INSIDE THE EGG

So this morning I dropped an egg while preparing brunch. Hitting the tile floor it scattered everywhere. After exclaiming my favorite expletive, inherited from my mother for just such occasions, I had a couple rapid fire aha’s.

One that I feel compelled to share is silly and illogical. While exclaiming my mom-word I simultaneously had a fleeting thought of “why do eggs have to break?”

Duh…

This was immediately followed by the internal answer that eggs are like hearts. Our hearts are often encased by a protective shell. This protects the realness of what we are. It is there while the feeling heart grows stronger. While it develops what it needs to come forth and stand strong. This happens naturally and in an evolutionary way. When we learn we are strong and resilient, when we no longer need to keep a shell around our hearts, the shell cracks and falls away.

Sometimes this happens by seeming force. We are relationally dropped and we feel like we splatter everywhere. And all the kings horses and all the kings men cannot put us back together again.

So we exclaim and we rant. We look at the mess. And we cry and we grieve and we eventually forgive. We clean up the mess and we recollect the precious interior of what is most real. And we deeply know that the shell is not the egg. It’s the inside that is our true Being. We needed the shell.

Until we didn’t.

We must break open to let the realness emerge. It sometimes seems to have happened too soon. That is traumatic. And it is the path for some of us. I was dropped early in life. My sense of being scattered everywhere was as illogical as is this illustration. I developed a harder more unbreakable shell. Or so I thought. I tried in vain to become unbreakable. I tried to pick people who wouldn’t drop me.

It didn’t work.

It has taken me many decades to realize what was meant to protect me (shell) kept me from the realness of what I am.(inner egg) I still get dropped but I don’t confuse it with the reality of me.

I recognize that my heart doesn’t break. Only the protective shell breaks.

What is real and true and unbreakable is inside of me. What I essentially am is an ever evolving inner being. I may get dropped but my authentic Self doesn’t splatter.

Being dropped and seeing some splatter and hearing an expletive is a relative experience. It is part of the development of Truth becoming true.

I am the egg I am not the shell.

So grateful.

BIAS

Belief and bias have the power to move mountains and part seas. Perhaps to even raise the dead.

And it seems to require a lifelong quest to bring to conscious awareness what our beliefs and biases are.

If there is one thing I have grown certain of in this lifetime it is that we are always look at what we are looking with. Each of us was carefully and tribally programmed to see “reality” in a certain way. That programming is the prescription through which we see. I placed “reality” in quotations because reality is a subjective experience. Our beliefs and our biases are literally the lens through which we see ourselves, each other, and the world. This “seeing of “reality” does not mean that what we are looking at and feel so certain about is true. In fact, it rarely is. We are looking at the effects of our own programming and conditioning. We are always looking for what we are looking with. To be unconscious of this is to be captive to it. To not know that how you see is what is creating your suffering is to remain in bondage.

What we Essentially are does not change. What we Essentially are does not need to change. It is True. It is beyond belief or bias. It cannot be affected by the stories we tell or the perceptions we hold. It is Truth that is forever True.

What does need to be changed is our erroneous core beliefs and the biases we look through. It is bias and belief that evolve. It is how we see what we see. It is the prescription in the lens of consciousness. We all have a mostly unconscious sense of self that is emotionally imprinted and mentally programmed. We look through it and believe that what we see is out there.

It is not.

Alright, the forms are certainly out there. The meaning that is applied to them is in fact in here. It is how we meet the out there, in here, that is everything to our experience. What I say about something determines my experience of it. What I say literally goes. We were created to be self-determining. Self-referred. We are here to literally and co-creatively word our worlds. When we grow to a place where we can consciously name something we can then claim it. Tame it. The outer then has no authority over us. We get a clear sense of our beliefs. Our biases. We understand that we look at life through them. If something is bringing resistance and suffering, we don’t rush to judge and change the outer. We go immediately to the inner.

This is the foundation of authentic power.

We are designed to decide and to choose our moment-by-moment experience. Until we understand what our current prescription is we cannot change it. To understand our prescription, we must be willing to own our part in how we see. We must also have the courage to be willing to be mistaken. We must be willing to detach from the programming of our tribe, and to stand strong in choosing a higher and more expansive way. We must risk autonomy. We cannot fit in and evolve. It can feel frightening to challenge our beliefs and question our biases. It could cost us our place in the tribal system.

And that is what courage and bravery are all about.

I have never been clearer about how I was imprinted and programmed. I have never been clearer about my sense of self. I have never had such clarity about the fallacy of so much that I was taught. While it was not intended to hurt me my beliefs and biases have largely done just that. They disempowered me and kept me playing small for much of my life. I projected that sense of sense outward, and it became my world. My reality.

I suffered from me.

Now that I can distinguish the belief and bias from what I truly am and how I am seeing what I am seeing my world is radically changing.

Radically.

Discomfort and discontent are now internal sirens letting me know my prescription needs to be questioned. If I continue to run the program, suffering will be my equivalent reaction. I am invited to question what I am saying about what is occurring. I am implored to make a distinction between belief and reality. Bias and what is true. Cause and effect. Between my actual I am and the conditional me. Discomfort is an internal pointer to distortion. To gain clarity I must go to the projector, not to the screen.

Whatever is occurring externally it is my birthright to determine what I make it mean. And what I make it mean will determine my reality.

Now, I am not saying that disturbing things don’t happen in our world. I am not saying that people do not berate and slime each other. Life is always unfolding via Law, and that outpicturing can be painful and unskillful for sure. Yet the power to overcome is always in how we choose to be in response. How we see in a visionary way. How we challenge programs we are running. What apps we have open. How we name our experience is how we choose to claim authority. In this way we tame the wild lizard inside. Left unexamined it will wreak havoc in our energy systems. It will self-disturb and then unconsciously react.

From my former rather fragile sense of self I completely believed my own core beliefs. I saw mirrored all around me my biases reflected as situations, circumstances, and relationships. I believed the stories that I was streaming. I buckled under and identified with the web I was weaving. I believed your biases about me and hustled to change myself to accommodate and please you.

I rarely do that anymore.

Your beliefs and biases about me are not about me. And my beliefs and biases about you are all up to me. I do not need to change to fit your beliefs. And you do not need to change to assuage my biases.

That, my friends, is freedom. It is liberation in the truest sense. The clearer I become about my beliefs and biases and how they are my lens of reality the more wakefully I may respond to yours.

I am always looking at what I am looking with.

I am always looking for what I will always find. It is perceptual. It is the mystical meaning of “seek and you will find.” Change what you are looking with and you will change what you are looking for. And that literally changes everything.

I am aware that if you are reading these words, you are doing so through a lens of belief. You have a bias through which you experience this. Those are completely independent of what I am actually saying. You are reading through an expectation of what you think I will say. It may or may not be accurate. Your experience is most certainly colored by your lens of perception.

I am aware that as I intuit and as I type I do so awake to a lens of how I think this will be received. It is my self-belief made conscious. I see and feel it, and yet I do not believe or identify with it. My bias says not many will read, agree, and affirm this. That is how I was imprinted and programmed. That is a perception that is directly related to my sense of self. It disempowers me and limits my creative expression and my ability to effectively serve.

And I no longer am held captive by it.

And so, I continue to write, trusting the impulse from which this missive flows. An impulse that is transcendent of belief or bias. A creative urge that is vaster than my sense of self. Clearer than the lens through which I see.

Now that I have a clear and adaptive sense of what my biases and beliefs are they no longer have me.

And now my reality is truly up to me. I can move the mountains and part the seas that inside of me.

I can even raise the dead.

I do so by rising above the deadening beliefs and biases that kept me in a tomb of my own making.

Now what I call reality is what I decide that it will be. I am largely and increasingly free to determine my experience.

That is another way to say that I am free. And free is what I was born to be.

SUNFLOWERS

I confess that sunflowers have never been my favorite flower.

Until now.

Without getting bogged down in the historical detail’s sunflowers have emerged as a symbol for what is occurring in the devastated country of Ukraine. Sunflowers had been planted decades ago on the site of a nuclear reactor by both Ukrainian and Russian defense ministers. They were planted to symbolize the commitment to never allowing a nuclear confrontation to occur.

Awe, that the planting could be recreated today.

Sunflowers traditionally also represent joy, optimism, peace, longevity, and devotion. Sunflowers are said to bring more joy to people than any other flower.

At the risk of being criticized for oversimplifying or minimizing I believe we could do well to plant more sunflowers. To cultivate the qualities of what they represent. To gift others with bouquets of sun-blossoms, especially those who may trouble us. Whenever we are tempted to lash out, we could give sunflowers instead.

Silly?

Maybe.

And maybe a little bit of silliness would do us all a little good.

There is something universally powerful happening now as embodied within the Ukrainian invasion. It is deeply tragic and personal to those living directly in it. It is ghastly in terms of what is being visited upon these people. I could never convey it in words.

There is also a level of courage, bravery, heroism that is truly superhuman. As devious as the authoritarian occupation is, the Ukrainian response is indescribably and almost overwhelmingly brilliant in its bravery. Everyday citizens are taking up arms and literally risking everything to protect their homeland. It is a perfect outpicturing of the David and Goliath dynamic. As massive as is the Russian military it is no match to the spirit of these courageous people. We are seeing a profound playing out of good versus evil. It is personal, yet it is also archetypal and universal. It is a lesson for all who choose to pay attention and learn. There is a force deep inside of me that is responding in ways that are as unmistakable as they are surprising. No, shocking. A suppressed warmonger has come out of hiding. My pacifist has stepped behind my warrior. Every time I see a sobbing child, a grieving mother, a bombed out home I feel grief and also rage. The torment of the Ukrainians tears at my heart. My empathy and compassion expand with every devastating news report. And so does my anger.

The last thing I feel like doing is planting sunflowers.

Volodymyr Zelensky is proving himself to be a master gardener.

Zelensky’s bravery, strength, fortitude, leadership are at least for me stunning to behold. He grows not more weary but more wondrous with every attack. A former entertainer he matches the worst of human impulse with the best of the human response. He is fiery for sure. The fire is an intense flame of justice that lights the way for his people and his country. Another surprise for me personally is the level at which he deeply inspires me. I pray and I root for him and his people several times throughout each day.

And so sunflowers are rapidly becoming my favorite flower.

I will plant some in solidarity with the Ukrainian people. I will look for opportunities to give bouquets in celebration of all they represent. I will embrace the profound feelings this invasion is evoking in me. I will allow the pacifist and the warmonger to coexist in a broadening responsiveness. I will pray. And I will pray. And I will pray.

I close with a news report that quite literally took my breath away. This may well be a bit too raw for some of my dear readers. Read on if you dare.

The report was about a Ukrainian woman who approached a Russian soldier who was standing guard in one of the captured villages. The woman gave the solider a handful of sunflower seeds. She calmly told him to put the seeds in his pocket, so that when Ukrainian forces killed him, and he was buried, the flowers would come to bloom.

Writing this description fills me with as many contradicting feelings as when I first saw the report.

I do not wish death upon the Russian soldiers. I do not lose sight of their humanity as despicable as I find the behaviors.

I do not denigrate or heroize the Ukrainian woman.

Yet I do find the imagery stunning.

It made me want to put sunflower seeds in my pocket. It made me want to live in such a way that even after I die beauty will flower as my legacy. While I will leave instructions to be cremated the vision of being buried so that flowers will grow from my deterioration is appealing. I indeed want more joy, optimism, peace, longevity, and devotion to grow in my stead. I want to be a garden now, so that nourishing others is my lasting gift to the collective humanity.

I never see war as an intelligent solution. Neither do I see warring against war as being a viable path to peace.

And right now, this is where we are. We are still at a level of consciousness where maintaining peace, liberty, freedom for all must be fought for. Oh, that it were different.

I send waves of compassion and love to the Ukrainian people and to the Russian forces caught in this mire. I do not wish death on any of them.

I send them peace.

And as I pray, I plant a patch of sunflowers.

May this tragedy be ended before my flowers have a chance to grow.

TENSION OF THE UNSPOKEN

I always thought that it was what I was saying that left me feeling exhausted.

Partially true.

I am finding more and more that it is what I am NOT saying that is the source of my disempowerment.

And disempowerment is exactly what it is.

I am going to try to keep this as brief as I can while also maintaining meaningfulness.

The Power of Life is given to us by virtue of our creation. The Power within us is always seeking to be made whole. It is co-creative, dynamic, and presents as the Word. This is not word in the traditional sense. It is Word as Co-creative Principle declared into experience. It is literally Word becoming incarnate. A felt-imbued Word is literally a Force of nature.

Humans possess self-reflecting consciousness and as a result can consciously word our worlds. That is awakened consciousness at its best. Having said that we each have a habitual commentary, a narrative that is constantly running through our minds. We are always commenting on what is. What we seldom realize is that our commentary determines our experience of what is. The commentary is never Truth and is rarely even true. We are meaning making machines. What we say, goes. Most of it is lies. Yet we think it is our truth. It is the nature of consciousness. It is meant to consciously flow from center to circumference. We are meant to use the Power of our words to co-create the best experience possible. “In the beginning is the Word” is a literal Truth within us. When something occurs that disturbs us, we are meant to meet it with an awakened awareness that knows it is a misuse of Word that can be changed. Not out there. In here.

Everything originates in here.

Almost all of us talk about things that we do not want to be true. Problem is when we describe we prescribe. To pour attention on something as you talk about it is a prophesy. What we focus on is a movie of coming attractions. As ancient Truth teaches our “words go forth and do not return empty.” The Word is a force of consciousness that goes forth, is acted upon by the Law, and returns as our experience. This is always happening at the individual and at the collective level. When many people talk about the same thing, we call it reality. It is, but only by virtue of our agreement.

Our opinion of that is irrelevant. It is Law.

While it is a point of triggering for many people the power of confession is a transformative part of this unfolding process. I do not mean confession in terms of entering a booth and talking to a priest. Confession is a conscious act of speaking of what is troubling or disturbing for the sake of redeeming the energy. It involves the acknowledgment that circumstances are in some way a product of our words. It shares with another the emotional reactions that are moving inside of us. It claims ownership for the experience. It allows a trusted other to witness this process for the sake of transforming it. We are called to share what we are thinking, feeling, experiencing. Not to make it more solid. To allow it to become more fluid.

Because an infinitesimal number of people are owning the power of the co-creative word it is being collectively misused. “Fake news” is running rampant. Our words are used to diminish ourselves and dehumanize others. We speak of what we don’t want and then blame the circumstances on others. This is the foundation of the disempowerment previously mentioned. We humans are making the messes, and then not owning that it is we who doing it. We project our unconscious word-stories on those we disagree with. It is the perfect scenario to perpetuate the stories.

Okay, this may not be so brief.

There is enormous Power in focused, collective consciousness. When “two or more are gathered” and put forth harmonic Words transformation must ensue. It is Law. What we are seeing as reality today is a critical mass of people collectively misusing the power of the word. The Law is working perfectly. The problem is in the words we are putting forth. The even deeper challenge is very few are choosing to forgive at a Causal level.

Part of the power of confession is to speak truthfully about the relative experience that is outpicturing. It is describing what is unfolding in honest and fearless terms. It is value based. It is using words in service of Truth. It is calling out lies. It is courageously speaking Truth which IS power. It is speaking up even when it is scary and conflict-inducing. It feels risky indeed.

And it is not nearly as risky as remaining silent.

I freely admit that I have misused words countless times during my lifetime. I frequently fall into the trap of prophesying what I do not want to flow forth. I am much more awake to this than I used to be. And I have room to grow for sure.

As the leader of a spiritual community, I am acutely aware of how I am responsible for how my words affect those I serve. There are many things I feel prompted to call out in service of what I see as a greater Truth. There are ideologies playing out that violate my personal value system. Our planet is being pilfered and people are being dehumanized. Rights are being stolen. People are being needlessly tormented and even extinguished. This is clearly from my perspective. And I have a right to live from what feels true and contributing for me.

While I love expressing my vocation as I am blessed to do, I also feel a growing tension between what I feel called to say and how that will land with congregants of dystonic perspectives. I feel an increasing dissonance inside of me between what I personally want to say, and the responsibility I have to minister to all people. I often feel a ball of energy sticking in my throat, a suppressed word that is seeking to come forth. I also know that what is true for me is only true for me. I do not speak for the board of directors, the staff, or the congregation. I can choose to try and only speak what is light, breezy. And that has never been my truth. I am a messenger of Truth to the best of my ability. And I am unmistakably called to speak about what gets in the way of that Truth.

This tension between free expression and community responsibility is the source of my tiredness. Not calling out what I feel needs to be called out is quite frankly, exhausting. I sincerely believe that we are to use Principle in intensely practical ways. We are to use our words to call out lies and to proclaim Truth into being. It has to be both. We are to convert “fake news” into Faith news.

And so today I am writing about this tension, knowing I open myself to public opinion and other evaluations. I am willing to take that risk. I know there is a part of me that is called to continue to serve a community while also feeling the inherent limitations of it. And I embrace the very clear part of me that longs to only be responsible for what I am called to say. To be responsible for my words. For the impact they have. For the contribution I can make. I welcome the tension, and beyond willing to learn from it.

It has been the words I have been withholding that has disempowered me. That I know for sure. My silence has been collusion. I am clear that I must find a way to internalize and integrate what seeks to express while also honoring if not always respecting opposing forces to my values and spiritual Truths. I am only here to speak for myself. And I am still called to speak to others. I trust that the tension between those dynamics is going to birth my next right expression.

Whether or not you agree with what I say I hope you will respect my right to say it. And if not, I bless you while continuing to speak my Truth.

Out loud. I always thought that it was what I was saying that left me feeling exhausted.

Partially true.

I am finding more and more that it is what I am NOT saying that is the source of my disempowerment.

And disempowerment is exactly what it is.

I am going to try to keep this as brief as I can while also maintaining meaningfulness.

The Power of Life is given to us by virtue of our creation. The Power within us is always seeking to be made whole. It is co-creative, dynamic, and presents as the Word. This is not word in the traditional sense. It is Word as Co-creative Principle declared into experience. It is literally Word becoming incarnate. A felt-imbued Word is literally a Force of nature.

Humans possess self-reflecting consciousness and as a result can consciously word our worlds. That is awakened consciousness at its best. Having said that we each have a habitual commentary, a narrative that is constantly running through our minds. We are always commenting on what is. What we seldom realize is that our commentary determines our experience of what is. The commentary is never Truth and is rarely even true. We are meaning making machines. What we say, goes. Most of it is lies. Yet we think it is our truth. It is the nature of consciousness. It is meant to consciously flow from center to circumference. We are meant to use the Power of our words to co-create the best experience possible. “In the beginning is the Word” is a literal Truth within us. When something occurs that disturbs us, we are meant to meet it with an awakened awareness that knows it is a misuse of Word that can be changed. Not out there. In here.

Everything originates in here.

Almost all of us talk about things that we do not want to be true. Problem is when we describe we prescribe. To pour attention on something as you talk about it is a prophesy. What we focus on is a movie of coming attractions. As ancient Truth teaches our “words go forth and do not return empty.” The Word is a force of consciousness that goes forth, is acted upon by the Law, and returns as our experience. This is always happening at the individual and at the collective level. When many people talk about the same thing, we call it reality. It is, but only by virtue of our agreement.

Our opinion of that is irrelevant. It is Law.

While it is a point of triggering for many people the power of confession is a transformative part of this unfolding process. I do not mean confession in terms of entering a booth and talking to a priest. Confession is a conscious act of speaking of what is troubling or disturbing for the sake of redeeming the energy. It involves the acknowledgment that circumstances are in some way a product of our words. It shares with another the emotional reactions that are moving inside of us. It claims ownership for the experience. It allows a trusted other to witness this process for the sake of transforming it. We are called to share what we are thinking, feeling, experiencing. Not to make it more solid. To allow it to become more fluid.

Because an infinitesimal number of people are owning the power of the co-creative word it is being collectively misused. “Fake news” is running rampant. Our words are used to diminish ourselves and dehumanize others. We speak of what we don’t want and then blame the circumstances on others. This is the foundation of the disempowerment previously mentioned. We humans are making the messes, and then not owning that it is we who doing it. We project our unconscious word-stories on those we disagree with. It is the perfect scenario to perpetuate the stories.

Okay, this may not be so brief.

There is enormous Power in focused, collective consciousness. When “two or more are gathered” and put forth harmonic Words transformation must ensue. It is Law. What we are seeing as reality today is a critical mass of people collectively misusing the power of the word. The Law is working perfectly. The problem is in the words we are putting forth. The even deeper challenge is very few are choosing to forgive at a Causal level.

Part of the power of confession is to speak truthfully about the relative experience that is outpicturing. It is describing what is unfolding in honest and fearless terms. It is value based. It is using words in service of Truth. It is calling out lies. It is courageously speaking Truth which IS power. It is speaking up even when it is scary and conflict-inducing. It feels risky indeed.

And it is not nearly as risky as remaining silent.

I freely admit that I have misused words countless times during my lifetime. I frequently fall into the trap of prophesying what I do not want to flow forth. I am much more awake to this than I used to be. And I have room to grow for sure.

As the leader of a spiritual community, I am acutely aware of how I am responsible for how my words affect those I serve. There are many things I feel prompted to call out in service of what I see as a greater Truth. There are ideologies playing out that violate my personal value system. Our planet is being pilfered and people are being dehumanized. Rights are being stolen. People are being needlessly tormented and even extinguished. This is clearly from my perspective. And I have a right to live from what feels true and contributing for me.

While I love expressing my vocation as I am blessed to do, I also feel a growing tension between what I feel called to say and how that will land with congregants of dystonic perspectives. I feel an increasing dissonance inside of me between what I personally want to say, and the responsibility I have to minister to all people. I often feel a ball of energy sticking in my throat, a suppressed word that is seeking to come forth. I also know that what is true for me is only true for me. I do not speak for the board of directors, the staff, or the congregation. I can choose to try and only speak what is light, breezy. And that has never been my truth. I am a messenger of Truth to the best of my ability. And I am unmistakably called to speak about what gets in the way of that Truth.

This tension between free expression and community responsibility is the source of my tiredness. Not calling out what I feel needs to be called out is quite frankly, exhausting. I sincerely believe that we are to use Principle in intensely practical ways. We are to use our words to call out lies and to proclaim Truth into being. It has to be both. We are to convert “fake news” into Faith news.

And so today I am writing about this tension, knowing I open myself to public opinion and other evaluations. I am willing to take that risk. I know there is a part of me that is called to continue to serve a community while also feeling the inherent limitations of it. And I embrace the very clear part of me that longs to only be responsible for what I am called to say. To be responsible for my words. For the impact they have. For the contribution I can make. I welcome the tension, and beyond willing to learn from it.

It has been the words I have been withholding that has disempowered me. That I know for sure. My silence has been collusion. I am clear that I must find a way to internalize and integrate what seeks to express while also honoring if not always respecting opposing forces to my values and spiritual Truths. I am only here to speak for myself. And I am still called to speak to others. I trust that the tension between those dynamics is going to birth my next right expression.

Speaking the Truth that is true for me both boldly and compassionately re-empowers me. It is my Word going forth to make a better world. It is speaking Truth which IS power.

Whether or not you agree with what I say I hope you will respect my right to say it. And if not, I bless you while continuing to speak my Truth.

Out loud.