|
Weekly Message; Off To See The Wizard
There is a line in The Wizard of Oz where
Dorothy picks up her faithful companion, Toto, and says something along the
lines of “.... Oh, Toto, something tells me we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
That “not in Kansas” state of mind means that things look
different, unfamiliar, everything seems to have changed and old mind sets
and patterns of interpreting the world just don’t seem to fit anymore.
I know that feeling. It usually follows on the heels of
some dramatic event, something quick and unexpected, something shocking
and/or painful, something that tends to knock the breath out of one for a
time.
In the case of Dorothy and Toto, the event was a tornado
that literally picked up her old life, tossed it into another dimension, and
landed her squarely on top of a the Wicked Witch of the East.
For the rest of us here in the “real world”, the event
could be any number of life changing situations and circumstances from
divorce to a death in the family to a natural disaster to some catastrophic
event that one could not begin to imagine or predict.
In the beginning of this classic movie which was
acknowledge by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest movies of
all times, certainly one of the most metaphysically ripe ... we are
introduced to the young girl, Dorothy, who lived in a black and white world.
She is living in a very drab environment of black, white
and varying shades of gray.
The sky, house, barn, and fields are all gray.
Dorothy sees her Uncle Henry and Auntie M to be just as
gray as the rest of her environment.
There is no laughter there are no smiles.
Kansas appears to be a very
serious place.
Metaphysically, we can think of Kansas as a drab
state mind in which one has yet to discover or has, for whatever reason,
chosen to deny the color, the excitement, the joy, the adventure, and the
beauty that lies within just waiting to be brought forth into the world
..... through us.
A tornado deposited our heroine into the Land of Oz, a land
of potential, possibility and challenge just as our own personal conflicts
and storms can serve to transport us into that place of potential,
possibility and challenge.
And perhaps that the tornado deposited Dorothy right off
the bat onto the Wicked Witch of the East is a metaphor implying that before
we can begin any progressive spiritual journey, before we can rise up to
meet the adventures and challenges of life, we have to do away with any and
all erroneous belief systems within us that say,
“You are not enough. You are not loveable. You are limited.
You will never be anything other than what you’ve always
been.”
If we are unable to overcome a defeatist and negative
attitude, then how can we claim the courage and the faith to find and travel
the path to our highest good?
And from the moment that Dorothy meets the Munchkins,
Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, and all the rest, she realizes that her
focus and her quest is to find her way back home.
One wonders, why is she so determined to return to Kansas
if her interpretation and experience of it, of home was so drab, dull and
lifeless?
Perhaps it’s the old adage of not knowing what we have, not
knowing the potential that is ours, not realizing and understanding and
appreciating what we have until it appears as if it’s gone.
Or perhaps Dorothy’s journey is to find out just what
home is.
In truth, each of our individual quests, no matter how
varied or similar they appear to be is a quest to find our way home.
Spiritually, home is that pure state of
knowing and living our oneness with our God.
Home
is something that we take with us.
It is the real and sure knowing that nothing and no one can
ever separate us from the love, from the reality, from the “being-ness” of
God.
Dorothy is told that there is only one way to get back home
and that is to journey to see the great and terrible Wizard of Oz who lives
in the exact center of the kingdom.
Each of us has within us, at the very center of our being,
a center of awareness where we can find that Secret Place of the Most High.
From this center, we are able to communicate and commune
with our God as we wait and listen for answers and guidance that are
available to us there.
Dorothy is anxious to get to the center of the kingdom, she
is anxious to be off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and she
is told by the beautiful good witch, Glinda, that to do so she must follow
the yellow brick road and that she will be, at all times, protected. What an
angel that good witch Glinda is; and beautiful too.
The idea of the yellow brick road corresponds with the
belief that we all have our own right and perfect path that is clearly
marked and will ultimately lead within.
Sometimes we are too distracted to see the path.
Sometimes we feel to weary for the journey.
Sometimes we become fearful when the path, bold and well
marked as it seems at first, disappears on the horizon of the unknown.
I liken the idea of the yellow brick road to what the
prophet Isaiah spoke of in Isaiah 40:
A voice cries:
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make
straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and
hill be made low;
The uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places
a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh
shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
The path may lie sparkling ahead of us, just like a yellow
brick road, asking only that we have the heart, the courage, and the
intelligence to begin.
And as we begin we can rest assured that there will be
challenges, difficulties, dangers and the path will from time to time be in
deep shadow and difficult to discern.
And as we continue to travel on the spiritual quest we find
that we have to dig deeper in order to tap into new resources, new energies,
new insights, new sources of strength to keep us strong and moving forward
on the path.
One of the greatest gifts that the universe gives on this
path-o-life journey is our traveling companions.
Dorothy encounters some interesting characters on her
journey to be sure. First is the Scarecrow who, when he finds out where
Dorothy is headed, wants very much to tag along in the off chance that the
Wizard of Oz can give him a brain.
Dorothy and Scarecrow then meet and assist the Tin Woodsman
who then joins them hoping that the Wizard will give him a heart.
Soon after, Lion comes across them and after some
discussion it was decided that if the Wizard could give each of them what
they want, then surely he could give Lion some much needed courage.
There have been times in my life when I could relate to
feeling limited in intelligence, in loving compassion and in courage.
There have been times when my prayers have been to a God
outside of me, beseeching that God to give me the wisdom, the love and the
courage that I believed I did not possess.
As the story goes on, we see that Scarecrow is in fact very
smart;
And Tin Woodsman is very kind and loving;
And Lion is very courageous indeed.
At one point in the story our intrepid characters decide to
take a short cut off the yellow brick road through a field of poppies.
Metaphysics a-plenty here.
As our travelers, in an effort to save time, cut across the
poppy field, poppies being what they are, give off an odor that began to
lull our travelers to sleep.
How many times have we attempted to take a short cut in our
spiritual journey, or in our spiritual practice only to find that as we do,
we begin to fall asleep to the things that are really important?
Or perhaps we encounter unusually challenging circumstances
in life and begin to think that maybe we could just take a little something
to make it all go away.
It has been said that as long as we are willing to settle
for ... “This is good enough” then we will never be or never have our
very best.
So the troops rally, make their way back to the yellow
brick road and continue on toward the Emerald City ... home of the Wizard of
Oz.
Throughout their journey they are continually threatened
and harassed by the wicked witch of the West who is seeking revenge for the
death of her sister who met her karma underneath Dorothy’s house.
Finally, from that place of inner innocence and purity,
Dorothy is inspired to throw a bucket of water on the wicked witch and
watches in amazement as she melts away like so many lemon drops on a hot
summer day.
The wicked witch seemed to have such tremendous power, but
she was not authentic. In truth, she had no power at all except for the
power that people chose to give her.
Unfortunately, the Wizard of Oz had no power either. Turns
out, he was a very good man and a not so good wizard.
However the Wizard of Oz did have sufficient metaphysical
insight to help Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman, and Lion to realize that what they
desired most, what they were seeking most ... was within them already and
had been there all along.
Dorothy also learns that the kingdom she seeks is within
her and that she has always had the power to go home.
Dorothy, just like the rest of us, just had to find things
out for herself.
All she had to do was to click her ruby slippers together
three times affirming “There is no place like home.”
In his book, Reel Spirit, Raymond Teague
writes:
“Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly
Lion represent the different ways in which we think that we become
separated from God, our good, our wholeness. In actuality, of course, we are
never separated from God. ‘In him we live and move and have our
being.’ We all battle forces that seem to come from outside us – our Wicked
Witches of the East and West – and others play into our projections, but we
all can learn the value of going within to find our God essence. The Holy
Spirit is always there to guide us to the right paths and the man-made
Wizards that will serve to turn us inward to God.”
And as we go from this place to continue our journey on the
path to spiritual unfolding, I leave you with wisdom from one of Unity’s own
Wizards, Eric Butterworth, from his book, Discover the Power Within.
“In all experience, life asks the question of you, “Who
do you think you are?” The challenge is to get still and quietly reflect
upon the whole (hu)man that you are. Humanly you may be terribly sick,
discouraged, insufficient. But this is only one glimpse of the eternal
performance of the soul on its journey to mastery. Is the dandelion only the
tiny shoot? Are you only the limited person you appear to be or think you
are?
No! You are what you can be. And what can you be? From the
standpoint of your divinity, you can be a perfect, healthy, confident,
radiant, expression of the living God.
Thus, when life demands of you ,”Who do you think you are?”
Speak the word of Truth. Affirm for yourself, “I am a spiritual being. I am
whole and free. I am confident and capable. I am the master of my life.”
And so may it be. Thank you. |
