The past two posts delved into the territory of groundedness as a way to connect to creation, as triggered by Jeane’s dream (see As Good As It Gets and Touching Creation). Here, the images in John’s dreams touch the same ideas from a masculine perspective, pointing to the importance of operating in a grounded way, yet incorporating the speeded up aspects of higher connection. (At the end of this post there are instructions and a link to download this recording to your computer.)
John: My dream starts off almost seeming absurd because I keep looking at very grounded scenarios, and first of all I described it as I dreamt about the trait of being rooted and grounded.
First of all, I start off where there’s kind of a recruiting at a college campus of those who make the best players on the football team, and I’m looking at it more from the perspective of comparing colleges and why does one college have a better football team than another college?
That’s the one scenario. In another scenario, I’m observing a recruiter employer who places people in a workplace, and how do you place a person in a workplace so that what can happen happens in the best way, in a focused way? In other words, what constitutes a groundedness and a work ethic in a workplace that is rooted and stable?
First of all, in the dream, I’m just observing this campus scenario, and I actually see it from the standpoint of a football team that’s really, really basic, and focused, and grounded and plays within the context of themselves. And essentially they have the field covered by not becoming over the top in terms of how they are.
And so the other school is a school that has more euphoria, more hoopla, more pizzazz about their nature, yet when you put the two together, yes, the pizzazz once in a while can really shine and shine bright, and that which is stodgy and basic can look stodgy and basic, but that which is stodgy and basic that can accept, and can work with, and can contain the energy of that which is speeded up, can stay rooted and grounded and within itself and take into account the greater Whole.
What I saw was like the game was played, and it was like closing seconds of the game and the team that’s all speeded up, and has this pizzazz, and the whole fastness to them, suddenly gets this long breakaway going. And it’s not going to make any difference, because the game has been won by something that has stayed very basic, and solid, and grounded.
It wasn’t at all flashy, but rooted, and they knew how to play in the trenches. Anyway, this breakaway play happens, and that which is very basic and grounded and rooted stays basic and grounded and rooted, and even though this breakaway play looks like it can go somewhere, it can’t because that which is very basic and grounded and rooted, even on the breakaway player, has defensive players always in place down field to stop the breakaway. And if it was two teams playing with pizzazz, then obviously one breaking loose like that the other wouldn’t be grounded enough to stop it, and you would have these big flashy plays.
You actually have this dynamic, when you think about it, you have this dynamic set up in life. You have this trait that everybody admires, and that’s the ability of a quarterback to pass and make the big plays, and go pushing up and down the field, but you don’t really have a championship team if you don’t have a ground game, if you’re not rooted in being able to grind it out.
It’s not at all flashy. It’s not at all something that creates the outward memories, the glitz that everybody likes to race and get caught up in, and yell and scream about, but over the course of taking and putting those two forces together, you find that the basic stodgy football team, the ground game team, has a lot to offer.
Now, if it has both things going for it, both the overdrive and the rootedness and the groundedness, now you’ve got something that’s truly, totally exceptional.
And so what I was looking at, of course, wasn’t both traits. I was just looking at the one trait. I was looking at the trait of something that stayed within, and played within its means, and didn’t get euphoric and carried away, and how that tended to stay stable and steady and have things covered.
What I kind of wrote is that a school that goes for the flashy type, extrovert player, can look good and appeal to the speeded up observer even that thinks that maybe this is what it’s all about, does not do as well, over the course of a season, as the team which is contracted in its focus to doing the job at hand, which is very basic and rooted and grounded, and staying stable and steady.
Then I take this into the workforce, and so it’s like I’m somewhere out there in the factory and then there’s the recruiter employer who passes through and brings in people that he puts to work.
I’ve developed a habit of being able to spot the person, as they come in, who has a strong work ethic mannerism in their nature. In other words, is capable of being grounded. There are always those who have the nature that’s just putting in their time, and would rather maybe do something else, or be somewhere else, and you can see those as not being necessarily a solid worker, but employers can’t discriminate, so they bring out the various ones that need to be placed and look around to place them.
And the employer comes out with this one person, and I could tell he instinctively knows that if he places him near me, that that’s not going to work because this guy is off the ground.
Actually, it’s not with me, but with someone that I know, and I’m even suggesting that maybe he be placed there and this guy knows better. Then he kind of winks and indicates he’s going to be placed over here, which is more with someone of his nature and kind, because if you place him with somebody that’s grounded and rooted he will destabilize that. He will break the focus of it. He will bust up the space of that.
I even have a way of being able to feel and tell, and if they have just one part of themselves going, and especially if it’s the speeded up part, you don’t want to have anything to do with this person because they can never ground out. They are always going to be off the wall. But if they have the two parts going, they have two components, then there is something amazing that can happen.
I’m noticing the characteristics in various settings, as part of looking at what causes a person to evolve in a grounded, practical way. You also find it in the setting of a campus where a school that has a good program has a lot of pride about that. They put a lot of heart in something like that. They hold something like that as having value.
A school that’s all about the grades, and the appearances of the flash and the glitter generally has a poor athletic program. And the school you want to go to for the most solid and basic and practical of educations, is not a school that’s all speeded up like that, but the school that actually is rounded and best portrays this roundedness by actually having a certain respect and honor for its athletic teams even.
So this is a rule of life that is imperative in all regards, and I am comparing the trait as an essential quality that functions best if it is overlaid over an expansive Wholeness, which recognizes the big picture. But the big picture is recognized by the grounding it.
Many people who have a larger overall perspective cannot ground the energy for all to see in the outer, or in creation. That overall perspective just stays too off the ground, too transcendent.
To the degree they remain conceptual, always reaching out in a driven capacity that cannot hold a space, and are readily excited over things, these are people that tend to not be able to get any job done in a basic way.
In other words, there’s always something else, there’s always something else, they’re always looking to something else, so things just kind of continue to slip by them, and they continue, in other words, to miss what is really going on, that is in creation, which can tell them so much more.
In other words, they’re not applying themselves in as focused a way as they can, which a focused way is a thread to that inner linkage.
This is actually also a quality that has gotten lost in America. The Native Americans naturally carried something that was rooted to a groundedness and basicness of life, and the white man came along and he attempted to try to make it all about himself, gaining control of this and control of that, and treating it as holding and having and possessing something, and the Indian recognized that you couldn’t possess anything.
An Indian would walk away from land if it didn’t serve a definite distinct purpose for that, at a given moment in time. If it didn’t serve the purpose, then it was meaningless for him. So then, in the face of a white man, who felt that just holding on to it, and grabbing it, and possessing it was nine tenths of what was important, he didn’t have a chance.
So a white man usurped everything, but he lost the heartfulness. And the Indian tries to hold onto the heartfulness because it’s the heartfulness to the Great Father that is capturable and recognizable by the way creation feels to the Indian, and it’s importance, which actually is what is more real – but that is not where we put our value.
We put our value in this whole raced up sense of accomplishment, of establishing something that stands out. An Indian quality nature is more one of trust and to try to get them caught up in the white man way is unnatural for them, and they actually crack up and fall apart because they do not get caught up in that. They stay very rooted and basic.
So something of the divine gets lost in this speeded up quality, and something of the divine only goes so far in the Indian who is subjected to the abuses of the white man. You have this dynamic, and this play, going on again where there is a type of desecration that takes place.
For me only when I ground the energy in a more compacted way, and am able to reconcile and see the faster side of life as well, am I able to excel. Otherwise I have times when I am off the wall, and can’t get things done, and other times when I am so focused on things I do not appreciate the big picture in which I am part.
The purpose of the dream last night seems to be to show me that I must never lose a groundedness if I am to be effective in creation. It’s through the rootedness you see the qualities of the creator, in a groundedness in creation. You don’t see it in the aspiration.
It’s like a paradox. The paradox is that you actually somehow or another get to this quality of something so much more, but you don’t get to that quality of so much more by focusing your attention as an aspiration towards it, and leaving everything else behind.
You get to it by something that opens up inside that creates a greater appreciation of life, and a greater connection and touching by life. And it’s the touching of life, and the getting into it, and the feelings that well up inside with the nostalgia, with the memories, with the trust, with the faith that comes through from somewhere else.
That is what pulls you forward. That is how you catch up with something way bigger than yourself. But you don’t catch up with something way bigger than yourself by trying to go directly at that which is way bigger than yourself – you only get lost.
To download this file, Right Click (for PCs) or Control Click (for Macs) and Save: The Dynamic of Life
