My Light-Bulb Moment

Honestly, I was minding my own business when I had a light-bulb moment today.  I was so excited about it that I wanted to immediately stop what I was doing and write about it.  But it’s kind of hard to stop in the middle of an 8 hour yoga class.  Patience, I know, is a virture. 

Almost eight years ago I wrote a poem called “Dreaming Orange.”  The dream itself made very little sense to me when I had it because my life was so upside down.  Today, inside my light-bulb moment, I finally figured it out.

Dreaming  Orange 

by Peggy Nolan – copyright 2002-2009

In my dream
An outside wedding
Sherbert orange whispy clouds
A setting sun

Tuxedos and glittering evening gowns
Sitting in chairs lined with white bows
On freshly cut grass

I’m dressed in a gray pin-striped suit
More ready for a meeting with the CEO
than a wedding

Why am I here?

Out of place; out of time
A faceless man appears
He leads me to a plywood stage
“You’re the entertainment” he says

He seats me at a drab metal desk
The kind no longer found in office space
A microphone, like the one Johnny Carson used, stares at me

The faceless man presses a card into my hand
“You can only talk about what’s printed here…
and you have to be funny,” he whispered in my ear

In bold black letters
O-R-A-N-G-E
Perplexed and Confused
I looked at the faceless man

“I’m supposed to be funny about orange?”

He never answered; he just walked away.
I looked at the card
I looked at the sky
A deepening blood orange sky

I searched the crowd of wedding guests
Did I know anyone here?
A woman dressed in white
She must be the bride
She caught my gaze and smiled a waiting smile

I looked at the card again
Something funny about Orange

A sound gurgled up from my stomach
I tried to stifle it
Hand over mouth
And I snorted
Which made me laugh

And I couldn’t stop

The microphone amplified
uncontrollable infectious laughter
Tears rolled down my face

This soulful laughter
This cleansing laughter
This contagious laughter
And all around me

The sound of laughter;
the color orange

**********

When  I wrote  this poem in late November, 2002, my 19 year marriage was ending and my life was in a state of utter panic.  This dream, one of many teaching dreams I would have and continue to have, left me feeling as if everything was going to be fine.  I didn’t really understand it or how everything was going to be fine. I only knew that the color orange was soothing to me and the laughter left me feeling bouyant amidst the agony of watching the demise of my carefully crafted life. 

Today, the dream suddenly makes sense.  Today, as I learned about the seven Chakras (or energy centers in our bodies) in my 500 hour yoga teacher training, the Second Chakra spoke volumes to me.  I have been practicing yoga for the last seven years and finally the Chakras, specifically Svadhistana, made sense.

Svadhistana – The Sacral Chakra

Svadhistana is located 4 fingers below the navel.  Its element is water and its color is orange. Orange is a soothing, calming color.  Svadhistana is the emotional body and when this energy center is blocked or unbalanced, you may have intimacy issues or emotional issues.  You may also feel unbalanced with your creativity.

So how exactly does Svadhistana relate to my dream?  Nearly eight years ago, this energy center in my body spoke to me the only way it either knew how, or the only way it knew I would pay attention.  Or maybe a combinitaion of both. 

As the life I knew was ending, this dream showed me my own rebirth.  It showed me that my emotional being would one day be happy, fulfilled, and blessed.  I had no idea when I dreamed this dream that the me in the business suit was looking at the me in the wedding dress.  And that the smiling me in the wedding dress was trying to tell the me in the business suit that everything was going to be just fine. 

The color of the dream was bathed in orange.  From the setting sun to the letters spelling it out on the card.  I was surrounded by and filled with the color orange.  Soothing…calm…and oh so peaceful. 

The laughter that bubbled out of me…it came from low in my belly…deep within my soul.  You know when you’ve had a really really good laugh, the kind that leaves you feeling blissed out?  This is how the laughter in my dream made me feel…and it was a feeling I needed to remember as my life turned down a very dark path. In the midst of emotional chaos, Svadhistana, my second chakra, showed the me in 2002 that I would be reborn…I would be re-created…and I would find the balance in my emotional being once again.

On September 22, 2006, I married the man who once was the first boy I ever fell in love with.  In front of our family and friends, we said “I Do” at 5PM in a lovely private park, overlooking Joppa Flats in Newburyport, Massachusetts.  Orange whispy clouds and a setting sun only added to the perfection of that day.

I don’t doubt that all seven of my energy centers talk to me but right now, Svadhistana and my dream finally make sense.