In the Jewish Torah (Genesis 12:1 & 2), Abraham is told by God to leave his native land and his father’s house to go to the land that God would show him, and there, he would be made a great nation. Curiously, the directive God gives him is “Lech Lecha,” which means “go to yourself.”
As I dream this Abraham story as a dream, it is when we go deeply within ourselves that we reach our true “land,” land being the body and that which is the bound Self (bound as in having geographic bounds; or, as in the body, physical boundaries that separate us as individual beings from other beings). From our true land—that which is our truest Self, our deepest embodiment of Self—we become abundant and fertile in our creations. Creations are our “nation,” meaning our progeny or that which we create from our deepest passions, and it is they that become fecund or great; creations are anything we beget from our unique Selfhood, such as a book, a painting, or a family.
In order to go deeply into our truest Self, we have to leave the culture and history of all that is telling us what is supposed to be, or how we are supposed to be; in other words, our “native land”—our upbringing.
We also have to leave the house of our father, which is to say, leave the story of our father (parents), the belief systems, the expectations, and all that our parents have placed on us of their wishes and expectations, their doubts, and all the patterns of behavior we have taken on from them that impede our individual expression. It is only by freeing ourselves from expectations and all that would influence, sway, or demand of us, all that we have taken on from others as our own, that we reach the Self of our own land.
By being completely “naked” of all the imprints of our upbringing, we find that which is uniquely, undeniably, completely original in our Selfhood. Like our fingerprints, Selfhood, is completely individual.
The Abraham dream is also one about the action of manifesting. How can we understand that God is telling Abraham to walk toward the land God will show him, after he’s started walking? It’s a contradiction. Wouldn’t it make more sense to be shown where to go first, so that the step is at least pointed in the right direction? Where in the heck is Abraham supposed to go?
As I continue to dream this dream, I feel that God is asserting that we are in relationship. Meaning, when we take the step to move toward our greatest inner true Self, the direction unfolds and becomes increasingly clear. Once we take the action—the step of moving forward—then God will show us the details.
Going is the movement that starts the journey—it is the inner impulse and intent that causes us to raise our foot toward stepping. Before the foot steps down, in the time and space between intent and physical step, where the foot lands will be directed. Taking the first step is our commitment to the relationship, and the work of it. It is the action of bringing the Dream into the tangible, into the grounded, manifest physical world. It is our agreement to engage in the journey, our response to the “I’m here.”
It is also by taking that step into the unknown that we are most empowered. Like any good teacher knows, the student grows the most when they are enabled to find the questions and the answers for themselves, rather than being told how to think. And, because in this reading God will show us, taking that first step is entering into a covenant of the promise of how the Dreaming world works. We both dare and trust, we hear the quiet Inner Voice and we step forward where we are met, in response, and are shown space and fertility greater than anything we alone could have imagined.
There is no other human being like us on this planet, never before nor ever will be. Selfhood is both birthright and obligation. Each of us is given the possibility of coming to Selfhood. This is inherent in our beingness. We are obligated to engage in the process because by coming to the Self we bring to the world that which we uniquely are fashioned to bring. Do we need to carry forward what made our parents, our parents? Or, to compromise our own possibilities by living out the life someone else dreams on our behalf? Our uniqueness is necessary for the world, and expressing our uniqueness creates abundance. This is how I dream the dream of the Abraham story.
In my early thirties, I was a founding partner in a real estate development company. Our company bought historic apartment buildings which we then restored, rented out, managed, and then eventually sold.
Initially this venture began as a partnership in search of home. I bought, with a dear friend, a four-unit apartment building that we restored together in order for us to live there. We became deeply involved with the families who lived in the other units in the building and in the neighborhood. Together with them we formed grassroots efforts to improve the neighborhood; we worked with the local kids, teaching them building skills; and we organized co-projects with juvenile offender teens to plant trees and clean trash.
I loved this time of restoring the building simultaneously with restoring the community. It was work that was directly helping people to excel as individuals and also as a group of neighbors, and our efforts involved me in projects working directly with city government. Overall, it was a deeply satisfying experience and ful filled two of the passions of the dream list I gave at age ten to my father: politics and helping people.
The renovation efforts and the apartments in our building that we rented out and managed were beautiful and profitable. During the process, a longtime friend and business mentor dropped by one day to say hello. He saw how much we had done to change the building and the neighborhood, and he saw it as a success.
My partner and I had embarked upon our project as a way of having a home that was partly financed by the rental income of the tenants. We had become involved with the community simply because we were passionately engaged in its betterment. But after seeing the results of our efforts, and their greater potential, my mentor invited us to partner with him and make a business of buying and renovating buildings, which he would finance.
We agreed and the business grew very quickly. As it grew, there also grew a distance between me and the projects and people we interacted with. The time needed for the business took our time away from being able to do the projects that meant so much to me. And, rather than tenants who had become friends, with each added building the new people occupying them simply became tenants.
At this time, I began to have a series of dreams in which I would be in a meeting with Donald Trump, which had caused me to be late to my meeting with Oprah, with whom I was supposed to write a book. I would realize with grief that I was again late (I knew I had been late many times before), and I would rush out from my meeting with Donald Trump and race toward the meeting with Oprah, desperately upset that I had put off the appointment and that I wasn’t respecting her, and wondering why I had done so when I liked Oprah so much more than Donald! Writing with Oprah was what I wanted to do more than anything, why was I always so late?!?!
As the dreamer of this dream, I made an emotion-less business out of real estate, and I have stayed too long there. My biggest goal, what I wanted to do more than anything, was to find a creative way to help people. And my Dreaming was telling me how to do it—write a book!
Dreaming is a light that gives us an initial movement forward and a glimpse ahead at the path. I had no idea what I was supposed to write about, or what kind of book it was meant to be. Like Abraham, I simply had to hear, respond, and step forward. Stepping forward, another light flickers in the up-ahead illuminating the next steps on the path, just as Abraham was told by stepping forward he would be brought to the land he would be shown.
The last lesson in this chapter is from the only night dream my father ever told me. It is a dream from when he was a small boy.
My father’s father had a temper and was violent. As a child, if he told you to do something, you did it. If he told you not to do something, you avoided it. No questions, and you didn’t want to explore the alternatives.
One day my father asked to borrow his father’s pocket knife. He was told he could, but that he had to bring it back at the end of the day or he would be in trouble. Night