by Lois Wetzel Werner
I believe Yogi Berra once said something like, "If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll probably end up someplace else." Yet even the ego which knows where it is going doesn’t always end up there. Life throws us curve balls. This is especially true if, as is usually the case, the ego is not in sync with what the soul wants. Think about it. How many people have lives that turned out exactly as they planned? Few, it would seem. The reason is that the soul has a plan. It has things it wants to accomplish. The ego has a plan, too. It was created to do the mundane things, like drive the car and balance the checkbook. The soul has loftier goals. When we get into trouble is when we ignore the soul and let the ego decide the big stuff, like whom do I marry, what is my life’s work, do I have children, and so on. The important matters are the soul’s domain. The soul gets our attention when we are off-track by using synchronicity, dream symbols, and most of all by allowing us to feel miserable when we are in the wrong situation, even if the whole world thinks we have it made. It shows us when we are going in the right direction with the use of synchronicity, in dreams, and in the feeling of joy bubbling up from out of nowhere. When we learn to pay attention to dreams, synchronicity and joy, we have learned to listen to the soul, and the ego is learning when to get out of the way.
Here is an example from my own life. Once upon a time I had created what I thought I wanted. I had a tall, well-built, handsome, successful husband, two beautiful, perfect children, a large Victorian house in Galveston, and two nice new cars. I was a member of the Junior League, and a board member of Galveston Arts, among other organizations. I was a nationally exhibiting artist. And I managed historical commercial properties which I had restored myself. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? But I was quite miserable. I had a deep, inner longing for something I could not quite name. For years I did not know what I was feeling. Then something seemingly minor occurred which made it all begin to clear up for me. It was as if I had been swimming about in mud forever, and then the mud began to settle, and I could start to see.
Fourteen years ago, the day my youngest child started kindergarten, I wandered into a strange little shop just off the Strand. It was run by a tiny, wrinkled old woman named Martha. A sign on the door said, "Tarot readings on Tuesdays." It was a Tuesday. I had never had a Tarot reading. I took the plunge. Another woman named Liz did the reading in the back of the shop on a card table. The essence of the reading was that it was time for me to do my spiritual work. The cards said I had been sort of doing it by reading books, but it was time for me to take action. I wondered aloud what that meant. Liz said, "I am not sure exactly, but I don’t think it means 'go to church next Sunday.’"
Now here is what I mean by synchronicity: the following Sunday there was a four-page spread on metaphysical schools in the Houston Post! That felt like a "sign." I took action. I chose one. I learned how to meditate. After a time, I was having rich dreams which guided me onto an entirely new path in life, and I knew what the dreams meant because I was taking a dream interpretation class at the metaphysical school. A year into this process, I had a very vivid vision in a meditation of a woman, who I knew was myself at about the age of sixty. She looked wonderful! She was glowing all over, and said, "If you have come this far in a year, imagine where you will be in twenty!" She looked so joyous!
The kind of dreams I was having at that same time reached a peak in the following one. I dreamed I was in the very center of a circle of people wearing jewel-colored clothing and large-brimmed round hats of matching colors. There were circles of people within circles within circles, each circle being larger than the next. There were thousands and thousands of people in this ceremonial circle, and I was at the center for a period of time participating in some kind of highly sacred ritual. It felt like an indescribably enormous honor. We were in the Himalayas. It occurred in the month of May. There was some kind of stick with electricity coming out of the end of it involved in the ritual. I woke up so elated and excited that I floated on air for days. This was the opposite of the feeling of inner longing I described earlier. I tried, but could not begin to convey to anyone the feeling of joy that this dream gave me. When I next saw my teacher, William David, he explained that this dream meant I had received an Initiation at the Wesak Festival, which is held on the inner planes in May in the Himalayas each year. This dream was evidence that I was moving in the right direction. William said that Initiations like that are given to us only when we are making enormous strides in our spiritual development.
My husband went ballistic over all this "crazy stuff," and has never yet come back to earth on the subject. Four years later I struck out on my own (got divorced) and have been going it alone ever since. It has been ten years now. The kids have come and gone. They have had their own stars to follow.
I am now living in a very little house and driving a car I have had for seven years. I long ago quit the volunteer organizations of the marriage years. I am doing Tarot readings myself, plus shamanic work and massage therapy. I am growing herbs and making them into tinctures and using crystals to assist people in healing. I recently put up a sign in the front yard of the little house, and turned the living room into a metaphysical shop. My ego did not like this part, but my soul demanded it. Once we know how to listen to the soul, if we ignore it, our lives really start to fall apart. Remember, listening to the soul means paying attention to dreams and/or dream symbols in waking life, synchronicity and joy (or its opposite, anxiety/depression).
Now that I am doing my soul’s purpose, people show up to help me. Synchronicity is a daily way of life. And I am deliriously happy. Why? The only explanation I can come up with is that what I manifested earlier in life, the successful, handsome husband, big house, and new cars, did not fulfill my soul’s deepest desire. They were what my ego thought it needed to find fulfillment. They were our culture’s definition of successful as well. Of course, doing what my soul wants does not preclude having a husband, even a tall, handsome, successful one, or a big house, or new cars. But those would be incidentals, not the goal of life. Doing healing work, tending a garden, meditating, and teaching others about spirituality, this brings me happiness, regardless of all the rest. It does not matter if my ego understands, or if it is what society projects that will make me happy. This is what my soul wants. My dreams, all the synchronicity in my life, and the joy which bubbles up from out of nowhere all tell me this. This is not to say that I have not gone somewhat off track at any time in the past ten years. I most certainly have. But each time I do, I manage to get back on track using one spiritual technique or another, such as the meditation and dream journal technique I mentioned above, which I have learned on this path. And each time I return, I have learned something new which deepens my soul’s hold over my life, and trains the ego how to know when to get out of the way, and let the soul rule its domain.
