It Was a Set-Up

THE NEXT MORNING, SMYTHE’S BELOVED BECKONED AGAIN. SHE WAS about to retreat to her room, but a thought occurred to her. She walked out of her apartment and asked her detail to allow her to walk among the paths within the complex and keep a distance from her. They agreed, having already secured the complex.

Smythe began a slow, deliberate walk along the paths. As she walked, she glanced around and noticed a breeze wafting through the leaves of birch trees scattered throughout. She stopped and stood, watching the leaves dance upon the current of the wind.

“Where does the wind come from?” her Beloved asked.

“I don’t know. It just is,” Smythe replied.

“Ask the trees.”

She looked to the trees. “Do you know where the wind comes from?”

The tree branches did not move, yet the leaves seemed to answer. Smythe watched intensely, and she noticed they simply danced. If they could speak, she would have bet they would say, “We only know that there is a flow and that we are pleased to dance upon it.”

Her Beloved spoke, “All life is connected to itself and to Me. Life must only dance to the flow. Understanding that all things given from Me offer to all both balance and harmony.”

Smythe scrunched her nose.

“Your vision is a vision I have planted within you. You must only dance to the rhythm of the flow of life in the present moment, and leave the rest to me.”

“How? Everyone seems to have this notion to do, do, do?”

“Notice the palms above the buildings compared to the trees hemmed in by the buildings. The current of the wind freely flows when above all things. Rise above what you see and come and see through my eyes.”

“Yet, I am not as tall as the trees. Beloved, I am like the trees below which barely move—the ones that are hemmed in.”

“You only believe that to be. Place your thoughts to my thoughts, above the circumstances which hem you in. Rise your mind to my mind. Meditate upon the trees. Notice they move in the direction of the current.” Smythe watched the palms overhead and noticed the leaves of the birch. They, too, moved along the direction of the wind.

She remembered the baker’s words. “Your freedom is not the thing connected to attaining a goal—but that which lives within your spirit. Release the chain that binds you.”

Later that morning, Artie left for an off-site meeting, and Smythe found herself alone. She took the time to view a webinar suggested by her mentor through an email. Unfortunately, after the webinar, she found herself becoming increasingly annoyed.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it! This feels like a marketing ploy,” she said to her Beloved. “Tell me, was the initial investment for my training just another marketing ploy, too? One that bilks unsuspecting idiots like me out of money? I don’t have time for this, nor do I have the capital! I quit my job and started this business venture and the book on a wing and prayer. Was this you, or was it my torrid imagination? A kind of self-sabotage? I took all of my money out of my savings. I am doing everything I thought YOU wanted me to do! Was I wrong? Answer me!” She screamed so loudly that her throat began to burn.

The words she had heard a thousand times before came quietly, gently into her consciousness once again.

“Trust. Just trust.”

Smythe was in no mood to listen.

“To hell with it!! I don’t want it. I don’t want what YOU want!”

She glanced at her kitchen wall clock. 1:30. She texted Artie.

“I have errands to run—all in one place.”

Geez, even my text is snappy.

She paced, waiting for a reply. Within a few minutes, her security detail knocked on the door, ready to escort her. As she sat in the back of their SUV, her Beloved reminded her no dream could be achieved unless she could make it a reality. Her Beloved also reminded her of what her mentor once said.

“You’re not given a dream unless you have the capacity to do it. You might have to go back to school, or interview someone to find out how they got started, but it can be achieved.”

Whatever.

“Are you so willing to give up now? There is always a time of preparation. You have only just begun. Trust in my knowing, and do not give up,” her Beloved said.

I’m not in a space where I want to hear this right now. With tears beginning to fill her eyes, she continued her conversation with Beloved.

“You know what bothers me the most? It’s that his company endorsed this other guy. It feels like he was just offering a marketing thing for his next great adventure. Truly, that cuts like a knife. I mean, he does this amazing work. Why does everything have to be at such a high cost? Maybe that’s the way it works. I get it. He needs to earn money, but it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth.”

Once parked, the security team escorted Smythe into the store. Smythe flashed her membership card to an employee at the entrance and pointed at her security detail, indicating they were with her. She stomped through a maze of aisles before arriving at the pharmacy department. While standing in line, Smythe allowed herself to get quiet enough to listen to her Beloved.

“Regardless of how you perceive him, your dream to do the work I’ve called you to do is uniquely suited for you, and that’s all I will ask of you. What you have discovered is that this new program is not a good fit for you. Consider it a ‘no’ from me for now.”

Smythe crossed her arms in front of her and stared down at the floor. Although enormously frustrated, she was also able to call herself out, admitting she was “storytelling” and exhibiting her old go-to behaviors—anger, blaming, and complaining. A bit embarrassed with herself, she examined the trio. She had to admit, instead of responding in ways that would positively feed her subconscious, she was reacting with survival emotions, which would only keep her stuck in her current situation with little forward movement.

Damn it.

The line to pick up prescriptions inched forward. Smythe admitted she had hoped some nagging questions about book publication would have been answered during the prerecorded webinar. Unfortunately, the information did not go into the level of detail she hoped for.

I just don’t want to call his team. And who knows, they may not know either.

“That is not entirely accurate, Smythe. You, dear one, are afraid,” her Beloved said, responding to her thoughts.

“Of what?”

“Think.”

Smythe pondered her current mood. Before long, she began to identify her response as nothing more than unresolved doubt. She shook her head and nibbled the insides of her lower lip.

Deep inside, I doubt the dream… and my ability to make it come true.

“Next in line,” came the call. She stepped up to the cash register.

Once she paid for her prescriptions, she asked her team if she might wander through a couple of food aisles. Artie had been picking up a lot of the food tab for both of them, and the least she could do was pick up some groceries for the next few weeks.

And beer, she likes beer. Maybe some wine too—oh, and whiskey. Her team agreed and surrounded her as she moved through the aisles.

Once she paid for her groceries and settled into the SUV, she allowed her mind to again ponder the unresolved sense of doubt. It was then, in the briefest of moments, that something shifted. As though examining herself as a character in a film, she sensed she had grabbed onto her dream as if she were pulling a baby from a kidnapper. She pressed her dream tightly to her chest.

It’s my dream. The thought caught her by surprise. No, it’s our dream. Perhaps your dream; your thought for me.

Regardless of whose dream it was, she felt somehow attached to it. In the briefest of moments, the vision ceased to be something “out there,” but instead was a tangible reality awaiting her arrival.

You’re not given a dream unless you have the capacity to do it. You might have to go back to school, or interview someone to find out how they got started, but it can be achieved.

Smythe was reminded of Hildegard of Bingen. She had described herself as a feather on the breath of God. Smythe sighed as she seemed to sense she had been set up by her Beloved.

Stupid ego, lower vibration. Always wants to do things on your terms. ‘Be of service,’ you said, but on whose terms? My Beloved’s or yours?

She could only smile at herself and settled easily into the return trip home.

Smythe put away her groceries and continued to ponder what it meant to truly be of service. As she thought about her many virtual mentors, she wondered how they came to understand service. She knew that many of them felt they had been called—they claimed they had an internal sense of knowing. They chose to focus on what their hearts wanted from them and followed it. For Smythe, it was a troubling query that would continue to surface. She knew that each time it did, a greater sense of clarity and knowing would emerge. At least, that was her intention.

Artie arrived at the apartment about an hour later and offered to order food. Smythe explained she had gone shopping and offered to prepare a meal. Artie accepted the invitation, and together, they created a meal that, by all standards, they were both impressed with—pumpkin risotto, a kale salad, and organic red wine. Laughing with one another, they wondered why they hadn’t done this more often.