THANKS-GIVING

I grew up in a household where “please” and “thank you” were mandates. I did not, however, grow up learning the importance of gratitude as a consistent practice. While it has become cliché to hear of “the attitude of gratitude” I believe it is far more a practice than an attitude. It is a cultivated state of being. It is, like joy, independent of circumstances. It is a lens and a perspective. The more we practice residing in a grateful state of being the more we see life in thankfulness and appreciation.

My life experience has taught me that I do not know enough to not be grateful. While my desires, preferences, and circumstances are often not to my liking it does not deter me from choosing to see life through an aperture of thankfulness. Many of what I thought were the worst scenarios of my lifetime turned out to bring forth the biggest blessings.

Every loss in my life has been turned into a gain when I chose to seek out the blessing in it. Everything I didn’t understand and did not welcome bore fruit of goodness when I stopped fighting and complaining and chose to look for that good. Everything that I thought would take me down for the last time lifted me up when I uttered, through clenched teeth, “thank you.”

When I am spiritually awake, I am grateful with my life as is. When I am unconscious or disconnected, I am waiting for something to be grateful for. One is inner-directed, and one is externally driven. It is a moment to moment choice, and the felt-sense of it is unmistakable.

Gratitude is its own reward.

Culturally I often think the holiday should be called “Thanks-getting.” We tend to place our focus of what we get or have to be grateful for. While this is an aspect of gratefulness it is again circumstantial. Thanksgiving for me is GIVING thanks FROM a lens of thankfulness and grace. It is subjective and contextual. And this perspective is extraordinarily attractive as well. When we simply thank life for being life we are flooded with blessings and abundance.

The most meaningful Thanksgiving I ever had I was alone and bereft. While I had the needed essentials, I had been stripped of what I felt mattered most. My world had shattered, and my heart was broken. By some miracle of grace, I was able to mutter thank you. I was led to see through the mire, to see what I still had inside of me. I was guided to experience deeply the God in my heart, a God more readily felt through the shattered opening in my Soul. There was nothing on the table and yet everything was before me.

Today my life is so full. Blessings abound.

Are there challenges? You bet. And I thank them. I know they are miracles in potential. I know when I choose to bless them the inherent blessing will blossom forth. What I appreciate appreciates. Thankfulness expands. Gratitude grows.

And so, I live giving thanks. I bless, and I am blessed. Thanks-giving for me is indeed thanks-living. My heart is so full it simply must overflow.

Happiest Thanks-giving. I am thankful for you.

WORDS FAIL

Another mass shooting has occurred…”

“Twelve people were killed when a shooter opened fire…”

There is a deep ache in my heart today that defies description. It feels somehow exacerbated when I read headlines or hear reports that use the term “another.” That give a statistic that somehow categorizes and yet minimizes the individuals lost and the countless souls that are left to grieve. We try and somehow turn unspeakable tragedy into manageable soundbites.

It truly isn’t that twelve people were killed in another mass shooting. It is that one precious, irreplaceable, unique, and loved person was murdered twelve times.

And this a new kind of norm? Mass destruction and murder as the latest news cycle? More political fodder to feed a left or right agenda?

It will never be any kind of a norm for me. These are not stats. I care not for the agenda. I will not deaden myself to the grief and loss that is inherent in an awakened shared humanity.

I have done a lot of inner work to become available to life, to love, and to loss. To allow my heart to be used as a chalice of transformation during these beyond trying times. I have made enough space, through my own forgiveness, to hold all those directly effected by these heinous acts. I will let this deepen, not deaden me. I will turn within, not away. I cry with you. I feel with you. I share in your loss.

There is a deep ache in my heart today that defies description.

Words fail.

THOSE PEOPLE

The road to hell is paved with the notion of those people.

Them.

They.

“What are we going to do with those people?”

It felt as if the words put a vice grip around my heart.

I do not know what you are going to do with those people. I am going to love them.

In the ultimate spiritual sense there truly are no “those.” There is no “they.” No “them.” There is One. There are multiple expressions of the One I Am. My experience of that One is known by how I treat the illusory “those.” In how I open to and welcome “them.” In how I feed those who are hungry. Clothe they who are naked. Shelter the ones who are in danger or homeless. In that way, and only in that way, am I welcomed, fed, clothed, sheltered. In that way God becomes an activity within me. Otherwise it is mere concept.

The road to heaven is paved with acts of Godness.

Godness towards “them.”

Love with “they.”

Compassion and kindness with “those” people.

My God is only as Good as It is directed toward them.

Love is the only politic worth living.

I love those people in order to know myself a

I DON'T KNOW

As I continue to accumulate years upon this planet I truly feel like the only thing I know is that I know less and less. Maybe it’s really that I feel I need to know less and less. When I was growing up I came to believe that knowing meant surviving. Uncertainty left me feeling vulnerable and incapable of control. If I believed you knew something that I didn’t you had an edge. I gave you authority. Knowing meant dominion. Knowledge equaled power. So, I went in search of knowledge at any cost. It was currency. It was power. It was control.

And it was a complete illusion.

Today I absolutely love to learn new things and to explore new ideas. I savor knowledge for the expansion that its experience creates inside of me. I am boundlessly curious. There is a part of me that is always questioning. Google has become a dear and frequented friend.

And I do not confuse knowledge with power, control, or dominion. I do not base my worth or sense of self on what I think I know. For me information and knowledge are vastly different things. And when held up to the prism of wisdom they are both found to be grossly anemic.

I now find that uncertainty and vulnerability are prerequisites to true knowing. Accumulating data is entertaining, but it does not add to my sense of worth. Data and information, when integrated, can lead to a level of knowing. Knowing, when held loosely and with love, can lead to wisdom. And personally, wisdom is a cherished goal.

I know many who are well educated and yet not wise. I know many who are far too insecure to admit to what they do not know. Pretense becomes a shield that keeps integration, and so true knowing, at bay. Those who truly know don’t run around claiming that they know. They don’t have to. Those who fear that they are clueless about the most essential things of life make the most noise about what they claim to know. It mostly fools only themselves.

To say I don’t know creates a vacuum and an opening in me for something new to enter my awareness. To say I don’t know creates a bridge of connection onto which other’s ideas may enter and move within me. To say I don’t know is born of a space of increasing humility. And humility is a forerunner for wisdom. To say I don’t know is a foundation for faith. I have grown to trust life enough that not knowing is no longer scary.

I don’t know, and I don’t have to know. And Source God: show me what I don’t know I don’t know. And give me courage to stay with that opening.

My security is to be found in my tolerance of not having to know, in my comfortability with uncertainty. I do not have to pretend to know. I place no sense of self in what I think I know. I have no need to battle thought system to thought system. Self-image to self-image. Ideology to ideology.

And from a sea of humble unknowing I somehow discover a place within myself that Knows. That Knows and is Known. A deeper Knowing that is not data or information. That is not learned or acquired. It is essential and somehow primal. It is intimate, and it is intuitive. It is authentic and unchangeable.

In knowing less, I have somehow become more.

Who knew?

SUDDENLY ROGER

“It was sudden. He never knew what happened.”

Sudden death is such an intriguing term to me. Isn’t death always sudden? It certainly is immediate. I guess we term it that when someone passes without a journey through disease or as an effect or result of a prolonged process. It is sudden in that one moment a person is alive and responsive and the next they have left the human experience with no notice of an imminent departure.

My friend Roger died suddenly. One moment he was here, and then suddenly he was not. He put on his shoes and he went outside to do we do not know what. He went outside by himself, and with no notice or fanfare he suddenly left the planet. He suddenly left throngs of people who were then suddenly notified that he was no longer here. The impact of the suddenness was for me enormous. No time to prepare. No time to ready. No time to cushion or reason or soften. Just a sudden call of a sudden death leaving a sudden void.

It is said we die the way we have lived. I have witnessed evidence of that repeatedly. Yet perhaps never as clearly as with Roger.

I don’t recall the details of how Roger entered my life and heart. Suddenly, Roger was there.

There was something quite sudden about Roger. He was brilliant, caring, creative, funny, unfiltered, authentic. If Roger had not been so completely real, he would have been unnerving to me. I never knew what he was going to say. He seemed to have no pretense whatsoever. He would have a thought, a feeling, a response and he would share it. Suddenly there was Roger. Being Roger. It was never in my experience unkind. It was never mean or calculated. It was not premeditated. It was Roger being his glorious, perfectly imperfect sudden self. >br>
Others think about what they might do to help others, to help the world. While others were thinking Roger was doing. There was a need and then there was a sudden solution in the form of Roger. His spirituality had Nikes on. Roger put his whole sudden self into everything he did. His art. His music. His writing. His caring. His service. His environmental concerns. His loving.

His loving.

Roger loved suddenly and relentlessly. He loved his wife Linda. He loved his mother. He loved his daughter, his chosen-son, his family. He loved his dogs. Roger loved his community, his church, his friends. Golfing, cooking, serving, singing, creating something where there was nothing. Spaces became suddenly filled with Roger. With Roger’s love.

Roger loved loving.

Roger died suddenly of a too-large heart.

Of a too large heart.

Roger cried easily and shamelessly. His heart and tear ducts had a clear and unobstructed connection. I will always love and appreciate that about Roger. Unfiltered Roger would weep at beauty, transcendence, goodness, Truth. That big, open, glorious heart would spill forth streams of loving, caring, compassion. It startled some people. It only inspired me. Roger would often say what I didn’t dare to say. Roger would let the tears flow when I might try to hold them back. Roger would seize the opportunity while I was still looking for the possibility.

Suddenly Roger was in my life. And now suddenly he is gone.

Physically he is gone.

Roger’s heart, caring, love, tears, uniqueness, rawness live on in me. Traces of Roger will always be a part of my own heart. I know that I am different because suddenly Roger came into my life. And I am different because suddenly he died.

I am somehow more.

I memorialize Roger by being more unfiltered. By laughing fully and crying freely. By being even more engaged in life, in love, in giving, in creating. By loving with more abandon and less pretense. By being unabatingly real. Genuine. Sudden.

I remember my dear friend Roger by being more sudden.

Thanks, my Raja. You are forever a part of me.

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

So, I begin to type these words on the twenty-fifth annual Unity World Day of Prayer. Some of you who receive these blog posts are connected to Unity and some of you are not. It isn’t particularly germane to what I feel called to say.

Most people familiar with Unity think of it as an international group of churches and centers. That is accurate at the level of form. Our headquarters is a beautiful campus just outside of Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The campus highlight is the several story high Unity Prayer Tower. It is the home of Silent Unity, which is for me the heart of what Unity is all about.

And that brings me to what I feel called to say.

Prayer has been getting a bad rap as of late. In a world of mass shootings, climate-related devastation, record levels of divisiveness and political spin I do not disagree with the aspersions. Even clergy are taking to social media to scream “thoughts and prayers are not enough!”

True enough.

And I highly suspect that most people that are claiming to send thoughts and prayers have stopped at the first of those activities.

As I shared recently with my own particular Unity congregation, if something troubling is occurring in my life I would ask that you keep your thoughts, and indeed include me in your prayer.

I say this from a deep knowing that prayer is not thought. Prayer is the heart-centered activity of Source-Spirit moving in and through the central nervous system. It is a profound and uncontrollable movement of God in me. It is subtler than thought. It is non-dualistic, which the mind is incapable of. It is vibrational Essence moving as energy. It is largely non-directed.

Most of the time when people reactively say that you or this are “in my thoughts and prayers” it is because there is truly nothing to be said or thought at the human level. There are no actions to be taken. There is no way to fix what has already occurred.

At least not yet.

Even Einstein said that a problem can never be fixed at the level at which it was created. That level is the level of thought activity or mind content. Our best thinking got us to where we are. A Higher Intelligence needs to be accessed. A greater Force needs to be engaged. This needs to happen before action is taken. As the Buddha taught “there is nothing more futile than action without prayer.”

And so, for me, the inefficacy of prayer is being exposed. Our collective disconnection from the Power that is within us is bearing fruit in perhaps epic proportions. Anemic “head prayer” cannot sustain us. Our minds and subsequent actions have made a mess we are incapable of correcting.

Enter prayer.

Unity was founded as and remains a movement in and of prayer. That movement is a collective evolution in consciousness as we actualize and embody deep realizations of prayer and spirituality. It is not limited to thought. In fact, it is beyond thought. We first engage our hearts and then let inspiration fill our minds. We take only inspired actions. We call the forth the sacredness of all life as we go about our living. We are first responders. Source is our go- to and our come-from. We know prayer as a Force for Good that we utilize in all situations.

Prayer is a Force whose time has come. I have visited the Unity Tower, and now I am committed to BEING a Unity Tower. An inspired tower of prayer in my heart, work, and relationships. I am here to shine forth. It matters not what others choose to do. It matters not that others are shouting to “keep your thoughts and prayers!” What matters is that I know my prayer matters.

I will indeed be a Unity tower of prayer not only this day but everyday. I will watch my thoughts, and I will activate my prayers. I will take actions that I am called to take. On this Unity World Day of Prayer, I am a prayer.

Each and every day, I am a prayer.

PLEASE REMEMBER THAT

Please remember that the scarecrow was the smartest of them all.

Please remember that the tinman felt and cried the most.

Please remember that when push came to shove it was the lion who exhibited the most courage.

Please remember that Dorothy never left her bed.

Please remember that the entire odyssey was a dream that was meant to awaken personal empowerment.

The scarecrow already had a brain.

The tinman already had a heart.

The lion already had courage.

Dorothy was already at home. She already had the power within herself to recognize that fact. The power wasn’t in the shoes. The power was in her heart. In her wisdom. In her courage to embody it. She went through that entire dream just to realize that there was nothing else she needed. From hurling apples to flying monkey’s. From poppy narcolepsy to wicked witches. The power was always, already within.

While we have mostly made God a man behind a curtain pulling levers God is the Presence, the Power inside of each of us. We don’t have to go to Oz to get it. It is already here. It is the incessant searching for something beyond us that keeps us from knowing.

Please remember that.

In a moment of awakened awareness and startling revelation we may ask ourselves why we didn’t know that this power already existed as the truth of our being?

And the Cosmic Glenda giggles sweetly before chiding us: “my dears, you wouldn’t have believed me.”

You already are filled with wisdom, love, courage. Stop searching. Stop struggling. You’re already home.

Please remember that.

THIS DAY

I am beginning to type these words at exactly 3:01 p.m. EST on Saturday, August 25, 2018. I do so mindful that this is the only August 25, 2018 in all of human history. I am also mindful that many people that were upon this planet when those digits ticked into place have are no longer alive. For all those who loved them this is now a significant date in a way that can only be felt in the very depths of the heart.

There have also been births this August 25th, and for them and those around them there will be celebrations of this event until said individuals meet their own day of departure. And then another date of significance will mark someone’s heart and calendar.

I am still here, continuing to type at 3:08 p.m. This is not my birthday, and as far as I can tell it will not be my day of departure either.

As far as I can tell.

It is an overcast day here in south Florida, though it is quite sunny inside of me. It is an ordinary day in most respects. I have engaged in spiritual practice. I enjoyed brunch with my beloved husband. I have worked, and in a while I will do some exercise. I am preparing for our Sunday service, and I have had my quarterly hairstyle. I am mostly anchored in this day. I am anchored in this moment and in this embodied experience. I am mostly present to the experience of August 25th, 2018, as it is happening in me. It is I guess an ordinary day, and yet in the context of what I described above it is also somehow extraordinary.

If I knew this was my last day on earth how would I choose to spend it? If August 25th, 2018 was the date that would be significant to those around me as the day I left the earth how would my living have mattered? How would the vibrational frequency of my being have touched all living beings? What traces would I be leaving behind? Will I have given more than I have taken? Will I have praised more than I criticized? Will I have loved outrageously, forgiven freely, and compassioned relentlessly? Will my incessant questioning have opened me to greater possibilities that are now gateways to future generations? Will the wounds I have healed be fertile ground for the transcendence of others?

It is 3:29 p.m. and it is still August 25th, 2018. I am still breathing, my heart is still beating, my fingers are still typing. The preceding questions warm me and move me to heightened awareness and sharpened intention. I will live what remains of this day as mindful and as prayerful as one who knows his time is limited. One day in the not too distant future I will be gone. But today I am here. I am fully, freely, even passionately here. For the sake of those who have died and in honor of those who were born: I am here.

It is 3:33. How is this day happening in you?

QUIET ENOUGH TO HEAR

One of my most favorite definitions of prayer I have adapted thus: Being quiet enough to hear God saying nice things about you.

Being quiet enough to hear God saying nice things about me.

Wow.

So as I am willing to let go of all the theological language, the thee’s and the thou’s and the rote prayers of the ages…as I am willing to stop talking at some far off God…as I become still and quiet and receptive enough I begin to hear a faint affirming whisper right in my own heart.

And again, I say wow. I do not think of prayer as something that I am doing. I experience prayer as something that is always happening inside of me and sometimes I am attentive enough to know that it is happening.

Prayer is an alignment IN God. It is the attunement IN Godness. When I am attuned IN God I feel God moving IN me. I sense it. I hear it. I think it. I relate to and from it. As I listen to IT I intuit Its Voice. IT is always speaking of what IT is. It includes me IN that wordless narrative. For IN God I am of God. IT describes Itself and so me. I am the Word of God. And I am invited to fully become that word. When I step back and gain some internal distance from my own constant narrative I can begin to hear that Voice. I begin to feel and hear words of beauty, grace, wisdom, Truth, and love. I begin to hear nice things being said. About me.

God Itself is saying nice things about me. I am done with interrupting that Voice. I am through with speaking over it. Arguing with It. Contradicting It with my own demeaning commentary.

Shhh…

Be quiet.

Can you hear it?

Will you listen?

Right now. Be quiet enough to hear God saying nice things about you.

Kind of makes you blush, doesn’t it?

God loves that.

THERE FOR ME?

The veils of resisted grief were evident upon his face.

“I learned that people are not there for me.”

How revelatory those nine words. How packed with programming and imprinting and pain.

Oh, me too my friend. Me too.

I have learned from multiple examples in my own experience is that it isn’t so much people aren’t there for me. People are just frequently not there.

In a culture as pain aversive as is ours it is not surprising to me that others often don’t show up when I am experiencing pain or turmoil. Most people in our world will do almost anything to avoid their own pain. We have become masterful at denial, deadening, and suppression. I personally believe this has far reaching and even tragic consequences. And it is understandable. But if you cannot be there for your own pain you certainly are not going to be there with mine.

There is an unprecedented haze in most eyes these days. This is partly because our brains were not designed to process the incredible amounts of data that are coming at us in each moment. We are also privy to tortuous images that startle and disturb us. We are seeing scenarios on television and on the internet that are shocking. Violence is part of our everyday culture. Mass shootings and suicide bombings happen so frequently that we file them away as part of our current culture.

And so being “there” is a full-time practice. Being truly “here” a full-time job. Keeping my heart open and available is a primary practice at this point in my journey. While I am committed to being there for others I must first be here for me. For the experience of my own experience. To attend to my own pain, loss, estrangements, disconnections. The better I get at that the more equipped I am to empathize and attend to you.

My suffering largely abates when I take the “me” out of “people are not there.” While I am open to a direct and intimate connection with a very small number of heart-comrades I do not live in an expectation that people should be there for me. It is a set up. Any time I pain myself with “should” and with “me” it is an aperture for potential pain. People are sometimes there, and often they are not. The point is not how much others are there. The point is how much I am here.

Releasing the expectation that you will be there softens my heart and opens my eyes. I become more available and “here.” I notice my own demands about how others should be there for me. I feel the grief behind that demand, a grief that compounds whatever else I may be facing. I breathe. I open. I release. I am here.

In my pain I learn that I really am here for me. And that makes me the perfect person to be there with you.

I AM GLAD YOU ASKED

Tweet: The power of personal commentary to obscure what actually is astounds me! Commentary can shroud what is real, true, beautiful. It leads me to do battle with what is. Am I truly seeing life as it is, or only what I am making it mean? Empowering question for this day.

Response: How do you stop the commentary?

I am glad you asked.

The above is one of my Tweets from this past week, and a question that was posed by a reader. The exchange not only inspired me to answer the question from my perspective, but also gave me an idea for an extension to this blog.

I AM GLAD YOU ASKED.

What feels truer for me with every passing day is that the distinction between what is occurring and what I making it mean is everything in terms of my own inner peace. There is for all of us a commentary that is always running through the field of the mind. There is a constant inner dialogue that is labeling, interpreting, evaluating, and storytelling. If you read that closely it is an acronym for LIES. It is the dynamic of how the mind content operates. It is not in and of itself a problem or an enemy.

It simply is.

Our suffering does not come from the LIES. It comes from believing and identifying with the LIES. It comes from taking actions and relating based on those LIES.

The LIES are the effects of how we were programmed and conditioned. They are the foundation of our core beliefs. They are an operating system. They form and lens and a paradigm.

And they are not true.

As we evolve and grow spiritually the relationship to those LIES begins to change. More space becomes available in the mind. We become more masterful at watching rather than believing. It isn’t that the LIES go away, though there are many who say it is so. We are programmed for survival and while beliefs do indeed change trying to make the commentary go away is resistance and resistance always strengthens and solidifies what is resisted.

As we become more and more proficient at watching and wakefully relating TO the commentary it has less and less hold over us. The thought stream flows in and on while we simply notice. We see it, we feel the effects, we watch, notice, and let pass.

We do not try and stop the commentary. That increases its velocity. We recognize we do not have to react to it. We do not have to believe it, or act based on it. It is just thought stream. It has no inherent meaning. It says nothing about us, or about anyone.

This is not welcomed news to the ego. And it is the liberation of the Self.

Goodness, beauty, and truth are everywhere present. They are just beneath the constant commentary that shrouds the perfection that is beyond interpretation.

Don’t believe what you are making this mean, and just watch what happens.

CHOOSING CHOICE

“It’s a choice.”

“You chose that.”

“Life is an out-picturing of your choices.”

Is it?

I so often hear people comment on the circumstances and challenges of others with some rhetorical version of the above. It most often sounds and feels dismissive. While at a level I would agree that our life experiences are indeed a reflection of our choices it is not as tidy as the surface mind would have it be.

Over ninety percent of consciousness is in actuality unconscious. That is a staggering number. Which means ninety percent of our choices are being made from an unconscious level. That number decreases as we begin to spiritually awaken. And the truth of the matter is that all of us are living with the effects of what were unconscious choices at the time.

Choice is always a matter of consciousness. As our level of conscious awareness increases so does our ability to make conscious and mindful choices. The effects of our lives are incredibly valuable in that they let us know what we do not know. The effects are showing us what is in our field of consciousness, what is contained in that large percentage of the unknown. These effects are often painful and disturbing. Even so, they teach us to go more deeply within and to learn to become more awake to how we are using and misusing the immutable laws of consciousness.

As beings with reptilian brains we go into reaction numerous times in any given day. When in reaction we are triggered and disturbed, therefore response and choice are impossible. We have literally “gone lizard.” There is emotional distortion and clarity of choice is obscured.

The recognition of this dynamic can lead us to self-awareness and self-regulating techniques that can then bring us back on-line and make choice once again available. This requires both psychological and spiritual discipline and practice. Persistent meditation is incredibly vital to building an internal pause into our energetic system. This pause gives us the chance of literally choosing choice.

Remembering this dynamic and recognizing that choice is always equal to our current level of consciousness allows us to apply that pause to how we respond to other’s circumstances. There is nothing compassionate about telling someone who is troubled that “they chose that.” That is a closed hearted reaction that reveals more about the commentator than it does about the experiencer.

Choosing to respond with compassion is an indication of our own increased level of choice. And perhaps that is the height of being able to choose choice.

THE ART OF SOULFUL CO-CREATION DAY 3

So I previously posted and sent Days 1 and 2 of my 40 Daily Reminders from THE ART OF SOULFUL CO-CREATION. Here to celebrate this summer solstice is Day 3. You can review if you choose the previous days on my web-site taylorestevens.com Or just read and savor this one. Or skip altogether. I give unattached to what happens with the gift. Co-create a wonder-filled summer!

As embodied beings in this realm of physicality, we experience space in relation to what it seems to contain. The mind thinks of space as “something.” In actuality, space is no-thing.

This is no mere concept.

In the Universal Essence, which is the Source Is-ness of creation, space could not be measured based on objects, because there were no objects. There was no time, and there was nothing to hitch a concept too. There was in Truth not even space. The Universal Essence could perhaps most closely be described as spaciousness: Spacious Presence.

Although this seems to describe an experience in past tense, this is in Reality still the Truth underlying all that is. All matter seen and unseen is now contained in a field of Spacious Presence. The afore-mentioned Universal Essence Is the Essence of Spacious Presence. It is an All-Loving, All Intelligent Field of Is-ness, containing all that is in Its Infinite embrace. This Spacious Presence is the Source of Who and What we are. As hard as we may try to be something in this world, in actuality we are closer to being nothing. We are pure, potential Spacious Presence.

Our experience in this realm of time and space reality is for the purpose of bringing the All-ness of this Spacious Presence into form here on earth. We are here to channel this Omni-Intelligent Love into human form. We do this most effectively when we are in Remembrance of our Essence-nature.

When we are identified with existing form, we forget that our Essence is formless. We become mesmerized by past creations, and we forget our Essence potential. Essence is never bound by what has been. It is eternally free to create anew based on What It Is in Truth. When we are in Remembrance of Source, we are able to then create as Source. When we remember that we are at Essence Spaciousness, we can consciously choose what to create within that space.

As Spacious Presence, it is always Now, and Now is ever new. As much as we may love our creations, we may be ever-mindful that we are the Space that contains that which we create. Our spaciousness is a blissful non-attachment. We bring Loving Presence to our creations, even as we release and create anew. As we deepen into nothingness, an experience of All-ness arises.

You are Universal Essence in Spacious Presence.

OHM.

THE ART OF SOULFUL CO-CREATION DAY TWO

Day Two of my compilation. If it rings, read and enjoy. If not, bless you.

The Universal Essence of OHM is the Source of all sentient beings and of everything that is. It is in Essence a common frequency that then differentiates via an informational matrix. Everything in form is energy that is quite literally in-formed. It is all energy in the Field of One, vibrating at particular frequencies, which then manifest as experiences and objects.

To speak of Oneness is to refer to this Universal Essential frequency, pre-conditioned in Its Is-ness. To know Oneness is to go beneath the level of form to that which is formless, that which is unconditioned. This cannot be seen by the eyes or known by the mind.

As the mind is an instrument of duality, it cannot in and of its self know Oneness. Essence is beyond yet contains all notions of duality. To experience the Essence of OHM, the heart is the only viable instrument. It is the portal through which Essence is known. It is the crystal resonator which aligns with the frequency of ONE, and then allows the personality self to experience this Universal vibration. This leads us to the actual experience of our Soul, which is formlessness expressing as form in time and space reality.

The heart is the Home of the Soul, the portal for Its Presence. To come into alignment with the Soul, we must quiet the dualistic mind, and enter into the heart portal in sustained stillness. This is the purpose of meditation. Meditation is the practice of vibrating at the frequency of the Soul. It is the entrainment in and with the Field of One. It could be called OHM-ING HOME.

In times of stillness, the content of the dualistic mind is exposed, and when accepted as the nothingness it is in Truth, it calms to reveal the deeper levels of our Essential Selves. To fight the mind content in an effort to “try” and meditate is futile and unnecessary. What has no intrinsic reality is not threatening. The mind content seeks to retain its dominion knowing it is undone by Essence. The less we resist this perceptual energy, the less hold it has over us.

Recognizing we are indeed the Essence behind this content, we can easily witness what passes through the field of awareness, going more and more deeply into the Soulful Essence of the Universal OHM.

SOULFUL CO-CREATION DAY ONE

I wrote a series of 40 Daily Reminders some years back that I have yet to publish beyond a workbook version for a class I taught at the church. The book is called THE ART OF SOULFUL CO-CREATION. For some reason I felt compelled to share the first installment with you today. Maybe it will nudge me forward to publishing the finished volume.

In the meanwhile: enjoy.



There is a Universal Essence that precedes and yet permeates everything that is, has ever been, and will ever be. It is a pre-conditioned Is-ness that is imperceptible to the intellectual mind, yet gives way to all thinking and to all thought. It is experientially a vibration, a frequency that is beyond description, and yet unmistakable in its felt sense.

It is the primordial OHM that begets all creation. It is the hum beneath the cacophony of this often-noisy world. It is the Stillness in which all activity occurs. It is the Context of Creation Itself. Every instant is an invitation into the awareness of this Essence. Every moment is an enticement into a deeper listening, a more profound feeling.

This OHM is the Essence of Who and What we are at the level of ONE. Preconditioned, it becomes and yet is never defined by form. It maintains its Is-ness even as it moves in and out of conditioned reality. It is the ONE HOME from which we all have come and to which we will all return. In Truth, we have never left. It is only in identification with faulty perception that we seem at times lost in this realm of time and space. It is only due to our identification with form that we have detached from our Reality as Essence.

We are being called back to the awakened experience of this pre-conditioned state of Being. We are being called Home by Home Itself. We are being urged back to a state of joyful co-creation. There is within the Stillness an urge to consciously Become this Essence OHM. There is the call to vibrate consistently at the frequency of LIGHT. There is an irresistible urging to shine forth in Soulful splendor.

Co-creation begins in a return to Sourced Stillness. Co-creation begins in a deep inner listening. Co-creation is an alignment in the ONE OHM of Universal Essence. Can you hear It? Can you sense It? Can you feel it? It is calling. It is ever calling.

It is HOME.

MAYBE TONIGHT?

I have been triply blessed in my life to have had a wonderful father, step-father, and father-in-law. Only my step-father remains on the planet, but the relationship with all three is vital, evolving, and very much alive. My relationship with my father was complicated in many ways, partly because he developed early onset dementia when I was still quite young. He didn’t know who I was by the time I was fifteen. As heart-rending as that was I know it was a necessary part of my human evolution. I know it was part of a bigger picture. I have had numerous opportunities in my life to find resolution with that pain. Two of those opportunities have included my relationships with my step-father and with my father-in-law.

My father-in-law could be described as, for the sake of brevity, quite a character. Wonderful in so many ways. I had never known anyone like him, and most likely never will again. He was for me a study in paradox. He could recite the entire mass in Latin, and cuss like a drunken sailor. We were ideologically at separate ends of the spectrum. And yet there was a place where we met that was filled with love and mutual respect. It was instantaneous upon our meeting.

One of his favorite sayings would be his way of putting a period on a conversation or as a framing of a conflict with no apparent resolution. “Awe, maybe it’ll happen tonight.” It was, to my understanding, a vague reference to the possibility that it could all end tonight. World war, or individual passing. Sometimes he would listen, with obvious bemusement, to fussing about some perceived problem. After a perfectly timed pause Dad would chime in, “awe, maybe it’ll happen tonight.”

As many times as I have giggled over this quirky Dad-quip there is also great wisdom in it. When I find myself caught in the web of some story I am weaving I am often now graced with the echo of Dad’s answer. It puts a pause in my story-telling. It interrupts my drama just long enough to reframe what meaning I may be applying to what is happening.

How much life-force am I feeding into my worry, concern, and story? In the scope of a day, week, month, or year is it worth that life-force? Do I want to energize and expand what I am placing my attention into? If “it” really were to happen tonight, is this how I want to spend my final hours on this earth?

I want to live this day in the awareness that it could indeed happen tonight. I want to bring a quality of attention to my moments that is intimate, vital, curious, and embracing. I want to really see what I am looking at and relate wakefully to all that is. I want to interact with you as if this maybe it. And indeed, in my life that has been true countless times.

How would you live and spend your moments this day if it were embraced and wrapped in the awareness that maybe it could happen tonight? Thanks, Dad.

COMPANIONSHIP

After the death of a spouse over twenty years ago I heard from several people who care about me that I should find someone else so that I did not spend my older years alone. One of these people got more specific. “It really isn’t about being in love, per se. It is about companionship.”

I must say that the notion of finding someone to share my golden years with never occurred to me. While I wouldn’t claim to be free of esteem issues I do genuinely enjoy my company. I was alone after the death of my husband, but I was not lonely. I always have had a sense of spiritual companionship. I like my own company. While I am most certainly an introvert I am unafraid of striking up a conversation with people I do not know. I have repeatedly traveled by myself and have no self-consciousness around dining or engaging in various activities alone.

I now enjoy a beautiful marriage, but I did not seek him out to avoid aloneness. I am good on my own, and I find that I am good married. I would love it if we have many years left to spend together, and I know there are no guarantees. This is a “till death do we part” union, and who will go first is a mystery.

I do not have a lot of friends. I never really have. I have many acquaintances, many people I care deeply about. I guess that is a form of companionship. These are not people I would turn to should the bottom fall out of my life. These are not people with whom I would share the deeper regions of my being. It isn’t so much a matter of trust. It is a matter of intimacy. It is discernment. It is deepening into the realization of who has really earned the right to come into the more tender areas of my life experience.

I am in a profession that places me in a position to be privy to some of those very tender places in other people. I am often called to be with people in their greatest times of pain and of need. I am sometimes on site when someone takes their final breath. I seek to be a loving presence with those I am called to minister to. Though I do not relish the title I am indeed a pastor. And these same people are rarely friends or true companions.

And so, against the admonitions of those who sought to prevent my aloneness, I have never made companionship a specific goal. Even as I enter the senior phase of my lifetime I am unafraid of being somehow by myself. And frankly, sometimes, I just prefer it.

I do not minimize the beauty of human connection when I say that. We are all hard wired for it. I just do not need continuous large doses of it. I can be much more present and connected with others when I have had ample time to myself. I am a contemplative. I need spaces in my togetherness. Even in my marriage. I am blessed to have a loving spouse that understands that. Our companionship includes times of apartness. The stability of our union is built on that.

So I celebrate the few dear friends I do have. I relish my acquaintances and my congregants. I love my family, and many of my neighbors.

And I find sweet companionship in nature and with the non-human beings that inhabit this earth. I feel connection in passing smiles, knowing laughs, and the shared sting of grief that brings together those without a formerly known bond. The morning birds. The budding trees. I find it oddly in a traffic jam over which none of us has control.

I find at this age that I have more companions on the other side than I do on this. I still feel their spirits with me, and my memories of times together feel real and vital and nourishing.

I may again find myself alone. Don’t worry, my caring comrades. I know I will not be lonely. I have a companion who has shared the past sixty-one years with me. And he is closer and truer and more constant than ever.

THE HOURGLASS

My grandmother used to say that she had an hourglass figure, but that most of the sand had run to the bottom.

I so relate.

That does not refer to my physicality. It refers to my incarnation. Having recently added another digit to my age I am keenly aware that I have lived far more years than I will continue to live. I know many people for whom that notion induces stress and even dread.

Not for me.

I feel it as an opportunity. As a wake-up call. As a chance to come off auto-pilot and direct my remaining sand in conscious, creative, and contributing ways. I want to spend my remaining time on this planet leaving it better for my having been here.

Maybe its grandiose. In the grand scheme of things this speck of humanity is here for a brief time and then moves back into the great Reality. In a generation no one will know I was ever here.

Or will they?

Not by name or by story. There will be no fortune or fame. What I will leave are traces of love left in the sands of my time spent here. There will be tracks of struggle that smooth out into gentle waves of resolution. There will remain energy transformed and woundedness transcended. I will leave behind strong, non-violent stands against all forms of bigotry and injustice. I am showing up and speaking out. I will live on in those I have championed who were disenfranchised and dis-empowered.

I want to use my sand to build castles in which everyone is welcome. There will be boundaries for sure. Boundaries of respect, reverence, inclusivity, and civility. Please join me at my table, and feast on the grandeur of human potential. Let’s celebrate what we can do when we chose to share our precious sands. I will honor you even as I ask that you treat others at the table honorably.

With relatively so little sand left I will not waste it on simple concepts or platitudes. Pretense or defense. I want to show up as fully, authentically, powerfully as I possibly can. Prayer is my first language, love is my priority, and peace is my contribution.

I am going to live each day as if the sand may run out before nightfall. I feel no need to run around in frantic doingness. My waning adventure is mostly internal in nature. I want to be revealed at depth and lifted to the highest heights of consciousness. I want to know when I leave this magnificent planet that I fulfilled my destiny. My purpose for being here.

With more sand in the bottom my days and moments are precious. There is urgency, and there is equal part serenity. There are no more mountains to climb or battles to win. I only wish to use the remainder of my sand to build a riser that may lift others up.

There is less sand then when I began to write this missive. Please know these grains are shared with imperfect writing from an open and loving heart.

LOVABILITY

My parents worked so very hard to make me lovable that I didn’t know I was.

I do not fault for them for that. They wanted to be sure I fit into the world. That I was accepted and acceptable. How could they have known that I would grow into an adult for whom fitting in was not a goal? That being accepted by a world that was governed by values contrary to mine was not a priority?

My life path has been about learning that I am lovable as is, even though I frequently make mistakes that are a result of loveless perception.

The efforts to be acceptable and lovable are rooted in the false belief that we are not already that. Those efforts result in an increased sense of being somehow faulty. Somehow less than. Somehow unworthy. Working hard to be lovable is living life from a faulty premise. It is being rooted in a false sense of self. It leaves us to lead with pretense and veneer, afraid to show what is tender and uncertain underneath. These erroneous core beliefs always lead to defense and disconnection. It is a painful way to live. And is rampant in our culture.

My lovability is essential, intrinsic, and assured by creation. I am lovable because I am. Period. It need not and cannot be earned. It is the belief that I am not lovable that leads me to loveless actions and hurtful relationships. Allowing myself to be loved by life is a supreme spiritual practice. It requires constant vigilance and relentless surrender. As soon as I find I am trying to be loved and accepted I must choose to return to my heart space, to the awareness that in trying to be loved I am pushing it away.

If I perceive that I must become a certain thing or hide certain aspects of myself in order that you love me then that is indeed not love. That is love masquerading as control and manipulation. That is your faulty love-equation projected onto me. I cannot change that about you. But I surely will not conform to those fear-based rules of deception.

My lovability is my true nature. It is my highest priority. I am imperfect for sure, and I am still and always lovable. I am intrinsically worthy, acceptable: as is. And in a dualistic and divisive world that true nature must be courted, cultivated, and compassioned. Early wounding runs deep. We are wounded in relationship and we will heal in relationship. That begins inside each one of us. I pray daily to know that I am loved, loving, lovable: that I am love.

When I am in remembrance and in resonance with my love-nature then love is my radiance. I love you in your imperfection and unskillfulness. I recognize that you too were molded to be become lovable. While all the time you already were. You already are. We already are. We already are. We always were.

Let that in. You are lovable, and I love you. As is. Nothing to change. Nothing to hide. No pretense to be had.

Lovability is what we are.

AVOIDING THE VOID?

Every morning when I journal I pray some version of “I am willing to will the will of the One.” I rarely use words in prayer, and, I have a strong and abiding sense of that prayer at the felt-sense level. It is where I begin my day and where I live from.

Lately I have been feeling very vulnerable, exposed, and shaky. That description might send some into dread. I have learned to lean into those feelings. I have some uncertainty in my solar plexus, some fluttering in my heart center. In the past I would do everything possible to deaden and to suppress those feelings. I had an entire repertoire of ways to do that. I could not tolerate the feeling of vulnerability. I was terrified of uncertainty and of being exposed. I was sure shakiness meant the other shoe was soon to drop.

Today I know better. Comfort is no longer my top priority. Awakening is. Peacefulness is. Emergence is. So, I now recognize that when I am feeling vulnerable, exposed, shaky, and uncertain something new is beginning to emerge. Those feelings let me know I am open, and I am not moving to close or suppress. The sense of void in my energy system is an opening that I know the Universe will fill if I do not stuff it with one my habitual suppressing reactions.

I am strong enough now to not avoid the void.

For years I used people, places, things, substances to avoid myself. I did not know that was what I was doing. I thought I was comforting myself, when in fact I was numbing myself. I was so afraid of falling into a void and disappearing into an imagined abyss. That fear, while not totally gone, no longer governs my choices. I am no longer afraid of falling. I now know that when I allow it I am always caught. I am always held when I do not choose to wiggle away.

I have experienced enough good coming out of the void that I no longer go to avoidance to protect myself. I now know vulnerability as an opening to intimacy and to deeper levels of prayer. My armor weighed me down. It kept others out, but it also kept me locked in.

I now deeply know that the will of the One is always for Good. It may not be for comfort. I may not get my way. The Will is sometimes scary as it leads me beyond my comfort zone. And beyond my comfort zone is where true possibility is waiting.

I have experienced a lot of death in the past couple years. The death not only of precious people, but also of ways of being and doing. A big void has opened. I trust that void. I am moving toward and into that void. I choose not to avoid the void.

I am growing stronger and surer as I face uncertainty and exposure head on. When I do not rush to fill the void the One fills it for me. It fills that seeming void with Itself. My certainty is in Source. That is what fills me up and lets me shine. Vulnerability taught me that. What was most scary turned out to be my greatest love.

Are you avoiding the void?

Lean in and let love.

A LEGACY IN ME

I am barely on this side of saying good-bye to one of the great loves of this lifetime. It was not a surprise that Tony transitioned. He had been ill for a couple of years, and his condition had worsened to the point that we knew death was coming and most likely soon. He had chosen to cease any more treatment, and with that decision I could feel the aperture open to the next realm of experience.

Over the two years he fought hard. He eventually gave into every treatment option he had said that he would never do. The will to live is strong in all of us, and for Tony it at times felt insurmountable. And yet after a long and taxing battle with recurrent cancer came the decision to stop treatment. With that decision there was a relaxing of that iron-will. With the relaxing there was a movement into the inevitable outcome that was peaceful and was palpable.

He decided, and quickly he was gone. Peacefully, rapidly, and with the dignity that was a hallmark of his way of living and of being.

Tony had style and class beyond what words could convey. Without any kind of forced fanfare, you always knew when he entered a room. Impeccably groomed always, his manners and demeanor felt almost like royalty. And yet he was funny and at ease with people of all kinds. He loved story telling and was no slouch at one-upmanship when he deemed it the appropriate response. He could regale us all with stories of his colorful past. The places he had been and the people he had known. He often felt somehow bigger than life to me. Handsome, classy, engaging, charming.

Tony was all of that and more. My longtime personal friendship with Tony will go undescribed here. That remains too tender to touch even with my own words at this point. It is simply too soon.

With all his class, charm, and charisma those are not the true legacy that I see Tony leaving behind. His real legacy are the countless lives that Tony touched and uplifted through his enormous charitable contributions and his substantial influence in the recovery community. Tony served on numerous not for profit boards throughout the years and did so with passion and a deep commitment. The organizations are too numerous to name in this missive. Tony was a man of some privilege, and he used that privilege to serve and to benefit others. He was a wonderful balance of intellect and heart. He had a large network of influence and he didn’t hesitate to use that network to benefit the lives of others.

One of his main passions was his active membership in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Sober more than thirty years he worked the steps and the principles of that program as if his life depended on it. And indeed, he said it did. He carried a torch for the AA program, helping others every chance he got. He attended meetings with the regularity of a newcomer. He shared frequently and eloquently in those meetings, highlighting his strong spiritual connection and his constant practice of gratitude.

People were drawn to Tony in large numbers. He always sponsored numerous people and was there to speak to all who reached out to him. I affectionately called him the Pope of AA. In the final months of his life a small group of us met with him in his home. I loved those meetings. As sick as he was he so present and so attentive to us all. He would call on us to share and then listen to every word we said. I will never forget those meetings, and the way he made me feel.

And while I am barely on the other side of the ongoing good-bye I know for certain that Tony will live on in the countless lives that he helped. I truly believe that there are many people still alive today because of how Tony himself lived and loved. His body is now gone, but his legacy lives on and on in people who were touched like me. Tony’s life and living touched me deeply. His legacy is a trace that will forever be a part of me. I am more because Tony loved me.

Tony’s legacy lives on in me. Thank you, my friend.

GETHSEMANE

While I have not been engaged in traditional Christianity for more than forty years, the images of this Lenten season and of this Holy week are more intimate, profound, and transformative than ever. Something shifted in me decades ago when I discovered that I was not to walk a path of worshipping a historical Jesus or any Messiah. I am here to walk and to live the path of Christ Consciousness, which is a living, vital, presence within me.

The man Jesus has been used as one of the most divisive figures in human history. I find that tragic beyond description. Those who use him to exclude and even damn others seem to have lost touch with the essence of his message. While the records we have are woefully incomplete and repeatedly manipulated what scripture, we do have left is ultimately a message of love and personal empowerment for all people. Not just “Christians.”

Yeshua was an actualized Jew who never set out to establish a new religion. He carried, embodied, demonstrated, and taught a message that all people are Loved within the One God, and that the Power of that One God is in us and can be used for the good of all creation. It is the personal empowerment message that got him politically killed. The murder by crucifixion had nothing to do God or Its Will. No sacrifice was or is needed. It is unintegrated human shadow that murdered this Enlightened Master and has murdered countless others since.

And so, though I am not Christian, I do embrace and live by what I call Christ I Am principles. I am here to make the same demonstration Yeshua made but at the symbolic level. While at times I may feel crucified by others it is ultimately my own self aversion and rejection I am here to heal. I am here to go into my own internal garden and to deal with the grief, fear, anger, and shame that has yet to be integrated.

And so today I am spending concentrated time in my own Gethsemane. I am leaning into my emotional pain and I am asking to be shown what I do not know I do not know. I am looking at the painful stories I tell about myself, and I am praying to be freed from my self-inflicted bondage.

My mantra is “Source Will be done.” Though theology most often attributes the garden prayer of Jesus to mean that God’s will was the inevitable crucifixion, I wholeheartedly believe the Will was always about the resurrection. And that resurrection happened in consciousness before the crucifixion. It was a rising-up in forgiveness and atonement. It was an in incredible stability in the face of human depravity. No matter what they did to him he remained connected and humble in the Greater Goodness and Life that Is God.

It is my turn. I am staying rooted in garden consciousness. I am declaring within my own field “bring it on.” I want to see, feel, open to, and release all that has held me in bondage. I am ready to surrender and to allow the Christ I Am to happen in me.

ENOUGH DRAMA?

My first professional acting job after moving to New York City was on the ABC soap opera LOVING. Though it was not the work I really wanted to do it was a paying job in the industry and so I grabbed it. It was the beginning of consistent television work that helped support me while I tried my best to obtain more time on the stage.

I often joke that I worked in soap operas until I realized it was redundant. I seemed to thrive on drama in my younger years. If I couldn’t find any in which to insert myself I would create my own. I did not know at the time that it was the result of an internal chemical addiction. I needed the drama to get my fix. Stirring up some chaos rewarded me with the brain chemicals that had become a status quo. Though there were certainly periods of respite in between I could not go long before I needed another hit. And so, drama-making to the rescue.

I haven’t worked in soap operas for years now. I also have no desire to create or to participate in real life dramas either. I made it through the required withdrawal and now I quickly disengage when I sense drama-makers around me. Having lived there myself I can hold a space of compassion for sure. And I will not allow myself to become a character in anyone’s addictive story line.

As it truly is an addiction, people still in the throws can become very reactive and even hostile when I will not engage in the script they want me to read. I am truly okay with that. I have become quite accomplished at calmly walking away. It does not mean I do not care. In fact, I care so much that I will not collude in a story that will result in prolonged pain for those who play the parts.

I know deeply that the potential for every drama is resolution and even transformation. On the other side of the story is a hero’s welcome. But we must go through the withdrawal and come out the other side. We must bring a sustained presence to the storyline, and question what it is that is fueling the saga. When we truly get to the point that we prefer peace to drama then peace is right around the corner. I know. I found it.

I had enough drama to last a life time. Have you? Are you ready to take responsibility for what you are generating? Are you willing to withdraw from the chemical reward you get from keeping the stories going?

Have you had enough drama?

WILL

While I have never considered myself to be a strong personality type I also recognize that there have been times in my life when I was extremely strong willed. If there is indeed a cosmic truth to be revealed in the qualities of the horoscope than I am for sure a classic Taurus. There have been more than a few situations in my life in which I have felt compelled to really dig my heels in.

I remember being a four year child and refusing to eat the yams my mother put on my plate for dinner. My mother was formidable, and she decided I would sit at the table with those yams until I ate them. I decided I was not going to eat those disgusting things. When they got cold I told her I couldn’t eat them at that temperature. She reheated them. I sat and stared at them until they once again got cold. She was not going to be outdone by a four year old. Added salt. An additional glass of milk. I wasn’t having it. As the eleven o’clock news came on the yams were tossed in the trash and I was tossed in bed. I had won.

With many years of spiritual practice and a strong dose of recovery and emotional fluency my relationship to will and to willfulness has changed for sure.

I remember early in my twelve step work becoming paralyzed by the desire to know and to follow the will of God. I had a deep and a compelling desire to turn my will and my life over to the care and to the will of my Source, as prompted by the third of those twelve steps. At that time I was very confused as to what that greater will might be. I didn’t want to be willful as I had been in the past. I wanted to clearly know what I now call the Will of the One.

I agonized over it. I searched my mind, fearful that I would do something that would be out of alignment with God’s will. I often discounted my wants and desires, putting them aside as if my desires couldn’t possibly be the desires of the Universe coming forth in me. I was at times paralyzed.

I hold a deep appreciation for that time in my emergence. It taught me so much, and was an instrumental part of my acquiring what amounts to a totally God-experience. I now live in the awareness that God’s Will is always What God is. God’s Will is love in all of its expressions. God’s Will is kindness and compassion, justice and equality. It doesn’t matter so much where I live, what I do, or what kind of car I drive. It does matter how I live, how I do what I do, and how I behave while I am driving.

I am clear that there are feminine and masculine aspects to will, and both are within me. I pray each morning to be willing to will the will of the One. I am soft and open in willingness, and strong and convicted in what I know the will to be for me. I balance them throughout my day. I no longer see willfulness as an enemy to be conquered. It is a force to be harnessed. I am indeed stubborn for what I know to be right for me. I am unwavering in my values. I will go to the mat to hold the line for what is right and true and just.

I also no longer make my desires or wants wrong. There is an Infinite Universe of Goodness to be experienced. I seek every day to expand my personal goodness quotient. I now know life is for me. The One Will is for my highest good. That is what I seek to open to.

And I still refuse to eat yams. So there

JUSTIFIED RETALIATION?

Someone else’s bad behavior is never justification for my own.

While we as human beings are hardwired for defense and for retaliation we are also cosmically destined to rise above and respond beyond those primitive automatic reactions.

I don’t recall the last time I had to defend myself against a physical attack. It was most likely forty years ago. It has not been nearly that long since I went into a defensive posture because someone didn’t agree with me or because I was personally offended at something someone said or did. It could even be the look I am seeing or perceiving on someone’s face. Perhaps it is the tone of someone’s voice, or the perceived slight of not being acknowledged properly when I entered a room. I feel the mechanics click into gear, and a dividing wall sliding into place. I readjust my armor, and I am girded and ready to defend in a battle that isn’t even really happening, except upon the battleground of my own reptilian brain.

And so I recoil, I withdraw, and I start to spin the tale of the justified retaliation. As a person of so called non-violence it will most likely be some version of the silent treatment. You know, the attitudinal deep freeze. Far “too spiritual” to ever apply a full and frontal attack I will register my displeasure with an icy look and an edgy tone. I will throw virtual daggers and perceptual spears. And I will do it because of what you did. It is a justified reaction to your bad behavior. I am right in reacting thusly to your wrong. You deserve it and here it comes.

And yet, someone else’s bad behavior is never justification for my own.

Though I am hardwired for defense and retaliation I no longer have to choose to employ them. They were strategies I used until I learned to do know and to do better. After years of prayer, meditation, and spiritual-emotional practice there is now space between the reptilian reaction inside and the automatic expression of those impulses. There are still instances when I feel slighted, offended, confronted, and disrespected. Spiritual practice doesn’t kill brain cells. There is, however, a clear gap between the internal reaction and the outer response. I now know that whatever may be coming at me isn’t a license for me to come from the baser levels of human reaction. I have choice. I now have a choice.

I cannot choose what you are going to say or do. I am not here to control you or others, though I tried for decades to do just that. My consciousness and my way of being are of primary importance to me. The staying true to my chosen values, regardless of what anyone else is choosing, is how I am evolving and growing into more of what I am meant to be. If I justify my unskillfulness and my reactive bad behavior I in fact become less. I revert to lizard-like automatic reactivity. I can blame you for that but it only serves to reinforce the parts of me that I am meant to move beyond.

Though it is not much evident in our current culture we are meant to evolve beyond the eye for an eye mentality. While it is never appropriate to stay in an abusive situation people are terminating long-term relationships over a single and simple disagreement. I am the first one to affirm and honor healthy boundaries. And that doesn’t mean for me putting people out of my heart because we do not share a common ideology. There are times when a break in direct connection is perfectly appropriate. I have done it. But I do it from a centered place of clarity and not from a place of disturbed reactivity.

I wholeheartedly seek to release retaliation from my personal repertoire of how I respond in life and in relationships. I quickly deal with resentments, and I warm up as readily as possible when I find myself tempted to deep freeze. I really am not doing so for some noble or altruistic reason. I am doing so because to stay in defense, retaliation, unforgiveness, and reactivity is just too heavy a burden for me to bear. It is too contrary to what I know I am meant to be and to how I know I am meant to respond and relate.

So your bad behavior, real or just perceived, is ultimately just a chance for me to be more of what I truly am.

GOVERNING SHUT DOWN?

In reflecting on what is currently happening in the United States government I begin that reflection process where I always choose to begin: how is what is happening out there mirroring something that I need to see in here?

Whenever I find myself in opposition to what is happening or to what someone else is doing I as quickly as possible pray to open to the lesson I need to learn. I pray to surrender and to open in order to release my own internal resistance. When two or more people with opposing agenda’s strive to have their own way a battle ensues and manipulations start flying. Human beings will employ every strategy at their disposal to be right and to have their own way. These are ego-mechanics that we all learn relatively early in life. They are functions of the reptilian brain and are foundational to everything from a marital spat to a deadly world war.

When we perceive we are not getting our way we feel threatened and retaliatory. We get triggered and we shut down. Walls come up and defenses get employed. This is literally automatic. Shut down is a primitive defense mechanism. It is hard wired in all humans. It was necessary at one time for our very survival. That is rarely so in our current human trajectory.

Spiritually awakening includes coming to recognize this automatic shutdown, and developing the capability of relating to it in such a way that we don’t employ our strategies, manipulations, and defenses. We become more skillful in our relating and in our negotiations. We become less invested in having our way and more interested in being the way. We become open to choosing connection over protection, cooperation over control, union over divisiveness. We choose staying open, or at least being willing to reopen when we find that we have shut down.

It is very literally a moment by moment choice as to what we allow to govern us. We will either sync into Spirit wisdom, or do battle from ego-mechanics. It is not a one time decision. It is a felt-dynamic that we learn to repeatedly open to and follow.

This is not to suggest that we don’t establish and maintain clear and appropriate boundaries. I am clear in what values I operate from. I will not allow violations or injustices to occur without speaking up and calling them out. I will just not choose to go to war over them. I will not choose to dehumanize people because they don’t agree with me or because they are pushing agenda’s that don’t resonate for me.

I live in clarity of what I allow to govern me, and I don’t have to shut down over what is governing others. I am letting my heart stay open because that is how I am choosing to live. I am being governed by Source God and not by ego shut down. And so I can watch what is happening out there from an open heart and with soft eyes.

I am choosing to open up as I observe others shutting down. This choice keeps me on track and responsive. It keeps me centered and able to contribute peacefulness to the whole on an energetic and spirit-level. As I watch what is currently unfolding I am praying that our state of being truly does become united. It will indeed as union becomes a priority over personal agenda. It will when we choose to be governed by what is common to us all, regardless of our politic or ideology.

SENSE OF SELF

After thirty plus years on a conscious spiritual path, what I have come to know for sure is that my sense of self in this world IS my quality of life. Everything flows forth from my sense of self. It is the lens through which I experience absolutely everything. I am always looking out from who I think I am. I am always unconsciously projecting out what I am not aware is primal inside.

My sense of self is emotionally based and fueled. The mental commentary, though commanding, is secondary. I will always draw relationships, circumstances, situations that will be reflective of my imprinted emotional self. Thinking that you or this makes me feel this way is a partial truth that can trap us in a self-generated story. The things that happen to me are always pointing back to what is unacknowledged and unintegrated deep inside of me. They are roadmaps to my own interior. Though often painful, they will lead me to the emotional residue that is clogging my highest expression. The question is, am I willing to follow?

I feel the impact of what you say to me and how you are treating me. Without diving into delusion I allow myself to fully feel that impact. I allow myself to feel and to stay with my reactivity to you, my messenger. I allow for the anger, for the blame, for the impulse to retaliate. I allow them; I do not act on them. I stay in my body, and I do not continue to feed the story of what you did to me. By staying present, the energy of the impact has the freedom to move and to flow. I blame you just long enough to feel what is happening inside of me. Connecting to and staying with the feelings, the need to blame lessens and lessens until I can own the causal emotion of what got triggered. As I own the trigger as mine, I release you as the source of my pain and suffering. As I release you I begin to become free.

I know beyond mere intellect that my sense of self is my attractor and eventually my liberator. I am here to integrate my early wounding. As I do I am less and less capable of wounding others. I know for sure that if I cannot move beyond blame I cannot heal. That moving beyond is often clunky and unskillful. It is painful and it is can feel relentless. But I know it is necessary.

I am more than willing to have my sense of self revolutionized. I am willing to be willing that my sense of self be Sourced. I am willing to be redefined. To allow Life to show me what I need to see, no matter how painful looking in the mirror may be. I am willing to own my inner experience. I am willing to be strong in letting Life Love me. Those who have hurt me become my greatest teachers. I do not remain in abusive relationships, and my sense of boundary is clear and non-negotiable. That is not the same as residing in blame and victimhood. If you continue to violate my space you will be removed from my sphere. I will do so, however, with an open and empowered heart.

My sense of self is the quality of my life. It for me has been a constant unveiling and rewiring. It has been central to my spiritual awakening. I know that I must have full and free access to my emotional Beingness in order to know God experientially. I get up every day praying to be more available, more accessible, and more defenseless. When I am anchored in my Sourced Self I am strong, centered, and resilient. I am clear about what I am in Truth. From that inner-space, I can then see the truth of you. Even when you are behaving badly, I can remember you are more. I may not allow your behavior to continue, but I will not identify you with it.

This year perhaps you will join me in engaging in a sense of self revolution. Go deep within and find the places where you flinch. Listen to what you make situations and the way others treat you mean about you. Own it. Take responsibility for it. Feel it, stay with it, release it. Be free with it.

As your sense of self expands so will your experience of Love. Then you can thank your messengers with an open, undefended heart. You can know that you are more for having dealt consciously with them. You can know your sense of self is stronger because you chose for it to be.