Lots of great songs from the Wizard of Oz but this might be my favorite, which is possibly the shortest:
"You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun
Step into the light
Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place
On the face of the earth or the sky
Hold onto your breath
Hold onto your heart
Hold onto your hope
March up to the gate and bid it open
You're out of the woods
You're out of the dark
You're out of the night
Step into the sun
Step into the light
March up to the gate and bid it open, open"
The "glorious place" is the most hopeful, happy, peaceful place I have ever been: Heaven on Earth. I may have been there through manic episodes, but I know it's real, and I truly believe I can share it with all of you. People like the neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander, author of Proof of Heaven, have been there too, and the chorus of people with evidence of Heaven is growing louder. We're all trying to explain how we got there and how you can get there too.
The Wizard of Oz is a metaphor, I believe. Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Lion, and the Scarecrow are all of us on our personal quests to find the light and the truth. The Witch is our doubts and fears, everything that makes us feel small and scared. The Witch is organized religion. She rules with an iron grip.
The Great and Powerful Oz is the God we have become acquainted with in the Monotheistic Age. He leads us to believe he is omniscient and omnipotent, and he scares us with his power. Our quest is to find him, be with him, learn from him. We feel that we need him to rule over us. We feel we need him to be real. But he is not.
He is the man behind the curtain. When Dorothy pleads with him to have some compassion after he terrifies and tortures the Cowardly Lion, he just bellows commands and sends them on another quest, to kill the witch and bring back her broom stick. "Killing in the name of God..." Their long journey through the land of Oz was not enough for God. That's the problem with God, you can try your whole life to find him and be close to him and still not find him. And he keeps raising the bar: never forget you are a sinful human....stay scared and in the dark and small in his shadow....but search a little harder and try a little harder to be a better person each day. And you just might see the "real God" in the end.
So Dorothy figures out he is really a human, just like us. He becomes more like a dear friend when he is humanized. Oz becomes the answer to her prayers when she unveils him, because she sees her humanness in him. She finds out that she is really as Godly and full of potential and hope as any "God" there is. We are the Gods, we are the masters of our fate and the ones who tend the flame of hope in our hearts. All of the citizens of Oz practiced obedience to a myth, and as long as they feared him, they stayed in their place. But when the myth was revealed, the four sojourners fulfilled their wildest dreams.
Glinda, the Good Witch, put it best to Dorothy: When Dorothy asks for her help Glinda says "you don't need to be helped any longer....you always had the power (to go back to Kansas)." The Scarecrow asks Glinda why she didn't tell Dorothy that before, and Glinda says "because she wouldn't have believed me; she had to learn it herself."
The power, the light, the love, the untapped potential....it is all right there in your heart already. You don't need a God to show you the way. When you realize humans are the Gods, you return home to the Eden that existed before we invented him. It is the ultimate return to the throne. It took me ten years to realize that God was not a personality, but Love Triumphant and Supreme.
The Wizard says "Remember my sentimental friend, that a heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved in return." The trick is not giving unconditional love, as is prescribed by the Monotheistic God of our modern religions, but to RECEIVE unconditional love from others. True love is allowing yourself to love you as much as others do. To RECEIVE and BELIEVE the love others shower on you. We love each other so much, but we doubt it all the time. We don't think we are good enough to deserve perfect love. We have been taught from birth we are stained, we are sinners, so how can we ever love as was intended? Set aside the God construct, and love becomes a tidal wave, and you can't help loving others as much as they love you.
We can all walk out of the darkness and into the light. It's right there waiting for us, right in front of our veiled eyes. The light is breaking over this dark world, and soon.
