For many years I kept a photo, very much like this one, on my computer, as my desktop photo. I believe in affirmations, intentions, etc. and have manifested many things by having a photo of it on a vision board, or somewhere in sight on a regular basis. I had often dreamed of being back in San Diego for my birthday but that vision always included my son, who had been my best friend, and other friends, surrounding me on my special day. Even though I have enjoyed other places I have stayed, San Diego always held the top place in my memories for all the happy and free times I had here as a child, and adult, visiting and staying in either Mission or Pacific beach, next to the ocean. I always dreamed of someday living here, next to the beach.
Well, here I am in San Diego, after being on the road for over 9 months, thinking I had finally landed in my home. But I ended up finding a place to stay, not in my dream place of next to the beach, but in a home in a neighborhood, next to a major freeway. I am very grateful for the place to stay and my lovely and warm host, and I am realizing, I am not home yet. I thought that if I just manifested a place next to the beach, away from the freeways and noise of the city, then I would be “home”. But now I am realizing that I wasn’t led to San Diego on this long journey of bringing healing to others and myself and looking for home, to stay in San Diego, but rather, I was led here to honor my memories of this place and to release it’s hold it has had on my heart and imagination for so many years. I’m not sure how long or short of a time I will be here, but it is clear that I haven’t landed at home yet.
Leading up to my birthday, I felt disappointed again, that my son has chosen to remain out of my life, no matter how many overtures I make to reach out, show my love, my compassion, my desire to share his life and the life of his family, and my attempts to gather local friends to share my BD with, were failing as well. So I had given up and planned a day alone. The day before though, I used access consciousness questions ” What else is possible?”, “How can it get any better than this?”, intentions and prayers, to open up my birthday celebration to unexpected surprises and joy, whether I ended up alone the entire day or not.
I woke up early on my birthday and finally headed out to the breakfast reservation I had made at a restaurant attached to the hotel that my Mom and my son and I often stayed in. It was this hotel that I returned to after my mother died in 1999 and I had returned to Arizona to be with her through the passing and then clear out and sell her home. I had spread her ashes in the sand in front of this restaurant and the hotel. The food and service were great and I was given a complimentary creme brulee for dessert.
After my breakfast I took off walking. I love to walk and often on my vacations to San Diego I will walk up to 8 miles in one day. I walked north on the boardwalk to explore and reminisce, stopped and ate a sno-cone and “joined” in with a world wide meditation taking place, then walked south on the boardwalk to the historic Belmont amusement park where I had spent so much time as a child. Along the way, I passed many familiar places, and ones that had been remodeled as well. Then I turned around and walked back up north on the beach, walking the very picture that I had put on my desktop long ago. Walking along I felt like I was walking in my manifested reality and I could feel the importance of the moment.
I was treated with 2 friends and my Aunt calling to wish me happy birthday while I was walking, essentially then sharing the walk with me. My present host ended up joining me in Old Town San Diego for dinner and then returning to the beach with me for further walking at sunset. I ended up walking 5 hours that day!
So the birthday celebration I had thought was going to be solitary ended up being a very full day of old memories, new memories, releasing my past, opening to my future, and sharing with wonderful people and places. My time on the beach ended by passing a young man and his daily sand castle project. It was his birthday, too, and he was taking a picture of his finished creation. I thought how fitting this end was to my journey that day, as tomorrow, that sand castle will be just another formless pile of sand, ready to be first created in mind and then formed by hands into another creation.
Our lives are like that, too. They start with our dreams, our fears, our thoughts, our feelings, and we mold and create our experiences based on these. We attempt to hold on to our creations, and that holds us back. As we learn to let go, let the sands of our creative energy dissolve into a formless mass again, we are able to start anew, to create a new dream.
We are the creators, joining with Spirit and all the other fellow creators to create our new world. What can you dream of? What can you design?
Empower and Balance 