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Friday, June 4, 2021

What We Want

By Anna Von Reitz

I have often observed that the one question that we are really qualified to answer, if we work at it---- is "What?"

What is that? (Our naming and labeling and identification functions.) and What for? (Our analytic functions.) and What kind? (Our differentiation functions.) and What time? (Our cataloguing functions.) ----all these come naturally to us, but when it comes to "What do you want?" all chaos breaks loose.

We are confused by that question, even though it's a "what" question like any other---- what do you want? What's truly in your heart?

It's as if all our experience of authoritarian rule ("No, you can't have a pony!") and all our experiences of limitation ("No, you can't be an astronaut!") come crashing down on our psyche, and that dogpile of negativity keeps us from answering from the heart, because we already assume that we can't have what we want in this life. So it hardly matters what we want.

In our minds, what we want becomes tangled up with "what's realistic" and "what we can reasonably expect" --- and that entanglement keeps us from ever truly answering the question with our whole heart and mind and body.

What results, then, is a dull, lifeless, rote answer born of intellectual thought, devoid of energy and power.

We all say we want peace and justice and compassion and truth; we want abundance and joy and brotherhood and inspiration; we want unity and love and the reality of all our highest ideals, but....

Now we come to a question that we are not very good at answering: why don't we just go straight for what we want? Why all the stumbling into darkness and war and discord and suspicion and death and limitation and grief?

We now have an opportunity to settle it once and for all. We can answer what we want, and we can have it --- but we have to focus on it.

We have to dwell in the presence of our desire --- that is, we have to think, feel, and know the joy we envision.

Instead of mumbling, "Oh, yeah, I want peace, joy, and understanding...." and then going right on with whatever dirge-like expectations we have regarding our world and our own prospects in it, we have to stop.

We have to attune ourselves to joy and the vision of what we truly want: our Happy Place.

I have such a Happy Place, in fact, I have several Happy Places.

One of them is a place that exists (so far as I know) only in my mind --- a broad shallow stream running through a meadow. I just wade out into the middle of the current and let the water carry away all my fears and sadness and regrets in life, smell the fresh air, watch the little minnows darting in the shallows and the dragonflies hovering like jewels above the water....

Another such place of mine once existed in the physical world, but is no more. It was already passing when I was a small child, but I glimpsed it and I still hold it in my heart.

It was an old stone grist mill on the banks of a small river, with its water wheel still intact and its stones still grinding on a seasonal basis. Beyond the mill was a smithy, and on a summer day, one could sit on a bench in the shade of a giant Burr Oak and listen to the rush of the water and the rhythmic clang of the blacksmith hammering, and hear no sound of the modern world.

No hum from electricity at all. No motors. Just wind and water and the bell-like sound of the hammer.

As often as not, the smell of fresh baked bread would drift down from the white farmhouse slouched on the brow of a small hill above, and there was no doubt in my mind that I had, for my part, encountered a bit of Heaven on Earth. I could sit there for hours and watch the lazy turn of the weathervanes and the slowly changing cloudscape above. I could wander up to the farm house and help myself to a piece of that crusty bread and a bowl of soup.

It seemed that in this blessed and sheltered place, man and God had finally come together in harmony, and all the beauty of life was there for the taking, secure and happy. Even the old retired plow horse was at peace, happy to see me as I offered him a carrot fresh from the garden, and patted his amber cheek.

We all have our Happy Places. It's time to dream of them and say, yes, this is what I want --- my own little dream, whatever it is, wherever it is. Just say it and mean it with all your heart and let go of all the "reasons" you can't have it and can't expect it and won't receive it and yadda, yadda, yadda.

If what you want is peace, love, and understanding, if you want life and want it in abundance ---- then go for it, directly, with all your heart and all your mind. Forget the limitations that someone once placed on your heart and your visions. They didn't mean to cripple you; they were crippled themselves---but now, for you, it's time to rise up and reach out.

Now, things are different. A change has come. And once again, the Universe is asking, "What do you want?"

Send back your vision of your Happy Place, and the feeling that your Happy Place gives you. Reply with all your best hopes and dreams, with all your heart.

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See this article and over 3100 others on Anna's website here: www.annavonreitz.com

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