Living Lucidly

On New Year's Eve morning I had woken with a sense of a shift in awareness--the kind where it went from intellectual understanding to cellular activation. It had to do with something I have contemplated before, which is waking up from "the dream." My attention was first on the sleeping dream and how I often find myself not wanting to exit the dream because I am busy working something out. My mind is invested in completing the process, even when opening my eyes brings an immediate sense of relief and lightness and it is obvious that I have a choice in the matter.

The next layer of awareness is not as obvious and that is waking from the "waking dream," or being lucid within that dream. Again, there is an investment of mind to complete or address issues before me. In this case, I can't just open my physical eyes and have the scene I was engaged with disappear. However, there is a similar truth that applies--opening the eyes changes the landscape. In this case the eyes are ethereal--perhaps the "third eye" or maybe even beyond that.

The waking dream is a bit more complex in mastering. Paradox and moving choice points require new levels of skill and awareness to navigate. There appear to be things that need to be cleared before we can move on, but is that really true? There is also opportunity in honing ones chosen role into a work of art, just as with a character actor who gives the performance of a lifetime and yet can walk off the stage unidentified with the role.

Most know the saying that Christ was in the world, but not of the world. It could also be stated that he was in the dream, but not of the dream. I have heard contemporary spiritual teachers say, this is a time when we chose to celebrate being awake in form, as the form and through the form and to inhabit the body fully for anchoring higher expressions of love and our creative potential.

To be lucid is to be illuminated. So, let us make this a year of living lucidly!