Gimme A Sign - Now!

Newsflash – I can be impatient. Impatience has been a theme in my life lately. I'm so excited about my new projects that I tend to get impatient with my current commitments. I want to get on with it. I want to skip the next 10 chapters of my day job and end up in a new life. In this new life, I go with the flow and work on my new projects all the time. So instead of being patient and going with the flow now, I'm grouchy, grumbly and angry at the Universe for not giving me the magic bullet to get to the future instantly. I want instant answers to how it will look and what I’ll be doing, and I want them now.

So, during my lunch-hour at work, I sought advice from my coach, and then tried my best to cool my jets and absorb all the good, but not instantly-transformative advice I'd been given. I decided it would be a good idea to take a walk around the block, to clear my head. My coach had told me that before she left her corporate job that she had asked for a sign. So as I tried my best not to scuff my shoes in frustration, I asked for a sign. "Give me an obvious sign that I should be following this new path", I asked the Universe.

I walked out of the building absent-mindedly and opened the newspaper box for my alternative weekly paper. The front headline on the paper was "Ding, Dong the Myth is Dead". Hmmm, I thought. The illustration was a picture of the Wicked Witch of the West laying under the words "Ding, Dong", with her ruby red slippers sticking out.

Hmmm, I thought again. My first post on this blog is about how I had been given obvious and numerous signs and symbols related to the Wizard of Oz, indicating I follow a new path for my life. The Wizard of Oz signs always seemed to indicate the necessity of me following a new Yellow Brick Road to find me sitting there as the Wizard of my own life. The Myth = my job? My old life?I flipped the paper open to the feature article. The real-life witch in question was in fact a friend of my parents, who had become an acquaintance of mine. Hmmm, I thought again. Her alternative lifestyle and politics had initially made her very different from the mainstream of society here. But sticking to her beliefs, her slow persistence was making her more accepted into the mainstream.

"Well", I thought to myself. "Okay, that could have been a sign, but I'm still not convinced." "Gimme another sign if it's really supposed to happen", I asked. A few minutes later, a lady walked by in bright red ruby slippers. Hmmm, I thought."How about another one?" I asked. After all, you can never be too sure and I WAS almost 3/4 of the way around my block.

A new piece of graffiti was on a phone booth - "More X please". "X" was the name of a practitioner I had just seen. She had just given me some illuminating information about my new path. "Alright fine", I grumbled. Then the Ding Dong went back into her building, trying not to smile.

Thanks to from Mykl Roventine for the ruby slippers photo! http://www.flickr.com/search/?l=4&w=all&q=ruby+slippers&m=text

Copyright 2009, Kara Thompson Conduit of Joy

Hello Yellow Brick Road!

A few weeks ago, I took my kids to see "The Wizard of Oz". It was fantastic. I had forgotten, or maybe I never knew how many levels the story worked on. The scarecrow unbeknownst to himself was smart. The lion actually had courage when the chips were down. The tinman realized he did have lots of heart.

The plucky little duffer that played Dorothy was the catalyst for it all. She was the one little girl who had the gumption to do what everyone else was scared to do. She challenged the powers that be, and helped everyone around her, including herself, to see their own amazing truths. When she didn't know what to do, her friend Glinda the Goodwitch came to her assistance. Amazing how once she decided to whole-heartedly commit to something, the Universe helped her along.

So what does this "Somewhere Over the Rainbow-ing" have to do with me?

The day after I saw the play, I was laying in bed listening to the radio when "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" came on the radio. The next day I heard it again. Then I was reading a blog post that mentioned the Wizard of Oz. Once the Universe shows me three signs in short order I pay extra careful attention. I had been asking the Universe for guidance on what to do with my life - what was the relevance of these messages for me?

When I was a wee child, I loved to sing more than anything. I sang with my whole heart.It was all I really ever wanted to do. I sang all day long, as loud as I could and whenever I wanted. I could sing louder than my entire elementary school choir, which I considered a point of pride.

One day, our music teacher told us we'd be performing the musical "The Wizard of Oz". Once I heard the music, I was hooked. I absolutely loved the song "Somewere Over the Rainbow". Then our music teacher told us that only kids from the grade above us would be considered for the lead roles of Dorothy, the Tinman, the Scarecrow and the Lion. I was incensed! I knew I was the best singer in the school and I wouldn't be eligible to Dorothy?

I auditioned and was cast as one of the Munchkins. This was not good enough for me. I knew I was a better singer than the girl who had been cast as Dorothy, and I wouldn't stand for it. I couldn't stand for it, because it was wrong. She didn't love that song when she sang it, like I would have. I demanded a re-audition, pint-sized diva that I was.

My music director politely re-auditioned me and told me that since I was in the lower grade that I would still be a Munchkin. He tried to console me by telling me that I was an excellent singer, and I could audition for a lead role the next year. The unfairness! How could talent not trump ridiculous rules! Was this how the world operated? My indignation did not abate for many years.

Flashforward 28 years....What happened to that Dorothy wanna-be? I appear to have lost my pluckiness and my ruby slippers. I am far from "home" - who I am really am. I need to create something that is truly of me, and has genuine meaning for me. Something that could channel my real feelings and ideas. Things that weren't being coaxed out in my paid employment. Perhaps a blog would be a good idea...

Back then was such a "plucky" Dorothy, and I didn't even have the knowledge, experience, skills that I have now. Perhaps I will borrow a little "Dorothy-ness" from the little diva that I was. Perhaps that "Dorothy-ness" can lead me down my own yellow-brick road towards Kansas.

Guess what? This morning I woke up to the sounds of Judy Garland on the radio. First thing I saw at the office was a co-worker was wearing her ruby-red slippers. A tiny tornado just ripped by and pulled the sticky with these ideas on it up, up and away....here I go!