Many times in my life I gave up everything I had for the hope and chance of a dream.

The dream of enlightenment.

The dream of relationship.

The dream of family.

All of those dreams lie broken in the dust right now.

And that’s really ok.

Actually, that’s what dreams are for – that’s what happens to all our dreams, one way or another. They are either realized and then forgotten, or just simply forgotten.

We romanticize dreams. We place them on a pedestal. We worship them. Partly because so many of us are afraid to even dream… let alone try to realize those dreams.

But when a dream dies – as all things must do – we grieve. And while we grieve we lose ourselves in the idea of what the dream meant to us.

Of what could have been.

Remember that you are not your dreams.

Each one of your dreams – and let them be countless because the more you dream the more awake you are – is just a signpost, a lantern, guiding your way through the wilderness of life.

And when a dream is over, it’s time to celebrate.

Over the last 6 months I’ve been going through the process of separating from my wife, and I have to say that for a while it was incredibly difficult. I made it difficult for myself (or rather, we made it difficult for ourselves and each other) by not embracing and celebrating the end of a dream.

But there came a moment, recently, when we remembered our love for each other, and put all our fears behind us.

When she said to me:

“I wish that for you, because I was never able to give it to you”

and my heart, in that moment, sang again.

And when the dream is over, a new day dawns. And we dream again!

Let us dance, and sing, and remember that the death of a dream, just as the end of a life, is really just a new beginning. When one door closes another opens. The sun sets on today, and rises on tomorrow.

And all the while we breathe, the earth spins through space, and the tides keep on turning.

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