Dragons & Dreams

I was captivated by the writing of Rainer Maria Rilke in my mid-20’s. A particular quote jumped out at me then. In my mid-40’s this same quote somehow appeared on a scrap of paper lying on the ground outside my home in Lethbridge, Alberta. Now in my 60's, I write about that scrap of paper still sitting on my dresser:

“Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once, beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something that needs our love.”

Rilke, Rainer Maria. Letters to a Young Poet. Translated by M.D. Herter Norton, Renewed 1962 ed., W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1962.

This month is National Indigenous History Month and the start of Pride season. “Everything terrible” could be another person, a group, a business or something inside us that we decide is terrible. It is heartbreaking that people suffer the most horrific pain because they’re deemed an aberration for going through a very difficult process to be authentically themselves or for wanting to live on their land as their ancestors did with honor and respect.

The idea of loving people who create havoc, persecute others who don't hold the same beliefs or the same skin color, who restructure truth and espouse egoic agendas is almost impossible to imagine. No matter what “side” you’re on, is it possible to even understand those people, those groups, those political figures?

The short answer is YES and NO. To get to “yes" demands that we not choose sides at all. We accept that all of us can become different versions of ourselves. We get there through inner growth, through seeking our purpose, through walking our soul-inspired path, through up leveling ourselves spiritually. What we become are people who walk in other’s shoes, people who ask what we can learn from others' “differences”. Who do you think we could be if the majority of the human race thought that way? Is it possible? Here's the "no". It's a conundrum. Humans need struggle and lessons to grow and learn, at least right now we do.

I came to the conclusion awhile ago that the one thing I could do was to work on myself and really love myself, love my shadow parts, love the parts I believed were unlovable. Maybe it’s ourselves who need to find the courage to dig into our “deepest being”, “who are only waiting to see us once, beautiful and brave”.

All that digging is hard to do and at the same time absolutely necessary. It’s the Hero’s journey, an inner drive to matter, to give back, to accomplish something meaningful. On that journey, it takes all of who we are to progress toward our destination. It's how we cultivate our values, beliefs and attitudes, conscious or not. I can say from experience that the journey is incomplete without our soul’s guidance. For me this was not a “religious” journey, as in being a member of a religious group. This was, and still is, a spiritual one, a consciousness journey.

If you have a dream, a calling, something that persistently puts itself in front of you and you’re not walking that dream’s journey, you may have to become a different version of yourself to get there. How does one become “a different version of oneself”? Look at the inner dragons that need your love. Do you truly love yourself enough to start or get back on the “hero’s journey” in service to yourself and the rest of humanity?

I learned the hard way that the more one reacts to life, the more we flounder attempting to get somewhere. When we are the creator of our lives, we become the Hero journeying forward honing who we are and finding where we’re going.

An excerpt from my first book:

“I was reacting to my fears, not creating my life. I was looking for direction ‘out there’ and didn’t know I had an incredible guide for my life’s direction inside me already."...

"How do you go about finding your purpose? Truthfully, the only way I know is to get in touch with your soul and listen to what it’s already trying to tell you through dreams, visions, circumstances, whispers, nudges. It may sound simple, but we humans are complex creatures and some of us need more than whispers and nudges to hear and respond.”

Alice Carlssen Williams, S.O.L. to Soul, Book 1, not published, 2023

FYI, our soul is not responsible for upping the ante when we’re stubborn or not listening. My own choices dictated drastic measures to help me recognize where I was going and who I needed to become. I called those measures “hammers” and “boot camps”. Was it worth it? Yes, a thousand times, YES! Did I learn? Oh yes, I did, eventually.

“This descent, this transcendence, is the journey of soul discovery, which can be engaged only by those who have moved beyond the early adolescence in which our society has stalled. Through an individual’s initiatory time in the underworld of soul, she uncovers a dream, a vision, or a revelation that will “inspire, guide, and drive the action“ for the rest of life, as Thomas (Berry) says, “The dream provides the energy for adult action.”

Bill Plotkin, Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World, 2008th ed. (Novato , CA: New World Library, 2008), Quote is from Thomas Berry, page 8.