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February 7 through February 13, 2022

We'll be cruising the information highway this week as the Sun picks up full power in Aquarius. Keep in mind that even though Mercury went direct last week, there could be some lingering fallout, so stay alert! Monday and Tuesday unfold under a Taurus Moon, enabling us to take care of obligations of a material nature, whether work or home related. If you've got a home project or assignment you're not sure how to approach, hop on YouTube for some great ideas or direction. Wednesday through Friday we'll be under the influence of the Gemini Moon, which makes networking, socializing and researching our main focus. Not only will you be surprised at what you learn, you'll be dispensing valuable information to others! The Cancer Moon will take precedence over the weekend, inspiring a cleaning and refreshing of your personal space, as well as socializing with loved ones, or giving yourself permission to be a couch potato and catch up on all those movies or tv shows you've been meaning to watch!

Q & A with MATTHEW DICKS, Author of Someday is Today

Someday — when the kids are grown, when work lightens up, when I win the lottery — I am going to start that business, become a yoga teacher, write that book, develop that app, paint that picture, finish my degree, pick up that musical instrument.

There’s a Japanese proverb: “The day you decide to do it is your lucky day.” But how do we make the decision to actually start and complete creative things? This is the question that author and nationally acclaimed storyteller Matthew Dicks explores in Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life.

We hope you’ll enjoy this Q & A with Matthew about the book.

Tell us about Someday is Today and what inspired you to write it.

I wear a lot of hats: Author. Elementary school teacher. Storyteller. Consultant. Speaking coach. Minister. Wedding DJ. Not to mention father, cat owner, husband, poker player, and mediocre gofer.

I do a lot of things. As a result, the question that I am asked most frequently is, “How do you do all the things that you do?” This book seeks to answer that question.

I have spent much of my life devising strategies that have allowed me to make my dreams come true while still finding plenty of time to be a normal human being, with plenty of time for friends, family, Netflix, and laundry. Some relate to the efficient use of time. Others focus on maintaining positivity and momentum in a world so often awash with negativity. Still others ask you to examine the way you make decisions in your life to ensure that your choices lead to the best possible outcomes.

Lots of people dream of doing something great someday – writing a book, building a business, making art, traveling the world, changing the fortunes of those less fortunate – but most people die having never fulfilled their dreams.

It’s an ongoing tragedy for so many people who believe that there is an endless supply of somedays. This book seeks to end the tragedy of someday by helping people turn somedays into today.

How important is hope when it comes to the realization of our creative dreams?

Hope is critical to the success of the creator. Hopelessness leads to apathy and inaction. Unless you believe that today can be brighter and better than yesterday, there is little reason to move forward with purpose and no reason to be enthusiastic about the possibilities of the day and the future. Knowing and believing that things can get better, progress is possible, and dreams can come true is essential to anyone dreaming of doing anything worthwhile.

You say in the book that “someday” is might be your least favorite word in the English dictionary. Why is that?

“Someday” is an insidious word that allows people to put off their dreams to another day. The problem is that our supply of somedays is finite, but by the time most people recognize this, it’s too late.

What is the One-Hundred-Year-Old Plan and how can it help us live with out fear of regret?

The problem with decision making is that so often, we make decisions about how we spend our time and effort based upon the next hour, the day, the next week, the next month, and even the next year. This may feel good in the moment, but if we extend our view across a lifetime, we discover that making decision based upon short terms wants and needs often leads to a life filled with unfulfilled dreams and endless regret.

The One-Hundred-Year-Old Plan asks you to look to the future when making a decision about how to spend your time and effort. Rather than relying on the version of yourself existing in the moment, look ahead to the one-hundred-year old version of yourself – the version who is looking back upon your life and judging the way you’ve spent your time – and ask that version of yourself how they would like you to spend the next hour. That version of yourself knows that friends and family comes before Netflix. Working towards your dreams is more important than time spent on social media or video games.

It hard to make decisions based upon the here and the now. But when we ask our future self what we want from our current self, answers are often much more obvious and decisions are better made.

What advice do you have to offer those whose inner perfectionist is preventing them from starting a creative project?

Understand that creative people make terrible things all the time. In order to do something good or even great, you must make mistakes. You must produce poor results. You must accept the fact that every single person on this planet who has ever made something great has also made many, many bad things. Perfection almost always equates to inaction. The need for perfections causes dreams to remain perpetually unfulfilled. As the creator of things, we must simply begin, even if our first second, and millionth steps are miserable and better forgotten. It’s better to be moving forward, making terrible things, than standing still and making nothing.

What is the most important thing you hope readers will take away from your book?

I hope that people finish the book believing that success is attainable, dreams can come true, and progress is possible. All of the things we want from life can be achieved if we focus on how we live each day. Our lives are an assemblage of every tiny decision that we make, and the course of our lives are determined in great part by this assemblage of tiny decisions. Small changes in how we live, piled atop one another and stretched out over time, can yield enormous results. My book seeks to help people see those choices more clearly and make these choices more strategically. There are no magic pills, but there are a multitude of small, significant ways that we can improve our chances of success every hour of every day. I hope my readers believe this and begin today.

Someday is today.

Matthew Dicks is the author of Someday Is Today and nine other books. A bestselling novelist, nationally recognized storyteller, and award-winning elementary schoolteacher, he teaches storytelling and communications at universities, corporate workplaces, and community organizations. Dicks has won multiple Moth GrandSLAM story competitions and, together with his wife, created the organization Speak Up to help others share their stories. Visit him online at www.MatthewDicks.com.

Excerpted from the book from Someday Is Today: 22 Simple, Actionable Ways to Propel Your Creative Life. Copyright ©2022 by Matthew Dicks. Printed with permission from New World Library.

My husband is a Leo. Before we met, he had a dream in which his deceased wife appeared at the foot of his bed. She showed him a picture of me, and said, This is your future wife - meet her. When we met, his face turned white, and I said hello twice before he acknowledged me. Later, he told me about his dream, and I told him that I believed she truly appeared to him. The thing he thought was so amazing is that the picture she showed him was exactly like me. We met on a blind date, and had never seen one another before. Do spirits guide us to new love this way? If so, are they interfering with destiny or changing destiny somehow, or helping destiny to unfold? I also had a similar experience with my fiance, who died. We had met through very unusual circumstances. Thanks a lot for helping answer my question!

- Monique

Dreamchaser:

Monique, I do believe that people on the Otherside can give us very accurate messages. Why would his wife NOT be able to do that whole matchmaking thing from the Otherside? When we pass over, all our human emotions fall away, and the only thing left is LOVE. His wife loved him and she wants him to be happy. She knew that you would be the woman he could share the rest of his life with and she wanted to let him know it was okay.

Leo males are very territorial. Picture the male lion with the female lions in his pride in your head. See how ALL the women belong to him, and he looks out for them all? Every Leo man I know keeps his old girlfriends as friends. (If they are still speaking to him, that is!)

So your husband was holding on to his wife, even though she had passed over. She wanted to let him know it was okay for him to let her go and move on. She also knows how hard it is for him to make a decision sometimes, so she threw him a bone, so to speak. She showed him the picture and said, Just so there will be no mistaking it, this is the one for you. That is quite funny if you think about it. Instead of answering Honey, where did I put my keys? Honey, where did I put my socks? she was continuing to help him as best she could. This wife was a very cool woman!

If we are listening, spirits will guide us to what we need. Most people are not open to actually listening. When that is the case, spirits have no choice but to come to us in our dreams, when our conscious mind is shut off and can't interfere. The spirits are in no way interfering. If we are receiving a message from them, you can bet that they are there not only with permission, but also with guidance from the source of all knowledge.

Spirits can't change our destinies. If it looks like spirits made something happen or not happen, it is because that was the plan all along. For example, you hear of people being saved in car accidents by people who just disappear afterwards; that happens so that our destiny of continuing to live is fulfilled. They aren't changing our destiny.

That being said, we do have the free will to choose our own path. There are a few things that are pre-destined and cannot be altered, such as our births. When it comes to whether we are going to become involved in a relationship with someone or not, that is up to us. While you were destined to meet, your husband CHOSE to allow you into his life. He chose to go on that blind date that night. He chose to remember your face and what his wife had said to him and thus fulfill a higher destiny in love.

*****

Astrea:

For as long as history has been recorded, people have sought counsel from their ancestors. It's common for someone who has Crossed Over to give a person advice on romance or any other subject. Deceased spouses wouldn't be an exception to that rule.

In Japan, a tradition in the Shinto religion is to seek counsel and blessings from loved ones in Spirit and from ancestors from many generations back. In Mexico, the Day of the Dead is a celebration of ancestors. They are made a lavish meal and fed the best treats in hopes that this inspires them to smile upon their kinfolk and bless them throughout the coming year. Modern society doesn't openly accept that kind of thing, but I can tell you that at Kajama, I get a number of people every day who have sought guidance from a grandmother, aunt, brother, mother or father in Spirit on many issues, and who received detailed answers in dreams.

You know, of course, that the dream really happened. Your husband really saw her, and she made CERTAIN that she made enough of an impression on him that he would remember. She must have been quite a card. This is your future wife, MEET HER! All she forgot to add was, That's an order, Buddy!

I think when our Loved Ones come to us from Beyond the Veil, they do it with love, caring and a positive intention. I doubt that it changes our destiny, but then, I'm one of those people who believes that we make our own Destiny. We have choices. There are mistakes and consequences. If we choose to react in a positive way to the signs we are given, we align with a higher Destiny. If we choose to ignore those signs, we head in a different direction. Free Will is certainly a key factor that comes into play even when a destined plan is trying to get our attention.

I feel you and your husband are really lucky to have the blessing of someone in heaven who is taking time out from her fun and relaxation to try to help you find one another. She must care about both of you very much. He probably had that dream many times, but only remembered it once, perhaps that last time. Once she knew he had the message, she could stop trying so hard. The picture she showed him looked just like you because it was you! She worked hard on her plan so that she would make a lasting impression on his brain.

If you like, she'll come to you, too. Ask her to visit you in your dreams before you go to sleep at night. I'm sure your former fiance is looking after you as well. It's wonderful to keep those we love so close, even if it's only in spirit!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.