It does.
Love Makes the World Go Round
November 20, 2010The Way it is with Children
November 19, 2010Recently a friend made an observation to me about our friendship, remarking that it feels like what it was like when we were 4 or 5 years old – just so free, unfettered, unworried. It was a great way to describe the ease of our connection. I have thought about this often since then. It strikes me as a worthy goal to strive to live with such honesty and freedom whenever and however possible. One of my favorites of Rilke’s poems keeps coming to mind in this regard, so I want to share it here.
I believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.
Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning,
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.
Healing Love
November 18, 2010The only healing power in this world is love, I am convinced of it. There is science, there are medications, there are interventions, and there are miracles. But what heals, and the only thing that heals, is love. Without it, no healing is taking place. With it, all things are possible. If we want to work with healing, the effort to learn the skills and crafts is very important, but truly the main thing to generate is pure, unfiltered, unadulterated, massive, compassionate, generous, non-judgmental, no-holds-barred love. Any craft of healing will work when love is present. None will work if it isn’t. This I know.
Birds in Flight
November 17, 2010Witnessing flocks of birds soaring with sunlight framing their bodies, effortlessly expressing such magnificent sensing capabilities for harmony with universe, flow and patterns, make any decision I am making feel simpler. Their impressions say to me that whatever feels like that – in tune and expressed from the center of glorious being-ness – that is the way to go. What steps aside from that center will not be my way.
Freedom
November 16, 2010This word is used a lot and surely those who speak of it have a concept in mind. Nationally we worry about protecting freedom, while generating controversy over the smaller freedoms that some believe need to be sacrificed in the service of greater freedom. In our personal lives, freedom is certainly a precious value for every individual.
In general definitions of the subject, I am probably as free as anyone on the planet. Except for possibly a quality of freedom that greater financial resources might provide, I think it might be hard to find someone more free than I am.
However a dream I had last night reveals a different inner reality. It demonstrates clearly a suffocating internal oppression, and I am grateful finally to be able to make this conscious. Considering the implications of the information in the dream has been sobering. I must wake up and pay attention.
Freedom is also an inside job. There are territories in the landscape of psyche that if dominated by an outside force will prevent a person from ever experiencing true liberty. This kind of liberty can not be given from the outside, it can only be achieved internally.
I begin now a new revolution to remove occupying forces from my interior landscape. Like all revolutions, allies and forces friendly to the cause must be gathered. I am fortunate to feel strongly resourced in this way. Once a person frees himself, he is in a position to help free others. I look forward to working in this cause.
Power of Ritual
November 14, 2010More than 20 years ago I had a dream that demonstrated to me the power of ritual. I will never forget it. It is one of my life dreams. In it, I was next to a lake and felt the sudden inspiration to perform a ritual there, next to a tree. I did so; it was a simple, domestic kind of prayer to the gods in this symbolic way.
Shortly after that an enormous piece of substance flew through the air like a comet, an island about the size of Manhattan. It landed in the lake next to where I stood. I watched, and saw it suddenly turn upside-down in the lake. I was alarmed as I knew that if it floated upside-down for more than a few minutes the water would destroy its value to earth and the gift of it would be lost. Suddenly an enormous hand rose up out of the lake, the size of a multi-storied building. It turned the piece of land right-side up so that it’s value would be saved. In the dream I thought this hand was coming from “the lady of the lake.” I watched in awe. She saved it. Then, the piece of land turned upside-down again. The gift might not survive. The hand came out and righted it again. This happened three times, and then the property was stabilized and its value was now available to earth. I knew in the dream that the little, simple ritual that I had done on the side of the lake had been inspired, and that if I hadn’t done it the situation would not have turned out the same way.
This dream has spoken to me for these decades in a visual way, and I have observed the truth of this “fairy tale,” as dreams can be explained; psychological and spiritual truths for the collective psyche. Our tiny, simple, sincere, domestic petitions to the gods are heard and they harness the forces of the universe to respond to our prayers.
Simple rituals performed with faith and sincerity create the world. Galaxies of energies respond. We are co-creators with divinity. She responds to simplicity and purity of heart.
Demon Lover
November 14, 2010A certain joy and freedom from worry have been courting me lately. I’ve been captivated with the energy of it, and have allowed myself to be pursued by it without my usual suspicion. But about three days ago I felt something like a change in air pressure, maybe the kind of sense an animal gets before a tsunami hits. It kept me up at night for two nights, and then yesterday the wave came in.
A depression hit like a train. Knocked me out, took me down, ravaged my spirit with its dark thinking. I’m not new to such episodes, but it doesn’t make it easier to go through them, even if they are familiar. Today, with a little bit of perspective coming back, I had a revelation. For the first time I saw this pursuing energy as something like a jealous lover. “How dare you leave me behind, I own you! I am the only one who knows you, loves you truly, will never leave you, will always be there while other moods come and go.”
I thought of the story of the Phantom of the Opera. Christine is trying to have a human love, but the compelling darkness of the Phantom who taught her to sing and seduced her into a fealty to his underworld tries desperately to break it up. His powers are strong and hard for her to resist, and her heart knows that what he has taught her has made her who she is.
Depression is such a demon lover. It becomes a familiar way of knowing, of sensing the world, a dark teacher who understands what those who have never traveled in its realm do not. It is reliable, easy to return to when others disappoint. But it is also like the abusive parent or spouse who keeps you so down you don’t believe you can survive elsewhere, or could possibly deserve anything different.
The fact that this story occurred to me this day after yesterday’s assault let’s me know that something is shifting. As Carl Jung says, once you make a thing conscious 90% of the work is done. I have been in this dominating and abusive relationship for too long, but now suddenly I see it rather than just descending unconsciously into its grips. I can call in “social services,” get some treatment, and realize I don’t have to submit. It will take work and practice, but I am utterly relieved and grateful for the breakthrough. Something good is blessing me now.
Breaking Through
November 13, 2010We carry our balls and chains unconsciously, mostly; ideas we have developed that don’t match or support our authentic lives, which creates a friction to live up to an external idea as if it mattered or were real. What we want to actually do, who we want to be, how we want to spend our energy become suppressed, unexpressed, rarely even realized because of the dominance of these outer ideas. This is true of even the greatest minds and talents on the planet, not just a few of us.
It takes a very special kind of self-support and mutual support to break through the delusion; to cut the ball and chain so that it doesn’t have to be carried anymore. If a notion you are trying to live up to does not feed your soul, does not resonate with your heart, feels like it comes from voices outside your own deep self – cut it loose. Break out and break through. Only the authority of one’s own soul’s course matters in this world, the rest is distraction.
Life in the Hands of Spirit
November 11, 2010There are a number of issues in my life right now that I feel are beyond what my little mind, comprehension and ego can possibly get a handle on. They are part of a trajectory in the universe that escapes any sense I might have of how to guide or control them. So I have felt the need to surrender and say to spirit, “This is for you. I’m in your hands. I’m going to trust you in this. It is beyond me.” Generally that attitude is somewhat normal in my life, but right now there seem to be more specific calls toward it.
I remember years ago reading the story of an Irish saint, Saint Kevin. He set his little boat out onto the lake without a rudder or an oar, trusting nature, wind, angels and spirits to take him to where he was meant to go. For some reason this story has often inspired me. It takes courage and intention to let go in such ways and allow bigger forces to be completely in charge. Ego is control oriented and self-protective; it has no place in this kind of adventure.
There is a time and a season for everything. When the time comes to pull in the rudder and throw away the oars, I ask the blessings of St. Kevin to be with you in your journey.
Heart Thought
November 11, 2010My Nigerian mentor and shaman told me unequivocally that all indigenous people know that the true thinking apparatus is in the heart, not in the head. The set up for the Western world for the most part is dominated by the thinking of the head, and is often completely out of alignment with what the heart knows. I experience myself as being solidly in my strength when my heart is doing the thinking. And I generally feel the most confounded and insecure when I have to make my heart compromise and adjust to the great collective “set up” ruled by the head.
Speaking with a friend tonight, one of my most basic confounding dilemmas in this regard came up. Money. This is an area in which I feel out of alignment with heart thought, and therefore perpetually befuddled, definitely not in my power. My friend listened and asked me questions to help me get to the bottom of the confusion I was expressing. And then he saw through the cloudy verbalization I was offering and said, basically, here is what your heart says. Do that. Trust it. Everything will work out and line up if you do that.
I have never had that kind of guidance before in this matter. I felt suddenly clear, empowered and illumined. People attempting to be helpful with me on the subject tend to want to give me steroids for head thinking to get me through it, pushing me further into the terrain of conflict. In tonight’s conversation I felt permission and utter encouragement to let the thought of my heart take charge. I was set free. And I trust it. I do know that this adjustment will help the energy to move in areas in which it has been consistently blocked. This is radical, but I get it now and can stand in it.
Praise god for good friends who see.
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