The process of giving up television has given the gift of showing just how much it and other mindless past times have separated me from life, from a deeper connection with my Higher Self…the spiritual self…the soul. I have discovered, through this process, that I have used mindless television-watching—even though I didn’t watch that much—to numb myself from life. I used it as a way to cut myself off from a voice within that wanted to come out and sing, speak, play. I had no idea….but then I discovered it wasn’t only television….it was anything that put me on auto-pilot and that included books I had read many times before, favorite movies. As I tracked myself I became more aware of the distractions I used to keep my inner voice quiet.

After culling TV, I recently pulled up a completely mindless book I’ve read several times simply as a pacifier, something to take the edge off, to dampen that inner ‘something’ that wanted to happen. My excuse was, I know there is something calling me but I don’t know what to do. The problem was I was thinking of the solution as being something I had to ‘do’ instead of simply being still and listening.

So this morning the pouring rain and storms kept me off my bicycle. Couldn’t even do front porch yoga due to lightning. What to DO….what to DO!??! That voice within found a way to tap my mind and suggested I dedicate this day to listening and not distracting myself. Why not?

 

I went upstairs to the gathering room where I meditate, where women’s drum circles are held, and dialed into stillness. I began drumming and an inner journey began.

I saw myself inside a shell…something between an egg and a chrysalis. I have been feeling this shell-like structure around me for several days so wasn’t surprised to see it in the meditation. A crack started at the top and went to the bottom, opening the shell. I saw myself with butterfly wings at first, with brilliant colors, and then I morphed into a Pegasus horse with wings that had a slight rainbow tint.

In the journey, I flew from my home in coastal Alabama to a place near Chimney Rock, North Carolina…a wooded place. It was amazing and perfect for me.

When the journey was complete I offered gratitude and went downstairs for lunch. I began researching Pegasus and found his father was Poseidon, god of the sea—that’s rather appropriate for me—and his mother was Medusa, the goddess that had hair made of snakes…and onlookers turned to stone if they looked at her. Pegasus was born from her blood when her head was cut off.

As I looked at the bottom of the search page it listed my search origin location as Chimney Rock, North Carolina. I had been there in the journey, no doubt, but at that particular moment my body and phone were sitting in my home in Magnolia Springs…Alabama.

Then one of the pages about Pegasus had a rainbow background…reminding me of the rainbow colors of myself as Pegasus. Oh, and let’s not forget the walk I did after lunch with my dog Buddy. As we went under a magnolia tree I saw a cicada shell and the freshly hatched insect known as a translucent cicada… with beautiful wings drying in the air. I had the exact same experience in the journey as my wings dried after ‘I’ hatched from the hard shell.

The Bangles song, Manic Monday, came to mind but with a new title: Just Another Magic Monday.It seemed that taking the step to put aside anything that distracts me from inner experiences wanting to be birthed was worth it. Synchronicities were popping like lighting bolts that filled the sky earlier in the day.

How would our lives change if we put the beautiful, sacred self as a priority and stopped trying to cut off its voice…with television, news, social media, mindless books, arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong? Just one morning of doing this resulted in amazing experiences and clarity and…quite honestly…a big dose of WOW!

One other bit of information came to me about Pegasus. He has always been in service to poets. I reflected back to my recent writing about Freddie Mercury and living your life purpose. When I feel most aligned with the reason I came into this life is when I can take an experience and titrate it down into magical words of poetry. So…welcome Pegasus. I think it’s time we work together.

Patrick Kavanagh, an Irish poet, wrote one of my most favorite poems, Pegasus. Perhaps this poem, more than anything, explains the meaning of seeing myself break free as Pegasus in the journey.

 

My soul was an old horse

Offered for sale in twenty fairs.

I offered him to the Church—the buyers

Were little men who feared his unusual airs.

One said: ‘Let him remain unbid

In the wind and rain and hunger

Of sin and we will get him—

With the winkers thrown in—for nothing.’

Then the men of State looked at

What I’d brought for sale.

One minister wondering if

Another horse-body would fit the tail

That he’d kept for sentiment-

The relic of his own soul—

Said, ‘I will graze him in lieu of his labour.’

I let him for a week or more

And he came back a hurdle of bones,

Starved, overworked, in despair.

I nursed him on the roadside grass

To shape him for another fair.

I lowered my price. I stood him where

The broken-winded, spavined stand

And crooked shopkeepers said that he

Might do a season on the land—

But not for high-paid work in towns.

He’d do a tinker, possibly.

I begged, “O make some offer now,

A soul is a poor man’s tragedy.

He’ll draw your dungiest cart,’ I said,

‘Show you short cuts to Mass,

Teach weather lore, at night collect

Bad debts from poor men’s grass.’

And they would not.

Where the Tinkers quarrel I went down

With my horse, my soul.

I cried, ‘Who will bid me half a crown?’

From their rowdy bargaining

Not one turned. ‘Soul,’ I prayed,

‘I have hawked you through the world

Of Church and State and meanest trade.

But this evening, halter off,

Never again will it go on.

On the south side of ditches

There is grazing of the sun.

No more haggling with the world…’

As I said these words he grew

Wings upon his back. Now I may ride him

Every land my imagination knew.