I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of super capes.  Super Man whips his out before he goes into action.  Bat Man has one.  J.K. Rowling gave one to Harry Potter, kids draw them on their super heroes.  Darth Vader would have looked less menacing without his.

What if, just by imagining, we all could have one.  And the goodies that come with it—excellent focus, perception, gathering our strength and capabilities.  I’ve seen imagining do some pretty incredible things.  We should give it a try.  Imagine whipping it out like Super Man and letting it settle over us before we go into action.  We might be impressed with the results.

I met this woman once, a friend of a friend, who lived in the garden behind an estate in a small, not quite waterproof trailer.  She had a few friends that she rarely visited and didn’t show much interest in adding me to her list.  Odd.  Reclusive.  And happy with her life.

I had to know how that could possibly be.  So I asked her what it was like, to live there by herself in that trailer.  She got quiet and gathered herself.  Then she looked up, sort of past me, extended her arms a bit and said, “For some people, just being there in the garden is more than they could ever need.”

Wonderment, that’s what she had.  I remember having wonderment.  I was ten or eleven and had new rain boots and a new raincoat with a hood.  If I think about it, I can still smell its newness.  That very week it poured.  Came down so hard it bounced off the pavement.  I put on my boots and raincoat and ran outside into it.  I stomped and splashed and laughed until the cold finally got to me.

When you’re ten or eleven, no one would call you a fool for standing in the rain having wonderment.  Harder to pull off at an age when you should know better.

Not to say only children should have wonderment—we do not stop needing, or knowing, wonderment.  We are more likely to put it on the back burner, or expect that it will take more effort than its worth.

Pish!  That’s just marketing departments doing their job working at selling us big marvelous things and places and experiences. We’ve got wonderment in us.

We just need to let it out.

Say the thought crosses your mind of how amazing it would be to spend the Summer kayaking in Alaska.  The brain shoots back, “Oh, come on!  Where’s the time, never mind the money, to zip off on some fantasy trip?  Do you even know how to kayak?  Impossible!”  All true, you think.  The brain is not lying.  It is hugely true that the time, the money, the skills are not all lined up.  And that is the very thing that puts an end to happy thoughts of kayaking amongst the glaciers.  You are never getting to Alaska.

But you could.  If you don’t let the brain’s assessment get the better of you.  I have a couple of strategies in mind:

1. Start small with trying the impossible.  Small victories, so you’ll be ready when a giant impossibility comes along.  I mean small.  Small like getting up on time, doing at least one nasty chore each day, smiling at the idiot who gets your simple straightforward who could possibly get it wrong order wrong.  You get my drift.
2. Take your brain to the bargaining table.  Not in an adversarial, my-way-or-the-highway way.  In a compassionate way.  Beginning with some deep, slow calming breathing.  Then thank that calculating part of you, the part I call your brain, for having your best interests at heart.  Let it know you appreciate how hard it works for you.  Now let that part of you that is in love with the impossibility your brain wishes to shoot down, show up.  Ask your brain if it is willing to listen to what that part has to say.  More breathing while it considers the request.  When you get a sense of that calculating-brain part of you, I’ll say softening a bit, invite the part that loves your idea to express what it sees as the benefits of doing or having or being what looks impossible.  Now ask your brain if it is willing to stand aside and make room for the possibility of the impossible happening.  Offer it a job: ask it to help with breaking things that need to be done down into small, not so scary steps.  You have now offered your heart and your brain a way to work together.  It may occur that your brain part notices more impossibilities as your project develops.  Let it know that you are always interested in what it wants to show you and promise it you will listen to its concerns so that you can come up with the best possible plan together.  And get to Alaska if that’s what you want.

We, in America, could easily be crowned the biggest time watchers on the planet.  In our own personal space, we have access to info on time passing in at least three ways–our alarm clock,watch, phone, computer.  Now add the clock on the wall, the radio, the TV.  Every form of transit has the time posted for us, our churches ring out the hour.  Schools, places of business have clocks in easy view.  It makes me wonder if the real attraction in shopping and eating out has to do with the absence of time keepers in those establishments.

It has to be anxiety producing, this obsession with tracking our moments.  Seeing no possibility that we’re going to give it up any time soon, I’m taking the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach and offering a way to steal a little time for ourselves.  I’m going to call it the ten minute rule:

Select a timer of your choice, and I know every electronic device we own has one.  Or use the wind-up timer in your kitchen if you haven’t yet succumbed to living your life by beeps.  Set it for ten minutes.  These ten minutes are yours.  Just for you.  Within your ten minute bubble of time, you are free to do anything, or nothing you choose.  It could be ten music minutes, then breathing minutes, ten dancing minutes, ten reading minutes, ten bike-riding minutes, ten watching the stars minutes, ten sudoku minutes.  All for you, in your ten minute bubble.

Then, back in everyone’s time, things may flow easier, be less crowded, less down to the minute.  Thanks to one simple ten minutes of time just for you.

This is for those times when you feel hollow inside, empty in a way that feels like you will never be full again, when there are only questions and no answers, when help seems far, far away:

• Give yourself over to the experience of emptiness. 
• With your focus fully on the emptiness, ask for help from the Beings of the Light Communities, not needing to know anything about them.  With only the thought that they are indeed there.
• Not knowing what their solution will be, open to the possibility of their complete understanding and allow, surrender, to the giving of exactly what you need.  So you are no longer empty, you make room for answers to come, you know firsthand help is with you.
• Honor them with your gratitude in whatever way seems right to you.  

Know that you are, and will always be, blessed.