Month: January 2015

Andy’s Woodsy Adventure – Chapter 4

Q: Why can’t you ever give Elsa from Frozen a balloon?

A: Because she’s always going to want to Let It Go…

Let it go! Let it go! Let it go…Oh hey everyone, Andy here. Too bad you can’t hear me singing really off key right now to this very annoying song. J Anyway, I’m back to share with all of you the next installment of my ongoing personal adventure in the woods. But before I do, I just want to say that I sure do hope each of you had an enjoyable holiday season. And just in case you didn’t know, Mr. Obsessive Compulsive felt he had to take his holiday decorations down a mere three days after Christmas, can you believe it??? What a Scrooge! LOL. But I guess they had to come down at some point? Ok, enough of me babbling let me get on with the good stuff. As always, here are the links to the previous three chapters in case you haven’t read some of them yet…

https://thetwelfthstep.com/2014/12/10/andys-woodsy-adventure-chapter-1/
https://thetwelfthstep.com/2014/12/18/andys-woodsy-adventure-chapter-2/
https://thetwelfthstep.com/2014/12/27/andys-woodsy-adventure-chapter-3/

Andy’s Woodsy Adventure – Chapter 4

The whole cave was shimmering now in an incredible display of purple beauty. I was so entranced by it I was completely ignoring the fact that the entrance to where I first entered my temporary prison was now opened. It almost felt as if the odd-shaped crystal that lay atop the tiny pedestal was slowly pulling me towards it one step at a time and away from that opening and my escape.

“I know I should leave right now while I have the chance…” I muttered to myself. Yet the glow and draw of the crystal appeared to be far more powerful than any sense of rationality I had left in my brain.

A few more steps and I’d be within arm’s reach from touching the shiny object that had my complete focus at the moment. Thoughts of Indiana Jones and Raiders of The Lost Ark quickly flittered across my brain, as it desperately tried to remind me of that huge rolling ball that chased Indy out of a cave once he took the sacred sparkly object from its place of long dormancy in the movie. None of that felt like it mattered though because the closer I came to the purple crystal, the more calm I seemed to become.

And there it was, right in front of me now. I could feel my right arm rising up, hand opened, ready to grasp onto its magnificence. I honesty couldn’t tell if I was even in charge of my own body anymore as I watched my hand reach up to take it away from its silent resting place. While my fingers gradually clasped around it, I noticed it felt overly warm to the touch.

For as much as I’ve watched Indiana Jones and various other treasure hunt based movies, you would think I’d have been more cautious taking this crystal into my hand, but heck I was a 12-year old kid! I didn’t know any better.

At the precise moment I drew my hand back towards me, crystal clenched within it, that very familiar grinding and crunching rock noise suddenly started. I looked over in horror to see the doorway beginning to come down ready to seal me back within this tomb. This time my brain jolted me with a huge surge of fear and adrenaline, which was enough to get me to race towards it.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT!” my brain screamed at me. “RUN!”

For a moment, I truly thought I really wasn’t going to make it because there were only a few feet left before the cave was completely sealed once again. So I dove to the floor and rapidly rolled sideways watching as the bed of rock loomed just inches above my body. My right arm and hand, which was still clutching the glowing crystal, barely escaped from being crushed, but my trusty flashlight that had been a part of so many of my previous adventures didn’t fare as well. It had fallen out of my pocket during my diving roll and gotten smashed into smithereens when the doorway came fully to a close.

I didn’t care though. I WAS FREE. And I had my treasure…whatever it was…

I raced up the long set of stairs towards the dim light, grateful to be alive and not sealed away in some dark prison forever. Somehow I just knew that my birthday numbers wouldn’t have opened that doorway a second time. As I took several sets of steps at a time, I shoved the crystal into one of my pockets fearful I might drop or lose it on my ascent. And there it finally was, the sun, still glistening through the treetops there in the woods, except I could tell that it was now much later in the day.

I quickly looked down at my watch and saw it was 5:40pm.

“CRAP!” I yelled out quite loudly hoping that might help me somehow from getting grounded by my parents once I got home. At this point, I was going to be an hour beyond my curfew even running at top speed. I instantly started racing back into the woods heading towards my home, not even looking back once at the large rock, the rusty metal hatch, or my shovel that I forgot to grab, which had been resting on the second step just inside the hatch.

It was 6pm by the time I reached the edge of my backyard. I had already tripped and fallen a number of times that I’m sure with each, the animals in the woods and all the trees around me had laughed at my clumsiness. I had spent the entire 20 minutes getting there thinking of ways to explain why I was late, but honestly, I still had no idea what to say.

I sprinted up to my backdoor and attempted to turn the knob. It was locked.

“That’s funny.” I thought. It never gets locked until after I get home from playing outside. I wondered if this was a tactic to scare me because I was so late.

BANG. BANG. BANG. I knocked on the door rather loudly. No answer. BANG! BANG! BANG! I knocked again, even louder.

A figure then appeared that wasn’t my mother or my father. It was a woman I didn’t recognize.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a puzzled look on her face after opening the door.

“Who are you?” I responded as I started to walk in to my house.

“WHO ARE YOU?!” she said slightly perturbed pushing me back outside.

“I live here!!!” I said suddenly feeling a little scared.

If this was actually a joke then my parents were taking it a little too far I thought.

“I’m Mrs. Sampson, and I think you have the wrong house young man!”

“MOM! DAD!” I shouted into the house hoping they would suddenly appear.

“What’s your name son?” she asked in a much more inviting tone, noticing I was getting really scared.

“I’m Andy. Andy Dawson.”

Her mouth suddenly dropped with a look of shock.

“Andy…where…Oh My God! Harold! Call the police!” She immediately shouted into the house behind her.

“Andy, please come in. I’m so sorry for being a little rude…I…didn’t know it was you…” She reached for my hand to bring me into my house. As soon as I took a few steps into my family room, I saw nothing was how I remembered, causing tears to well up in my eyes.

“I don’t understand…” I said trying desperately to hold them back.

“Andy, I don’t know any other way to tell you this…but…you…went missing… three years ago…”

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

“Big Eyes”, A Movie That Reminds You To Be True To Yourself

I allowed myself to be stifled in creative expression for most of my entire life until just a few years ago. As I watched the movie “Big Eyes”, I was clearly reminded of this struggle and how I allowed fear to suppress the artist trying to bloom within me for a very long time. What was so refreshing about director Tim Burton’s latest film is the spiritual lesson I took away from it, which is for each artist to always remain true to his or her work.

This movie centers on the life of Margaret Ulbrich (Amy Adams) and her extraordinary paintings. In a time when women still held very little importance next to men, Margaret forged out on her own by leaving an abusive husband and heading to San Francisco to start a new life and hopefully a new career using her creative side, which was painting. She soon discovers her unique style of work does not garner the attention it truly deserves. But enter in Walter Keene (Christopher Waltz) who at first glance appears to be charming, dashing, and actually quite the motivator for her talent. He even comes to her rescue by proposing to her when her ex-husband files for full custody of their daughter, as he knows this will show the court that Margaret has the stable family necessary to raise her. Unfortunately, Walter also is a chronic liar and manipulator, which Margaret begins to discover when he starts taking credit for her paintings under the notion that a woman’s artwork doesn’t sell. As Walter’s lies continue to grow, so do the sales of her paintings and his fame, leading her only further and further into seclusion and self-doubt about the talent she really has. “Big Eyes” then goes on to tell the rest of the true story of one woman’s descent into omission and rise out of it into becoming the gifted artist she was always meant to become.

In all honesty, I have to say I never thought of myself much as an artist just as Margaret Keene once believed for herself. That’s only because we both were consumed with so much self-doubt that we allowed others to either take credit for something creative we produced or limited how we expressed our creativity because of fear. While I may not be blessed artistically in the way Margaret has been in life, I actually do have a creative talent that comes by way of a pen, or if you will, the keys on my laptop. Often, I’ve been told though that I should write differently than I do, that I should tone it done a little, or that I should not share so personally about others or myself. But no different than the way a painter portrays his or her muse on canvas; the way I write is my very own unique style of creative expression. And trying to change that for someone else is not being true to myself.

That’s why I’m so grateful for people like Margaret Keene and her life story, for movies like Tim Burton’s “Big Eyes”, and for all those in this world who continue to remind me to always be true to myself, especially when it comes down to any of the artistic work I ever produce in this life.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

I Truly Become Just Like Those I Regularly Spend Time With

I’ve had to make two very difficult decisions lately around the subject of friendship and neither was easy. I’m not sure if you’ve ever had to do this, but telling anyone I’m not open to a friendship with them because it isn’t healthy for me or my recovery definitely weighs heavily upon my heart when I do it. Why I had to do this in each case came down to yet another lesson I’ve learned in my spiritual growth, which is that I truly become just like those I regularly spend any time with.

For years I ignored the signs that would have taught me this invaluable lesson. Instead, I regularly spent time with active alcoholics and drug addicts, as well as those engaging in sex and love addictions too. And the more I spent time with those who were living in any these addictions, the more I either thought about joining them in the same addiction or actually engaging in it myself. In addition, many of the character defects that each of these active addicts frequently demonstrated such as negativity, gossip, judgments, anger, rage, jealousy, control, and the like all seemed to siphon their way back into me. Time and time again it always ended with me becoming extremely unhealthy just like them. That’s why I finally started making much healthier choices in life as to who I’d spend time with and who I wouldn’t, because the last thing I wanted to become ever again was the unspiritual toxic mess I once was.

Thus all of this change has led up to me choosing not once, but twice in the past few weeks to not spend time or remain a friend with two separate people who sadly seem to be living out the slogan “if nothing changes, nothing changes.” Both have struggled with their sexuality for a very long time and continue to shroud themselves in negativity because of it. Each has also greatly struggled living a spiritual based life where most of their focus appears stuck in complaints about what they don’t have, rather than what they do. But most importantly, I’ve seen signs of active addictions still swimming around their behaviors that have been a huge warning sign for myself to stay away, which is exactly what I’ve done.

The hardest part about this decision to keep my distance from each of them is how it made them both feel. I have seen the sadness in their eyes and heard the dismay in their words as I set my boundaries and made it very clear that I couldn’t spend time with them. And even though they might not think so, I don’t consider myself any better than them, I just want to live better than how they are choosing to live.

My deepest truth is really this. I know if I was to spend any bit of regular time with either, there’s a good chance I’ll start living as they do, which will only lead me right back into becoming spiritually sick all over again. That’s the last thing I would want in life nowadays and I know that’s the last thing God would want of me either. So I’ll continue to pray for these two individuals from a distance hoping for them to discover greater love and light from within. In the meantime, I’m going to choose to spend time with only those who are trying to live a life free from addictions, selfless, and guided by a Higher Power, as I know in doing so, I’ll have no problem with becoming just like those I’m regularly spending time with…

Peace, love, light and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson