Reshaping Destiny Each New Day

Dream Lessons on the Meaning of Karma

Realize that everything connects to everything else. ~Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

I recently had a vivid dream about receiving an odd assignment on my first day at a new job. In my dream, several new hires eagerly met with our supervisor who surprised us by tasking us with writing an essay on “karma.”

Gulp. A lump of anxiety formed in my throat that I could feel, even in my dream state. I was pretty sure “karma” was just a fancy word for “destiny” or “fate,” a heady topic under any name and one I wasn’t thrilled to tackle.

As dream-me first considered the word, I couldn’t get past the biggest event of my real life. I lost my not-quite-six-year-old daughter four years ago to an illness.

Was this really my fate? Had my actions to that point really led me to that dismal destiny? If so, what horrific act had I perpetrated that karma needed to punish me so completely?

I didn’t want to write the essay. I wanted to run as far from impossible questions as I could.

So instead of sitting down to write, I went to visit a friend in prison; a person who exists in real life but who happened to be incarcerated only in my dream. As…