Making Dreams Real: Balancing Earth and Air

"Don't stop building castles in the air; that's where they should be. Just don't forget to put foundations under them." Paraphrase of Henry David Thoreau's famous quote.

In the healing system of Reiki there's a concept of balancing energies called Earth and Heaven. People who tend to be primarily Earth are practical and they get things done. But sometimes they also find it hard to imagine different ways of doing & being, or with trying new solutions. A Reiki practitioner would say this person has too much Earth.

People you'd call Heaven types have great imaginations with no problem dreaming big and visualizing outcomes; however, they often lack the practical skills to plan and execute their dreams. These people are said to have too much Heaven.

Everyone who works hard on the job and at home & still wants to do things that are personally meaningful needs a balance of Earth and Air. For the next few weeks this is what I'll write about. I'll include a lot of resources that have helped me in my own quest for balancing imagination and practicality.

One excellent place to start, for those of you who learn primarily through reading, is with Martha Beck's Finding Your North Star. Among other things, Beck talks about four different personality types, their strengths and weaknesses in the making-dreams-real process. Some people are great dreamers, some get off to strong roaring starts, some are slow but steady workers, others like laying foundations by doing introverted tasks like research, while still others enjoy going out into the world and making connections. The thing is, any given project will require each of these traits at some point but most of us just aren't good at all of them. Beck gives practical ways to get things done in spite of what may be holding you back.