What Changes Do You Want to Make?
Listen for the Answer
Dear Friend,
Yesterday Chiara and me we were walking with Zara on the marshes and came across this heart shaped balloon, caught in the brambles near the electricity pylons.
I wondered if we’d stumbled across someone’s art project, or maybe did the balloon blow away before it could be given? It reminded me of Banksy’s ‘Girl with Balloon’
Today is of course St Valentine’s day. Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, the end of Carnival, and the 10th saw us enter Lunar New Year, the year of the Wood Dragon.
In western mythology the dragon symbolises the false self, the ego energy. The dragon’s avarice and desire are to be overcome. In the east the dragon is the energy of renewal and transformation.
Reading
this morning she reminds us“the Dragon’s magic lies in turning visions into realities”
(Tenzin Choegyal and Jesse Paris Smith)
There was something this year when we entered 2024. A shift in energy. The dragon stirring. Perhaps you place no store in the influence of the stars. Being ignorant of astrology I’m not qualified to comment. I’ve attempted to make sense of it, but their mysteries remain beyond me. I am simply an admirer.
Perhaps for you today will be a day of unrequited love?
If so, I wish you peace. I wish you comfort.
Perhaps a day of excitement.
If so, I wish you peace, that you may deepen your bond.
And if today is a day where your heart aches?
I wish for you to know you are never truly alone.
Go outside if you can. Feel the wind on your face. February graciously bestows wind and rain. Snow in NYC this morning. The elements, the energy of that forms worlds.
Yes, love breaks our hearts.
How could it not?
That we can feel our humanity, that all things must pass. That I may reach you with words. The love that is here for you. I wish it reach you. That peace be yours.
What changes do I want to make?
The vision is of humanity, collectively and individually making peace our highest priority.
Social media amplifies the sensational.
The writers and communities I’m discovering here on substack seek to amplify connection, curiosity, appreciation, dialogue, wisdom, art, beauty. Pursuit of what we can be affirm to be true. Love of nature.
Every one of us makes images in our mind. We narrate them with our inner monologues. We live our stories.
In the year of the dragon let our stories be told.
Hold to the truth.
Together we are strong.
Yes, this world is full of the tawdry. The dragon of the false self terrorises. Greed. Revenge. Corruption. Our earth herself, our mother, scorched.
But look around you. We are one people. Diverse beyond our capacity to imagine. More powerful than we realise. If we are not amazed at the world, then we must know we are merely gazing at the reflection of the world we made.
What we made can be unmade.
We can sink deep into our hearts. Truth is kept here.
Some small kindness.
Attention to the moment.
Bestow love upon yourself.
What is it that you really want? What does success look like to you?
For one person it might be to have a little caravan on the edge of the forest, a community, growing food.
For another it might be a downtown penthouse with a view of the river.
Society has no right to tell us what we should want, who we should be. It’s up to us.
We make our worlds with the stories we tell, the images we live by.
What if you don’t know what you want to change?
Ask.
Listen.
Carve out the time for stillness.
Your soul is calling you.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey