Divine Timing

When I was a little girl, I remember hearing Jiminy Crickett sing the song,"When You Wish Upon A Star" in the movie Pinocchio.

Its lyrics tapped into what I eventually called "living with vision," letting our hearts be a compass to guide us towards our deepest dreams.

"When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you."

Often, when we look into our hearts and see our deepest wishes, we want them to happen immediately. But life doesn't always work that way. Life has a natural rhythm, and while our wishes and desires might not come to us as soon as we want them to, when we really open our hearts to them, they most often do become real in divine timing.

Like a bolt out of the blue.
Fate steps in and see you through.
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true.

This brings in the importance of faith. Faith is a very powerful force. It allows us to keep our heart open to our dreams even when we don't know exactly how or when our dreams will come to be. In this sense, faith is the guardian and keeper of our heartfelt dreams. And faith allows us to let go of the need to control timing, so that we may surrender into the path that diving timing carves out for us.

Faith gives us a spaciousness and a sense of grace, that allows us to be present in the moment, and see what unfolds. This allows us to take right action moment to moment and experience the gift of the journey as well as the gift of arriving at our goal.

Have you ever had the experience of leaving your house a few minutes late to go to a coffeeshop or a supermarket and running into an old friend you had not seen for a while when you arrived? Or have you walked in the door, having thought about someone, only to find a message from them in your e-mail or a text arriving as you open the door? This is divine timing in action. At times when this kind of synchronicity would happen, I would find myself asking, "so what would have happened if I had not left late?" or "did the fact that I was thinking of this person lead to their calling?"

Experiences like these remind us that we are all interconnected. Our thoughts, our feelings, our deepest desires are energy currents, and they communicate, even in ways we cannot grasp with our physical senses. If we can have faith in the universal currents that run through life overall, as well as our own lives, it is easier to embrace and be embraced by divine timing.

I have found that the more deeply I understood the process of living with vision: opening my heart to my deepest dreams and desires, finding strength in the faith that in divine time my vision would become real, and gracefully taking needed steps towards the vision as they become clear, the more peacefully I live.

Experiences of divine timing lead to an understanding that we will really be okay if we stay connected to our hearts and let go of control. It is a truly beautiful and inspiring experience to realize we can ride the energy currents of life, and things will really move forward in ways that matter to us."

Making Our Dreams Come True

"A thin line stands between dream and reality. And only the heart knows the characteristics that correspond to either side." --Linda Marks, age 16 It seems my entire life has been about living with vision and living from the heart. As a child, I wrote poems about these two topics. They were in separately interrelated. When I was 20, I wrote a song called "When Dreams Suffer," which became my signature song. And the message of this song was at the heart of my first book, Living With Vision: Reclaiming the Power of the Heart, which came out in 1988.

We all have dreams. What is often the hard part is turning dreams into reality. What can we do to make our dreams come true?

Some of the messages in "When Dreams Suffer" are:

1. When dreams suffer, there must be fear in our way.

Believing in our dreams is a magical thing. If we keep putting positive, heartful, visionary energy into our dreams, and taking actions steps one by one, we are unstoppable. When we are afraid, we freeze, stop, give up and sometimes even crumble. Finding ways to find safety, support, rooting and faith are critical to making our dreams real.

2. We need to learn to both hold on to our dreams, yet let go.

If we hold on to our dreams too tightly, we can suffocate the life blood out of them. We remove the breathing room that allows life's energies to move and flow. On the other hand, if we don't hold fast to our dreams, they can die, as a beautiful Langston Hughes poem notes. We need to hold them in our hearts, yet trust that God will be our co-pilot.

3. We must both give space, and believe, even while nothing supports our beliefs.

Perhaps this is another way to talk about having faith. Faith is a kind of heartfelt, spiritually rooted sense of belief. Yet, it also acknowledges that we do not create in a vacuum. There is a powerful creative force in the universe that gives life in many ways, including to our dreams. Having faith in that creative force is critical.

4. We can't throw our dreams away. Instead, they can be our life guidance system.

Without our dreams, our life will be can "a barren field frozen with snow," to return to Langston Hughes' poem. Our dreams enliven our days and our entire lives. Yet when we don't the steps to take to make our dreams real, or when it seems like our dreams are not manifesting soon enough, it is far too easy to abandon ship. Learning how to frame our dreams as our life guidance system makes it easier to stay with them and follow them over time.

Another important principal in bringing our dreams to life is to take immediate action. If you feel inspired, capture the energy of the moment. Take even a small action step. Every step we take moves our dreams forward. When we wait, tell ourselves we can do it later or even worse, procrastinate, we deflate the energy and fail to take advantage of the power of inspired moments. Telling someone else about your dream and inviting them to team with you are two other ways to ground your dreams. I learned early on that when another person co-held a dream with me and/or partnered with me to work on a dream, the path was easier, more unexpected doors opened, and the dream took flight much more effortlessly and faster than when I tried to do it all alone. Taking action and involving others are two ways of committing to our dreams. Commitment moves our energy forward and opens up all kinds of divine energy to support us in realizing our goals. When we fear commitment, we diffuse the very things we desire that commitment can bring.

Learning to make our dreams real is like learning dance steps. We need to get a sense of the rhythm. We need to get used to the music. We need to gain a sense of the dance floor. We need to get our footing, so we know how it feels. In many ways, we use all our senses, even if we focus on our hands or feet to take action. And the heart is the ultimate compass, at the center of the entire process.