Listen to Your Soul

Even Though

Even though your heart might be broken
Even though you might lose control
Let your spirit sing like the birds' song
Listen to your soul.

When you find yourself out on a road that's too long
And you don't know which way you should go
There's a feeling inside you that's coming on strong
And it's telling you what you should know.

So,
Even though your heart might be broken
Even though you might lose control
Let your spirit sing like the birds' song
Listen to your soul.

Every time that you try to hold on to the World
There's a terrible risk that you take
You could falter and fall and you could lose it all
When you try and you build up to make it.

But,
Even though your heart might be broken
Even though you might lose control
Let your spirit sing like the birds' song
Listen to your soul.

When the people around you are telling you, "No."
And it seems to be taking too long
Just remember what started you out on this path
You are heading to where you belong.

And
Even though your heart might be broken
Even though you might lose control
Let your spirit sing like the birds' song
Listen to your soul.

These are the lyrics to a song that I composed in 2000. Like many of the songs and poems which I have written over the years, this one just sort of came pouring out of me. At the time, I had just lost my job, a job I had held for fifteen years. I had also just lost my dad to complications from Parkinson's disease. Yet this song of trust in self, trust in Life, came bubbling up out of me and I wrote it down and figured out some guitar chords to go with it. Listen to your soul.

There is a whole lot of information being published these days about our way forward and the times in which we find ourselves, notably through the internet, but there's a lot of it on the television and the radio as well. It can often come to sound like a cacophony, can often come to seem overwhelming. Which way is the way forward? How shall I proceed? And what does it all mean? What is happening in the world?

Listen to your soul.

Now, more than ever, the answers that come from within are the ones which can be trusted. I feel quite strongly about this; we each are travelling on a path to union with the divine. For each of us our path is unique and sacred. Each of us is asked to listen to the wisdom of our own knowing, to hear our soul-song as it lovingly leads us from moment to moment. Yet there is more. Each of us is asked to deeply honour the path of the Other. No matter how different their path seems from our own, each of us is asked to honour the choices and free will of each person whom we encounter as we make our way through space and time to the limitless, timeless and absolutely unspeakable presence of God.

It is not always easy to do this. Yet it is this openness, this love for each Other, that we are being asked to give. And it is this acceptance, this allowance, this honouring of the Other that allows us to travel our road in his or her company. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again here, now. Let us not let words, labels, catch phrases, get in the way of our loving, our acceptance, our embodiment of these essential attributes of the divine - unconditional love, gratitude, compassion, acceptance, appreciation, enjoyment, forgiveness, honouring.....

These are the times in which we live. We are coming into a greater awareness of what it means to be human. All that we are and all that we have ever been comes into the light now. It comes into the light to be seen, to cast a beautiful shadow of darkness, to make itself known to us, and to ask for our blessing. And as we bless ourselves with understanding and compassion, let us bless our companions in the same way. And as we love and honour ourselves, let us love and honour our companions.

Listen to your soul. Your inner truth is the voice of the divine within you. And as you listen to this voice, small, like the chattering of small winter birds, soft, like the stirring of beech leaves in a soft south wind, sweet, like the love emanating from your own sweet heart, you hear the will of the divine within you. And as you honour this voice, you step into divine will and into timeless being. And into trust. And into surrender. And into acceptance. And into love.

And your neighbour does the same. Your friend does the same. Your spouse, your child, your mother or father - all do the same.

Sometimes, it seems that our paths diverge, that one turns right while the other moves straight ahead, or shifts to the left. But I tell you this, we are all on a good road, the perfect road for us. We are all underway and making good progress and coming closer and closer to the All, the unspeakable, indefinable....



 

The Light and the Dark

Sonnet #2

Oh, song of night, create outspoken day

And it shall spring from nothingness the way

That All-that-Is is only for its not.

For this we know, thought it is never taught,

That in sweet bloom, the fruit begins to rot,

The bubbling stew contained by metal pot,

And birds’ free flight informs our earthiness.

What’s more is more when something else is less,

And in some hurrying figure, stillness lies.

The largely laughing man hides infant’s cries.

Clean mountains draw from clustered dusty plain,

As sanity builds walls with the insane.

So sing! Spontaneous dream in unfelt, unknown night

Begins the world again; from dark flows light.

When there was only One, One chose to know Self, to know Being. That choice was of Love. The One, in that instant, was infinitely fragmented into the Many. And in all of the beingness of the Many there was the yes and the no, the right and the left, the up and the down.... the light and the dark. 

The light and the dark played together with great joy. Their love for each other knew no bounds and their devotion to each other was total. They knew themselves to be two parts of a whole so sacred that all of creation would hush to listen to the whispered rumour of its secrets. All of the world, in its seasons, its night and day, its highest heights and its deepest depths, danced to the song composed by the light and by the dark. A great being and becoming was engendered through the love that these two felt, each for the other and each for the Whole.

The light sang of choosing, of will and reaching out into the world. The darkness sang of being, of reception of all the world's gifts, of holding All within. Together, they sang a song of polarity, of yes and no, in perfect harmony and service, each to the other and each to the Whole.

The light saw the fruits of its willfulness in the world. It saw the clamour for more, for more, and always for more. It saw the strength of will used to enslave and oppress others. It held this with a terrible mourning cry forming in its core. The light saw so much that was so difficult to see. It suffered greatly through its sight and its knowing of what the will and the choosing had created.

The dark felt such compassion for the light. The dark held as much of the suffering of the light as it could. The dark, so receptive, so able to hold within itself these truths, these parts of the All, took more and more of this upon itself. And it did this because it loved the light with all of its being. It served the Whole and offered itself in this way over and over and over again, and always in love.

The dark took into itself so much that was of cruelty, of suffering, of fear and loathing, of hatred and vengeance and death. It did this as a great service to the light which it loved with All of itself. The light felt lighter and less encumbered by these things. It turned ever more toward the joy and the laughter, the spring flowers and the innocence of the children. It came to feel a revulsion toward the dark, holding as it did all of the pain and suffering and selfishness and willful cruelty of the world within its core.

The light forgot the incredible act of love that the dark had offered. The light forgot the suffering it had endured and the way that the dark had gently and consistently taken all of that suffering within itself, so as to ease and comfort the light. The light forgot the great love that the dark had for it. The light forgot that once it had also loved the dark as much as that. The light pulled away from the dark, first in simple reaction to the weight of the suffering that the dark held in service to the Whole, and later, in horror, revulsion and hatred of the dark. For if the dark held all of that within itself, surely it must be made of that! The dark must be cruel and fearful and filled with hate, since it held all of that within itself.

The dark continued, for century after century, for eon after eon, to hold these for the light. It continued to suffer and mourn. It did this in service to the light, so that the light could be all else, could be all that was not fear and hatred, pain and violence brought to the world. The light forgot its essential kinship with the dark. It repudiated its own essential nature. The light and the dark were so completely opposed to each other that it seemed that they could never come back into Wholeness, never embrace each other in love again.

Yet they can. And they must. And the time is now for this reunion to come to the world. And it begins within each one of us. And it changes all the world.

All the world is changed by the realization that the darkness loves the light, serves the light, holds All that it can for the light, so that the light can dance and play in joy. When the light accepts the incredible gift that the darkness has given over all of these centuries and eons, the darkness is redeemed. And wholeness is returned to the world. 

My Oh-So-Special, Very Important Ego

I seem to have a different perspective on ego than most spiritually minded people. I have read a lot of texts, from a great variety of spiritual traditions, that urge the reader to transcend the ego, to leave the ego's concerns behind. Well, as I wrote yesterday, I don't choose to leave any part of me behind. That includes my ego.

I grappled for years with low self-esteem and a very heightened sense of self as inappropriate in the world, as not belonging. I felt the pressure to be liked, to conform, to achieve a relative position in the world. These presssures came from my ego. I struggled greatly with all of this through my adolescence, and the decades of my twenties and thirties. Finally, I came to understand, through my teaching work with angry and alienated teenagers, that what we push away and try to avoid comes back three times stronger. I learned that resistance gives energy to the thing resisted. I learned more recently that we cannot leave any part of us behind. So, what do we do about our ego?

I had a conversation with my ego. I highly recommend it. And as with any good conversation, the listening is more important than anything you have to say. I asked my ego to tell me about itself. My ego told me that it is just trying to do its job. Its job is very important, especially in the three dimensional world that we are immersed in. Ego's job is to differentiate self from all that is not self, so as to create a sense of self as separate, and to ascertain self's position relative to everything and everyone else. In a world where getting along with others is a key aspect of our survival, ego's job of ascertaining self's position relative to other selves is essential. Ego has another little job to do also - one involving the growing awareness of oneself as an individual, the differentiation of one's being from all other being. "I am like this and this, whereas this other person is like that."

This might seem counter-productive when we are working so hard to embrace unity consciousness and a sense of the ALL as ONE. But see, we were ALL. We were ONE. We willingly came into an incarnation of consciousness of separation so that the ALL that we ARE could find out what it IS. We came here to become conscious of All-That-Is through being NOT All-That-Is. If that sounds confusing, I apologize. I just don't know of any other way to explain it.

In order to experience Unity, we have to experience separation. Ego specializes in separation. Good job, Ego!

See, that's how I differ in my way of thinking about the ego from some other people. I think that ego has gotten some very bad press over the last century or so.  I think ego is doing a great job and after that conversation that I had with ego, I told her so. I said it right out loud, "Good job, Ego!" and I've said it a few times since then. Ego was very glad to hear that. It's not at all a regular occurence for ego to be given any kind of credit for anything. Yet here is ego - part of us, part of the world we inhabit, part of the All-That-Is, sacred and integral and valuable in her own way. I appreciate ego. I really do.

And as it is with everything else in us, so it is with ego. We cannot deny, repress, ignore, fear, hate or vilify any part of us and expect to be able to move forward in love and light. We are that which we seek. To experience a love that is all-inclusive, we must embody such love. To embody such love we must include ALL that we are in our loving embrace. Even ego. Maybe especially ego, because ego is the hard working aspect of self, undervalued, denigrated even, that has tirelessly sought to differentiate our precious individuality and beingness from everyone else's individuality and beingness AND has looked to our physical well-being in the process.

In the 21st century, "Am I accepted by others?" becomes a vain and seemingly narcissistic question. But in the 15th century, when inclusion in a community meant the difference between living and dying, it really wasn't such a vain question at all. And 500 or so years, to an evolving brain and personality shell, isn't a very long time. Let's give our egos the benefit of the doubt and assume that they still have an important job to do.

Again, I turn to my experience as a classroom teacher to provide an analogy. I used to work with children who had never experienced any kind of success or approbation in school. I would tell them that I saw value in them, not in those words, but the message was given. I would give them jobs to do and thank them for doing those jobs. Suddenly the child who felt so unwanted and troubled in school was helping, was valued. It made a huge difference to those children. So it is with us. So it is with our egos. I tell my ego that it is doing a good job and I'm not just saying it. I believe it. You can't lie to ego anymore than you can lie to a child. I mean, you can do it if you want to, but it won't work.

I tell my ego to be in charge of all appearances in public. Ego is in charge of hair styling and selection of outfits. Ego is in charge of 'keeping up appearances' in my home and my car, my footwear and the state of my finances. Ego has a very important job to do! I don't give a toss about my footwear. I really don't. Just so long as my feet are fairly dry and fairly warm in the cold weather.... Ego makes sure that my shoes don't look like something a street kid would be wearing, you know, spray-painted orange and held together with duct tape. I have about as much dress sense as a turtle. I know comfort and safety when I see them and that's pretty much all I care about. Ego makes sure that my hair isn't sticking up funny because I slept on it and then forgot about it. That's important in our society. Still. I could wish it wasn't so, but it is. So I gave that job to ego.

And ego is doing very well with all of this! Now that I have accepted and valued ego, appreciated ego's work and concerns and charged ego with doing all of these things that matter to ego (but not to me), ego has stopped, and I mean completely stopped, bothering me about things that I don't want ego to be bothering me about. For example, ego used to really worry about whether men found me attractive or not. Tiresome! Well, ego is now so busy and happy taking care of my choice of footwear so that people won't think I'm insane (keeping up the appearance of relative normalcy is, for me, ego's chief responsiblity) that ego doesn't go overboard into areas that I do not choose to have ego go into. And that's the other piece of this that I wanted to explain to you.

I'm in charge. I think that one of the things about ego that people have really struggled with is that ego seemed to be so powerful within them, so dominant. It's like the children in the classroom again. When I am in opposition to a child, that child can so dominate my time and attention that the whole class is affected by his or her behaviour and attitudes. When I am able to bring the child into cooperation with me, the situation shifts perceptibly and the child's influence over the class as a whole is greatly diminished. I am in charge. I am the one who gets to choose what will go on in that classroom. I am the one who gets to choose what ego will handle and what I will pay attention to.

Instead of being bombarded by messages that I am not good enough, not pretty enough, not young enough, not rich enough, etc. etc. I am free of those ego concerns. Ego is not 'acting out' to use another classroom analogy. Ego is busy taking care of whether or not my trousers are clean and my hair is combed. Ego is not ruling the roost or sitting in constant judgement of self versus others. And when I do ask questions that concern ego, I consciously enlist ego's help. I am in charge. Ego is doing a good job for me and, perhaps more importantly, I am not pushing any part of myself away, rather I am valuing every part of me, including my ego.

Thus do I celebrate my oh-so-special, very important ego.

Nothing but Footprints

There are parts of us that we don't like. There are parts of us of which we are ashamed. There are parts of us which we are afraid to look at. Some people call these 'aspects.'

These are aspects of our being human in the world. They are expressions of our humanity, attitudes and beliefs that we have been taught or have acquired over the years. They are responses to catalyst, to events and situations. They are fears, hurts, feelings of guilt, of confusion. They are a stubborn refusal to or a holding on to or a wanting... Oh! So much wanting!

These are aspects of our humanity, acquired through our sacred being in the world. They are not 'bad' and they are not 'wrong.' And they are a part of us. They are integral to us. We cannot get to where it is we say we want to go unless and until we bring these aspects of ourselves with us. We can leave nothing behind. All that we are must be included as we take those steps into our divinity and our completeness of Self.

You see, the All-That-Is is inclusive. There is nothing that is not God. God is all there is. We are becoming more and more aware that we are of God. We are coming more and more to embody divinity within our human being and to encompass the mind of God and the heart of God within our consciousness. And this is a natural progression into light and love that all of humanity is moving through, each in his or her own time and by his or her own rhythms. Each person is exactly where he or she should be. Each path is honourable. Each experience is a sacred and integral part of the whole.  

How then, can we enfold All that we are into ourselves in love and in light so that nothing is left behind? How can we come to love and honour every single part of us so that we can, indeed, progress as a Whole-Self-Being into the Oneness that is God?

This is what I do and it seems to be working out quite well for me. I honour and respect every aspect of my being. I listen to what my feelings have to say to me. I witness my reactions and responses to catalyst when they occur. My deeply hidden aspects become apparent to me when they surface in reaction to events and as I become more aware through my developing understanding of my self. I do not, and will not, deny or resist any part of my being, feeling or thinking. I do not, and will not, hide any part of myself from myself. I do not, and will not, decry any aspect of my Self. I allow all that I am to be. I accept all that I am. I spend time with each part of me - my fear, my pain, my guilt feelings.... until I come to an acceptance of it, realize that it has served me and how it has served me, and then thank it for its presence in my experience. I thank it for its being, for what it has taught me and for the experiences that it has brought me to. Then, and only then, I release it with love and in joy and gratitude, appreciation and blessing.

Those moments when our response to an event seems to be out of porportion to the event itself are clues to tell us that there is something else there, something hitherto hidden or repressed, alienated, despised. These parts of us - even the smallest of them - must be accepted and brought into the warmth of our love and light. Nothing can be left behind. All that we are, everything that we have ever been, done, said and thought, felt, wished for, feared, or hated - all of that must be fully integrated into our emerging divinity and selfhood. We are being called to fall in love with ourselves. We are being asked to love ourselves so well that there is no part of us that is unloved.

In truth, there is no part of you that is not worthy of being loved. There is no right and no wrong; there is only experience and expression. There is nothing that you are that is not God also.

Toggle Switch

I have questioned the contrast between myself as divine human, living in the Now, from the heart, in complete and joyful acceptance of the divine will of my soul-self, and then that other reality of myself as human being with bills to pay and work to be done and dinner to get on the table.... With a headache and it's garbage day and the car needs an oil change. I have wondered how I could possibly navigate that, navigate back and forth between one and the other.

You guessed it. The toggle switch is the answer.

I feel it as a toggle switch. It toggles back and forth, sometimes very quickly. Actually, these days I'm pretty much always in the Now and living in complete joy and love, but in the near past there has been this toggling back and forth, depending on what was happening around me and how I chose to BE in response to that.

There is a precedent for this sort of toggling back and forth. I would venture to say that we do this whenever we are working our way through a great transition. For that is what we are in now - a transition from one way of being to another way. And the difference between the two is great. I cannot be in fear and worry, lack and loss and yet at the same time be in joy and trust, heaven on Earth and complete acceptance of All-That-Is.

A similar transition comes to mind. It is one that we have all been through. It is the transition from childhood to adulthood. Do you remember how it was? One day you were doing something you had done many many times before, as a child, as that person, and then the next day you were doing something very different, feeling different, trying on this new way of being. You'd get fairly comfortable being all grown up and then find yourself plunged back into childish ways, perhaps through an upset or challenge, perhaps through the influence of a friend who urged you to join in childish games and ways of being.

For years I toggled back and forth between 'all grown up' and 'little Lu' who might never grow up. And I suspect that you had a similar experience when you were transitioning from childhood to adulthood. So, we've done something like this before. We can do this!

We toggle back and forth between blissful acceptance of All-That-Is and frustrated annoyance because somebody took the parking space we wanted at the mall. Christmas shopping can be very challenging; let's face it!

We toggle between love that knows no end and petty worries about money or words spoken or not having enough time.... The reasons why we worry are endless and the love that enfolds them is also endless. And in the Now, the choice is ours. It is our metaphoric finger of intention and will that operates that toggle switch.

Again I come back to the notion of turning to.... Turning to love and away from anything that is not love, turning to trust and away from anything that is not trust.... It is as instantaneous as pressing a toggle switch, a light switch, the 'start' button on the microwave. Toggle to joy and when the world around you pulls at you and the switch toggles back into what has been its default position, just toggle it back again to where you choose to be within yourself. 

Eventually, we attain a new default setting - one of unconditional love, joy and acceptance of all that surrounds us. It's not that what surrounds us has changed. It is that we have changed. We are not children any longer; we are adults. We are not human beings any longer; we are divine human beings. We transition into a new energy, one that allows us to hold the love and the light of God right here on Earth. Slowly, as we become accustomed to this new way of being, we toggle back to the old way of being less and less until eventually, all we are is love, is light, is joy. Just as, when we made the transition to adulthood from childhood, we became very slowly accustomed to the new way of being and eventually found that we were less and less willing, or even able, to go back to the old way.

Yet I would say one more thing about this. I would stretch my analogy a bit further. We have not forgotten what it is like to be a child. Not really. When we try to remember, we can. We can relate to the children around us, remembering what it was like to be that little, that dependent, that imaginative, that newly born into the world, remembering what it was like not to know what lay ahead - not to know at all! And so it is with this other transition as well. Having become a divine human in the world, having released all that is not love and not trust and not compassion, we can remember what it is like to be scared, or worried, to be angry or hurt, or afraid that we would not be loved, would not have enough. We do not forget. We bring that with us, lovingly. We bring all that we have ever been with us. More on this in another post.

Toggle switch. Simple. When you find yourself back in the storm of conflicting feelings and needs and fears and wants, take a deep breath, make your choice in the moment and toggle yourself to where you choose to be.

Being Love in the World

With great joy welling from deep within me do I write the title for today's post. There was a time, a long time, when I could not write of such things. I was considered hopelessly idealistic, optimistic and childishly trusting of humankind.

I would not choose to go back to those days of self-denial and self-negation. I am glad to be here and now, in a time and place where such sentiments and ideas can be spoken of. We can be love in the world. Oh, yes! It is very real, very much within our range of potentials. I savour it, like the smell of rain on the wind.

I wrote a poem, at a time when all I chose to be and to experience was love, yet when all that seemed to surround me was its absence, and a kind of cruel imitation of what love really is, there to tease us, to lure and then scratch at us, like a petulant cat.

Love Never Lasts

Love never lasts.

Smiles fade silent.

Thought caring went on forever,

But no;

It’s bought, then spent.

Ah! The lonely souls lament,

The despairing cry,

Sink into desolation

Like the clinging green come autumn.

Eyes and voice

Ask and receive.

They fill with expectation now and

Then turn whining, strident.

Ah! The lonely souls lament,

The despairing cry like

Cold black trees dripping

Tears for summer days long lost to winter.

Choose, then, to go

In solitude.

Who can ask for one’s time or care?

Yet, good things, not sought, are sent.

Ah! The lonely souls lament,

The despairing cry.

Yet only those who look within

Will find what they desire.

Sad, isn't it? And then, at the very end, an inkling of the way forward. The path ahead was one of self-sufficiency and sovereignty, bringing us slowly but steadily into the loving potentials that now surround us. Never was love to be found outside of us; always love was there for us, but only from within, from our depths, from the heart of us.

Now, we have an opportunity to be love in the world. Love embodied. Love personified. Love uniquely and perfectly expressed by each of us in his or her individuality, his or her unique way of being in the world.

The attributes of unconditional love, allowing that space for the Other to be all that he or she is, of clear compassion that stands with the Other, no matter where or how the Other stands, of honouring the Other as sacred Being in the world, of open acceptance that shines impartially as sunlight on all that lies before it .... All of these, as we breathe deeply, are available to us, are part of our vibration now, are resonant within us.

And as we choose to do so, we can bring these forth into the world through our breath, through our intention. We can bring these forth in joy, in grace, offering love to those whom we encounter in such quantities as have not been seen through all these many many years. 

Within this vibration of love we will find all that is of God in the world. And as we embody these attributes, we become all that we have ever sought. It is nothing short of miraculous.

If you choose to do so, be love in the world, in the Now.

The People Around Us

I intend so consistently to be the person whom I choose to be, and it means so very much to me that I then offer that Self to others, that I tend to forget how beautiful and wise and wonderful the people around me are. Then, they show me. They show me their wisdom and their ways and I fall in love, in the moment, with ALL that they are.

That happened to me yesterday. I attended the In the Moment dancing activity as usual on the third Sunday of the month. I had been looking forward to the activity because I love to dance and I love to spend time at the Sunshine Center in Sutton village. The energy there is just so wonderful!

The dancing activity is led by Ilia Kavoukis, who created the Sunshine Center. She loves to dance and creates a playlist of songs on her laptop computer which she then hooks up to the dance and yoga studio's sound system. She had a variety of music selected for us. We never know who will come to the activity, so she selects a variety of musical styles to suit everyone's taste.

We were a small group because one of our most dedicated dance participants had injured herself doing other exercise and another had a family emergency and could not attend. But we had a new face among us and some wonderful balanced energy to move with. Ilia chose to play certain songs and not others, feeling the energy of the group in the moment through her wisdom and insightfulness. She did such a great job leading us!

We all moved in the moment in our own ways, reading the energy of the group and ourselves so that we were in harmony with each other throughout. At the end of the session, we all were very calm and joyful. It is as if we had entered a mild healing trance as we danced. Near the end of our dancing, with a very calm and beautiful piece of music playing, Ilia had invited us to move a bit more slowly and bring the energy down. Then she said something that completely inspired me in the moment. She said, "Make of your dance a prayer to your higher self." Ahhhhhh. I did. I really really did! And I breathed with it and it was wonderful!

Then we sort of spontaneously sat on yoga mats in a blissful state, still half entranced and lingering in it. Our bodies were warm and flexible and filled with life, but not tired. Led by Ilia, we sent that blissful energy out to absent friends and to those whom we knew were struggling a bit - a friend just out of the hospital after surgery, a friend just recently bereaved by the death of his father.... We sent them compassion and the space to be in their truth, in their moments, yet supported in their being by our energies. And then we were sending our compassion out to all the world, to all the people on the Earth, to the Earth Herself, to Gaia, to the universe beyond, in spontaneous expression of our expansiveness and ability to stretch ourselves multi-dimensionally out that far. Oh, joy!

And then we shared. We shared our sense of the experience of the dancing, of the feel of the energy and of our coming to the activity - who we Are. We shared that. Two of us shared how they had met many years ago, how they had met through the creation of wonderful circles of shared experience, how they had grown and changed and created more circles of wisdom over the years. "Oh, brave new world that has such people in it!" (apologies to whoever wrote the novel Brave New World - it's just a great line and sometimes, I've gotta use it!)

I so appreciated the wisdom and grace of the people around me! I left there still entranced, not just by the dance and the spontaneous meditation and contemplation of compassion, but by the people who shared that experience with me! I feel so blessed to be on this Earth at this time, surrounded by such divine human beings.

We are the Ones we have been waiting for. We are that wise and that good, that pure and that loving, that compassionate and that giving. We ARE. And more and more and more, as we accept our divine natures, we ARE.

 

Expanded Awareness in the Now

I begin with a poem, written to recapture the few moments that I spent in a park with a little girl almost thirty years ago, written to recapture the depth of feeling engendered in me by the experience and to evoke the otherwordly feel of the whole encounter.

Bobby in the Park

I met a little girl named Bobby

In the park just now.

We were playing on the ropes

Jungle-gym.

We were talking in the park with our gloves on

And the sea-blue ropes.

She told me the story of a woman

Who put her baby in the laundry basket and then

Put the laundry in the machine, and her baby

By mistake.

And the baby was going ‘round and ‘round.

And the mother couldn’t find her baby and then she

Saw her baby going ‘round and ‘round.

And I said that it sounded like a nightmare and

The little girl said that she had that dream, and then

She told me that her mother was going to have

Another baby.

The power of this encounter, for me, was in the wholeness of being and the totality of truth that the little girl named Bobby shared with me in those few moments. We were both fully present in the Now. The air was cold. It was December in Vancouver, Canada. The days were very short and it was probably early afternoon when I went into the park to spend a little time there before heading back inside.

I remember who I was then, what I was. I was desperately struggling with a depression that threatened to bury me, so powerful was it. I was an unemployed teacher with no prospects, this being the early 1980's and all of North America in the grips of a challenging recession. I had very little money and lived with an alcoholic who happened to be one of those 'mean drunks' that we all have heard about, or even known. I remember counting on lots of exercise and fresh air to keep me from going down too deep. I used to walk for hours through the city streets, until reaching the beautiful beaches looking out onto English Bay and the mountains beyond. Then I would haul my weary self back, block after dark grey block, and sleep in my bare little room.

It was close to the beach that I found this little park and the young girl in the park, playing all by herself on the jungle-gym. Her nannie was sitting on a bench nearby, keeping a watchful eye on the two of us.

So she and I shared a moment together, and as children do, she confided in me, sensing my profound respect for all children perhaps, knowing that she could trust me. And she came to that park with her own life story, short as it was. Her mother was going to have another baby and this little girl, probably about 4 years old, didn't like that one little bit. Yet she couldn't say so directly. So she created this wonderfully horrible scenario for the newborn, may have heard the story somewhere, or may actually have dreamed it. Being told that your little brother or sister is in Mummy's tummy can be pretty unsettling.

So, on the surface of the moment, the totality of the Now seemed to be the cold blue sky and the distant mountains, the sound of the wind through nearby pines and the child and I tentatively reaching out for some sort of contact with each other - I in my loneliness and she in her unsettled state. There were the ropes and our cold hands, in gloves, hanging onto them. There was the gentle pull of muscles and the child's sweet young voice and my careful responses, for I would never knowingly hurt a child, even by my words, expression or feeling when in their presence. Yet the moment contained much more than that. And when the little girl told me that her mother was going to have another baby, it all became much clearer to me. Suddenly I experienced an expanded awareness in the Now that included the child's feelings about her mother and her anxiety about suddenly not being the only child. The moment included the child's 'back story' to use a screen writers' terminology.

The truth is that all of our moments include our back stories. And the present moment for those whom we encounter includes their back stories also. We are the totality of ourselves and our being in the Now. So, being in the Now is not only what surrounds us within our range of vision, of hearing, of feeling from within and from without. It includes our situation, our yearning, our sense of fulfillment, our relationships with others, our relationship with God, our financial well-being, our digestion or lack thereof.... It includes All That we Are in that moment. It includes everything that is happening in our lives and all that we hope and all that we fear and all that we love. Everything IS in the Now.

Expanded awareness in the Now is, to me, a sacred thing. It is a witnessing of the All-That-Is in the present. We bring our awareness of it into our being and present that awareness to All-That-Is as a gift of perception, of consciousness, of knowing and experiencing. We witness.*

I have, in the past, thought of the Now as a relatively small thing.... Just this moment. Just this place, this time. But we bring the totality of all that we are to every moment. And we are inextricably connected to All-That-Is and to the complexities and multiple layers of each person whom we know. So, I no longer think of the Now as small in any way. It is actually vast, limitless and sacred, comprised of countless truths and facets of being. It is perfect, and perfectly incomprehensible through the mind. Feeling is our response to the totality of the Now. Feeling, and a sort of knowing from the heart, allow us to experience expanded awareness in the Now.


* The first use of the word 'witness' given by my Oxford Concise is referenced in the year 1482 and gives it the meaning of knowledge, understanding, or wisdom. Interesting, is it not?

In the Now

This is where it all resides. There is no other time. There is no other being. There is only being in the Now.

Being in the Now comes through breathing and feeling. Breathe in this moment - all that it is - then release it. Breathe it out. And then again. And then again. Breathing in Life. Breathing in Being. Breathing in Joy.

In the Now, encounters and insights occur. In the Now we are presented with realities. Yesterday, for example, a great wind roared through the trees in the forest that surrounds my home. Today, I received a request from a friend for understanding and acceptance, a request that honoured me as it honoured the one who made it. Tomorrow, other realities will grace my consciousness, touching me, asking of me that I be in relation to them, All that I AM.

We can call them challenges, co-creational energies, stimuli, surroundings, context, Life. We can breathe in BEING in the Now.

If you make the choice to be a divine human in the world, to embody these attributes of Christ Consciousness, of total acceptance, complete compassion, unconditional love, then you do this always in the Now. And it is done through the breath. And it is done in trust. Trusting the perfection of the process through which you are proceeding.

It's kind of like walking in the darkness. Have you ever walked in the dark of night when there was no moon, when clouds covered the stars and blocked even their meager light from touching you? Have you ever realized with a sudden panicky feeling that you couldn't see six feet in front of you? If you have, take yourself back there. If you have not, imagine it then.

..... The first thing you do is to take a deep breath. The second thing is to close your eyes for a moment, just to compare that darkness to the one you experienced when your eyes were open. Then another deep breath and a stillness for a few moments, giving your eyes time to adjust to the very low level of light that is there.

Yet always there is some light, some distinction between sky and earth. (I'm assuming we're not deep in a cave at this point, but rather out in the world somewhere on a very dark night.) Then you begin to move forward, slowly and carefully, but with growing confidence in your ability to navigate the way ahead. Your eyes adjust, and although it is difficult to see much of what lies ahead of you, you are able to proceed. You trust that it will be alright, that the path is relatively smooth, that no danger lies in wait for you. You move slowly and carefully, choosing in each moment where you will put your foot down, where you will step next.

You trust and proceed along an almost completely unseen path toward an unknown future. You move forward with some difficulty and the way might seem long, yet you experience reverence and awe as you go through this, for is this not Adventure, such as we all have secretly yearned to call our own?

I'll tell you one thing, being out in the world in the darkness like that, you will most assuredly be in the Now! There is no room for speculation about tomorrow or for reminiscence about the days long passed when you are oh-so carefully choosing each step through the moment.

In the Now, fully present, breathing deeply, trusting as best we can, we fulfill our potentials. We complete ourselves. We come into self-realization. We embody our consciousness in its ALLness, its totality.

We choose and choose and choose again in the Now.

 

Encounter With a Dog

I went to visit my friend up the road. She was busy in her kitchen, cutting up an enormous pumpkin for cooking and freezing - good for soups and pies later on. She lives with her daughter, recently back from living way up north, now a school teacher at the local elementary school. They keep each other company through these long nights. My friend has a dog named Lucky, a big outdoorsy type with thick fur and a large, intelligent head. Her daughter chose to get herself a puppy - a dog of indeterminate breed and sunny disposition. Ruffles is his improbable name. He's grown fast over the past few months. At seven months he is now a big dog, slender and athletic, with a soft face, floppy ears and a long tail that sweeps to the floor anything placed at coffee table height. 

I do love dogs. They are so perfectly able to show us what it means to live in the Now.

I was sitting in the kitchen on a straight-backed chair and Ruffles came in to greet me. Oh! What a greeting it was! You'd have thought we'd known each other well for years, though I've barely touched him in his short life. He was all laughing face and sweeping tail, puppy paws and joy. Such joy! Just to be. Just to be in that moment greeting Lu in her chair. I gave him the full treatment - hands sweeping lightly across face and ears, then pulling gently at the rough fur 'round his neck, quieting and reassuring him.

It is a delight to be in the moment with a dog.

This particular dog tilted his head back so that I could get under his chin and looked up at me with big brown puppy eyes filled with love. His whole body expressed joy in the moment. His eyes shone with such an expression of love that I can still feel it warm me. It was a powerful thing, yet there was no mind in it, no will, no consciousness of separation or of self. Just love was there - pure and filled with joy in the moment and shining out of those eyes and into my heart. Wonderful!

Imagine if we could be so filled with pure love. Imagine if we could express such love to each other, radiate such a love into the world. What a wonder it would be! And this I know to be true: It would change the world. Such a love given so openly by us would change the world in ways so deep and fundamental that we cannot even begin to measure them.

I imagine radiating love as that puppy did, sending it out unconditionally and with complete joy in the moment, never minding at all what is done with my offering, but shining it out from my core because that is what I AM.

Most of the time, we hide our love from each other. I have been deeply blessed by friendships that allow me, sometimes, to express my love openly. I enjoy those moments very much! Yet it seems rather a waste, doesn't it? Not to feel allowed to be so openly loving, so unconditionally and radiantly loving. Dogs get away with it because .... well, they're dogs. Let's pretend that we are allowed to get away with it too. Let's pretend that we can wear doggie smiles and wag imaginary tails and shine love out of our eyes the way our doggie friends shine love out of theirs.

I walked yesterday with that same friend, through the forest along the path that winds from my mailbox to my house. I said aloud, "I love the forest! I love to be in the woods!" and she echoed my sentiment with as much joy sounding in her breath and voice as had been expressed in my own. "I love the woods!"

I love....

I love....

I love....




 

Your Truth

Perhaps you have been experiencing the same trend in your life that I have been experiencing in mine; an increasingly emphatic imperative to maintain my integrity, to act in accordance with my truth at all times. Anything else becomes, for me, unbearable.

So what is your truth? Where do you find it?

I have found that I need to immerse myself far less in the mass consciousness of popular culture. Broadcast television and popular radio have long ceased to hold any value for me. Yet I find myself pulling away even from cable television, magazines, and other mediated forms of popular culture. They seem like just so much noise to me now. And I seek silence and enjoy a quiet environment as never before.

I find my truth in my passionate enthusiasm for the natural world, for plants, forests, gardens and the beauty of sky and water.

What are you passionate about? What activity so engages you that you disregard discomfort, shrug off hunger, forget time?

And who are you? In your essence. In your truth. Who are you?

I used to find unanswered questions such as these unbearable. I really did. I would distract myself from them, or try to answer them with platitudes or someone else's version of the truth. These days, I cannot bring myself to do that. I choose to be in my truth and that means that if I cannot answer that question about myself at this time, then it remains unanswered. There is then, that blessed silence which I have sought. No distracting noises, no lies or evasions. And I truly believe that from within that sacred silence an answer will eventually come. And it will be the truth. A prize worth waiting for.

Take a deep breath, Lu.

Another trend, or another aspect of the same trend, is that the more I AM in my truth, the more quiet I become and the more I honour others and their truths. I find this way of being almost heart-breakingly beautiful, and I can imagine being like this always, with everyone, in every situation. It seems like another facet of the Heaven on Earth that we are creating.

It's not always easy. I don't always like what I see in myself, yet see it I will, for I choose that totalilty of knowledge of self, acceptance of self and truth about what and who I am in the world.

So, how do you stand? What is your truth in this moment? Who are you? Who do you choose to be?

Now, I love words when they speak the truth about who I AM.

           Each Word

         (read this in a whisper)

Each word

Is a responsibility

I would speak

Each word

Roundly and with great care

Knowing each word’s every

Meaning, shading, colours

Tone and sound

I would love

Its perfect being

Its history, geography, culture, resonance.

The All with which it shares its fullness

The silence that surrounds it

   

Trees and Sky, Earth and Air

After weeks of wet weather, with grey skies and mud squelching and slippery underfoot, I have enjoyed a series of dry, sunny days. Above my woodland home, the sky was that deep blue that we see sometimes. The forest floor dried out and a visit from the local surveyor confirmed the borders of my stewardship privileges, allowing me to venture down the hill into places where I had not gone before.

I spent hours in the forest with work gloves and a bottle of water. I was clearing a walking and ski trail down the lower slope of the hill and connecting to the trail I had made higher up. The work was wonderfully taxing. I reached and pulled, hauled heavy branches off to the side and stretched down over and over again to pick up sticks and bits of fallen wood that otherwise create tripping hazards for the unwary walker. The goal was to create a clear path for trouble free progress through the forest, allowing any who venture here to enjoy the land's grace and beauty, to commune with the beautiful natural world around them without having to worry about where they are stepping or how to get past yet another obstruction.

Forests are constantly evolving. Branches fall from high up in the canopy, breaking other branches as they fall. Trees age and shed small twigs and branches as a natural part of their life cycle. Places that were fairly dry can become saturated in a very wet year, killing some species of trees. These then fall heavily, often taking neighbouring trees with them. The grey birches in particular seem to be suffering in the woodland that I steward. Many lie rotting on the forest floor, white and black against the red brown of the leaf litter that otherwise covers the ground. I love nothing more than to be in the midst of all this living and dying, witness to it, in acceptance, in appreciation, in deepest gratitude for the privilege of being a part of this place. 

The air was very dry after three days of north wind and high skies. In the November woods, the browns were dominant, but large ledges of exposed rock shone silver-blue in the bright sunlight and the mosses glowed a rich soft green, like velvet at Christmastime. Hemlock trees grow in abundance in that part of the woodland; their fragance filled my nose. My body was wholly immersed in the sunlight and shadows, the stretch and bend and bend again. Later, when I came inside and sat by candlelight, I saw again the colours, experienced again the dry, slightly spicy smell of the hemlock, the blue of the sky. And I was cleansed by this immersion. Rinsed clear in my consciousness. Swept free of all my debris just as I had swept the tender mosses free of the leaves that clogged and crowded them.

When we fill our awareness with wide vistas of hill and mountain, tangle of creek valley and sweep of sky, we free ourselves from so much clutter and crush, crisis and metaphoric cliff-edge. We seem to soar above our usual concerns. We empty.

I sat for a time, on one of those outcroppings of rock in the sunlight. The silence was total. My body was tired and the insistent ache of my muscles kept my mind from its customary chatter. I would love to experience more of this silence, more immersion in the totality of a moment's sensory offerings. Remembering as I do that I choose to be here, in this world, in a body, surrounded by smells and sights, feelings and sounds. I choose to celebrate the richness of life's experiential offerings without the constant labeling and judgements of the mind.

It is not necessary to be in the forest to achieve this. I have immersed myself in the feel of the flour as I made my bread, or the taste of the apple as I crunched it between my teeth. In the city, the textures and colours are as rich and inviting as they are in my woodland. In fact, there is a bit of an embarassment of riches in the city. We become a bit numb sometimes as a way of coping with the constant sensory stimulation surrounding us. We slide underneath it sometimes, as a way of coping. Stillness, internal silence, slowing of one's pace - all of these can bring us back into the grace of the world. Trees and sky, earth and air make it simple. Breathing deeply calls us into the quiet.

Breathe deeply. Feel what is under your fingers. See what presents itself before you. Smell the air, feel its moisture or dryness. Taste that apple. Hear the sounds that the world is making. Court your own quietness so that you can experience the answering quiet in the moment.

Then savor life's sweetness and wander the world at will.



Protecting Ourselves

In truth, there is no enemy. There is no danger. There is nothing that we need to protect ourselves from. These statements are touchstones for our sense of ourselves as vulnerable. They scream out our resistance to leaving dualistic concepts of reality behind us. Surely, being attacked, or robbed, or humiliated or murdered.... Surely these experiences constitute danger?! Well yes, they do, in a relative world.

But we are moving into an absolute world, a world of absolute wholeness, absolute unity, absolute beingness in eternal beingness. We are moving into a world, if we dare, where darkness serves the light, where the light loves the darkness, where good is only as good as bad is bad and the two are best friends in service to the ALL.

I didn't say it was easy. Or comfortable. But when you get the panicky feeling in your belly, when you pull back instinctively, or feel that fear, take a deep breath. Then take another. Stay with the uneasiness, or the fear or the panicky feeling. Stay with it; it can't hurt you in itself. Breathe with it and sit with it and ask yourself what it is that you are afraid of. Then picture experiencing that. Picture it in your imagination. What you are actually doing, when you use your imagination, is creating the experience on the level of potentials. It doesn't mean it will actually happen. Just imagine it and ask yourself, "Would this end me? Destroy me? I am soul-self being in the world. Later, I'll be soul-self being somewhere else. So, would this end me?"

I was walking over rough terrain, alone, no one knowing where I was, where I'd gone, no one at home to wonder if I didn't arrive in time for supper, in time to get indoors before the November night fell. I was walking over very rocky ground and suddenly had an image of slipping, my ankle twisted, broken, no way to walk, too far to crawl, no way to make it back to shelter and the safety of the house before nightfall. Take a deep breath, Lu. Would it end me? No, it would not. It would be an experience. Not a very pleasant one. But this too is Life. And I love the world. All of it. Even broken ankles and traffic jams and other painful or unpleasant experiences.

I realized that I didn't need the fear, didn't need the experience of having a broken ankle and didn't need to protect myself in that instance. Oh, a good stout stick to steady me on the rocks - that I needed. But all the rest of it, the drama of it, the good and bad and scary and "I'm so vulnerable..." I didn't need that. Because when we choose Life, you see, we choose all that it is. Accept all that it is. We don't need to protect ourselves from Life. Open. Trust. Accept.

There is a big difference in the energy that fills us when we open, when we trust, when we accept. It feels like golden light surrounding us, joining us, rejoicing with us. When we close, when we fear, when we seek to protect ourselves from the world, from Life's experiences, we shut down, we turn inward, we stop the flow of golden light and find ourselves enshadowed. Protected - yes - but at what cost? Safe - I suppose -although we all die one day, so safety is an illusion anyway. 

Courage, my companions! Step out into the borderless, absolute world of the ALL-That-Is. Even when it's stormy here, the weather is just fine.

All That We Are

If you want to know what a person wants to have in their life, look at what they do have. We get what we choose. It's a truth that runs counter to so much of what we have understood about life, about our being in the world. Yet it resonates for me. We have what we have chosen to have. We are what we have chosen to be. What surrounds us serves us.

I remember taking a course in systems design and cybernetics. One of the key tenets of the course, one of the most telling lessons for me, was that if you want to know what the true purpose of a system is, look at what it does, rather than looking at what it claims to do. So, for example, we claim that the public school system's purpose is to educate children, yet children are not educated, or not very well, even though they become a part of the system and remain within it for many years. They are trained to function within a group. They are accustomed to working within a hierarchic structure. They are socialized. They become, for the most part, functionally literate. But are they educated? So what is the true purpose of the public school system?

And so it is with us. We may say that we choose freedom, for example. Yet true freedom eludes us. Do we truly choose freedom? Does it not, in some way, challenge us beyond what we are willing to experience? We say that we choose enlightenment. Yet we define ourselves as seeking, not as having found. Are we truly ready for enlightenment?

It gets more difficult when we look at areas of our lives wherein we are really suffering, in pain, in blocks to self-fulfillment. Yet the underlying truth remains apparent to me, even then. If we are experiencing it, it serves us in some way. Chronic pain, disability, challenge, lack, disease - all of these seemingly bad things are serving us in some way if they are in our lives. The mission, if you choose to accept it, is to become more and more aware of what you are experiencing and why.

This morning I luxuriated in my warm bed and thought about the back pain that has been a challenge for me for more than thirty years. "Why do I experience that pain?" I asked myself. "How does it serve me?" The answer came as a very quiet little voice within me. "That pain helps me to stay in my body; to anchor myself in the physical." It felt disquietingly counterproductive after so many years of pain, yet it also felt true. Now, having become aware of this, I can choose to continue with it, or to change it. I can choose to be anchored in the physical in other ways, through pleasure rather than pain, for example.

It is not easy to ask the question and wait without expectation or agenda for the true answer to come. It is not easy to accept the truth about ourselves sometimes - the ways in which we have seemingly sabotaged ourselves or brought difficulty to ourselves. In truth, we cannot fail in our soul's purpose, which is simply to be, to experience - no matter what the experience is. In truth, ease is not ease, nor difficulty difficulty. And when you think about it, some of the most wonderfully fulfilling times of your life have been times when you faced and worked your way through a huge challenge.

By stepping outside of duality, outside of these labels of good or bad, right or wrong, easy or difficult, we free ourselves to see the truth of what we are and what we are choosing. We enable ourselves to be all that we are in the moment, in the Now. We become more and more aware of our truth, more and more conscious of our being in the world and its layers, its dimensions. Acceptance enables awareness. Awareness expands consciousness. Expanded consciousness allows greater levels of choice-making in the Now.

Be as you will. I present to you four simple words, given as an imperative: Be as you will. The choice is yours, but are you conscious of it? Are you choosing consciously, with awareness? Are you aware of your true needs and how your experiences serve those needs? Right now. Not in some misty meadow dream of what your life can become, but right this minute. How is your current reality serving you?

Take a deep breath.

We are what we have chosen to be. We are surrounded by what we have chosen to be surrounded by. All that surrounds us serves us in some way.

We used to say that "knowledge is power," well, awareness is a prerequisite for making true choices in the Now.

Are you aware of all that you are? Are you aware of your truths, resonating down through layer after layer until you reach a timeless bedrock of being God also?

Take a deep breath and feel it.

I honour your feeling. I honour your daring, your courage, your love for yourself that empowers you to open to your own truths.

And I leave you as I found you, in the totality of your experience, which is the totality of the choices that you have made until now, this moment, this awareness.

 

Creating Our Future Together

I attended a weekend workshop about a month ago that taught communication skills using Marshall Rosenberg's "Non-Violent Communication" as a model. I wrote about it here, in an attempt to convey my awe at the wisdom and presence of True Self that I saw in the participants of the workshop. Young men and women came together to improve their ability to hear each other, to express their truth and to honour each other's feeling and needs in open communication. I need to take a deep breath as I allow all of that to sink into my consciousness.

The group decided to continue to meet once a month, to continue the work of the weekend workshop we had attended. Over the past few days, emails have gone back and forth, trying to find a date and time to meet that could include everyone. We used the technology of the internet to good advantage; the grace and wisdom of the people came clearly through that technology and into my heart.

That's the future of our world in this game of "Let's Pretend" that I invited you to play with me yesterday. It begins there and expands outward. Perhaps that is why I see the circle of hands held and laughing, open faces.

In my vision, our future uses the tools that we have already developed and which we will continue to develop and improve - the circle as a way of teaching each other, speaking to each other and honouring each other as equals, decision making by consensus, non-violent communication, the internet - which brings the entire world-wide reach of humanity into my home and my consciousness, translation technology so that language will not be a barrier, and so on. All that is inclusive, open, accepting and facilitative of communication and understanding, all that allows us to see each other as equals, all that brings joy to our hearts.... These are our tools to build the future.

In my vision, people live in small self-governing communities that are self-sufficient in many ways. These communities provide companionship, a sense of belonging, a feeling of being known and respected, accepted and heard, meaningful work, support in times of difficulty and the sharing of resources. When these deep needs are met, we seek less outside of ourselves and our homes for ways to dull the ache and stop the pain. So, we don't need to drug ourselves, to project our pain outward and so come to hate and fear each other. This basic element of community provides for us so well that we find ourselves in Heaven on Earth.

Larger areas, perhaps 30 kilometres from one end to the other, provide as much of the food requirements of their inhabitants as possible. The least amount of transportation of heavy food items that require refrigeration is best in my vision. So, in a sense, we go back to the ways of our ancestors when it comes to our diet and the way that we eat foods that are produced on the land that surrounds us. I say this as a Canadian, just by the way, with a short growing season and an understanding of just how long a winter can be. 

The internet connects people all over the world in shared values, shared visions and love for all humanity. Smaller, lighter items that are specialities of certain geographic areas can be transported to people elsewhere in fair trade so that we can truly share with each other all over this beautiful planet of ours. In this way, our creativity and crafts can be vehicles of fair trade - each to the other - all over the world.

Energy is conserved and the environment is honoured and cared for. Areas that need to be restored are restored. Areas that surround us are conserved and we enjoy being in the world. Our terrible guilt about what has been done to our planet's surface by us will eventually be released so we can love our Earth without feeling sadness.

Underlying it all is a deeply felt sense of honour for all others and for one's self. When this is present, when, in fact, we are being the selves that we have sought, all the rest falls into place.

I am overwhelmed by what I see as the future for us all. For I believe that we can do this. We can be the selves that we have known in our most secret hearts' center as beings of light and love.  

I invite your visions, entered as comments on this posting, so that we can all share our wisdom with each other.

Blessed be!

Wishes for the World

I received an email invitation to spend time and focus tomorrow, November 11, imagining and envisioning the world as I would like it to be in the days to come. Apparently there will be many people doing this all over the world tomorrow. Together, by our intention and our vision, we create the world anew. It is a beautiful idea, is it not?

When I was a school teacher in Montreal, I used to introduce a similar idea to the children in my English classes. Wishes for the World was the title that I gave to this activity. If you could have any wish for our beloved Earth, and then another and another. Three wishes, let's say.... What would they be?

This proposed activity tomorrow, this envisioning of a new reality for our planet and for humanity, goes a little bit further than three wishes. It is a creation, through imagination, of your deepest heartfelt desire for us all and for our Earth.

I created a posting a little while back that presented my vision for humanity's ascension into a new reality. If you haven't read it and would like to, scroll back a-ways. I think I titled it My Vision for Humanity. But that vision was specific to our becoming more and more an embodiment of the unconditional love, acceptance, compassion, and deep wisdom that we ascribe to God.

This is something different.

How will we live? How will we interact with each other? What will be our relationship with our planet? With the waters upon our planet? With the plants and animals? With energy? With money?

Don't think about how we might get there. Let's pretend that we are already there. Let the voice inside of you that doubts and plans and strategizes and acts as critic... That sensible adult self .... Let that voice take a little break, maybe give it a bunch of numbers to add up and then multiply and divide with. If you're like me, that might keep it busy; that part of my mind really likes to do things with numbers. So, "Off you go, planning part of me, sensible and methodical part of me. I appeciate you! I really do! Just not right now, alright? Look, here's my monthly income and my expenses - can you do something with this, please?" Meanwhile, I'm going out into the realm of possibilities (or supposed impossibilities). I don't mind. I'm going out to play with potentials!

Just as an aside, do you remember playing pretend? Like, actually beginning the play session with the words, "Let's pretend..." And if you do remember it, do you remember how great it was, how much fun it was? And if so, can you tell me why we don't so much do that anymore?

So, maybe put some music on in the background, something you enjoy, something light. Maybe sit in your comfortable chair and since it's getting cold outside, maybe put a blanket over your knees. Lean back in your chair and take a few deep breaths. Maybe close your eyes. ......  Let's pretend.

Let's pretend that you get to choose. You get to choose how the world is going to be. Oh, not like one of those arch-villains taking over the world in a James Bond movie. I didn't mean it that way. I mean, we - all of us - together - get to choose. Your vision is as important as every other vision on this planet, because you get to choose. I get to choose. We, all of us together, get to choose. Your vision, your sense of it, your colours and your feel for it, inform the vision that we together are creating.

So, let your imagination play around with it. People. Animals. Homes. Communities. Roads. Towns. Nations. Schools. Gardens. Cooperative farms. Whatever you are drawn to, whatever comes into your mind, play with it. Fill in the outlines with your own unique vision, informed by your blessed wisdom, your much appreciated wisdom, your innate knowing that is more precious to me, quite frankly, than any amount of gold.

If it is children that you see with your mind's eye, then let it be children. If it is community that you see, then let it be that. When I do this, I always experience the same image - hands held in a circle of hands held and smiling faces and the sound of happy laughter and the totality of the scene permeated with love that knows no end, asks no questions, creates no boundary to its loving. And from there I go on to ..... But I won't tell you today! I'll tell you tomorrow. And please, feel free to enter your vision into the comment area of today's, or tomorrow's, blog, so that we can experience your grace, your knowing, your vision, your wishes for the world.

Community

I feel blessed these days, as I find myself becoming part of a community of people who seem to me to be filled with light and love.

Every time that I leave my mountainside home and head down into Sutton Village to take part in some community activity, I enjoy myself tremendously, and feel well-met and well-served. I hope that in turn I serve well those whom I encounter. Returning to my home, I feel happy, calm and joyous, connected and supported, challenged and stretched - invited to become even more the person I choose to be.

This, for me, is true community. The people whom I spend time with do not necessarily share my beliefs about being in the world, about being in the Now. Some of them challenge me to embody compassion and I love very much that they challenge me in this way. Some expect integrity and abolute honesty from me and I love and honour them for this. Some are very young, compared to me. Some are older than I am and model for me what I might some day become. Yet I see, in every person I have encountered in this blessed part of the world, an open countenance, a loving heart, an acceptance of others, a trust in life. I am so appreciative of the people around me!

I walked, one day, a long time ago, on an ice-coated crust of snow over deep winter drifts. I walked very slowly and carefully through the deep snow, tredding gingerly on the top crust, willing my body to weigh less in those moments, so that I wouldn't break through and become mired in the drifts. I walked through a woodland and composed, as I walked, a song, in French.... the only song or poem that I have ever written in French. It was about all of us, together, and how we were, perhaps, once upon a time and how we can be again, if we but choose it for ourselves. I translated the song into English. Here it is, for you. I give it to you now because it occurs to me that the community I have delightedly found in Sutton Village and its environs is not so very far from the blessed existence described within my little song.

Once Upon a Time



Once upon a time

All men and women equally

Together or brave singly

We walked the world the world to see

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

Love came from eyes that shone like stars

All brothers, sisters, near or far

And fear did not one moment mar

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

This Earth was one great garden fair

And humans talked to the animals there

In our words, wisdom and care

Once upon a time

Once upon a time

Each person knew his own good grace

And trust in life showed in each face

So miracles they came to every place

Once upon a time......

Once upon a time

Community, like so much else that is our world, is created by our choosing, by our will, by our intention. I've written here of listening, really listening to each other, of non-violent communication, of honouring the Other and the free will of the Other, of acceptance and of unconditional love. What kind of a community can we create with these as our key ingredients? And having done so, do we not change the world-whole-becoming?

You see, in my world, people honour each other, for who they are, for who they have been and for all of their potentials, as yet unformed, unrealized. In my world, communities thrive and grow, support their members and yet offer them the freedom to be who they truly are. In my world, humans live without fear. They listen to the non-human life forms that surround them. They act in accordance with and in balance with these other life forms. They trust in their own divine wisdom. They expect miracles. They love unconditionally. They treat each other as honoured equals in this great adventure called being in the world. My "Once Upon a Time" is not so very far from us. Not in my world. Not in my community. 

How to Be in the Flow

I think we've all been there. We all know how good it feels when we are in the moment, in the flow. We also know how grindingly awkward and disjointed it feels to be out of the flow after having experienced it. Yuck!

Lately, I struggle with this. I live in the moment, but I often wish that the moment could be somewhat different than it is. I do what I can to control what happens. I push and prod, send emails and make phone calls. I reach and grasp and sometimes, I flounder and falter and fall.

A good example from my life right now is these In the Moment activities which I designed as a series and which have not really gotten off the ground yet. Drumming Circle is doing quite well and the Free Form Dancing is also a real joy, but the Sounding Circle, which is toning and expressing without words, and so dear to my heart right now, has not enjoyed success and the Drama Games activity looks like it might be put aside since there is only one person who has expressed a real interest in it. I'm not going to lie to you; sometimes I feel really sad when I contemplate NOT doing these activities. I'm attached, emotionally and perhaps, egotistically, to them.

I understand the wisdom of holding no agenda here, of letting these develop or not develop as they will. That's the flow. The flow is trust. The flow is acceptance. The flow is allowance through unconditional love for ALL-That-Is. The flow is the release of any need to control the outcome. It is the release of any and all desired outcomes. Just let it be.

Take a deep breath.

Easier said, I think, than done - this releasing of all control, of all agenda, of all desires.

The symbol, or sign, that I use for myself is the position in which I am holding my hands. I open my hands up as wide as they can go, stretching my fingers and thumbs out far and opening, opening my grasp. When my hands are open wide like that, they can't hold on to anything. They release. I release.

The feeling of releasing is in my heart. It is a subtle, but perceptible, opening of my heart. It creates a space within me for acceptance. Breathing helps with this. I intentionally take deep long breaths that expand my lungs and clear my head.

But sometimes, none of these seem to take me there and I'm left in a sort of sorrow for what might have been, for what I would have liked to have experienced and there's a tendency toward regret, bitterness, resentment.

What shall I do with that?

What would you do?

Lately, I stay with it. I quietly work my way into it and breathe and feel and if need be I cry a little bit. Crying is a great release of these energies that sometimes seem to weigh us down.

What might have been. Oh, so sad sometimes to think of it! Lovely, lovely sadness, like November's colours, like that soft light that we have now even on sunny days here in the north. That slanting sunlight, those long shadows, that lingering sadness of regret, of longing. It's okay to feel it, you know. We've been told so often that enlightened people, wise people, good people don't feel such things. I beg to differ. This too is part of the flow. Wise people, enlightened people, good people feel all that their lives contain. It takes courage to do this; we know that. That's why the breathing helps so much.

And now, here, in the dark time of the year, going with the divine flow of your life, of your yes's and all of your no's, taking the time to feel it, not denying it, not pretending that these emotions are not in you, rather honouring them, honouring yourself, ALL that you are, every aspect of your humanness.... That IS the flow, the flow of your Being in the World, a sacred thing, a blessed thing, a miraculous always-becoming.

Acceptance, yes! Acceptance even of this sadness, this regret, this bitter longing, unmet desire, unfulfilled dreaming.... Yes, even these.


   

Being in the World

Creation Myth

Only the rise and fall of feeling,

Only the still center

Loving.

Movement has no meaning when you're larger than the world.

Do not try. Be.

Do not hope. Know.

Power does not stir itself. The

Still center feels no need.

Only the graceful rise and fall.

Power makes no effort.

Love makes no request.

The stillness takes less room than a pin point.

The stillness holds the universe in its breath.

Do not try. Be.

Do not hope. Know.

And only the rise and fall of feeling

Holds the still center

With the trembling hands of humanity's

Always and never.

Being born forever

Is the cradling rise and fall enveloped by the

Stillness.

Each makes the other.

Sometimes, I think very little. I think about what I will wear and what I choose to eat for breakfast. No more. Sometimes I prefer to feel rather than thinking.