Bottling this Archived Post

Photo by Spangles44, flickr.com

Last night, I was going through my "archived blog" -- Flowing With Nature -- and came upon a post from Saturday, August 12, 2006 which was fun to read again, so I've decided to share it here. I called it Dream Interpretation. I wrote:

Tonight, when I picked my son up from his friend Christian's house, my friend and Christian's mother, Charo, mentioned that she and the children (her three, my one and her daughters' friend) had just wrapped up a dance contest to old-school music. They had traveled around the inside of her house dancing in a line, and the winner would be the one who outlasted everyone. Turns out, my always-full-of-energy Caleb won. Charo joked, "Well, I said, 'he's like his Momma. This would go on all night.'" My friends think I have mega energy. I guess they're right -- sometimes.

The children were telling me about different dances they had come up with during their "Soul Train" time. Then, Caleb requested I bust out a move. Feeling put on the spot, I responded: "Well, you all had an opportunity to warm up. I just got here." (Any excuse to take the spotlight off of me, I guess.)

Charo interjected that I'd probably turn some Yoga move into a dance step. We laughed, but she was right. Her comment suddenly reminded me about a dream I had last night.

In that dream, I did a full handstand and then with my arms still holding the rest of my body up, I lowered my legs to a 90-degree angle. In that position in my dream, my 10-year-old son grabbed on to my feet or ankles, and I lifted my legs and his entire body back up to my original handstand position. Using the bottom of my feet as support, he was doing his own handstand in this dream. Then, some way, some how, he did a flip (I think) and connected back to my feet that were held high in the air.

Next, both of us positioned our bodies to our version of a Half Moon yoga pose. In this case, I guess it would have been a Handstand Half Moon pose. That would mean that I removed one of my supporting hands from the floor while doing the handstand and fully extended it out to my side. Plus, I would have put space between my legs. In the dream, my son adjusted his body to imitate our Half Moom position while still using my feet as support for one arm this time.

Prior to ending the dream, we then returned to our original handstand position (Caleb's hands on top of my feet). Quite controllably, I proceeded to lower him and my legs back down to the floor and then resumed my individual handstand position.

Instantly, Charo said: "That signified your motherhood strength." She was just talking off the top of her head, but since she's such a deep-thinking, intuitive person, I couldn't help but wonder if she might have been accurately interpreting that handstand-with-my-son dream. She was convincing. Hmmh!

Until that point, I had simply viewed my dream as a result of my love of yoga and gymnastics. I figured my son was involved in that activity because of his athletic/kinesthetic nature, and because of the way he loves to challenge himself.

Who knows.....maybe Charo has a future in dream interpretation.

Anyone else out there interpret dreams -- for free? :-)

Bottling Dreams of the Heart

Happy Monday, Everyone! Welcome!

Thanks for stopping by to find out what's being bottled here at BottlingHealth.com. Hopefully, you'll pick up some useful tips along the way that you can bottle, too.

Daily Readings from Become a Better You: 90 Devotions for Improving Your Life Every Day by Joel Osteen has become my "read" for 2009. And, my life is truly getting better every day because of it. Now, it's not that I didn't already have a fulfilling life, but so many of my heart's passions are just rising to newer levels and connecting in a more solid way since I started this journey with Joel Osteen at the start of the year.

In today's reading (one I had previously read), Osteen discusses following the dreams of our hearts, a process I live my life by and a topic that has been popping up a lot around me lately. I recently wrote about the topic for a local newspaper, an article that encourages parents to follow their children's heart when selecting summer camps this year. In my related article, I suggest parents be mindful of picking camps that really do line up with their children's deepest passions, because those passions are often connected to children's deeper purposes in life.

For instance, I've loved writing for as long as I can remember. My parents noticed this passion of mine during my childhood, and nurtured it. One of my favorite writing "assignments" given to me that will forever live in my heart is when my daddy suggested I write about our family when I was about 10 years old. I took took on that project as though I had just received an offer from a well-known publishing company.

I still remember the jagged edges of the paper I used to write my masterpiece on; I had pulled the pages from a spiral notebook. I still remember standing at the desk in my bedroom and stapling that lined paper together with pride when I was done. And, as if it was yesterday, I remember that I used a pencil and not pen to write my "book". While I don't like to hang on to things, I surely do wish that is something I still had in my possession. But, I do have the memory of it, and that is good. Years and years later, my love for writing has not changed. In fact, that love grew, and I am clear that one of my gifts to make a difference in this world is via writing.

"Before you were born, God saw you, and He endowed you with gifts and talents uniquely designed for you. He's given you ideas and creativity, as well as specific areas in which you can excel," Osteen explains in Daily Readings from Become a Better You: 90 Devotions for Improving Your Life Every Day.

"Why, then, do so many people today feel unfulfilled in their lives, merely going to work at some mundane job, trying to earn a living, stuck in a career they don't even like?" Osteen continues. "The answer is simple: They are not pursuing the dreams and desires God has placed within their hearts."

Jinjee Talifero, publisher of Pear Magazine.com, says that heart-following is something that should be nurtured in children from young. If we don't nurture our little ones to follow their hearts, we will, of course, end up with more generations like what Osteen has described above -- grown children stuck in unfulfilled roles. Do you want that for your children. I KNOW that's not what I want for mine. I want him to take on this life with the gifts and fire for life and passion that God has blessed him with and go forward and use those to carve out his niche in contributing to this world. The heart is so beautifully sacred, so why would our desires that live there not be?

Osteen goes on to say that the wealthiest places on earth are not some of those places that probably come to mind for you, but rather -- "cemeteries" -- because there lies "dreams and desires that will never be fulfilled. Buried beneath the ground are books that will never be written, businesses that will never be started, and relationships that will never be formed."

Will you begin listening to your heart's dreams and desires now while encouraging your children to do the same, or will you be one of those who, like many others, just take them along with you when you "go"?

Begin bottling your dreams, and start today!

I'm cheering for you!!!

With LOVE,

Penny