathering near their bases. Memories of that youth flooded through me as I watched the rotors blur in the moonlight.





new wind power generators

These triple-bladed giants towered over the other windmills across the open space. Their mobile white blades taking on the appearance of tilting praying mantis heads and upper appendages in the flashing dark-and-light.








As I watched, the wind strengthened, pouring forth with great gusto, until all the blades of all the windmills became a blur of intermittent light. I recognized this burst: the Winds of Change. This is a year of Change. News from across the world echoes that notion. My dream insistently prodded me to form the Distant Past, the Recent Past and the Present into a Windmill of Change to power me into the future.

What changes are blowing through your life now? Are you building walls? or windmills? Why have you made that choice? Do you experience one choice as more valid than another?