When we get lost in a good book we have essentially transported our consciousness to another time and space, no airfare required. We can tap into all of the senses that are dancing off the pages in the perfect composition of prose. Perhaps the same thing happens when we’re watching a good film, we are separate from our own reality if only temporarily – the beauty of healthy escapism.
One day I was washing the dishes and noticed the first of my ten avocado pits budding. That led me to remember the first ten avocado plants I grew years ago, I wept when they all died when I went traveling. I’m not terribly great with plants but I do know how to grow things. I have raised two beautiful sons, I have taken many actual pilgrimages of my own and helped countless others develop emotionally and spiritually. I felt so uplifted to see life sprouting from this avocado seed and knew that this was creation in the making.
As easily as I could mess something up, I could create something new. I continued washing the dishes and meditating on my life’s journey of falling down and getting back up. I thought about my own resilience, just like anything that is growing needs, and how I managed to provide just enough fuel for my personal growth in a mostly healthy way and all the symbolic plant pots I had outgrown too.
Next thing I knew the kitchen was clean and I had been on a journey of realization, remembrance, forgiveness, hilarity, creation, and self-fulfillment just standing there at my sink prompted by a future avocado plant. You could argue that I wasn’t in the moment of washing the dishes, but then again, I was focussing on creation, and in the process was creating order!
Recently a closet became moldy and I had to wash all of the clothes that had been hanging in it. It was a huge job, but instead of it getting me down I enjoyed reminiscing about all of my beautiful clothes and the fantastic memories associated with them. There are even some vintage dresses that were my grandmother’s. Over the three full days it took to wash and dry and hang everything up again I had taken a trip down memory lane, reflecting on the different phases of my life and even inspired myself to drop a few pounds so I could fit back into some of them. 
We don’t even have to go up into the attic to connect with the past or look in photo albums because we carry all of it around with us in our minds. But what are you carrying around with you? The fabulous fashion of your ancestors, your ability to birth new opportunities and ideas, your own joyous evolution and connection to spirit – – or are you carrying around the prejudices of your forefathers, your inability to succeed at your wildest dreams, your constant struggle and worry? The point of meditation is to clear your mind so Source Energy can work through you, but I believe if you are focussing your mind on happy memories and thoughts and allowing inspired ideas to come to you, you are one with source energy and enjoying the richness of our human ability to think, remember, and create.
Guided meditation can take you to fantastical places, where rules don’t apply, and anything goes, but you can do this for yourself in your own mind by allowing yourself to journey into your soul. Remember the things you have forgotten when you were a little kid. Make an effort to pull out those freeze-frame moments of wonder or hilarity with your parents or siblings when you were young.
Those free child, popsicle dripping, tree climbing moments, even if they were just mere moments, are all stored away in your mind, and they are there for the taking. Pluck one out and see what journey of consciousness it takes you on. I love sharing childhood memories with my sister because we have two totally different perspectives and the things that impacted her, were different from the experiences that remained in my mind’s hope chest.
Literal traveling is great because it pushes your boundaries and gets you out of your comfort zone, but that’s not to say that you can’t take an inward journey while you are hoovering the carpet, or cleaning the bathtub. I wouldn’t advise it while driving or doing anything that requires any kind of concentration, but if you have a mundane task ahead of you, that’s definitely a good time to tap into your soul and see where you end up. You’ll come back feeling like you’ve been somewhere and your house will be clean.
