A THANKSGIVING BLESSING

I am blessed because I choose to be.

I grew up in a faith tradition that taught that blessings were something external that were either given or withheld from a far-off God. We were admonished that we should always count our blessings. We were not taught what to do in times when it seemed there were none to count.

As an adult I learned that the ancient art of blessing had a much more expansive meaning. Blessing was not a thing per se and did not come from an off-planet God. Blessing is the recognition and acknowledgment of the Divinity that is always ever present. Blessing, or to bless, is an invocation of what is always True. If Divinity is ever present, and I for one Know it to be so, than blessing is equally ever present. It is here, now. Everything is blessing potential. Absolutely everything. It is not a matter of whether or not there is a blessing to behold. It is only a matter of whether or not a blessing is invoked.

Hence: I am blessed because I choose to be.

This is unsupported in a dualistic version of God. Especially the theological God that humans made up. That God is divided into good-evil, dark-light, blessing-curse, etc. That is the God that seems to have a personality disorder as it smites them but delivers those. It leaves us to ask for blessings and just hope we catch HIM on a good day. We count our blessings believing they are variable and finite. Often, they are thought to be merited for our good behavior, or at least our pretense of Godliness. As we are made in the image and likeness of God we too see the world in dualistic terms, have personality disorders, and secretly seethe when those infidels appear to have more blessings than we.

This is a juvenile version of Source and of blessing.

As we mature and grow in awareness we are also invited to grow in maturity regarding blessing. We begin to bring ancient wisdom into modern parlance and application. We choose to bless whatever is happening as a recognition that everything is Divinity in process. Everything is emergence. Everything is blessing becoming. In time and space reality it is we who call it forth. It is we who invoke it in our more awakened moments. We deepen in a knowing that this Thing we call God is All that is. It is Law, Principle, Essence. It is never missing. It is frequently misapplied.

I am blessed because I choose to be.

There are wonderful things unfolding in my life.

I am blessed.

There are a few undesirable and even scary things happening in my life.

I am blessed.

Wonderful or scary, everything that is happening in my life experience is an activity of Law. It is happening through me and is for my highest Good. It is exactly what I need in this moment. It is Divinity ever present calling me to presence. Preferred or not it is gift in potential. I bring that potential into being by virtue of my decision to bless. And my decision to bless makes it a gift.

And so, I am always living at a choice-point of blessing or curse. My dualistic nature is what fuels that choice. It Reality there is only blessing. And here in this realm it is a choice. It is the most important choice I can make. When I curse, I suffer. When I bless, I am set free. Free to see the blessing that my choice invokes. It may or may not be obvious in the manifest. It doesn’t ‘matter. I can always perceive it through my spiritual sight.

I am blessed because I choose to be.

And I bless you, dear reader, by invoking the Divinity ever present within you. It is the same Divinity that is within me. It is One and the same Divinity. One and the same blessing. One and the same potential. It is brought into conscious manifestation by a simple but unequivocal invocation.

I am blessed because I choose to be.

I bless you because I choose to bless you.

Blessings abound in the recognition that everything is blessing.

And that is my Thanksgiving blessing.

I choose to give thanks for the blessing Life is.

A NOW APPRECIATION

Most folks will tell you that you cannot change the past.

I do not believe that.

I do not believe you cannot change your past because I have.

The way that I have changed my past is by changing the lens through which I see it. I am actually still in the process of changing my life prescription. It feels more accurate to say that the process of change is happening for and through me. The lens is being changed as I pray into my internal guidance, asking to be freed from the meanings that have caused my suffering. I ask to be shown what I need to see about the way I see. I ask to become clear about what program is running, and how it is distorting my reality and my way of relating.

I ask for help in seeing what I need to see differently.

And I am always shown.

In changing my past, the events and occurrences remain the same. How I see them and what I make them mean is what changes. In some instances, radically. I have intentionally accessed and allowed for the courage I needed to really look back. To go where I did not want to revisit. To return to the seen of the crime. While common wisdom may suggest that we not look back it has been a necessary journey for me. I needed to go back and to face what I had previously refused to see. I knew instinctually that I could not stop repeating my painful patterns if I did not return to them for a closer look.

And I have indeed faced my patterns. With barely a flinch.

Ouch.

I saw. I stayed. I looked closer. I looked closer still. I kept my eyes and my heart open. I cried. And I cried some more. And as the tears began to dry, I saw the patterns from a new perspective. I saw the people who I was sure had victimized me in a new light. With a deeper clarity. With a surprising level of appreciation.

Appreciation?

Looking back over this incredible adventure of my life I am being shown how every part and parcel of it has been a perfect part of my unfolding. I am seeing the bigger picture. The broader perspective. I am seeing how every pain and pitfall was a necessary element to the next essential part of the story. The dots are connecting in miraculous ways. I am having memories and dreams of things I have not thought of in decades.

In some ways I feel as if I am watching the technicolor movie of me.

I watch. I engage. I feel. I laugh. I cry. I see what I used to think things meant. What roles I used to cast others in. I see the heroes and I see the villains. I feel the dashed dreams and the bridges they became to what I was truly meant to experience. I watch as I am guided to a new perspective of what my life has been about. The distinctions regarding what I thought I was meant to do, and what I was authentically meant to become.

And day by day I appreciate it all more. More, and even more.

It is appreciation that is changing my past. And as my past miraculously changes my present becomes richer and freer and more authentically my own.

I do not become lost in projecting my unresolved past patterns onto current situations and relationships. Because I looked back, I now look forward with a new clarity and hopefulness. In appreciating all that the past has taught me I dwell in a readiness to appreciate the lessons of today. I open to the challenges knowing they will be bridges to where I am being led next. I consistently pray to see clearly. With a new and present time vision. I know not how many tomorrows I will have so I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. As is. This life experience. This relationship. This circumstance. I look upon it with fresh eyes. An open heart. A deep knowing that everything is a part of a sacred emergence.

Everything is a part of a sacred emergence.

Everything has always been a part of a sacred emergence.

From that perspective I appreciate it all. And appreciating it all changes my past.

The past no longer has power over me for the power of appreciation empowers me to embrace it in this present moment.

The dots are connecting. The patterns are resolving. The history is clarifying. The meaning is expanding.

The past is changing.

I so appreciate that.

So, don’t let others tell you that you cannot change the past.

You can.

I know. I have.

And appreciation is the key.

IN ISOLATION

Isolation really is not all bad.

I had made an art form of isolation long before there was a medical edict.

In fairness to myself the term isolation has been applied to me by numerous other people. It never has felt quite right to apply to myself. I simply like being alone. And more than that, I happen to enjoy my own company.

People that see and hear my professional expression would never guess what an extreme introvert I am. In order to fuel that professional expression, I simply must have large swaths of time to be quiet, and to be by myself. It is not a preference. It is a deep need. When I do not have sufficient solitude, I literally have physical symptoms. My breathing becomes shallower and more labored. My mind activity gets busier. I begin to feel closed in and cramped down inside myself.

I could break out in a sweat just typing these words.

While others may see this as pathology, I see it as healthy awareness. I love being with other people. In somewhat small doses and with lots of space between. My personal honoring of my need for aloneness allows me to give more freely when I choose to be in direct connection. My aloneness nourishes me so that I may hopefully nourish others as I interact. I am fed in solitude and I feed in communion.

So, for me, this time of isolation has not been all bad.

For one, this added alone time has clarified what I am describing in this missive. The social distancing in many ways has increased my personal connection. I am learning more about myself, and what has been running this show called Taylor. I have solidified my priorities. I have refined even more my purpose. I have come to a greater inner-awareness, and an embracing inner-acceptance. I am clear about how I want to experience my remaining years, if life indeed grants me those.

And I have never appreciated my life, my history, my relationships, and my expression more than I do right now.

The patterns I have lived out are crystal clear. The core beliefs have never been more apparent. My habitual ways of showing up and shutting down have risen in awareness like never before. I am quite certain my shadow has not emptied out. I am even less sure that is a goal. And I know myself at a level that I don’t think would have been possible without this extended period of distancing and isolation.

Isolation really is not all bad.

It has come bearing gifts, at least for me.

I do miss being with others in a very tangible way. I can feel that in ways that are equal to my reaction to too little aloneness. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my spiritual community. I miss those who have departed since this pandemic took hold.

I need aloneness and I need togetherness. I am not sure in equal measure. But I surely need both. Isolation has taught me that. Isolation has clarified my boundaries and what is most important to me in personal relationships. I am clearer about what I will tolerate and what I will not. I am certain that I have taught others how to treat me, and I am brave enough to alter those teachings. How others react is of less consequence than me staying true to me.

Me staying true to me.

That rings in my heart and throughout my being.

Isolation has taught me that I need to first and foremost stay true to myself. Not in some surface, self-help way. Deeply, intimately. All accepting and ever allowing. When I need space, I will claim space. When I choose connection, I will offer, and I will accept connection. I will spend as much time alone as feels right for me. And then I will share the beneficial effects of that solitude generously if judicially.

And this I learned from distancing and isolation.

So you see, isolation is not all bad.

HOPEFULNESS

How may my hopefulness be helpful to others?

That is my prayer today.

Anyone that really knows me knows that I am not an “everything is good” type of person. I am not prone to pink paint over poop. I am by persona somewhat hesitant, questioning, even skeptical. Attempts have been made to shame me in that. It does not work. I befriended those aspects of me long ago. Those capacities were needed and have served me well. By befriending them I now use them whereas they used to use me. They are now a part of my discernment process, and I appreciate that even when others do not. Like doubt hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism have been guides that have kept me on my path.

They have also increased my sense of hopefulness.

I do not immediately believe something just because someone says it is so. It does not matter how much authority the person has. It does not matter how many other people believe it. I forge my own path with hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism as part of my GPS system. It is what helps keep me hopeful. Even in times when many around me are losing hope.

Not believing something at face value has become a superpower for me. It gives me the opportunity to take my own dive below the surface of what is happening. In that dive I move through the meaning others are applying to situations and circumstances. I question assumptions. I am hesitant to react just because everyone else is reacting. I am skeptical about the individual and the collective stories that are swirling around me. When I am centered and clearest, I doubt before I believe.

This is all in service of my own personal sense of hopefulness.

Hope for me is independent of outer appearances. Hope is a state of being. A lens through which I view life. It is a process that becomes a verb. It is how I hold chaos, disturbance, and drama. I apply it imperfectly yet relentlessly. For this skeptic hopefulness is a fulltime job.

How may my hopefulness be helpful to others?

By always seeking for the deeper meanings via my hesitancy and doubt I do not fuel stories with my precious life energy. Stories that most often are not even true. When I question enough to discern another’s bias, I lessen the chance of getting caught in the web they are weaving. By not pouring the pink paint over the poop flowers of expanded awareness are freer to grow. By not calling evil good I can use my discernment to call out what is indeed dark, and not pretend it is Light.

I have said it many times and I will say it again: It is not all good. It may be all FOR good. Yet it is not all good. Not by a long shot.

How do I know?

My hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism taught me.

And now my hopefulness sustains me.

Writing this as the country waits in the balance of an uncalled election result there is tension all around. There is seemingly endless speculation and narrative. Pundits on both sides are proclaiming what it all means.

I do not believe a word of it.

Which is why I feel a deep sense of hopefulness that is transcendent of outcome.

I am hopeful in that I see unrevealed aspects of consciousness being streamed in ways that are unmistakable. What has not been questioned, acknowledged, integrated is up for review. We need to doubt what we thought was true. It never was. We need to be skeptical about the values we have said we live by. We have not. We need to be hesitant about trying to rapidly find a fix for all the problems we are being forced to face. We will not.

Only when enough of us hesitate, question, doubt, and skeptically look into the deeper recesses of our being will hopefulness rise from the depths. It will rise like the phoenix from the ashes of our despair. We as a country have said we were one thing and we have governed like something entirely unlike our constitution and declaration. And we have done so with far too little questioning. Hence our time of reckoning.

I am aware that this election could be called before this is even published. There will be many who will feel triumphant. There will be many in the throws of despair.

I will be in neither camp.

I will be hesitant to apply meaning to whatever outcome is decided. I will question what the deeper meaning is for me and only for me. I will be skeptical of the projections of the futurist. I will doubt the forecasts of doom or of delivery from some elected outer savior.

That is not pink paint.

That is the hopefulness derived from a doubtful dive into deeper consciousness. It is a hopefulness that is well earned. It was hard fought and profoundly unpopular when shared. And I am more than okay with that.

I rarely believe other’s opinions of me anymore.

I am too skeptical for that.

So, perhaps consider what I say. Question and be sure to doubt it. Try it on. Cast it away. I was admittedly a little hesitant to share it.

If it touches one heart and causes you to question, then perhaps my hopefulness will be helpful.

I pray that it is so.