Fireflies

First, an apology to all who have tried to purchase the CD or individual mp3s and discovered the links don't work!  Thank you for letting me know... it will be corrected by tomorrow evening at the latest... and now the lyrics that inspired today's blog:

I'd like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly.
It's hard to say I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep.
'Cause everything is never as it seems.
-- from the song, "Fireflies" by Owl City

I give piano lessons to my 10 year old grandson, Drew.  And because he loves the above song "Fireflies," I created a chord chart for him and taught him about chords and inversions this afternoon.  He was really excited to be applying what he's learning to songs he knows.  And quite frankly, the song is really catchy and clever... and at times profound.  I love it.

It reminds me of the metaphysics of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and its "Life is but a dream" message.  We would all like to make ourselves believe that we are safe on a slowly turning planet, and that we are awake... but as the song says, it's hard to keep convincing ourselves of that when we so obviously live in a world of dreams where nothing is what is seems.  A Course in Miracles puts it this way: "Our life is not as we imagine it."

As I write this, fireflies are winking on and off under my 150 year old oak and hickory trees.  Fireflies are dreamlike creatures any way you look at them, floating high up in the branches or down in the moist grass, like fairies or tiny angels.  They remind me that we dream beautiful dreams together, too.  And that the more beautiful, the more loving, the more innocent our dreams, the closer our minds come to remembering Who We Really Are.  "You are surrounded only by Him [God].  What limits can there be on You whom He encompasses?" -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 18, VI, 10:6-7

It's up to us, always up to us to return our dreaming minds to God, where we have always been in Truth.  And as we do we know that "These unsubstantial images will go, and leave your mind unclouded and serene." (ACIM; WB 186, 10:1)  Each moment we're focusing our perception either on the good and the perfect that reflects the Truth of God, or on the lies of the false separate self which always claims lack and limitation.  And each brother and sister, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, gives us an opportunity to remember.  And to forgive our willingness to succumb again and again to the seduction of the flawed, the limited, the suffering... the dream of pain and death.

The song "Fireflies" reminds us that beauty reflects the real, but is not the real... nothing in the world of dreams can do more than reflect the mind that's dreaming.  And do we really want to awaken?   

"You would not believe your eyes if ten million fireflies lit up the world as I fell asleep."
-- from the song "Fireflies" by Owl City