The A-ha Moment

 "It's a resonation. It's a resonating with what is somehow buried, or suppressed. That's what an 'aha' is."

~~ Oprah Winfrey

So doing a full blown book on my phone makes me aware of how smart they are and how easy it is now to create chapters, edit and get artwork for my own self-publishing. However, this article is not about technology and self-publishing. It's about being able to understand something differently or as Oprah first said, "looking at something differently than you have before." In my case there are three dreams I have kept in my psyche for years. I refused to forget them because none happened yet. Two of them I just couldn't figure out. And out of the three, two hadn't happened yet either until I did so much writing over the last ten years. This coming year happens to be 20 years after I self-published a 100 page memoir on my life in recovery in 2003. 

Back then I worked in a science programs department where I ordered lots of pamphlets for brochures and in-house publishing for training manuals. When the woman who did all the printing for the building at that time got her hands on my "book" she said she would print 250 for me only if I would charge $12.50 for it and get out and sell them for myself. So I did. The best single most simple activity for me. Before internet, influencers and Insta! I was as self-published author. Even though I gave away sometimes I made close to $3000 that Fall because I wrote about my worldview, in 2003. I wrote about all the things I learned that people preferred I would shut the fuck up about in recovery. But it paid off! 

I wrote. Before journaling was even a thing. I wrote because I refused to relapse or engage in activities that made me feel like I wanted to use or be close to people who might use. While lots of people got jobs, did a lot of fucking and friends with benefits shit, I didn't do that. I wrote, got my l'il section 8 funded apartment, finished two years of college,  finished a 4-year B. A. program while I homeschooled my kids then got my Master's. That took up the next ten years. Recently, getting cancer and taking care of a variety of other health problems over the last ten have changed my life even more. 

Yet people will say I am speaking negatively or curse too much about things I don't like that happened in my life.  That shit is about them. Not me. When I was a crackhead it was okay to curse out whoever got on my nerves or got in the way of getting my shit. So fuck siddity assed people. I use curse words now articulately, because I am still Just plain damn smarter than most of the janky assed people I know. Because they must stand behind my dotted line I've drawn or just shut the eff up. You keep coming back, yo. How I talk about spending my time, dream my dreams and find my joy is about me. Not y'all bitches. I found myself nearly drowning in grief because some of those clean and crazy people weren't really happy with themselves. People who were happy making people more miserable than they should feel.  

You know who they are. People like this don't want you to be free much less feel it. Bitches who don't wanna see you win. Not even in a game of Monopoly.  Anyway. I remember Oprah coming up with the term the "A-ha Moment," over 15 years ago. It is because of her we have this expression in the dictionary. An amazing feat within itself. Like who would think to add even more words to the dictionary? Apparently Oprah. Even Cardi B is trying to get Okurrrrr, trademarked, I think. But hey,  another amazing activity for rich people in society. Even plain ol' fabulous folk like I want to keep getting profitable  ideas, residuals and royalties for myself. All makes total sense to me. But what makes even more sense is this one dream I had that continues to open new realities to me. Happened nearly ten years ago. Now this dream was a dream I wouldn't soon forget because it had several things I understood in it. 

For one I was seated on a pillow chanting. I was in a beautiful garden sitting on a pillow chanting. Just gorgeous surroundings with fruit trees, luscious flowers and manicured grasses. Even though this was truly a heavenly place I believed I travelled to a lot of beautiful countries in my dreams while sleeping. I dreamed of real destinations I have never been like Greece, Fiji, Korea, even Tibet or Seoul. So even in my dreams there was never a time that I thought these places didn't exist for real. But this place? Oh this place was not on a map for anyone else but me. And here's why I knew. Another Buddha showed up wearing all black floating on a pillow like mine! The fact that he was male was a surprise but he also did something else that surprised me. He covered my ears! 

At the time I think the message meant for me to stop listening to people I knew. Six years into Buddhism I had That dream. That could very well have been true for me. Just stop listening to people who were telling me what to do. Although it was hard to do, I had to keep understanding Buddhism. Had I not kept studying those principles from our Liturgy I was at the mercy of the ignorance passed on from others. So I didn't even listen to my own mind, I studied the principles not trying to interpret them from someone else but understanding the different meanings fully by asking people some of the oldest and wisest people among all of us.

Many of the teachings were not simple western concepts. So I had to study and do a little research depending on what I was trying to understand about my life. Because recovery and finding my own way in Buddhism were constant struggles between me and other people I became one of those women people needed to understand that teaching others is not mainly about what you know. Teaching is about showing others the principles that meet universal guidelines of understanding. It was about critically thinking about I was learning. That way I could employ what I was learning for my own growth in my own life. 

After having so much pain and suffering as a Christian, I needed to approach my recovery without any attachment to the God of everyone else's understanding. Especially when I went to recovery meetings each day for 5 years straight, then ending up being on my own again. No friends. Used up my 7 sponsors because I actually did whatever they suggested. After I had that first encounter with Buddhism and never attending a Buddhist meeting yet, I had to move on from A. A. And N. A. Meetings. There just wasn't a place for me anymore. That's all I could deduce from sponsors I had. There wasn't anything more they could "show" me. And that was sad. But I wasn't. After five years and writing my story on how much I loved being in recovery. People in recovery just left me hanging. For some reason I didn't care. I had Buddhism. People, particularly Black women, continued to kick me to the curb every time I tried going to meetings. After several more years I stopped considering myself an alcoholic. I haven't had the comfort of being an alcoholic with those people since 25 years ago. I wonder what label they would give me now? 

Bottom line I did a lot of things right. And just like the worst of a mother's children...they got more recognition, support and love, and I got a whole lot less. Period.  I didn't like being ousted by people in recovery. But I kept at it anyway. I valued my recovery and I still do. I gave up the urge to try going to meetings anymore about 8 years ago. And I did try. It was a horribly frustrating experience in rejection once again because someone's girlfriend thought I was spending too much time with her girlfriend. Bottom line if those cunts would stop having relationships in the rooms with each other ALL THE TIME then maybe there would be room for women like me and women would stop thinking women who enter the rooms want sexual relationships with other women. I haven't met a woman in recovery who wasn't also in either a gay or heterosexual relationship either. Very few men, too. Although I think men have better choices when it comes to their relationships with women who don't drink. This is another area of being Judas that undermines principles of recovery. We are not supposed to fraternize with other people in recovery under specific circumstances. People did it all the time. And it made it hard for me to take myself and my recovery seriously. Sure I liked having fun. But people I knew then and those I know now don't care about making fun exciting friendships. All they care about is what kind of work you do. And fucking. 

This is why my own personal meaning of this Buddha in Black dream imparts just as much wisdom today as it did 10 years ago. Fortunately I only had two mentors as a Buddhist. The first introduction was brief but enough for me to honor my life by putting up an altar. The next person helped me connect with the teachings and others. All of a sudden I was going to multiple meetings a week for the next 4 years. Well this dream spoke to me 6 years into chanting.  I remember how much this meant to me when I recently wrote about solitude. Because I did many many hours of chanting with others. But I never ever spent more time chanting with anyone more than myself. That is nugget of wisdom I began to hold onto for myself each day even until now. Don't pray more for others than for myself. My ass needs help too. Especially since a Queen has to deal with strange people a lot these days. Praying for enemies and all that shit is a function of moral relativism if you ask me. You can do that if you want. But never have I ever thought that helped me at all when it came to changing my karma and finding true joy in my life. I'm sorry. Praying for people whom I don't care for does not enhance my life. It poisons my heart because I'm being fake. I'd rather just not have any feelings about people I feel this way about and work on making my life more joyful.

In any case, chanting is not the same as choosing solitude. Solitude is a powerfully quiet place for me that I can write on and on about. The reason being is that I had to be quiet around people. Sometimes I had to just stay away from them because I generally was not encouraged to let anyone know what was on my mind. So when I did speak those same people tried disparaging me but I developed tolerance for their bullshit and read them for filth when they tried me! Got good at that shit too. Because I reserved that space. That space where I understood my own language. I didn't have to take their word  or their bullshit anymore. I listened to My own voice. End of subject.

While I can discuss the most wonderful aspects of finding my voice through solitude and chanting for myself to overcome obstacles, all of this includes those a-ha moments. Like the Buddha dressed in Black dream. Whether he was telling me to tune people out, protect my ears from what I was listening to or warning me of dark times ahead when I would ultimately have to stand my ground. I continued to fuel my life with the courage I needed. Stand my ground. Feel the power of my rage. To a degree all of these actions were influenced by that singular A-ha moment. The Buddha in Black Dream. Oprah's expression bears on Hobbes (1588-1679) discussions on how imagination and sensation are processes of our memories and experiences. Stanford encyclopedia explores the subject of Hobbes explaining their connection: "Understanding is for Hobbes the work of the faculty...An account of the workings of language is thus crucial for his having an account of the workings of the mind...Hobbes thinks that understanding is a sort of imagination. That is, the faculty of imagining is responsible for understanding, as well as for compounding images and for memory.

And so the A-Ha moment translated that dream several times for me. Sometimes that's all I had. That dream guided me and made me push forward sometimes I had to step back too. I had to push through chemo, radiation, heart surgery and having to wait all this time after my son's grew up to reinvent myself again. That dream becomes even clearer to me again as I embark on the next 10 years. I understand its meaning that I must have more hope than ever. I must!

I wish everyone a Happy New Year. I wish you many more A-Ha moments to guide you on your path. Because wherever you are. Whatever you face. You must have endless hope. You must not ever give up.

Luv to U & Me😘, Ms. BBB

REFERENCES

Vicentey, S. (2019). Oprah explains What an A-ha Moment Really Means: She is Why It's in the Dictionary. Oprah Magazine. https://www.oprahdaily.com/life/a29090436/aha-moment-meaning/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2019). Orig. 2013; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes/#2.4