Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Conversations in Czech

Continuing on my exploration of foreign terrain, I divinate with Neale Donald Walsch‘s deck of cards – all in Czech.

Known for his book series, Conversations with God, Walsch offers these “cards of awareness” with different thoughts to contemplate, depending on which card you select.

Neale Donald Walsch

There are those that may say it can be challenging to hear the voice of God, let alone carry on an entire conversation together. It is even more of a stretch when you’re speaking different languages. So for me, this Hovory s Bohem is carried on only by the grace of Google Translate tools.

Clearly these cards are on loan. And if you’ve been following the Archives as of late, you’ll know from whence they’ve come. If you’re just tuning in, well, I’ve been surprising myself with the level of candidness with which I’ve been publicly sharing my recent friendship with the man who’s come to be referred to as the Bohemian Lover.

He seems to love all things, from the Dragonfruit starts he sprouted from seed, to the grey kitten that follows him around like a young girl in love. He also, apparently, appreciates the occasional hovory with God via a convenient and portable deck of cards.

When he graciously shares them with me, it’s like stepping into another world. All of the letters on the cards are placed in new combinations. Foreign diacritical marks make exotic shapes on paper. Just viewing the words seem to transport me to unknown realms.

Of course, when it’s my turn to divinate a card, I’m hopeful that I will draw something that reflects me in all of my highest virtues. I’m hoping it’s magic and love and all things miraculous that will be conveyed in the card I pull.

These are the words, that appear on my selection:
Nic není bolestivé samo o sobě. Ta bolest je způsobena špatným myšlení.

Roughly translated:
Nothing is not painful in itself. The pain is due to bad thinking. (Gotta love the double negative).

How do you spell “wha-wah”?

Hardly the ethereal, heavenly message reflecting the beauty of my innermost soul that I had hoped for.

The Bohemian Lover tries to (lovingly) translate this for me. But has a bit of trouble. Understandably.

Mmmm. Perhaps in the realm of love and God there is some room for things to get lost in translation. Maybe because these things are beyond the mind and words and logic.

Though I’m not feeling like I am in pain, it’s true that in these recently explored, uncharted areas of the heart, I do at times feel afraid. I suppose that pain is most likely rooted in fear.

And if pain is due to bad thinking, maybe I should just take a pause on thought. Simply feel my way through this. No more, this-equals-this. Realize that some things simply don’t directly translate.

I can pull a card and just look at the completely foreign words of Neale Donald Walsch’s transmission from God in Czech. Feel the words as my eyes gaze upon them. Surrender to the fact that my mind has no idea what they mean. But that somewhere, somehow, these words in all of their alien script have been selected just for me.

That my heart already speaks this language. Is well versed in this Love dialogue.

It’s been here, having this conversation since the beginning of time.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 4 Comments

Opening the Golden Door

This morning I wake at 3:51am wanting to paint.

There was this image that came to me yesterday. A golden door opening. Light beaming out from within, as the door began to swing open.

I light incense and brew some coffee in the wee morning quiet, as a Pete Townsend song plays in my head.

“Let my love open the door…let my love open the door…let my love open the door…to your heart.”

Man, sometimes I’m astounded how much my life’s soundtrack is right on cue.

Though sourced in a feeling, it’s a conceptual piece I’m wanting to convey. A door opening to the heart. And even though, just yesterday, I told someone, “everyone is an artist in their own way, it just may be that sometime in their life someone told them that they weren’t and they believed them”, I’m not feeling skilled enough to get the image in my mind down on paper.

Someone along the way once told me, “you can’t really draw people” – and I believed them.

So when a friend gifted me a sketch pad she’d picked up at a garage sale, I thought it was a sign when a few pages featured the work of someone that really could draw people. The model and the artist will forever remain a mystery, but they left me with inspiration.

This morning, I open the sketch book and try to outline the figure of a woman. Just her shoulders and collarbones, the sternum where her heart would be. But shadowing and shaping present challenges. So I focus on the making of the door.

An hour of my writing time later, I’m left with only a hint of the golden door that I’d imagined actually captured on the page. The woman’s body, so much not what I was wanting, that I simply cut the door out, now making the piece seem more like a pre-school art project.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Oh, my editorial mind!

I flip back to the mystery artist’s rendering of the perfect human shape. The man’s arms outstretched. This is the ideal canvas upon which my golden door could rest. I ponder how I could superimpose my door on his chest. The door’s too big. Maybe I should leave him alone.

artist unknown

Maybe I should leave it all alone and simply find some way to see meaning in this exercise. Admit I moved into less familiar waters this morning and came up a bit tousled and wet.

But if you know the Archives, then you know that’s where my passion lies: it’s all in the process. The words, the photo, the painting, the sketch, the song…they’re all byproducts along the path of expression. Sometimes it’s an incredible result. Sometimes it’s not so “beautiful.” But the process lives. We follow the thread.

And the doubting mind that limits, the voices that taunt us to stop – we acknowledge them, ‘thank you very much for your input’ and move on anyway.

So in that vein, I will post my golden door cut-out in all of its divine imperfection. Nothing of what my mind’s eye saw. But proof-postive in my dedication to keep opening that door.

Love it all. Life is an artist’s work in progress. May we each continue on the path of creating our unique masterpiece.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

In the Fold

Last night
there was a true Bohemian at my table
three mugs of ginger tea
my two eyes watching
four hands folding
aerospace creases
for origami flight

“It’s a brand new design”
he says
then returns to whistling.
I know that tune
at first I think it must be
“Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah”
but it soon segues
to “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

How did the Bohemian Lover
end up at my dinner table
eating macaroni and cheese
with me
and my seven-year old?

He folds paper airplanes
with such intent
that they glide
like a feather
in perfect spiral corkscrews
leaving a child to gape
and ask
“How’d you do that?!”