Tuesday, November 27, 2012

MY I AM PROPHESY: ONE!

I am continually amazed by my retrospective relationship to the passage of time, and to the seeming speed-up this relationship projects. I can scarcely believe that I am writing these words in the last week of November, and reflecting upon how quickly the months have passed since the beginning of this year. I looked back at my first blog of 2012, and have been reflecting on how I intended to spend this year verses how it actually has unfolded. It is clear to me that the inner aspects of what I intended to experience during these months have indeed been the atmosphere in which I have lived. The outer accomplishments and external goals have been much more variable. In a year that has carried with it much speculation and even fearful anticipation for many, I feel a deep appreciation for the inner advances that I am able to recognize as we move toward the completion of 2012. For years there has been prophetic drama steeped in a misunderstanding of what the ending of the Mayan calendar on 12.21.12 might signify. It never felt scary to me at all. It did and does carry with it an enormous sense of possibility and transformation. As I shared in my original blog of this year, it has not been for me a fearing of what the ancient Mayan prophesies might mean. Rather I have used it as a series of invitations as to the fulfillment of My I Am prophesy flowing forth from center to circumference during this rich time here on wondrous planet earth.

I am feeling called to share my musings regarding what I have termed I Am Prophesy during these last few weeks of the year in order to clarify for myself what is continuing to unfold in increasing speed and expanding clarity. There is a passion within me that no amount of time or fear-based misperception can deaden. I am met each day with a deep, felt-sense knowing that despite a lifetime of goals, dreams, aspirations, and ambitions, I am really here in this earthly realm to awaken to Who and What I am in Truth. Even as I type these words, they feel pitifully anemic compared to the inner call from which they come. I am here first to be freed from the theology that kept me bound for so very long, and to actualize the Truth of a Source that is an All and Only Love that is rapturously transcendent of religion, dogma, or creed. Secondly, I have come to learn that I cannot know this Unified Truth with a dualistic mind. A concept, no matter how beautifully described, will never lead me to the direct experience of the One Source IN which I forever dwell. I am called to embody this Source while still here in this human experience. Though I was taught that the body is a limitation keeping me from G-awed, I have learned that though temporal, this body with its central nervous system is the vehicle in which I get to vibrate at the frequency OF G-awed. My I Am Prophesy is is all about the experience of being here in this realm of finite experience! I do not have to wait to die to experience “heaven.” Heaven is not a future place but a present state of Being. I will always be Source Spirit, but this adventure is about bringing the frequency of Source into the density of matter. I get to consciously experience both! And I get to allow consciousness and matter to dance within me and show me the way to an integration the mind alone is not capable of.

And so I get to use my days as a devotion to Being all that I am called to be while here in this body, in this story, in this emerging prophesy. I get to choose how to relate to my limitations from the perspective of that which is Limitless. I get to choose each and every day how I am going to show up in the world. I get to choose what I am energizing by my focused attention, and what energy I am going to emit into this world. Moment by precious moment I get to choose to either believe and contract into the fear, or reopen into Love. Will I be a programmed imposter, or a Sourced authentic Being as I move through my moments? Will I hide, or will I shine?

The choice to shine is the velocity that is moving me towards 12.21.12. It is for the Mayan people the completion of an age. It is for me the completion of a false identity. It is the end of an age of disempowerment. It is the final curtain in the drama of who I thought I was and why I thought I was here. For the rest of 2012 and indeed for the rest of my earthly days my priority is the fulfillment of my prophesy. And that prophesy is nothing less than fully becoming the “G-awed-ling” I came to this earth to be. When I am awake to that purpose, I am congruent and flowful. When I am asleep to it, I am contracted.

Transformation doesn’t take time. It takes the healing of mis-perception. I am willing to surrender the misperceptions regarding my Source and myself this day, this moment. That is all I am about. Living wakefully within this moment of and within One Source G-awed. That IS my I Am prophesy. That is my fulfillment. That is Who I Am and why I am here. And if it took many years and ample amounts of pain and a speedup of time to discover that Truth, then so be it. This is the moment. I am the One. I Am is what I Am.

www.taylorestevens.com

Thursday, November 22, 2012

IN ALL THINGS

Spiritual writings from various traditions invite us to be grateful in all things. I have found this to be a most transformative practice. So much of spiritual Principle can be theoretical in terms of how it informs our moments. What we say we believe is often a far cry from what gets activated when the chips are down. It is more likely that what we say we believe is what we WANT to believe. We know it in our guts and hearts when we hear Truth, and yet in this realm of duality, Truth must become true. This integration happens when we are challenged; when we are not getting our way, when the dream has died, the lover has left, the account is empty, and the diagnosis is dire. This is when what we say we believe to be true is strained to the breaking point. This is when our unconscious core beliefs come crashing forward and our affirmations sound like the pitiful cries of a desperate child. When it is most difficult to be grateful is when we most need to be.

It is when it appeared that everything important had been taken from me that I learned the most about gratitude. It was staring at an empty table that taught me the most about fullness. It was death that taught me about life, poverty that demonstrated abundance, and loss about infinity. Being pushed to the edge gave me wings. I have leaned that gratitude is a sign of awakeness. Thanksgiving is prescriptive. In concert with my faith gratitude is the aperture of coming attractions. It is vision. When I am able to be grateful in all things I become a vehicle for the miraculous. My openness gives way to possibility. I am not tempted to pinch off potential.

At this time in my life my preferences are being pushed, and my perceptions are being challenged. My thankfulness is more than ever a moment by moment choice. Integration is my constant companion and my sweetest friend. I am grateful this day in all things. In ALL things. I would prefer that some things be different right now, and I am trusting that they are as they are currently meant to be. I will not be tempted into resistance, seduced into rejection. I am grateful in all things, for I am within the Source of all. Appearances come and go, yet my gratitude remains my constant. I am awake. I am grateful. I am giving thanks. I am in the knowing that as long as I remain in gratitude, I am aligned in the Highest Good that is ever seeking to flow forth through me.

In all things. Yes, thank you, yes. In all things.

www.taylorestevens.com

Thursday, November 8, 2012

DO YOU APPROVE?

I was well into my forties before I realized to what extent I was still trying to get the approval of my mother. Now, I haven’t lived near her for thirty years, and she is rarely privy to what I may be accomplishing professionally or in any other area of my life. But one day I realized, as I was sharing something I had done with a mother figure close to me that I was longing for a certain reaction from this woman. I longed for a response that affirmed not so much what I had done, but for a validation that it mattered that I was even here expressing on earth. I was stunned. After a flurry of emotions and self-denigrating interpretations passed through my awareness, I came to the knowing that we are hardwired to want and to even need the acceptance, approval, and affirmation from those around us. It is spiritually correct to say that the only real approval we ever need is the approval that comes from ourselves. While this is at a level true, at another level it belittles the importance of our connection one with each other. It denies the importance we play in the story lines of those we care about. To confuse having needs with being needy is a painful and unhelpful perception.

We all want to be loved, cared for, acknowledged, complimented, and affirmed. While my first reaction to the revelation that I was still wanting mommy to say “hey, you did well” was one of embarrassment and shame, I was later able to open to the deeper truth that this a precious part of our human connection. My mother is not someone that is comfortable lavishing praise, or even speaking the language of acknowledgment or approval. I know where that came from. I knew my grandmother. And so that important aspect of nourishment was largely missing from my youth. I did know well the language of criticism and censor. I still at times feel a wince when I show up in some way that opens me to evaluation. While I would like to believe that I am at this point in my spiritual emergence beyond the need for the good opinion of others, it simply isn’t true. My life is filled with people I love and it matters to me how they see me and the gifts I give in this world. When I express my passionate heart it is nice to be acknowledged. I personally love to praise and uplift people, and I am committed to opening to receive more of that as well.

So while approval seeking is mostly on the list of “need to fix” attributes, I would offer to you that this desire is indicative of how beautiful and important our connection is here in this human experience. Our age of social media demonstrates this perfectly. For anyone that has ever posted something on My Space or Facebook and then gone back in to see how many people clicked “Like” you get my drift. There is an intrinsic need to know we matter. There is an inborn need to be affirmed for who we are and for what we do. We are not robots or aloof, dissociative mountain sitters. We are humans that have hearts that are in need of being touched. We need to hear that we are loved and that life is better because we are here. We need praise. Healthy criticism can indeed be helpful, but it doesn’t go nearly as far as a simple, heart-felt compliment.

I will not be governed or identified by the feedback of outer sources, and I also fully embrace the little boy in me that needs to hear that what I am being and doing is good. I compassion the wince, and I welcome the praise. Your approval matters to me for I am a fellow human and a part of the One. I have a very much alive heart, and it responds well to words that approve and affirm. So go ahead. Send a compliment my way. I won’t deflect. I will take it right in. And know that there is plenty of that coming back at you. Your beauty makes mine a better world, and it gives me great joy to tell you so.

www.taylorestevens.com