Magical Advice?   ***Before I delve into today’s meditation, I just want to let you all know that I do get to read the comments you send in response to these newsletters. And for all of those lovely comments you’ve written, I want to send a warm, squishy hug in response. Thank you so much for the validation and positive feedback! Y’all are the best!***   It is human nature to look for advice when we are struggling with a problem. Maybe we ask a friend, a parent, a colleague, a doctor, or conduct an intense Google search. Maybe we find the advice helpful and useful, and the problem gets resolved. Bingo-bango! Life goes on a little bit better than before!   What do you do, though, when the advice is unsolicited or even unwelcome? What if it comes from an unexpected source and throws you for a loop? What if it comes from the morose girl in your Econ class? What if it’s some random guy at the gym? What if it’s in the form of an oddly meaningful song that runs on a loop in your mind whenever you hear it? What if it’s one of those magazines at the grocery store checkout touting 37 ways to lose weight, fall in love, and grow a silky mane of hair? What if it’s a cornfield?   Wait, a what now?    A cornfield.   <crickets>   Yes, a cornfield. I was rewatching Field of Dreams for like the 257th time last week, and I tried to identify what I liked about the movie aside from mere nostalgia. If you haven’t seen it, you should. But to summarize what happens, a new-to-farming farmer hears a voice whispering to him in the cornfield, “If you build it, he will come.” How’s that for unsolicited advice? He has a vision of a baseball field just next to the farmhouse, and he understands that “it” is the baseball field. The voice returns later with more out-of-the-blue directions.   Ease his pain. Go the distance. It turns out magically, but the trick is, you have to believe it to see it, and that’s why I like it.   But, the guy is a farmer. He surely shouldn’t plow up his corn for a baseball field and sink his savings into lights and turf and a backstop and bleachers. He’s got this brother-in-law who has some insider track on local foreclosures and, guess what, the bank is coming for the farm because they got behind on payments. The brother-in-law simply can’t see the magic that is happening on this baseball field. His advice is for the farmer to sell the farm to him to save it from the bank. Mighty convenient, right? But the farmer thinks he is crazy to suggest that he sell the farm. The brother-in-law thinks he’s crazy to build a baseball field in the corn crop.   I wonder, how many of us would listen to a whispering cornfield? Especially if it was asking us to plow under some portion of our income? Especially if we didn’t really understand why, except for a deep-seated feeling of “needing” to. Would the people in our lives think we’ve gone mad? Or would they jump into the dream with us? I am hard-pressed to say that I would listen to my cornfield, but I’d like to think that maybe I would.    The thing is, though, not all advice is good advice. Not even the advice we actively go looking for. Even the most well-meaning advice from your best friend might be the wrong thing to do for you. At the end of the day, you have to live with yourself and where your choices have led you. Do you want to be standing on a magical baseball field of your own creation, or do you want to be selling your farm to your weaselly brother-in-law? Maybe you don’t want magic or baseball or bank notes or corn harvests to deal with. That’s understandable. Maybe you just want simple things like a comfy bed, good friends, the freedom and means to travel when you feel like it…whatever it is, you are the decider. You are the designer of your dream, and you can make it as magical as you want.   For the purposes of today’s meditation, let’s listen to the corn. Let’s say it is a metaphor for the inner voice when it is connected to purpose and growth.   Sit down. Close your eyes. Drop your shoulders. Relax your face.   Imagine it is a lovely day with blue skies, but not too hot, not too cold. You are walking through a field of corn, and the rows are stretching out evenly straight before you. There is a gentle breeze rustling the leaves. As far as the eye can see, there is a vast blank canvas of green.   Smell the warmth of the earth. Listen to the wind. Feel it cooling your brow. Consider the phrase, “go the distance.”   If you were going to go the distance toward something you’ve been dreaming of, what would that look like? Where would you go? What would you do? Do you have a supporter who can bolster you on your journey?   Envision a version of this destination existing right in front of you. In that space, the corn is gone, and your dream can come to reality right there. How will you go the distance to this destination? Remember, primarily, this is for your heart, your wishes, and your dreams. What is going to make your soul sing when you arrive at the destination you’ve imagined?   Listen to the corn again. What can it tell you? How does its message connect you to purpose and growth?   Stay here listening for as long as you want.   When you are done, try writing down any realizations you may have had. Keep writing toward the purpose and growth that makes your heart leap with magic. Remember you have to believe it to see it.   As ever, namaste.   -Amy

INSPIRATIONS THIS WEEK

We’re feeling inspired by these incredible and thought provoking pieces:

1. A change in Jupiter’s orbit could make Earth even friendlier to life The surface of our planet could be even more hospitable to life if the gas giant shifted its orbit.
2. New study sheds light on the positive and negative impacts of dog ownership on psychological wellbeing Dog is said to be man’s best friend, but does pet ownership actually improve quality of life? Though that is a popular belief, a study published in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that owning a dog can actually be related to an increase in anxiety and depression.
3. Is the Psychedelic Therapy Bubble About to Burst? A new paper argues that excitement has veered into misinformation—and scientists should be the ones to set things straight.

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