paradise by the dashboard light

First, an excerpt from a previous post, written during week one, when I began noticing synchronicities indicating material manifestations of my spiritual energy (which is what my creative recovery efforts seem to have gone to work on first):

My car has some sort of electrical short in the dash which leaves three control knobs dark 99.8% of the time, and occassionally results in strange dashboard flashes and blackouts. These extra pyrotechnics have only occured three times [in the nearly three years I have owned the car]: a combination of symptoms shortly after I bought the car, as if to introduce the condition (I decided it was going to be one of those things that took care of itself and did not seek service); a total blackout the day I was driving around my home town having recently left another job, one I'd had for fourteen years; and a slowly intensifying flare-up of brightness that by its conclusion verged on the comical yet was also quite scary, which happened as I drove home after the very first time I did [Tarot] readings at the restaurant.

I was so wired yet so exhausted that night. I had done nine readings in rapid succession with no break, some of which were rather intense. I hadn't done multiple readings successively before, and I hadn't paid enough attention that night to keeping myself grounded and discrete. When I finally stood up to go home I nearly fell over. And yes, as I got on the road my dashboard had gone completely haywire, lighting up like something from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The scary aspect of that (oh crap - it's late at night - i want to get home safely - please don't go dark) actually helped me settle myself energetically, out of necessity. I breathed and drove and thought about God, and everything returned to normal.

The other symptom of the dashboard issue is of course that the three dark knobs light up sometimes [very rarely]. Naturally, that only happens when I am particularly peaceful and balanced. And don't you know that I found them sweetly lit on my way home on Thursday, after a lovely evening of doing what I do...

I mentioned at the end of another post that after a particularly lovely artist date the lights were lit. What I haven't said since then is that they're almost always lit now. The only time in the past couple of weeks when they didn't light up at night (usually a moment or two after I flip the headlight switch) was the night before last as I ran some errands. And yes, unsurprisingly, I had been in a terrible funk all day. I was wearin' my poopy-pants, and I was not up for changing out of them. Oh no, I thought. I've ruined it. I've once again thrown grace back into the face of Grace in a petulant and pointless venting of I don't wannaaaaah! I don't want to be good. I don't want to get better. I don't want to do my work.

That night I half-watched nearly three hours of Law and Order as I lied on the couch trying to will some sort of escapist coma. My neck and shoulder hurt. But I woke up in another day and I did my work anyway. Yesterday I wrote my pages, colored a mandala, called a friend, did the tasks. I went to my weekly social singing opportunity. On the way down it took a minute for the lights to come up, which they did on cue as I said an affirmation to prepare me for singing and seeing people. On the way home, they lit up immediately as I turned on the headlights, as if they always did.

But you want synchronicity? Yeah? Here's one: In my last post I said that the reading for this week had brought up the wildest of my wildest dreams. I've decided to write about it a bit. (But if you are someone who can fill in the details of this little dreamscape of mine, let's not talk about it, okay?) As I think about it, this dream is not all that wild, since even in my still-mostly-blocked state, I can see that it is achievable. But it is very dear, and tenderly cradled somewhere in the light under the murky depths I've been plumbing. The fact that it is possible is what has made me hide it from myself; I know this.

I happen to be pretty good friends with my favorite singer and musician in the world. We're not in constant touch now, but there have been phases when we've spent a great deal of very special time together. For the record, he is relatively well-known in certain circles and enormously respected by all who know his work. And my friend happens to be the type of musician who, in the most extreme example, would rather teach a friend to play and recruit same to be in his band than play with people he doesn't connect with personally. He's been doing solo work lately and does not currently have a band to speak of, but he's always talking about the records he wants to make with all his friends. Alas, he lives twelve hundred miles away.

I am also good friends with his most frequent musical collaborator (and, naturally, one of his closest friends). This person lives thirty miles away. I helped him find his house. I said the blessing at his wedding meal. In the two years since he moved back to this area after four years away, we have spoken many times about getting together to play music. As many times, I have chickened out of taking action on that talk. Part of the deal is that we talk about playing electric music, and I've been dragging my friggin' heels on learning electric guitar. But there are other options - I don't need to wait until I play like Steve Vai, for one, but there are other instruments and other possibilities as well. Anyway. We see each other fairly often socially, and it's been a little awkward sometimes because he is a man of action and I am in this regard showing myself to be all talk.

We went to a show together a couple of weeks ago, one that involved lots of old-time banjo playing. Since I've been playing and enjoying my banjo a lot more lately, I decided to once again mention that it would be nice to play together - he's learning banjo, too. He once again agreed that that would be lovely. It occured to me that to play banjo together with this friend would be a great way for me to get over the psychological block I hit whenever I think of taking action on the opportunity to play with him at all. I would not have to be perfect and dazzlingly creative on an instrument I barely know. We could play songs we both knew on an instrument on which we both consider ourselves to be neophytes, we could ease into a laid-back playing dynamic together. Then the guitar stuff would seem less intimidating, or I could stop trying to force that at all and just do what was easy and natural and see where that led.

After the week five reading, during which I was positively clobbered over the head with the dream of being in a band with these two friends (and - oh yeah - successful musicians), I wrote here about how I was scared but willing to take steps. The very next day, I learned that Mr. Twelve-hundred Miles Away may be coming back to live in this area for a year, starting this fall. Good God.

That's about when the funk hit. The next morning, Monday, the Day of the Funk, I HATED this week - for making me remember what my dreams were, and for trying to show me that they were possible. It felt like cruel temptation. Am I really supposed to presume that I can play with my favorite band? I've played music all my life but I've never even been in a band. I haven't even had a solo show. I've found other outlets for performing rather than face the requisite discomfort of dealing with all my blocks to being and doing this huge part of what I think I am. Real brave, eh? So I don't even know if I have what it takes.

That has been the payoff of staying blocked - I can feel alternatingly sad and burstingly proud that I have all this potential that I haven't done much of anything with, and I never have to test my own mettle. I never have to do the work of producing, of improving. I never have to grow as an artist or deal with having to be a "performer." For the last decade or so (since I became friends with these guys - HUH!) I have barely even let anyone see this part of me. I've shown just enough people just enough to keep the idea alive - barely. It's like a pet bird that I starve, but I give it just enough to keep it pathetically breathing, glassy-eyed. I played and sang one of my songs for Mr. Twelve Hundred once, and when it was over he shook his head violently for a moment, apparently trying to dislodge the right words. "That was WICKED!" he finally said. He later asked me from the stage at a small show whether I wanted to come up and play something. I said no. The better to torture the bird.

I hated this week on Monday. I did not want to look at the grandiose me. Neither did I want to behold in the mirror the starver of delicate dreams. But on Tuesday, I got up, and I took my steps.

My mandala-a-day calendar includes short inspirational phrases with the daily mandala art, and a blank pattern to color every weekend. I was busy this weekend and didn't get to it. On Monday I did not look at my daily mandala, as I was way overscheduled with pouting and sulking. When I reported back to work yesterday and pulled off the pattern from the weekend to color, Monday's postponed message was revealed. It said, "I take action to realize my dreams."

I made a date to play banjo with my friend.