ANOTHER SCARY STORY?

I was remembering recently the childhood adventure of going on a camping trip, sitting around a campfire at night, and then seeing who could come up with the scariest story of the night. You know the story; the one that could topple the marshmallow right off the smore? It is really silly in retrospect to think of the effort and imagination that went into trying to be scared! I guess we knew that they were only stories, yet somehow they gave a feeling of aliveness that simply sitting around in the mundane setting of the campsite somehow left lacking.

This recollection truly gives me pause. As I watch the landscape of the mental me, I am able with increasing regularity to laugh at the stories I am prone to tell myself, stories that reflect the fear in my mind and the undigested grief in my heart. It is right back to the campfire my little boy goes. The stories of “what if” are capable of jarring me from the center of serenity in which I mostly choose to live. I know at a deep level that the stories I tell have no basis in reality. And yet the mind can return repeatedly to the tales it always wants to spin. Whether it is telling happy stories or scary stories is somewhat irrelevant; stories still they are. The more emotional residue that remains in the energy body, the more likely to tell scary stories we are. This could also be called worry. It could be fret. A more palatable term for many would be concern. And yet underneath the labels much of what the mind engages it’s self with comes in the form of scary stories. This happens at the micro and at the macro level. Watch any world news program and what you will hear are mostly scary stories. The only thing missing is the campfire. The commentary of network news is belabored interpretation of these stories, with multiple scary scenarios as to how the fearful situation may play out. Then people take sides as to which remedy they will align with in reacting to a problem that often hasn’t even occurred yet. Is all this in an effort to unconsciously come into a deeper level of aliveness? Is it so that we might feel the fearfulness in an inescapable way, forcing us to take a deeper look and listen as to what we are saying, and from whence it is coming? Are we playing with the polarities of creation in an effort to make a choice between the expansion of Love, and the contraction of fear? Why would sane adults choose to tell themselves stories that deliberately scare and torment? The question of sanity is a valuable inquiry in this context.

Mark Twain is reported to have said late in his life,” I am an old man, and have had many problems- most of which never happened.” The more years I add to this incarnation, the more I resonate with his reflection. Most of the fearful imaginings I have scared myself with have never actually happened. Most of the scary occurrences I have braced against never actually came at me. They were only coming from me. A guiding question for me in this still new year is “What am I saying about what is, and IS IT TRUTH?” I will to stay awake in that inquiry, and to feel deeply into the feeling tone my mental meanderings are creating. Is what I am saying to myself honest, helpful, true, and kind? What I am saying within myself is a huge contributor to the vibrational atmosphere in which I am living. To continually question the validity of my inner dialogue goes a long way to bringing me back into Soulful Presence. If I find that I am telling myself another scary story, I don’t have to judge, berate, punish, or torment myself in any way. I can celebrate the fact that I have heard the content of the story, and am choosing to Presence it on its way. Fighting the story only makes it seem more real. When I drop down into the stillness of my heartful, Soulful Self, I am able to simply see the story for what it is. Another scary story. Another tribal tale. The aliveness we long to feel is always just below the story. It underlies the tale. It undergirds the campground, the fire, the story, and the one who is telling it. I can then choose to tell a better, happier, more loving story, on the way to telling no stories at all. Awe, and then what would the surface mind do?

I invite you dear reader to listen to the stories you are telling this day. Are you reiterating a scary story that someone told to you? Is it true? Is it Truth? How are you feeling as a result of the tale, and what emotional imprinting may underlie it? Perhaps we could join together and build a big campfire, and then sit and say nothing at all. Only feel the warmth of the fire, the togetherness, the unconditioned aliveness that is revealed in our stillness. There will be no story needed.

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JANUARY 2010 RADICAL EXPRESSION

DAY ONE
There is something unique, special, magical, and yet daunting about an individual or collective demarcation point in life. A common collective demarcation is the bringing in of a calendar New Year. Many people individually choose to observe a birthday in a conscious and intentional way. There are myriad examples of these choice points, perhaps the most dramatic being that of a near death experience. These are often spoken of in hushed and hallowed tones. This is perhaps appropriate in that they may drastically alter the way in which we view and participate in our life experiences. To realize at a felt sense level that we are finite beings can be a profound and miraculous wake up call. It invites us to really take a good, intimate look at how we have been living. What quality of attention have we been bringing not so much to the grander occasions of our lives, but especially to what is usually thought of as the more mundane and ordinary aspects of the day to day? How engaged are we in our moments? How congruent are our thoughts, feelings, activities, and interactions? How present are we when no demarcation is calling for heightened awareness? How present am I to my own Presence? How much of my surroundings am I actually cognizant of, and how curious am I about the astounding capabilities of my own inner workings?
Each moment is demarcation if we are paying attention. Perhaps that is the richest of all invitations. To pay attention to attention. To reside in a state of perpetual curiosity and awakened awareness. To be less intrigued by the near death, and more committed to the now life.
What is this moment of demarcation calling you to, my favored friend?
-LIVING, LOVING, BEING GREAT E-BOOK

I began this new year of 2010 by beginning to read the 40 daily reminders of my own afore-mentioned E-Book, and I must say it has called me to a deeper level of appreciation of the inspiration that I have opened to in particularly the past few years. It is an odd thing to feel inspired by one’s own writings, and yet I must say that I do. It brings me into a fuller knowing that I am a willing channel of a wisdom that is vaster than that of an individual “I.” It reminds me that the gifts that I have been given are first for the purpose of allowing them to deepen and to inform me, but also so that I open to more fully share those gifts with others. That has for me been the broader challenge. Emotional imprinting and personal esteem issues have challenged me to heal beyond the personality sense of self, and to surrender into living as and from the grander vision that my Soul knows is my rightful place. Stepping into a Higher sense of Self, while still here in the earth realm, seems to me to be at the very center of human emergence. After years of disciplined spiritual practice, and also working with countless other soulful-aspirants, I have come to know that when we truly open to giving our greatest gifts, our deepest challenges will be exposed in service of our Soulful evolution. I do not need to know why this is so. I only recognize and appreciate that it is so.

And so here we are at the demarcation point of another new calendar year. While time is certainly an arbitrary and relative commodity, it also is a strong governing factor over this level of reality. The collective focus of the critical mass consciousness is currently, through not exclusively, on resolutions, intentions, goals, and aspirations for what may seek to express in this one and only year of 2010. And what is calling you, my cherished reader? What gifts has the Universe given to you that are seeking to be given on behalf of the One? What challenges might be exposed in your decision to give of your greatest Self? What might you be called to face this year that perhaps you have been too fearful to face in the past? How might you open to allow this to truly be the best and the brightest year of your incarnate life? How might you allow your own inspired wisdom to inspire and to enliven you, encouraging you to share that same Light with the world at large? These questions tug at me from my Highest self, and so I share them with you. I am devoted to opening more this year than I ever have before. I am dedicated to growing beyond the old self images that have hemmed me in. I am deciding and declaring in every day of this year that I am here to live Love out loud and I am not letting fear stop me from giving my fullest gifts of that Love. From day one to day three hundred and sixty five, I am allowing this to be the year of the PERFECT TEN! I am committed beyond reason to allowing that to be so. I invite you to join me as you so choose. Allow this to truly be the best year of your life, and shine forth in radiant love.

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