The main character of the naive Bull came to me in a vivid dream many years ago during a difficult time in my life. During a time when my emotions were raw and they didn’t have a constructive outlet. I was overworked and burnt-out in the healthcare field. I literally took these emotions and ran. I ran to South America where I took a plunge into a dark night of the soul into the unknown. A pilgrimage that ended in a spiritual awakening process that gave me a new sense of sight and a renewed hope in life
Although a new door opened it was a difficult journey to actually step through it. Choosing to take the first step to get off the cycle of self imposed suffering I chose to reinvent myself. I immersed myself in an unknown culture and language to remove the distractions of my known world to get back to the basics of living.
It was my own sensory deprivation cell. I had no cell phone, no extra money, no TV, and no friends. I had to lose myself to find myself again. I made enough money for my food and rent by teaching english. The small room I rented in an apartment house was the perfect place for a wandering mind to focus. My only true companion was my imagination, a pen and a notebook, where the emotions found these characters. I didn’t know at the time, but I was on a spiritual healing journey that continues to evolve to this day. I can honestly say that life is not entropic by design but purposeful and intelligent in a divine order. Through the seemingly random and chaotic events in one’s life, there is a divine energy that calls to you in those dark moments. Once this call is taken, you start to transcend from a passive receiver to a participatory divine being. As the gifts of a new perspective, new found courage and a divine self-talk became part of a new me, I saw the world as a spiritual place for individual transcendance.
I would like to share a pivotal true experience that happened on the streets of a Brazilian city that helped change the way I see the world. As I got ready to cross a busy city street on my way to work, I watched a man who hauled scrap metal in an oversized two wheel rickshaw cart. The man can only be described as a thin small frame individual with delineated muscles from the nature of his work. He wore nothing but some old jean shorts, a hat and sandals. His skin was dark by nature but darker from constant sun exposure and his body glistened from perspiration. The street had a special lane just for his two wheeled cart balanced by his front poles that he used to pull it. His cart was as large as a small pickup truck bed that was ingeniously modified to balance the weight. I stood there admiring the size of the load he pulled and the will and strength needed to move the cart forward. I walked up to him smiling trying to convince him to let me pull the cart. He looked at me confused and we couldn’t understand each other in my broken Portuguese so he grabbed his cart and moved slowly down the street. Although this may seem trivial to some, compared to my many life threatening experiences, this experience was instrumental in the development of the Bull character. It was that night that I dreamt of the Bull and felt his frustration and anger to change his life. The character became refined over the years as I was shown the right journey he should take.
I still wonder to this day, If I had taken the burden from the man with the cart that day, would the symbolic act have accelerated my spiritual process and purpose?
I have come to realize that the man with the cart is everyone. Everyone has their own personal burden to pull. The key word is to pull, we must not remain stagnant, but RUN like the character of the Bull. This forward movement will create the circumstances to align you on your journey. In this perceived burden we create purpose and identity. We should not interfere with each other’s growth by lessening their burden unless mutually agreed upon. It is our obligation to seek out emotional and spiritual tools and to use them to see our perceived burden for what it is, so our cart is more bearable. When we see our cart for what it is, revealing a small piece of a grandiose plan, then we all grow and glow a little brighter. Let’s get on with a purposeful life; We have work to do.
