Shining bright

"I dream. I test my dreams against my beliefs. I dare to take risks. And I execute my vision to make those dreams come true." Walt Disney

I was deep in my meditation when the child came walking towards me in the desert. She shimmered in the light, her being refracted by a thousand rays of sun glittering all around me. As she approached she smiled and held her tiny hands towards me, offering me the brilliant ball of light that danced upon her outstretched palms. As I grasped the light I felt my body expand into hers, the light immersing us both in its brilliant prism of a thousand colours reflecting the beauty of our human condition.

After the meditation ended, as we went around the circle speaking of our experiences and I had shared mine, Del, our guide asked me, "What do you know?"

"There was a voice," I said. "There was no source to the voice. No place to find it. It simply was. "There is no past. No future. They are one and the same. They are present, here in the now," the voice said. And in its clarity I saw the truth of that moment -- I was right there. In the now. Being the light."

"And stated in the 'I', what do you know?" he prodded.

"I am my truth. I am the light."

At one point in the meditation, there was a moment where I saw mankind. A car drove down a street, hit a child crossing the road. The father came. The child lay on the concrete. The driver stood by his car, tears streaming down his face, angrily shaking his fist. The father walked towards the man, held out his arms and embraced him.

There was a mass of people, dressed in white, walking towards an army of men holding guns pointed towards them. The army fired, the people kept walking towards the guns, even as those amidst them who were hit, fell to the ground. They kept walking and the army kept firing until, the army laid down its guns and embraced the people walking towards them.

"That is the truth," said the voice, "We are beings of love."

I have a dream, spoke Martin Luther King, Jr. on a hot August day in 1963.

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I too have a dream. That we, the human race, are born to be free. Born to live our greatness, unfettered by the fears of our limitations. We are not born to fall. We are born to fly. We are not born to wallow in the muck of human suffering. We are born to walk and run and leap amidst the beauty of our human condition being all that we can be when we let go of fearing the beauty of our existence. We are born to dream and have our dreams come true.

I have a dream of peace on earth. I have a dream of love amidst all humankind. I have a dream of a world where war is no longer fought. Where children no longer starve or die because of unpure drinking water. I have a dream of a world where no one kills another for the cost of a rock of crack, or the shirt on their back. I have a dream of a world where humankind values themself and each other more than they value violence and drugs and money and sex and getting what they want at the expense of everyone around them. I have a dream of a world of harmony.

I do not believe my dream is impossible. I believe my dream is closer now than its ever been before. I believe my dream is possible and I am willing to risk stating my dream, to put into action all my being the light of my truth to make my dream come true.

What about you? What do you dream? What do you believe? What are you willing to risk to have your dream come true?

Do you believe? In a world of no more war. Of no more starving children. Of no more violence and drugs and people falling on our streets, lining the sidewalks leading to a shelter?

What do you believe? What are you willing to risk?

We all have dreams. We all fear taking action to make our dreams come true for we all fear our dreams will never come true. And in our fear of dreaming, our dreams die unspoken, unrealized, unseen.

Dreams can come true when we risk letting go of our fear of dreaming and pick up our courage to take action to make our dreams come true. When we choose to put down arms of war and hold out arms of peace. When we quit walking away from suffering and choose instead to embrace eachother in love. When we choose to stop falling into the darkness of despair and choose instead to stand for what we believe in. When we choose life over death, peace over war, love over hatred, joy over anger. When we choose these things that create more of what we want in the world, our dreams do come true.

For in our dreams is the truth of who we are. We are the light of the world, shining as brightly as our greatest dream of peace and love for all humankind.