December 31, 2013

Wish List

I strongly believe in a spiritual underpinning to the universe. I try to access it through Jewish ritual, by spending my time as much as possible with what is real, and by keeping my eyes and heart wide open. I don't subscribe to psychic stuff. (Ok, I confess, I love the occasional tarot card reading but not like I love the Rabbi of Ger.) 

But I do love this.
Specifically, I am a sucker for the exercise called "Pot of Goals" on page 81.It takes 7 days. On Day 1, number a page from 1 to 20. After each number, you write, "I wish.." Then you fill it in with wishes for "what you want to do, to be, to experience, more than on what you want to consume or own...for example, wish for 'living in the mountains in a big house' instead of 'a big house in the mountains.'" 

Don't think too much about each wish. Just write.

And then do follow the rest of this schedule:
  • Day 2, narrow your list to 12 wishes. 
  • Day 3, to nine wishes. 
  • Day 4, to seven wishes.
  • Day 5, to five wishes.
  • Day 6, to three wishes.
  • Day 7, to three final wishes. Which, Sonia says, usually reflect your truest desires at this time.

She says to tape this list somewhere where you see it everyday. Me, I just put it away. And when I check back with it a year or so later, well...damn, stuff has come true.


Ok, I get the part where the simple act of focusing helps drill a clean hole into your subconscious so that your soul's yearnings drive your conscious choices. There's no psychic voodoo attached to writing "I wish I could go on an adventure trip every year" one year and finding that two years later, I have hiked the Cotswolds and The Jesus Trail. To writing "I wish my quilting would be more artistic" and then finding myself a student of Jude Hill's Spirit Cloth. Or scribbling "I wish I took myself more seriously as a writer" and finding myself the author of a blog.

But here's where the soundtrack gets a little eerie and the spirit world starts to giggle at my arrogance. One year, in desperation, I wished that "I get to be in my backyard without the insanity of the Evil Neighbor." (A guy who, at his finest, would leave his radio outside blasting Rush Limbaugh into my yard while he ducked back into his house.) We all know you can't change other people. So you'd expect my wish would produce a change in my behavior, right? That I would find my way to tolerance and equinamity?


Guess again. Because my wish for peace and quiet in my backyard culminated in him getting 10 years of Federal prison for embezzlement and fraud and money laundering.  How does THAT work??? (But the real moral is just don't fuck with me, baby, because I am Connected!!)

So I am a believer after all. I thought I would try a new list tonight, when the New Year's zeitgeist is all about resolutions, intentions, whatever you want to call it.

I numbered from 1 to 20.

And then I just stared. Because at this moment, well, I feel no yearning. No deep desire to change anything. Oh sure, there are those 20 pounds, but they've been on the list so long that the statue of limitations has kicked in. And yes, I want to learn how to work those stupid remotes,but that's about as realistic as "world peace" in a beauty pageant.

So this new year's eve, how about I turn instead from wishing to enjoying? A few glasses of Prosecco, my homemade mu-shu chicken with lettuce wraps and my homemade hot and sour soup, with that man of my dreams.  After the kitchen is clean, we get a rerun of Columbo and maybe a movie (although there is an inverse relationship between drinking Prosecco and remaining awake.)

And before I do, let me say this.You have all touched me so much this year with your attention to my words. Thank you so much.

And the best of all your wishes for you in 2014.   

16 comments:

  1. enjoyed this a lot. and i'm laughing a bit because the manifestations of your wishes seem pretty "real" to me. think i'll give this a whirl-around. so glad you've started a blog--it always gives me a chuckle and/or at least a good thought to contemplate. love to you

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    1. Your words mean so much to me,Patricia. As you know, its an odd experience sending words "out there" and the feedback that they've landed somewhere feels great.

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  2. all the very best to you too! and I am now of course thinking in my muddled manner what my 20 wishes would be and instead of wrtiting I stumble through thoughts of spending time with dear friends and maybe even not so dear and coming here and reading your truly delightful posts; we were talking about this last evening at a friends house: we all of us notice how as we grow older, we become more sentimental and tearful and feel more than we used to, and I think basically that is what I would wish for: share the love, listen to one another without judging, have dinners in front of the tv and try not to worry and enjoy it all as much as I am capable of.....and don't take myself too seriously

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    1. Wow, I never thought about having dinner in front of the TV because my Inner Mother yells at me. Maybe I will give it a try. I love you coming here and my wish for you is the readiness to have another dog for your walks along the canal.

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  3. oh this is so good, chuckling away about hoe you are "Connected" big time indeed ! & yeah, it's cool to just enjoy... that's really more than enough at this stage of the game... the Old Man Crow and I look at each other and laugh and can't believe our luck that we are
    a) still here on the planet (not through any amount of good planning or care)
    and
    b) people still pay us to look after their tiny gardens so we can pay the rent and don't have to be homeless old gypsies... yet!

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    1. oops... typo... that hoe before the "Connected" is meant to be a how

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    2. Mo, your sense of "Aint it All Grand?" is so so infectious. Are you and the Ole Crow always laughing, that is what I imagine, anyway. Happy new year way down there...

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  4. julie. i enjoy your blog very much when i visit. spirit combined with hilarity and real life. and i really like what you do with cloth too. best wishes. lindamorris

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    1. Linda!!! I am so glad you are a fan. Funny you should write now, when yesterday I saw the sweater your daughter mended for Dad in the What If forum. That made me take out a sweater that some moth is trying to turn into a vest and go to work. Thanks for the kind words and connecting.

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  5. i have thought about this post for two days straight. off and on. all two days straight.
    i love it that you numbered and then
    stared
    that there was no yearning rising up...just love this.
    but there is more that i haven't been able to touch yet about the thought that you bring
    here. i'm waiting for it to show up. it will.
    Thank you, Julie. I am so so glad you are a part of my life...love,

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    1. Back at ya, baby. I am having the same reaction as you, today I wonder if the lack of wishes is some kind of problem, a lack of will and drive? You think it over and let us know.

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  6. NO. it is NOT a lack of will and drive. NO. it is NOT that

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  7. well..i think it might be more simple than i even thought. that you have it right there
    already...wishing (wanting) to enjoying. easy peasy.
    and maybe it's that
    that
    comes as a Surprise.....
    that simply enjoying what Is is NOT the norm. that wanting/wishing/envisioning IS.
    what about content?
    to be content.
    and yes....the interesting thought...that lack of wanting well, indicates some kind of
    lack of will, lack of engagement...how odd, really

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    1. this is Bingo. When contentment starts to creep in, it feels strange. I need to write about this more. Thank you thank you Grace.

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    2. i am waiting to read what you write about this....waiting.....
      this is the time for it, i feel, for all of us

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