Friendships, Tulips, and Dreams

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." -Anais Nin

It has almost been a year since my husband and I first visited Prague, to consider moving here with our family for a couple year expat assignment with his job. I remember those initial emotions, the excitement, the fear. What would such a giant leap bring?

We wondered how all of us would make friends. We all left friends and family and flowers (my gardens ... and hummingbirds ... and all the small things we build into our lives over time in one place).

Now, we have lived in Prague for nine months, and our lives are settled and have fallen into a rhythm. We are so grateful.

Amazingly, we have made great new friends. And family enjoys coming to visit. And several of our new friends have given us flowers--tulip bulbs from their native Holland (photographs taken here, in my Prague gardens).

Beauty and dreams and hope and the sweet things in life even come in a new country.

I'm taking notes so I can remember ...  When we toss our hopes and dreams up like a kite to Heaven, I need to remember that the fear isn't necessary-- God has much bigger plans in store than that of my small fears. Unless our dreams include a few miracles, they're just not big enough yet.
 
Starting the Conversation: What little fears hold you back from big dreams?

The Uncharted Trail

“Our dreams are only big enough when they include a miracle …” -unknown

Not too far from our home in Prague, we drive along a highway overlooking a mysterious castle in the near distance. The façade of pale ivory creates a striking contrast with its slate blue roof, and the surrounding dense forest. Even though the city surrounds the castle, the details and whereabouts of how to reach the castle were difficult to find. But last week, in the peak of our recent snows, I packed my D-SLR camera as I loaded up my boys for school, in the chance I might be able to find my way through the snow-laden roads.

With the help of maps and my iPhone, I did find the vicinity of the castle, but a high wall surrounded the whole area. It looked private, and closed, and the difficulty of the Czech language almost kept me back. But just as I turned around to head home, I saw a thick wooden gate in a break in the wall where the gate stood ajar. After parking in knee-high snow, I followed a cross-country skier across the open field, and dared to continue in through the gate. What waited for me on the other side of the wall captivated me with its beauty.

the trail leading to the Star Summer Palace

A trail cut into the dense forest led straight toward what I believed to be the mysterious castle. Because of the frozen fog, I couldn’t see what waited for me at the other end of the trail, about one kilometer long. But I dared to find out. The Letohrádek Hvêzda, or Star Summer Palace (not a castle, like I thought), was far more beautiful than I had imagined, especially in the snow, like a magical scene from a fairy tale.

Somehow, life is like the path leading to the Star Summer Palace. We can’t quite see what it is we are heading for, but we know what we hope to find along life’s path—the fulfillment of our dreams.

When fear creeps in, we rein our dreams back to be smaller and more manageable, allowing less risk, maybe staying only in the safety of what we already know. But when we do that, we miss out on the world of possibility.

Daring to explore the uncharted trail toward a dream much bigger opens up the opportunity of discovering a grand and surprising beauty waiting at the end of the unknown path.

Besides the basic human needs of love and faith, we have the strong need to become, to grow and stretch, to walk down a new path that furthers us as humans, one that helps us to reach our full potential.

Just as the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, the fulfillment of our biggest goals begins by daring to dream. Imagine the grand and surprising beauty that waits on the other end of the journey toward fulfilling life goals. I choose to believe every step along the uncharted trail will be worth it, even when the rewarding end seems far out of sight.

Here’s to taking that first step, and dreaming the big dreams …

-Jennifer

Starting the conversation (by leaving a comment below): Do your 2010 dreams stretch you, and pull you down a new path? What difficulty(-ies) almost keep you back?

A New Start to the Very Short Trip

It’s a very short trip. While alive, live. ~Malcolm Forbes

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined. ~Henry David Thoreau

To me, dreams are like mountains, disappearing for a while, obscured by daily life and the blinding fog of busyness. But if we pause to look and listen, they are always there, always guiding us until the dream becomes reality, if we dare to take the adventure.

I love the New Year. I love celebrating the gifts in the year coming to a close, and thinking on the year ahead. There is no time like the present to reflect on how far we have come, and the direction which tells where we want our lives to go.

Many sites and blogs and gurus give advice for how to form resolutions which you’ll stick beside, and for the best methods for achieving your goals. But for me, I prefer simplicity: where is it that my heart lies, and each day, how can I consistently move in the direction of those dreams?

So today, I send you heartfelt wishes for a meaningful day today, at this threshold of a whole new year. May you hear the whisper of the direction of your dreams. And I hope in each day to come, you’ll have the perseverance to walk that way, and to live the life you have imagined.

Keep on in the direction of your dreams ...

Happy New Year!

How are you going forward in your New Start, this New Year?

Time for Something New?

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the interesting task of itemizing everything in our home—toys, towels, tools—everything. It’s strange to account for the pieces of our family of five’s existence by the things we have around us in our home. Often, I thought, “This is it. This stuff defines us.” Weird. But on the other hand, it doesn’t. I am still me without all the stuff (which could lead me into a million ruminations on why do we have so much stuff, which always ends with the thought of less being really more, I think). But, as I was itemizing, and reflecting as I typed, I noticed the date on one of my first paintings—summer 2004. It’s been five years …

I still remember the day in the craft store, towing my three little boys, all under five years of age, around in their stroller, realizing I had always wanted to paint, and daring to pick out a handful of tubes of oil paints, a brush, and a standard canvas. The toothpaste-like consistency of the oils took a while to figure out, but now, after taking painting lessons from a local artist, and over one-hundred canvases later, I’m hooked. I’m confident I’ll never earn the ranks of Michelangelo, but the act of working toward expressing myself in a new way and listening to and moving toward the internal seed of a dream unique to me has set me free in ways I cannot begin to explain. To dream, and then take the steps toward fulfilling that dream, is priceless.

Why create? Why try something new? Why venture outside the box other people (or our own minds) impose upon us?

To those who have never had the experience, I find explaining the feeling of personal accomplishment impossible to quantify. There’s no other comparable feeling in the world. Moving toward the deep roots of personal dreams is exhilarating beyond description.

To those who have had the experience, there’s no need to explain or quantify … you already know.

Today is the first day of the last half of 2009. Today is a great day to listen to your heart and decide to try something new. Only you know what it is. This summer, dare to take the chance to try out a dream, and discover the thrill that follows accomplishing something you’ve always wanted to try.

Today is a great day to try something new …