Archive for the ‘Blessings’ Category

Score: Darkness 2, Light 1,000,000

Friday, April 19th, 2013

I am a Bostonian.

We have had a tough week here.  We suffered a violent act of darkness as two young men attacked us, killing 3, critically injuring and maiming scores of others, and attempting to shake our individual and communal senses of security and trust.

They failed.  Resoundingly.

And so, even in the midst of this crisis, we have had a great week here.  Everything that is the best in us, in humanity, is on full display:  love, compassion, fearlessness in the face of danger, generosity, strength, selflessness, kindness, commitment to community, protection of others, clarity, cooperation, respect, and resolve.

I do not sense fear here. Quite notably, the response has not been fear, but unwavering common purpose to uphold these best values, to do what is right, to express the goodness that is who we are in truth, to protect what is finest in life and being human.  The response has been quiet and certain solidarity.

I have been deeply moved and filled with a sense of real joy–nearing ebullience–as I have witnessed the immediate egoless response, by thousands of individuals, stepping forward in all-embracing open heartedness to aid and assist, in an endless number of ways.  When the first bomb exploded just before 3 o’clock on April 15th, this entire community responded instantly and seamlessly with a kind of gentle collaborative might.  It is as if one soul is at work here.  All  combined in one consciousness, and it spread across the region, 1 million strong.  This was, and is, palpable, steady, with a matter-of-fact calmness and sureness about it. No drama.  No hysteria.

Evil arrived, and a formidable army responded.  Not with anger or violence, but with light.  With love.

There were no instructions to do this; there was no time to think about it. It was the innate goodness of each of us that immediately burst forth, confirming and reaffirming, lest we lose sight of it, who and what we are in our most authentic selves.  We are the incarnate expressions of the ineffable source, however you think of it: Love, Spirit, God, Light.

As Martin Luther King wrote while imprisoned in Birmingham:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

This past Monday multitudes of light showed up.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.  Here we are.   We are on the front line today, in this city upon a hill.  But we are legion with you, and you are with us.  Together our possibilities are great.

This has been a very good week indeed.

 

We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For

Saturday, December 22nd, 2012

As we arrive at this time of endings and new beginnings, I have been in deep contemplation, seeking to understand what is going on in the world around us, and wondering about our human station, as we mourn twenty young children, and six of their teachers, from Newtown, Connecticut.  Blessings upon them, their parents, their teachers, families and friends, and all of us.  They have served well, reminding us in unbearable sacrifice of themselves, of the truth and what matters, and moving us to take action now and do what we need to do, to be our best selves, in the fullness of the best that is human.  We extend our love and acknowledgement and gratitude to each of them.  And as difficult as we may find it, let us also extend our prayers to the gunman and his mother, the twentyseventh victim.

We move now into a new beginning, informed and, yes, enriched.  It is my hope that we each move with clear intention and right motivation, and indeed, enthusiasm, and go forward.  We are co-creators, it is our blessing, our birth-right and gifted opportunity to shape our world.  We are assisted not only by each other, but by unseen consciousness as well.  The time of transition is upon us, and we are each important players.

What can I do, you may ask.  How can I have any impact on changing a world gone mad?

It is simple.

Come from your heart.

Change how you see.

Change how you think.

Change your focus.

By choosing: How and what you see.  How you think.

Remember who you are.

You are an expression of God, of Light, of Source, of Truth.

See or feel or know the light of your own origin.

You are here as an extension of your original self, the one that knows God, and Light, and Source.  You are an emissary of Truth.

Don’t underestimate yourself.

Be brave.

Be courageous.

Be not fearful.

Remember who you are.

We are one with One.

And we are legion.

 

Just about 10 years ago or so, Hopi Elders sent a message around the world, to support  us in the upheaval and difficulties and change they saw coming.  It is wisdom to take to heart, and great practical advice on how to proceed to move forward, as we must do.  I share it with you here:

There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift, that there are those who will be afraid.

They will try to hold on to the shore, they will feel they are being torn and will suffer greatly.

Know that the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore,

Push off into the middle of the river,

Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.

And I say, see who is there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally,

Least of all ourselves.

For the moment we do, our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

The way of the lone wolf is over. 

Gather yourselves.

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.

All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner.

And in celebration.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

 

Imagination, Make Believe, and Inner Discovery

Friday, October 26th, 2012

As Halloween approaches and we can’t help observing, and maybe participating in, dress-up and pretend play, I am thinking again about the importance of imagination, and in particular how much children can remind us about expanding our capacities to know in non-linear ways.

Children are impressive in their ability to easily and fluidly abandon so-called rational thought and immerse themselves with freedom and delight into imaginary worlds.  In the process of such play they are naturally accessing their intuition and accomplishing important developmental tasks.

My four-year-old granddaughter is expert at this.  She has a vast and highly textured inner world that is quite a marvel.  It is ever changing, flexible and resilient, and filled with information.   And most often I notice that this capacity to integrate the rational with the non-rational serves to develop her sense of herself and her place in the world in very healthy ways.   An example: she informed me a few weeks ago  “There are seven Princesses in the world, and you are one of them and I am one of them.” While she dressed me up, befitting my Princess status, complete with a glittery tiara, she presented me with a rich and well-developed scenario of our roles, including a duty of service to others, as well as a keen sense of individual, personal value–the foundation of self worth.

Isn’t that amazing?  Four year olds have an innate understanding of how to access other realities, and do it in ways that support development of self.  WOW!

By the way, as part of this play, she felt it essential that we contact the other five Princesses to support our efforts of service.  I discovered this when I asked her what she was doing with the cell phone, to which she replied: “I am texting Cinderella to help us.”  She followed-up the text with a phone call.

Think about the word “imagination” and compare it to the word “imaging.” I often point out to students and clients that these two concepts are very entwined.  In accessing intuitive or inner knowledge  we pick up information by non-rational means–we get a feeling sense, or a gut feeling, or a vision in prayer or meditation–but we are not directly accessing this content through our mental process.  In order to integrate such information we must somehow translate it into words and feelings and sensory perceptions that we can communicate to ourselves (and then to others) through rational means–necessarily using our minds. So how do we do this? We use images to translate content retrieved non-rationally (not through the mental process) so our minds can understand what we are picking up.  An active and developed imagination supports our imaging ability.  This is not to say that we imagine what we are seeing, rather that our imaging “muscle” is in good shape because we have developed it through imagination, making it easier for us to put images, and then words, to content intuitively perceived.  Practice and discernment help us separate imagination from direct images.

Imagination is one of the great gifts and blessings of being human.  Explore with it, and have fun on the way!

 

A Winter Solstice Gift

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

As we approach the Winter Solstice, and a season of many holiday celebrations, I wish you the blessings of

PEACE

COMFORT

JOY

LOVE

LAUGHTER

GOOD HEALTH

May your house prosper in all ways.

Please enjoy these links to excellent lists of the best spiritual books and films of 2011:

The Best Spiritual Books of 2011

The Most Spiritually Literate Films of 2011


Thank you Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat for reviewing and preparing these lists! You may follow Frederic and Mary Ann at
http://www.SpiritualityandPractice.com/

Building a World Wide Wave

Monday, May 30th, 2011

There is great movement taking place—and I am sure many of you have felt it, perhaps without understanding even that you have felt it or exactly what you are feeling.  The last several months have been especially challenging for many.  This is a time of transition, and transition is most always uncomfortable.  But transition heralds change, and positive change is what we look towards now.

Many of my colleagues also involved in spiritual practice, teaching, writing, and mentoring report perceptions very similar to my own at this time: many of us now experience an increased inner awareness of strong movement and activity, a kind of pressure to speak out about the need for, and the way towards, transformation.

I received a note today from a friend forwarding a call to participate consciously in building a world wide wave of positive energy  and embrace the uncertainty of change, without fear.  I think it is worth sharing.  So here it is, an invitation from Ian Doig (Editor of the Journal of the Canadian Society of Dowsers):

Hello All,

By any measurement, we are now well into a time of monumental – and unbelievably positive change… Yet I have some friends who are, I think, quite bothered about what may lie ahead in the immediate future for them and for many others.   In short, they are facing this challenging time with some fear and trepidation, rather than focusing on what they would really hope and want to see – and that’s just playing into the hands of those who deal in fear, and also weakens the power of those of us who are striving to maintain a positive influence over whatever lies ahead.   There are a lot of far better things for us to focus upon, I’d suggest.

I’d like to ask you to consider taking a few minutes in any gathering… to hold in our beings the vision of a world in which more and more of us let go of our fear-based thinking, and allow the energies of Love and Light to flow in… to flood in, as the energies build.   I’d like to have us see this as a swelling wave that carries on until a critical mass of humanity is doing it, and sharing it around them, until we are all caught up in the wave.   I’d like to suggest that each of us take the idea home with us and get our local groups/chapters doing it too, as well as bringing the idea to others of our friends who are of the same mind-set.   We here in Perth, for example, have a group that we call “a Gathering of Peaceful Souls” that meets most Sunday mornings, whom I suspect would really run with this idea, because, as the old song says, it “ac-centuates the positive… e-liminates the negative, and doesn’t mess with Mr In-Between!”

Surely, if we managed to harness the creative power of the dowsing fraternity around the world, and focus it on building what I am beginning to think of as a “world-wide wave” of truly positive energy – the effect would probably startle us all – never mind those who tend to surrender to fear whenever the going gets a bit rough!

Furthermore, why should we not expand our reach to include those like-minded spiritual teachers who have followings of their own;  The Parallel Community…, David Spangler of Lorian, perhaps… Dorothy MacLean, who’s back in Findhorn now… Michael Roads… Tom Kenyon… Neale Donald Walsch… Eckhart Tolle – whomever.   You know, we might just get a world wide wave going here that would support all the things that we all are hoping for!

Cheers, Love, blessings, and thanks.

Why Do We Choose Life?

Thursday, March 31st, 2011

I have a new granddaughter, a 6-pound bundle of perfect incarnation, not yet 2 weeks old.  As I hold her I am not only reminded of the ineffable wonder of creation that produces a new life, but I have also been contemplating the why of it, why we souls become embodied. Why do we choose this physical experience? Why are we here?

Many traditions teach that we come into life to learn, to develop ourselves and our ability to love and serve, to express compassion and to understand truth and integrity.  Human incarnation–our visceral physical presence– allows us the experiences of ego and emotion, both positive and negative, and allows us to feel attachment—to people, places, experiences and outcomes—in ways that are both wonderful and difficult.  We are enlivened by joy and pleasure and challenged to grow by loss and pain.

If I were not here in this form, how would I know the incomparable pleasure of holding my newborn granddaughter, or experience the quality of love she engenders in me?

But there is more to it than that.

We come as creators.  We are each sources of spiritual energy, each uniquely configured to shape our own lives with intention and to bring blessings to ourselves, to others and to the world.  Human beings are living sources of spiritual energy, and we arrive here in this form with great prospect for channeling our own creative abilities towards improving the world and touching others in it.

It is unmistakably evident, from the moment of birth, that each infant is one of a kind.  There is a presence in each unlike all others.  There is a feel to that little person–he or she has his or her own signature. Nothing makes this clearer than meeting a newborn.

David Spangler identifies this newborn spirit as a special energy arising from the act of incarnation itself, an act which generates a burst of creative spiritual and vital force that is part of who we are…and is an inner resource upon which we can draw to bring change to the world:

You are yourself, as an incarnate individual, a source of spiritual energy.  Human beings are not simply conduits for spiritual forces from higher levels to pass through you into the world;  each person is a unique generative source of such forces in ways appropriate to the world in which you live.” (Spangler, Incarnational Spirituality, Lorian Press 2008).

So why are we here?

As a person with awareness of nonphysical, nonlinear and unseen realms, which hold great attraction (think “heaven”), I have thought much about this over many years.  Why be here, incarnate, rather than in the nonphysical dimensions? Here is my answer:  We are each here as a blessing, as an extension of The Sacred/God/Source, embodied to create and bring beauty and change in the world, each in our own unique ways, supported by the essence of Self, to grow  this world in the spirit of love.

Be a blessing to somebody today.

Thank you to Judy Hu and Ramon Mangaser Photographers. Please visit them at http://www.judyramonphotography.com.

Season’s Blessings

Friday, December 24th, 2010

PEACE

LIGHT

LOVE

LAUGHTER

RADIANCE

HARMONY

COMFORT

JOY

May All the Blessings of the Season Be Yours,

Today and Always.