Extreme Emotions

I enjoyed this excerpt from "The Unknown She". Andrew Harvey, author of "The Way of Passion" relates this story during an interview: "I was helped very much by a crazy friend of mine in Paris, who is a wild old countess. She was shamelessly angry at everything, and she was so out there, nobody could control her. She would go up to the President and tell him off. She would talk to the so-called great artists of Paris and tell them what rubbish their work was--which it usually was--and she would criticize to their faces the famous film stars. And nobody could control Helene. And one day she was doing her thing at a dinner party and I was there and a man sitting next to her said: 'Helene, you are too much." and she turned to him and said, 'Bertrand, you are not nearly enough!!" Harvey says, "This extremity, this fabulous, gorgeous too-muchness is part of the essence of the essence of God, and if you're going to find your way to that power you're going to have to bless the extreme emotions inside you. You're going to have to purify them without annihilating the source of them....People come to me and say, You care too much about the environment or you care too much about the poor. But, if you think I am too much, wait til you see Jesus! And wait til you see the volcano of the Mother's outrage and the volcano of the Mother's love! Then you'll think that anything I'm showing you is a tiny firefly compared to the Krakatoa of what She really is. So, let's get real around here!" I love his passion....

The Gaian Mind

"THE HOUR IS COMING, AND NOW IS." — John 5 (3)
Daniel Pinchbeck
Cancun Conference Abstract

"In the twentieth century, psychoanalyst Carl Jung realized 'the reality of the psyche,' the interconnection of mind and world, the psychic and the physical, expressed through synchronicities and other occult correspondences. Jung understood that a deep transformation of the human psyche was underway. According to Jungian theorist Edward Edinger, we are currently experiencing the 'archetype of the Apocalypse,' a term that has familiar destructive connotations but that is also defined as 'revealing' or 'uncovering.'

"As a negative archetype, it represents the smashing of previous forms of thought and ways of being; as a positive archetype, it represents a momentous event—“the coming of the Self into conscious realization.” In the Jungian model, the “Self” encompasses the complete expression of our being, including both conscious and unconscious elements. Our limited egos dread the coming of the Self, a process that takes place within historical time yet is, paradoxically, atemporal. As Christ expresses this paradox, ´'The hour is coming, and now is.'

"If the end of the Mayan calendar signals the completion of this archetypal process in historical time, we can begin to appreciate the momentous psychic distance we will travel in the next years. Today, most of us identify with our individual path and ego-defined goals. As we complete this apocalyptic passage, we will conceive ourselves, increasingly, as fractal expressions of a unified field of consciousness and sentient aspects of a planetary ecology—the Gaian mind—that is continually changed by our actions, and even our thoughts. When the collective shares this understanding, we will move beyond the threshold of history, with its narrative of wars, conquests, and competing belief systems. Humanity will unite as a global tribe, ensuring all of its members equal rights and equal status in a planetary community. Having resolved internecine discord, we will be ready to make our entry into galactic civilization, where we will discover new myths, new companions, and new dimensions of being."
—Daniel Pinchbeck

A Great Horned Owl

I was walking with a group through a regional park south of Santa Rosa; the great oaks grew in clusters along the path that meandered through the grassland. Up ahead near the trail, one oak tree in particular, whose trunk must have been about five feet around, forked into two trunks rather close to the ground. Sitting, within 10 feet of us, on the half of the trunk growing out to side was a giant great horned owl. Now, this was mid-morning on a sunny day in Spring, and owls just don't sit in plain view of anyone in the middle of the day. Folks had stopped to watch him, check him out. Was he injured? Should we call a ranger? What was he doing just sitting there? I approached the cluster of folks and turned to see what they were studying so intently. The sight of this majestic bird caused me to gasp. The folks continued on their walk and I stood transfixed by the sight of this great horned owl, sitting, being on its trunk-perch. I took a few steps sideways to line up my sight with the line of sight of the owl. He saw me. His eyes connected with mine. We were in communication instantly. I became the owl. He was amused, his Being was grand and expansive. The quiet of the night was within him. I saw through his eyes the city nearby all lit up in the darkness of the night, which is his time. I flew over the city as an owl and experienced the deepness of this bird's awareness flying as a silent witness to the rush of the people place. He was amused, and the Buddha was in him, so calm, so unaffected by anything. There was an infinity within him and it became me. A calm washed over me, rose up within me. I was gifted by the essence of owl. So grateful.

The Appearance of Animals

The one thing that has kept me from being overly depressed and resigned, the on thing that seems to me hopeful in these apocolyptic visions from the unconscious, is a simultaneous and increasing appearance of animals: animals coming, animals watching, animals speaking, animals wanting to lead us, animals undergoing all manners of transformation. To reconnect to the animal, we must become aware of the animals in the psyche...the animal in things...in art, in words, in poems, in dreams, the animal that lies between us and the other.--Rusell Lockhart, "Psyche Speaks"

Something Different

Picture of hand folding work sweat shop in 1907.

I like to challenge myself to do something different on a regular basis simply to bring fresh scenes, people, ideas and experiences into my life. Well, Sunday I decided to go to a Progessives Festival. I learned a great deal about Chevron as the largest corporation in the world, and how it has a hold of our state government. I learned that socialism is already here, we are living in it, and the corporate giants of America wouldn't survive without it in the form of the handouts the government has given them. Noticably lacking on the information tables and in the presentations was any kind of spiritual perspective or strategy for coping with all of this information that was painting such astark and painful picture of the politics and the disregard for humanity and life in how corporate giants were behaving and doing business. Suddenly, during a song about killing the giant lion king called "Citibank" a man down the path near a table began shouting and screaming with such agony "I hate America!!! I hate America!!!" The pain of how our citizens were regarded and treated was being expressed in no uncertain terms. I was relieved to hear him shouting because as I looked at the people, they were quietly eating, chatting with their neighbors, and were quite sedate during this information sit-in. I confess, I had to leave before the entertainment and the "debriefing reggae music for winding down" even started. Something different....

An Animal Story

This story was sent by a critical care nurse to the author of a book I found at a rummage sale this morning called "Animals As Teachers & Healers: True Stories & Relfections" by Susan Chernak McElroy: "In my profession, I have heard of stories of animals who sacrifice themselves to save the life of a human companion. One of the most memorable stories was of a German Shepherd covering a toddler with its body during a house fire. When the firefighters removed the dog's body, they were surprised to find the toddler still allive and suffering from only minor burns and smoke inhalation. The dog had been purchased to protect the family--it gave its life to do so."

A Poem

I’m Listening

I'm listening. But I don't know
If what I hear is silence or God.
I'm listening. But I can't tell
If I hear the plane of emptiness echoing
Or a keen consciousness
That at the bounds of the universe
Deciphers and watches me.
I only know I walk like someone
Beheld, Beloved and Known.
And because of this
I put into my every movement
Solemnity and Risk.

- Sophia DeMello-Breyner

Words of Wisdom from Tolle

One of my favorite teachers and mentors, Eckhart Tolle, speaks about his answer to the following question: "Eckhart, you say that we are in a "flowering of human consciousness", you say that there is an "expansion of light" happening throughout the world in people of all nations- yet when I look objectively at the world and what is going on around the world, all I see is increasing negativity, increasing corruption, increasing fear and violence. So which is true? Is the light increasing or is the dark increasing? Eckhart's answer: Both. Right now there is an escalation of both the light and the dark of humanity.
My observation: First of all, if we rely only on the mainstream media to tell us what is going on around the world, we will definitely be informed of more dark things than light things. The only places you can really receive news of the many expansions of light and love today are on alternative sights on the internet and through your own telepathic receivers in your own heart. I suggest we all learn to hear via the latter resource more and more. Who knows how long we will have access to things like the external internet.
Second, I think it is of utmost importance that we recognize the big picture of what we are going through. There are many different versions and interpretations of this time cycle: 2012, the age of Aquarius, a new millenia, a 100 year cycle, a 500 year cycle, a 2,000 year cycle, a 12,000 year cycle, a 26,000 year cycle, and according to the mayan view, a cycle that has been going on since the formation of the solar system, many millions of years, is coming to a fruition point. When? Now! Right now. Between the years 2007 and 2015! We are living and breathing and experiencing it right now.
So is it any wonder that these days might feel a little weird or a little uncomfortable? There is probably a bit more of that to come I suspect. Maybe more than a little discomfort. We are all, male and female, getting ready to give birth. Have you every witnessed a birth? It's not always the most tranquil scene during the last few minutes. Often there is screaming, hysteria, intensity, a point of surrendering all control and then.... a miracle!
What can we do or not do to best move through this? Well, first we can recognize that we are not starting form scratch at this moment. We have all been preparing for this our whole lives. Everything we have experienced, every book we have read, every class or workshop we have taken, every loss or hurt or painful thing, every close relationship, every interaction with nature has been teaching us things to prepare us. Every insight, every ah ha, every moment of breakthrough, every feeling of oneness, of connection to the universe, to God, to Source, to all Life, every mystical or magical moment in our lives or in our dreams has been preparing us. So we don't need start preparing we can just continue. Everything every enlightened teacher has ever said about enlightenment or samahdi or salvation or zen or inner peace or the flowering of consciousness has all been pointing the way toward where we are going.
Reaching the point in my own inner experience where I have enough stillness in the heart that I can begin witnessing my own mind instead of just "being my mind"- this is a significant threshold.
The great Hindu teacher and sage, Ramana Maharshi's simple instruction to all: "The answer to all questions is to turn the direction of attention from the external world back into the self and ask: who is the "I" that is asking?" He said the "I" thought is the ego and once seen it begins to dissolve.
When I begin to detach my sense of self from the "I" thought, - when the matrix of thoughts in my mind that have constructed the idea of "me" and "this is who I am" begins to be seen as just thoughts and not the entirety of who I am- When this matrix of thoughts is seen as "not I", then the self inquiry shifts from "who am I ?" to "what am I ?". I begin to see beyond the membrane of the little capsule of the little me, and begin to feel 'self-ness' present in that which is beyond the little me- "I am That". As the membrane of the little me becomes translucent and then becomes porous and then begins do dissolve into nothing, it is seen to be just a 'bubble' temporarily floating within the vast body of 'water' (consciousness). The bubble is part of the water, not really separate from the water, actually one with the water. In our case, the sense of identity with the bubble can shift, from bubble to water, even while the bubble's membrane remains present. It is the awareness and experience of being "I am That I am", I am the water that is the source of all bubbles- this is the shift we are moving towards.
We are Ascending. The energetic frequency and vibratory rate of the atomic substance the forms body and mind and emotion- all these are moving into a higher rate of vibration along with the whole planet and solar system. The vibratory rates that allowed an illusion of separation are changing to a vibratory rate that can only allow a unity consciousness to exist. This is why there is no need to resist anything evil. There is no need to battle with evil. All evil contains within it the seeds of its own dissolution. It cannot exist in the new state. It simply will no longer exist. This will occur in real ways through real people by changes in their consciousness and each of us has our own role to play in this. Our greatest tool to change the world away from evil and corruption and selfishness IS NOT guns or money or votes, although all these things a more play their role at certain times. Our greatest tool to change the world is our own ability to change our own heart, our own focus of attention and our own intention.
Our greatest obstacle or challenge right now is not the evil corrupt people behind the scenes of world events- our greatest obstacle is OUR OWN fear of these people, OUR OWN anger towards these people and our own mental state of feeling LESS POWERFUL than these people.
If we allow the bulk of our attention to be turned toward resisting or fearing evil, then are choosing to feed the evil. If we hold onto our vision of what is being born, and what our own role is in bringing in the Light, then that is what we choose to take part in creating. Either way the Light will be left standing and the downward pulling vortex will be gone. We choose how fun and easy or how difficult our part will be.
We are ascending. We are living through and experiencing the culmination of millions of years of patient loving creation. This is very very exciting. We are so privileged. Resist not evil. Give it no power. "Get thee behind me" really means " step aside, although you clamor for my attention, you are not important enough to be given my attention- there is so much more wonder and beauty here at hand to attend to. God bless you and I pray that you are taken into the light and transformed with us all". This is my attitude toward all news of more dastardly deeds.
Let us move forward into the next few years with a spirit of adventure and exploration and celebration. Let us be love in action. Let us give attention to that which brings us joy and share this as much as possible with each other. Everything else will fall away and sort itself out. Be love in action

The Great Mayan Goddess

"We have entered one of the most important periods in human history, the Time of Prophecies. We have the opportunity to lift ourselves to new levels of consciousness. This time was foretold over the past centuries by cultures around the world. Now it is up to us - you and me - to make it happen. What a wonderful gift!"
—John Perkins
"We live in a provocative, evolving time that promises to impact how we live together on the planet, how we continue as a species, and how we understand ourselves in relation to a larger universe...this is the time to remember how to live in ecstatic relationship with natural forces."
—Llyn Roberts, M.A.
We are living within the time that all great prophets and indigenous prophecies have pointed to, the 15 year window that began in 1998, and completes the Maya Calendar in 2012. Although this period is fraught with calamity and uncertainty, it is believed that a momentous and wonderful evolution is occurring within the human race, and thus for the Earth. Medicine women and men from diverse cultures have, for over 500 years, known that the time would come for them to share long-held secret teachings, prophecies and sacred ceremonies with humanity.
The ancient Maya were known as masters of the subtle energies. The Maya lands, waters, the visible as well as the submerged sacred and ancient vortex temples and sites, and the ancestral energies of the Mayalands — support tremendous energy, enhancing our ability to delve deeply to apply intention and energy to shapeshift ourselves and our global community. We will discover that the ability to create positive change in ourselves and in the world around us is innate to us all. These shifts of consciousness usher in new ways of understanding and open new possibilities for living.
Prophecies from original peoples all over the planet tell us that now is the time for humanity to embrace its higher potential — and to live harmoniously with the Earth, one another, and all other life.

From "The Prophets Conference" Newsletter

Ella Wheeler Cox, New Thought Poetess 1850-1919

UNTITLED
[As You Go Through Life]
By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
DON'T look for the flaws as you go through life,
And even when you find them
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look for the virtue behind them.
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding.
And it's better by far to hunt for a star,
Than the spots on the sun abiding.
The current of life runs ever away
To the bosom of God's great ocean.
Don't set your force 'gainst the river's course
And think to alter its motion.
Don't waste a curse on the universe--
Remember it lived before you.
Don't butt at the storm with your puny form,
But bend and let it go o'er you.
The Constitution [Atlanta] 20 Jan. 1901: 10.

This woman wrote over 2,000 poems in her day. "The art of being kind" was her religion, and she lived it every day of her life.

Pandora About to Open her Box

Dancing with the Stars...er Muses

The dance of Apollo with the Muses. I would like one of those gowns to dance in. Looks simple enough, eh? Drape me!!hmmm...

The Harvest

A Rose

A Rose that God Created

"Lord, show us the rose, that we may overcome the thorns" ~ St. Thomas Acquinas
God created the rose in the likeness of a woman.
The rose represents her beauty.
The stem represents her strength.
The petals are soft as her delicate skin, the fragrance so pure and so sweet.
The leaves represent her arms outstretched, always loving and giving
and for perfection --- He made her heart of pure gold.
Thank you God for making me a woman!

Within every soul, there is a rose.
The"God-like"qualities planted in us at birth, growing amidst the thorns of our faults.
Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects.
We despair, thinking nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us, and eventually it dies. We never realize our potential.
Some don't see the rose within themselves. It takes someone else to show it to them.
One of the greatest gifts a person can possess is to be able to reach past the thorns and find the rose within others.
This is the truest, most innocent and gracious characteristic of love -- To know another person, including their faults, recognize the nobility in their soul, and yet still help another to realize they can overcome their faults.
If we show them the rose, they will conquer the thorns.
Only then will they blossom, and most likely, blooming thirty, sixty, a hundred-fold, as it is given to them.

Our duty in this world is to help others, by showing them their roses and not their thorns.
It is then that we achieve the love we should feel for each other.Only then can we bloom in our own garden.

~~ Author Unknown ~~

"Urim & Thummim"

In ancient days the priests of the Hebrews wore upon their breastplates over their hearts certain jewels called “Urim and Thummim,” meaning "Lights and Perfection,” by which they received answers from God. When their people were beset on every hand by enemies, and at their wits’ ends to know which way to turn, the priests turned to God. After purifying themselves and praying they asked God, “Shall we do thus?“ and they watched the Urim and Thummim jewels for the answer. If the jewels appeared dark and opaque the answer was, No. But if they lighted up, as a human face lights when it hears good news, then the answer was, Yes. And the people grew lighter too, and went and did as God had indicated.
Now, right along beside this story of ancient people I will tell you another—tell it just as ‘twas told to me, by a woman of to-day, whose name you have doubtless heard. She writes: “I was washing my breakfast dishes one morning and the thought came to me that I would go and see a friend who lived several miles away. I finished my work and started to dress for my journey, when there came over me such a feeling of depression, or despondency, or gloom, that I was startled. I kept on getting ready, at the same time trying to reason away the feeling. But it would not go. Finally, having donned my hat and one glove I started for the door, when such a wave of heaviness came over me that I went back into my room and sat down, and I said ‘God, I want to know the meaning of all this.' And the answer came loud, strong, firm, ‘Stay at home.’ I staid, and as I took off my coat and hat such a feeling of lightness and relief came over me that I seemed to walk on air. At the time I supposed the voice (I call it a voice for want of a more defi nite term) had told me to stay at home because someone was coming who needed my help. But no one came that day or night, and several times the thought flitted through my mind that perhaps it was all nonsense after all, and that I might as well have gone. Well, the outcome was that the train I would have taken, had I gone, met with a fearful accident wherein many were killed or badly wounded. This is only one of many such experiences I have had.” And I could tell you still others on my own account.
The One Great Intelligence has built in every human heart a "Urim and Thummim,” which, as a guide, transcends any human brain that ever existed, or ever will.
Elizabeth Towne

Feminine Power the Lakota Way

“Our way of leading is a combination of very direct and indirect at the same time, ”Pansy says. “This is the story of the spider and the spider web. If you look at the spider web it is a very light and fine material. And the spider is very heavy. There’s a lot of weight there, but the web holds. The Lakota style of leading is similar in that what seems is not what is. It might not look like you’re leading. We don’t lead by moving people around, telling them what to do. A leader is present in the background. The leading is hidden, like the spider’s web, but the job gets done, like the spider being held. Even though you are a leader, you have to continue to work, to follow, to listen, to watch, to support those in front of you. In your strength you’re leading, but it makes you focus on your skills as a follower.
The power of getting things done in an outer sense is not how it is in sacred space. In sacred space I’ll know I need to say something by listening inside, and only when I’m talking do I know what it is I’m saying.”
In ceremony, intuition and spontaneity are the ruling factors, and intuition and spontaneity are only possible from a place of space and freedom. Pansy offers an example of this unstructured power. “We show up ten days before the huge Sun Dance starts. At the Sun Dance there’s maybe three to four hundred people camped. Ten days before the ceremony nothing is done, nothing is started. We show up and people kind of know what they do best. And they go, and they get it done. There are people who chop wood, there are people who prepare the arbor, there are people who prepare the sweat lodges, people who get the food, people who get the stones. We don’t have a manager! We don’t have a director! Each component just starts happening, then it sort of comes together.
“About half way through you can see form taking place. And the arbor where we do the ceremony starts to come together. The women go and pull the cactus so the dancers don’t step on the cactus. Minor details, but everything is taken care of. Down to the last detail everything is done. And there is not one person taking reports on how things are going. No one gets fired for not doing their part. None of that kind of external structure works. People from inside out are doing the work.
Excerpt from The Unknown She, by Hilary Hart

Silver Lining

"The inner side of every cloud
Is bright and shining;
I therefore turn my clouds about,
And always wear them inside out--
To show the lining."

James Whitcomb Riley

Creativity

Face to the Sun

Strong, positive thoughts of condemnation to anyone by any person will strike that one and give him the physical sensation of having been hit in the pit of the stomach with a cobblestone. If he does not immediately rouse himself to throw off the feeling--as he easily can do by looking into his Father's face and saying over and over until it becomes realty to him, "Thou, God, approvest me"--it will destroy for the time being his consciousness of perfect life, and he will fall into a belief of weakness and bitter discouragement more quickly than from any other cause.Emilie Cady

The song of the bird

From Anthony De Mello’s The song of the bird

A girl in the fishing village became an unwed
mother and after several beatings finally revealed
who the father of the child was: the Zen master
living on the outskirts of the village.

The villagers trooped into the master’s house,
rudely disturbed his meditation, denounced him
as a hypocrite, and told him to keep the baby.
All the master said was, “Very well. Very Well.”

He picked the baby up
and made arrangements
for a woman from the village to feed and clothe
and look after it at his expense.

The master’s name was ruined and his disciples
all abandoned him.

When this had gone on for a year, the girl
who had borne the child could stand it no longer
and finally confessed that she had lied. The father
of the child was the boy next door.

The villagers were most contrite. They prostrated
themselves at the feet of the master to beg his pardon
and to ask for the child back. The master returned
the child. And all he said was, “Very well. Very Well”

The Power of Silence

The great philosophy of this silence is that there is in you a mighty nothing, a quietness that has been from the great forever and always will be. It is the master of goodness, that still place, that Holy of Holies. It is your power of abandonment, your child-likeness, and in that, it rests, waiting for you to move. It is a mighty vacuum that causes all motion but in itself does not move. Oh, that being nothing-—nothing of yourself! When that feeling of having so much to do, of being so important, and you must do things or they will not be done, rises up, about that time let go and enter into your own sweet nothingness. Stop thinking. You can do it. Just remember there is a power to stop thinking, and if, suddenly, you should find your mind a blank, know then, you are practicing the perfect concentration of repose.
By Annie Rix Militz