Toto—I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore

We’ve all seen the film. Before Dorothy experienced Oz, her world was black and white, and she needed change. “Somewhere, Over the Rainbow” has become the anthem for our desire to experience a transformed existence.

When Dorothy landed in Oz, the movie became Technicolored—intentional special effects by MGM to show a land that was literally over the rainbow. For us, however, this new Technicolored reality symbolizes the new consciousness and the transformed reality that we crave.

Even when the movie returned to black and white when Dorothy returned home, Dorothy’s transformed attitude changed her relationship with that black and white. Her ability to see the possibilities and beauty within each of her companions from Oz—and from the farm—meant that she was still over the rainbow, although back in Kansas.

In fact, Dorothy never returned to the Kansas that she left. Kansas was transformed, because Dorothy was transformed.

Isn’t this what we all want: to live in a transformed world by changing our perception of it?

Stay tuned. I’m going to tell you how you can transform your experience of the Kansas in which you live.

Image courtesy of: Len ‘Doc’ Radin, North Adams, Massachusetts
Original Image || Flickr profile || Drury Drama Team

I’m Not in Kansas Anymore, Either.

I’ve been over the rainbow, too. For me, the script from the movie works just fine, if you substitute my name for Dorothy’s in the following scene from the movie:

UNCLE HENRY: He got quite a bump on the head—we kinda thought there for a minute he was going to leave us.
PROFESSOR: Oh —
COUGAR: But I did leave you, Uncle Henry—that’s just the trouble. And I tried to get back for days and days.
AUNT EM: There, there, lie quiet now. You just had a bad dream.
COUGAR: No. But it wasn’t a dream—it was a place. And you—and you—and you—and you were there.
PROFESSOR: Oh—(others laugh)
COUGAR: But you couldn’t have been, could you?
AUNT EM: Oh, we dream lots of silly things when we —
COUGAR: No, Aunt Em—this was a real, truly live place. And I remember that some of it wasn’t very nice…
…but most of it was beautiful.

The point is, folks, that I’m so inspired and enthused by my experience Over the Rainbow that I can hardly contain myself. It’s frustrating that the Aunt Ems and Uncle Henry’s in my life consider what I’m doing to be a dream.

But what I’m doing is more real than anything I’ve ever done before in my life. And I want to invite all of you to go beyond your previous experiences in Kansas and join me Over the Rainbow, because I have a Yellow Brick Road that will take you from here to there.

And that Yellow Brick Road begins right here in Kansas—or wherever you happen to be. It’s available to you everywhere on this planet.

The only thing that I think about these days is the Joyful Wisdom Community and the Joyful Wisdom Journey, both projects of which are my life’s work—based on a creative vision that I received on or around February 18, 1976.

But for the first 35 years, I prepared myself, and I plodded on in black and white Kansas. My life was bleak, filled with the same scarcity consciousness that plagued Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, constantly “repairing what was broken to make the farm work,” like Uncle Henry, absorbed in the dull task of “counting my chickens” as Aunt Em did.

Less metaphorically, my time was filled with working full time to support myself and my disabled wife, coming home to be a full-time caregiver, and stressing over our chronic lack of money. I had little time for pursuing my life’s work vision or even to have friends. I was lonely, stressed, frustrated, and blocked.

I only experienced the land Over the Rainbow starting in June of 2011. That’s when my life became Technicolored. That’s when I realized that I could devote the rest of my life to the dreams I’ve been pursuing all of my life. That’s when I leapt into working to create an ongoing Joyful Wisdom Community, the apps that I visualized in 1976, and an evolving agenda for our groups that stands the test of time.

I haven’t solved the problems that plagued me before. Money concerns still haunt our family. Yet in 2015, at the age of 64, I was inspired to drive a motorcycle around North America to teach the things I’ve been learning over the past five years—and an interesting thing about this vision was that I had never in my life even considered riding a motorcycle.

Yet on February 29, 2016, at the age of 65, I hopped on a motorcycle and headed off to Mexico, where I gave the second of my traveling workshops.This was also leaving my comfort zone behind, because as hard as I had worked to learn Spanish, I really wasn’t equipped to give a workshop in Spanish, and I had to invent something new to serve the Mexican people.

As I revise this page, it’s May 9, 2016, and my motorcycle trip isn’t even close to being finished. The thing I invented for my workshop in Mexico—The Morning Heart Chakra Routine—is proving itself to be useful and popular for everyone who uses it.

Today, I invite you to be one of my companions on the Yellow Brick Road.

Together, we will get Home—and it’s not going to cost you a penny. This is my mission.

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Next: The First Step on the Yellow Brick Road: Powerful Joyful Wisdom Conversations See also: The Yoga of Conversation