Posts Tagged recovery

What is healing, exactly?

Posted by matthew on January 13, 2008  |  13 Comments

Much of my exploration of love and spirituality has come directly from my own healing journey. I, like seemingly everyone, have had wounds from childhood that influence me seemingly all the time. In addition, I’ve had many physical maladies manifesting something going wrong internally. Right now I’m in a state of being unable to work or be active physically, because I get disoriented for hours if I do anything. Including getting groceries and household cleaning. Rather than getting disheartened, I’m using this for the gift that it is to do some inner household cleaning.

To honor this, I thought I’d share some channeling Karen and I did surrounding what healing actually is. Any similarities to actual persons in the examples are 100% not an accident. Nothing is!

On to the channeling…

Questions: What exactly is healing? How does one “do it”? It seems like a lot of times we think of healing as “getting over it”.

When we use the word “heal” or “healing”, we are talking about allowing something to revert or assume its natural state. Most of you go through your lives with some part of you either physically or emotionally in a other than natural state. This creates conflicts and imbalances which allow you further opportunity for learning and growth. Healing, then, allows those parts of you to revert to their “normal” state: A state of rest, a state without conflict, a state of peace.

The essence of compassion part 2

Posted by matthew on January 2, 2008  |  21 Comments

The topic of compassion is of course very close to the purpose of this site – it is an aspect of Love. However, this was instigated recently by the “Spread the Love Now!” project of Wade of The Middle Way, Kenton of Zen-Inspired Self Development, and Albert of Urban Monk.Net. This site, as the “About” page shows, has two writers, and we thought we’d each contribute something to this. So there are two articles about compassion, one for each of us. This topic is, after all, central to the purpose of this site – why else would we call it Loving Awareness?

If you haven’t read the previous entry on compassion by Karen, please do so. I’m (Matthew) going to add to it, starting with the first comment as a basis question – on the subject of child abuse. It’s a very good question, and representative on most people’s initial response to thinking of compassion in terms of awareness and acceptance, rather than having a duty to do something to solve a problem. I realize this is a touchy subject, and that what is written here may be controversial because of the massive cultural pain that exists. However, bringing compassion to such a painful area brings a huge amount of clarity to how it is applied in the world.

Interconnectedness of being

Posted by matthew on December 7, 2007  |  14 Comments

If you look at life like a poet, seeing beauty in the simplest things, you do not need to go anywhere to find beauty. You can see that within manure, a flower is waiting to be born. It is not in the future as an abstract concept; it is there now, in its fullest potential. Within an acorn lying on the forest floor is a magnificent flowering tree. If you listen closely, you can feel the tree whisper to you from inside the acorn, with its majestic tranquility. Within a storm inflicting damage on a community is also the breathtaking beauty of sun squirming its way through the clouds to a new dawn, bringing new energy and a re-creation of what we thought was perfect, but has new perfection to expand upon us.

This potential also works with emotions and relationships. Within a storm of a relationship where there is deep division and conflict, there is also a great empathy waiting to unfold. This is because there can be no compassion without understanding, and to find understanding we must experience. You cannot have empathy for someone’s violence without having experienced the urge to lash out yourself. And it is through empathy, or love, that we transform the world. Peace does not come from imposing rules of peace; it comes from living peace. This applies within relationships and activism equally.

The interconnected nature of the universe applies to me in particular in my own journey. This being is within me:

Feeling the weight of someone’s body on top of me, I shut off. How could this happen? How can I let this happen? I shall never trust the world again. I shall keep kicking until I no longer feel a weight on top of me. I shall never trust myself again. I shall never trust the world again. I hate being a child, for helplessness is the worst of all evils.

This being is also within me:

The child breathes contentedly in utter trust, feeling the warmth and support surrounding me. I am helpless, but within that helplessness comes the ability to invite help. Everything I need is here now. In utter vulnerability, I let the world touch me and the fullness of it brings utter joy. My helplessness is a gateway to feeling the love around me. I trust completely.

The two beings are of course one; they are me. Within the vulnerability of a childlike state is also the ability to be traumatized, and within the ability to be traumatized is the ability to heal, learn empathy, transform the world, and live a life of Love. Nothing needs to be done to “transform” one into the other; they are both inseparable. They are me.

 

In thinking about healing, we usually focus on the loudest voice. The hurt child screams loudest and we rarely hear anything else, so we think that’s all there is. We lose awareness of the joyful child that is present in the moment and has never left us. And it is awareness that transforms – not counseling, medication, or even diving into the pain – but simple awareness. It is through awareness that all aspects of ourselves are reconnected and integrated. It is how compassion is learned; seeing how interdependent we are.

Whether within one’s Self, in relationship, or in society, there is a great interdependency. The pain cannot be without the joy and compassion. A pauper cannot exist without the ultra rich. There would be no destruction of the rainforest without all the world participating in its consumer patterns. This is not simply the link of cause and effect; it is a deeper connection on the level of being. You are the environment of the world, you are the disparity of wealth, and you are both the joys and pains that exist in you and without you.  Invite this in; it is the gateway to living a live filled with peace.

 

Emotions as beauty itself

Posted by matthew on December 2, 2007  |  12 Comments

For this post, I’ll include more of my personal journey: that of dealing with emotions. I’ve always been someone who has had had very intense emotions to deal with, especially those related to my past sexual abuse. Because of this, many emotions have come at any and all times, without apparent “reason”: at work, in relationships, light social times, and with family. Without any visible reason or sense, at least in the immediate context, it’s easy to hold judgment about strong emotions in our culture. It can appear to make others uncomfortable.

This isn’t particular to sexual abuse; it is quite common to anyone sensitive and emotionally open, dealing with pain in any way. Emotions are emotions. They don’t make sense. If they did, they would be thoughts, not emotions. The heart has reasons the mind knows not of, and never will. Our need to make sense greatly depends on how allowing we are of the emotion. A grand sense of joy flittering like butterflies across our hearts when we see, for example, kittens playing with string for the first time, won’t require much sense. And yet, when it comes to “negative emotions”, such as pain, fear, anger, self-hatred, or a mix of them that could be called inner conflict, we often simply don’t allow them to come forward as naturally. We want reasons, explanations, labels, and hopefully a way to protect ourselves against them appearing again. This is the illusion of control reasons give us.

To me, how this manifested was a desire to expunge all the emotions. They obviously caused problems, so it made sense to want to get rid of them. I thought of them as a water well containing nothing but poison stored there from all the past pains in my life. So I tried to “get it out” as much as possible, whether it be via counseling, venting, punching pillows, or even meditation and trying to transform myself in that manner. Eventually, things would be “clear” and I would be more “balanced”. Of course, things didn’t work that way, because implicit in all these actions was a fundamental lack of love for those emotions – which creates even more negative emotions to vent. The perception that there was something wrong with me created more problems. The never-ending process continued. Thinking there was something wrong with me because I had pain simply created more pain.

A different way of looking at them instead is what was channeled to me recently by Karen Murphy.

At this time, perhaps you would like to think of your emotions, instead of something you need to get out and express, think of them as art, as a creation that you are constantly perfecting. They’re not finished yet, but you see their beauty in whatever state of creation they are in. You don’t need to share it even, because they are so beautiful. Bring this creation, all the beautiful colors that you know, and all the love you have inside you, for you love this creation. It is the most beautiful creation you have ever made, and you derive great satisfaction from the process of creating it. Take your time. Use visuals if that helps. Look around you. Find elements of what you see that perhaps might be included in this creation of yours. You will know it when you see it – anything that needs to be included. Have fun with this process, for it is yours. It is the first thing that’s truly belonged to you.

This brought up much tears in me, because it went to the heart of who I am: an expressive person with an intense of love of beauty and art. And if I do not see myself as a work of art, then of course there will be a lack of love for Self. Corresponding to this was indeed a visual image of moving and surreal color, much like the movie “What Dreams May Come.” We see art and beauty in Van Gogh, Dali, or other artists who express darkness or “craziness”. After all, it’s on the page and there are skills involved. However, there is an implicit dismissal of the skill involved in simply allowing emotions to come to fruition and expressiveness in this society. There is tremendous skill in this. We see this in movies, on the stage, of an actor being very true with emotions, but it is easy to discount this in ourselves. This is not the same as being able to pick the right words and expression of them. It lies simply in being those emotions, in allowing them fully.

 

As I reach new levels of allowing of my emotions, I’m encountering vastly new perceptions of my life and my past, and even hidden memories. Finally remembering who crawled into my bed at night, the helplessness, shame, impotent kicking, and a split of consciousness that persisted into adulthood. There are, of course, many emotions connected to this journey, much like any prisoner might feel after coming into sunlight after thinking a cell block was home for many years. There is frustration, there is helplessness, and yes, there is self-hatred. I’m finding this isn’t a contradiction in any way to loving myself. It has its own beauty; a disconnected aspect of myself that’s screaming from years of being walled away. There is beauty in goth designs, and there is intense beauty in these emotions as well. They are a valid journey home.

Love, especially for ourselves, isn’t a thing or something to gain, or anything to ingrain into our minds through writing a million affirmations or reading thousands of blogs. It’s a perception – an awareness. Shifting how we look at something, especially ourselves, creates transformations. In fact, every transformation is precisely a change in perception. There is nothing but this, because there is perfection in everything, including intense pain. In the case of emotions, my experiences have created a subtle yet powerful difference in my experience in them. There is wonder in these emotions, simply as an expression of what is. The simply perception of beauty in utter vividness is, in the present moment, more loving than a thousand affirmations.

The Void

Posted by matthew on November 11, 2007  |  7 Comments

The following is channeled material we recently brought through:

 

Question: There is a concept across many traditions of inviting or surrending to “The Void”. What exactly is “The Void”, and what is the process of surrendering? What can be gained by it?

A simple way to describe the Void would be absence of all expectation. In other words, a total acceptance of what is. Not what could be. Not what should be. Not what might be – but simply what is. We have noticed that the concept of accepting what is is paradoxically simple, yet inherently complex. It is difficult for the human, caught up as you are in the illusions of life as a human, that is, possessing a body, interacting with others and perceiving things simply on a physical basis, to consistently recognize that there is so much more, and yet at the same time so much less than what it is they perceive. To be completely immersed in the Now, then, requires such a large degree of trust that one has no need to manipulate reality to become anything more than what it is.

The void, then, is again the absence of all expectation and a complete immersion into all that is the present. This “all” must include, of course, all your dreams, desires, pain, love, and humanness. So a complete acceptance of all these things takes place for one to take place in the Now. Simple, yes? Yet when you consider each element, each one seems to bring with it so much more, so many issues, so many requirements of your time and energy and thought, that it seems impossible to divorce yourself from those in order to reside completely in the present. We remind you, then, that there is no need of course to separate yourself from all that you are. There need only be the joyful expansion of your perception to embrace all that you are into this one present moment.

Surrendering, then, to this absence that also includes everything requires, as we said, an enormous degree of trust. You must trust yourself. You must trust your perceptions. You must trust that you are not truly separated from any part of you. And you must trust that this joyful expansion can actually take place. We invite you, then, to dip one toe into the Void this time with us.

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Place your awareness, if you will, on a spot located on your forehead between and above your eyes, often referred to as “the third eye”. To enhance sensitivity you may likely massage this area. While breathing comfortably and deeply, bring your awareness then to this spot. And as you do so, notice how it grows. It grows to encompass all that you are, all that you ever have been, and all that you ever will be. Notice too the sense of love and acceptance that comes simply with this noticing. Embrace all your former selves and all your future ones. Breathe them in and allow them to take stronger presence within your present self body. Trust that all these selves hold for you the information you most need to know right now. You may or may not ever be consciously aware of this information, yet it is yours at this moment. Breathe in again and let out that breathe, letting go of any expectation of what any of these selves bring you. You feel it leaving your body. Place your hands over your heart, and seal in that awareness to hold within you forever.

By regularly exposing yourself to the Void, you increase your conscious awareness of your own trueness and all the potential that lies within you at all times. In other words, by learning to surrender you become a more complete and whole person.

It is often implied that the fear of death is the basis for all fears, and that it is by experiencing a form of death that true transformation can occur. How does the Void relate to this fear of death and the transformation referred to?

The concept of death is indeed a frightening one to most people. We would say that it is no accident that there are parallels between the concepts of death and the Void of which we speak. In each case, that spark within you that is You is always maintained despite outer transformations that are taking place. In the case of what you refer to as death, it is simply the physical body that transforms. Everything else about you – your hopes, desires, dreams, and memories – are still retained, and always are a part of the You that you are in this life. There is an aspect of death to the transformation that occurs when one surrenders completely to the Void, but again, that inner spark of You-ness is always retained despite external transformation. The transformation that occurs when one surrenders to the void is not one that is necessarily physically apparent. Yet it is one that allows the fullness and completeness of you to emerge as if to play.

 

It is the fear of transformation itself, then, that is the root of the fears of death and the fear of surrendering to the Void. It is natural to attempt to hold on to what one has been, for that is all one knows. However, if you alter your perception so that you can embrace all that you will be, your fears of transformation, whether from death or from surrender to the Void will be eased.

 

If you have questions you think would be good to get channeled answers for, please leave a comment!  Thank you!

That childlike state, and Love.

Posted by matthew on November 6, 2007  |  35 Comments

This is also available via podcast.

 
icon for podpress  That childlike state - and Love. [8:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

There is so much we can learn from children. Most of us are disconnected from that childlike quality inside ourselves, that innocent state of joyful wonder that makes love for children so natural. In fact, we can think that that the only way to experience that state is vicariously through our children. We can restrict our boisterous play to only be in the company of children, and make sure we always make ‘sense’ in the company of adults.

And yet, much of the education of children is really a movement away from wonderful qualities that would greatly serve society. By the time adulthood is reached, through public schools and the gauntlet of teenagedom, there can easily be layers upon layers of defenses, filters, and preconceptions that prevent the wonder of a child and guileless expression. We are taught a learning of accumulation of facts and how to act in such a way that is ‘normal’. In spite of the tremendous value we know children have, we are in some way denying that value, by trying to exclusively teach them while not learning from them. We don’t see them as equals, as Dr. Marshall B. Rosenberg, author of “Nonviolent communication”, says in his article on raising children compassionately.

Children, in their simple wisdom of being who they are, have tremendous amounts to teach and remind us. How easy it is to break down in tears when a child touches your cheek after noticing some held back sadness. Being silly and unrestrainedly playful around a child is the most natural thing in the world. They remind us what is truly important in life. And what they teach us, via the characteristics they model, can be applied to all of life, not just our interaction with them.

To help see this, I’ve listed a number of characteristics young children have that we could all learn from. It is these characteristics that epitomize Love.

 

  • Vulnerability. This is not only an absolute open sense of trust and visibility of self, but also the rapidity at which the task at hand takes complete focus. It is when a child (or adult) is most like themselves, without any apology or attempt to be anything else. True vulnerability always results in more openness, more allowing, and therefore, more Love. We feel this around children, and it is this sense that we respond to in children. A baby is completely vulnerable, completely open to the manipulations of life force around it, yet at the same time, is completely trusting that this process will result in continued life, growth, and for all intents and purposes, Love.
  • Harmony. Children are not separate from their environment, their parents, or even themselves. If their parents are upset, they will feel it too. There is no intellectualizing the experience, no controlling of their actions. They feel the state of their surroundings, which includes themselves, and at the same time naturally move towards a balance. Because of this, problems do not accumulate. If they are upset, they scream. If they are sad, they cry. The next moment is often something completely different, as any parent knows!
  • A sense of perpetual wonder. Simply mouthing the phrase “it brought me back to being a child again” conveys this. Life is vivid, full of vibrancy and new discoveries behind every corner. There’s new ways of seeing and interacting with even familiar objects. Children have that sense of wonder because they’re completely present in the moment, immersed in the explosion of colors around them at every moment in humble appreciation.
  • Exploration beyond “right” and “wrong”. As my previous post, The Beauty of Gray mentions, we tend to get locked into black and white thinking. Something is either good for us or bad, and all our interactions with it is based on this label we have. Children interact directly. And because of this, they are in a perpetual state of exploration. There is no “wrong” behavior – they see nothing strange about putting corn chips down your pants if the mood suits it. (I have personal experience with this!).
  • Leaning through play. This is the utmost extension of the previous point. With nothing “wrong”, every action is playful. Silliness makes more sense than seriousness, because it voices the absurdity of trying to control and label all the experiences occurring. And learning occurs very quickly because of the open state of the child.
  • Trust. There are no worries in a child’s mind beyond the immediate moment. There is simply a powerful trust that all they need will be there.

All of these states, of course, are as accessible to adults as they are to children. But for the most part, we have been educated away from such means of interacting with each other, and even with children. But this education can be discarded.

The next time you are with a young child, be a young child yourself. Don’t put on a mask of acting child-like, such as faces and “goo-goo” sounds. Play as if nothing mattered. Relate to them from a place of equality, for they are teaching you as much as you are teaching them. Know that their vulnerability is at the same time incredibly fragile and immensely powerful, and that this dichotomy also resides within you.

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, …”

It is of course very humorous that millions of people have quoted the Bible on becoming like a little child without making any movement whatsoever towards that effect themselves. Being childlike is in essence the same as being full of Love. It is a state of playful unity and harmony to the surroundings, appreciating and welcoming the uniqueness of everyone in the world. It is a state of continual transformation with no end in sight. It is a state both of incredible fragility that comes from vulnerability and of incredible power to affect, like what you see in the eyes of a child.

It is you.

 

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Moving from control to freedom

Posted by matthew on November 3, 2007  |  No Comments

Here’s the next podcast from Karen Murphy. This is one that is actually a personal channeling, but illustrates universal principles in terms of what is required to make a substantial change in one’s life. In this case, it is from a constrained sense of having to manage everything (and control) to having a much greater sense of freedom via allowing. It implies more than is obvious.

Click play to start:

 
icon for podpress  Moving from control to freedom [21:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Karen is a professional channel. For information on services she offers, visit her web site at http://www.light-spring.com.

 

 

Here is the transcript of this:

 

Question: I recently described what I saw in _____ (female) as a very constrained system with only a few outlets, leading to output that looks like geysers. Could you both describe the state you see in her, as well as suggestions on potential actions to be taken to move to a more “free” state?

Response: 

 

 

We see that what we have here is a propensity to attempt to manage things. There has been such a feeling of lack of control in this lifetime that the fragment at hand feels it necessary to control many aspects of her life in order to not feel the terror that comes from being manipulated by others. We would say that this propensity has moved into a feeling of comfort that exists even though the need for such a method of interaction is no longer as necessary as it was once, when there were truly terrifying things occurring. Once it is seen and acknowledged that this state has existed and exists still then it is possible, with a certain about of recognition, to attempt to move from that instead into one that is more “free”, as you say.

However, we see some difficulties with this. In other words, for some patterns become so ingrained that it truly takes what we would say is a complete re-writing of the DNA structure in order to move into other patterns of thought, interaction and being. This DNA manipulation does not come, however, without a price, and we are not sure at this time that this fragment is willing to pay that price, as we see it. There are certain tradeoffs that would be made, and we do not see a willingness at this time to move into this more “free” state. However, that is not to say that it could not occur, and we would suggest then, if this fragment is truly interested in making these changes, a program that would probably take 2-3 years to accomplish. A program of nightly moving back into those places of terror and removing all elements of comfort that exist would likely remap the pathways within the both brain and physical self sufficiently in order to move into this more “free” state.

However, it takes a great deal of endurance, as we see it, and of course the willingness that we spoke of. Is this fragment ready to do this work? We are not certain. Will she ever be? We cannot say that either. However, if you were to think of life in purely linear terms, and of course being on the physical plane that is what you do, we would say that in order to move into that state which she knows is possible at this time, that this complete disintegration would be necessary to go through in order to reach that state.

We would say that if you are interested on behalf of this fragment (note: this means ‘person’)  in her attaining that state, then there are things you could do (and actually you have already been doing) in order to assist with this process. It would take some additional connection, especially during dream time, in order to help create the atmosphere necessary for her to more comfortably consider the absolute disintegration of self. Now, you might ask what specifically can you do, other than just think about it? You know yourself that ironically you are also moving through similar patterns in your own life. So the fact that there are parallels certainly should not escape you, and may assist you in making some choices of your own. However, we see you as much more comfortable with the thought of completely losing your “self”, as you know it, and being open to what comes from that process.. It is possible that moving into that more firmly that you can help provide a model, if you will, for her to move more firmly into that space herself.

It may be helpful to think about this process in terms of simply two fragments moving together in a lifetime and removing from it any aspects of “relationship”, as you see it. That would assist with removing from the equation some of the elements of arrogance that sometimes occur between you. Now in terms of what can later be gained from these processes for each of you, you probably sense on some levels what this would mean to your own personal development, and there are a couple of things we would like to point out.

1) It would certainly assist with your own abilities to have an effect on others, especially others on a wider scope. If this is something that you, in your head, wish to do, then his is a process that you wish to consider on a purely cerebral level. However, as you know, change does not take place simply on an intellectual basis, and must occur throughout all aspects of the Self, and that is why we spoke of the remapping of the DNA , as that would change every aspect of you, from your physical bodies, to your habits, to your emotions, to your interactions with others, to your interaction with self, to your perception of self, of others, and the universe.

2) This process we would like to remind you is not one to be taken lightly. It will change everything. You will not be in any way the same person that you were once. Now if that is something that appeals to you, again on a cerebral level it may be something that you wish to choose. However, know that choice occurs on many levels, and it is not just a simple matter of saying “that sounds like fun, I think I’ll do that”. It is a choice taken in conjunction with, for instance, everyone that you currently have interaction with. Consider that for a moment. If you make a choice that affects you on such a deep level, then you must also obtain the support of everyone else that you interact with. This is slightly larger than you think it is at this time. There are those with whom you have agreements, there are those with whom you have karma, there are those with whom you have past life association, there are those who not in bodies at this time whose agreements you must alter in order to make this kind of choice. So part of the process of completely allowing yourself to disintegrate – we would liken it to one of the 12 steps, where you must contact every one in your life that has been affected by who you are now, and not necessarily make amends, but at least identify this and connect with them again and receive their “permission”, if you will, to make this huge change, as that change will change them. It cannot help but do so.

In other words, you must receive almost permission on a global and universal level. That process itself requires abject and total humility. Now is it within you to possess such humility? We would not be bringing this up if we did not believe it was something you are capable of. But we would like to remind you that this process itself will bring with it pain and transformation. Just so you know what so expect.

Understand that if you choose on an essence level to undergo this, it will not necessarily be something that you’re all that conscious of when it’s happening. So to say that you wish a greater understand of it, yes, that makes sense again on a cerebral level. But because it’s a process and these parallels exist on much more than a cerebral level, it’s limiting to think of it in terms of something that you can understand. So we would suggest then, simply to expand your awareness into all the potentialities that ever have existed between you. In other words, expand your awareness to, for instance, all the past lives you have ever shared, and all the concurrences of those past lives, and all the reverberations that occurred as a result of the lives undertaken by those past lives that have occurred, and your collective concurrences. So you are starting to get the meaning of how huge this becomes. Expand your awareness into all of that, all of what happened, what might have happened, and what didn’t happen. And realize that’s only just a tiny, tiny piece of what exists between two fragments. So if you expand your awareness, again on a cerebral level, that’s extremely limiting. It must happen on a cellular level. And even that is limiting because your cells are not the whole of you. There is so much more to you than simply a body, and a mind and emotion.

So we would say to you then, that if you insist on attempting to have a greater understanding of this, because we see that you wish to do this from a place of wanting to help. The thing that would help (probably the most) would be holding a space of acceptance. That is not to say you are not already doing this. But to expand into that more. And include within that acceptance, acceptance for your Self as well. Acceptance for everything that has ever occurred between you, everything that ever will, and everything that never occurred between you. We have given you much to think about, and we would prefer it actually if you didn’t really think about it that much! Instead, just take the energy from what has come today and allow it to be there. That is all you have to do. Allow the energy to be a part of you. Because in essence, that is really all change is. There is nothing more ever necessary than that. And that is something we wish both of you to take with you this day.

 

Alright, we’ll tell you a story then, because again, it’s not what you know, it’s what you are. Remember that.

Once in time there were two farmers. Now, these farmers knew one another, but not all that well. They farmed in neighboring communities. They each built for themselves a business if you will, through their farming, and so became somewhat known by some of the additional neighboring communities. They were decent farmers and each of them employed some workers. Now one of the farmers had a worker who was quite disgruntled. Didn’t like the way he was treated; he thought he was better than being a worker. He really wanted his own farm, but didn’t have the wherewithal to establish that for himself. So he thought that what he would do is go to the other farmer to stir up a little bit of trouble, and see what happened. Because this disgruntled worker just liked to make things change more than anything else. He didn’t want to do the work, just see what would happen, because he was into observing experiences and interactions, and learning from that. So he went to the other farmer and started telling stories about the other, stories that frankly weren’t true. But the other farmer, being of a somewhat suspicious nature and wanting to hold on to what he saw was his own, started to believe these stories. Well, one thing led to another, and pretty soon the original farmer who was completely innocent ended up losing his farm, his family, his money, his good name, and was cast out of the community in which he lived. As you can imagine this was a bit hard on him. He spent a lifetime building his little “empire”, his little world, but he was big enough in it, and he was happy with that. Not being all that young anymore, he wasn’t in a position to start over. So since he thought that the start of it all was the other farmer, he decided to do what he could do to stir up trouble for that other farmer. But you know what? It all backfired on him. It did. Because he no longer had his good name.

Now, did he learn something from that? Not in that lifetime, no. But later on he was able to look back and laugh and see how funny it was. Because it really kind of was – the beauty of irony is really quite funny when you’re not trapped by a body. So what happened to the other farmer, you might ask? The other farmer managed to double his earnings. I’m sure you can imagine where the other half came from, and made the disgruntled worker his son in law. So everybody was quite happy with this, except the other farmer started having dreams at night, dreams which plagued him and was unable to sleep. He lost weight because he couldn’t sleep, he lost his hair, he wasn’t pretty. Every night he was plagued with the same thoughts that he had done something wrong. That made him very sad. Pretty soon he was a mere shadow of his former self. So he decided some change was in order. He sold off the majority of his new holdings. He kicked his son in law and his daughter out of his house. He thought that the change would make him happy, but it didn’t. He still had the same dreams, night after night. He grew thinner and thinner. Finally he died. And on the astral plane after this life he ran across the other farmer who of course had died too, because he had no where to go and died of starvation, and they had a talk about this life. And what they decided was that it had really been quite a successful one, because although they didn’t necessarily have a lot of face to face interaction, the very fact that each of them was living their lives affected the other one to such a degree that it created huge changes in each of them. And they both went away from each other with huge satisfaction knowing that – even knowing that much of the interaction never took place on a “cerebral” level between them. They were quite aware on this astral level how actions of each other did affect them. And they walked away the best of friends and decided to do it again in another life. The end.

So you can draw your own parallels and do with that information what you will. Again, simply allowing the energy to be there is all that’s needed for change. There is nothing needed for change. It’s very simple.

 

 

Connecting With Nature

Posted by lightspring on October 28, 2007  |  7 Comments

I’ve been thinking lately of my connection with nature, exploring that connection more deeply, especially following a recent and quite profound experience I had in the forest (and here’s yet another quite amazing one; can you tell this is a bit of a theme here?) and I invite you to think now about your connection with nature.

I suspect that for the most part we really don’t give this much thought. Nature is simply “there”, and our day-to-day awareness doesn’t often extend to a real connection to nature beyond, say, noticing the gorgeous deep velvety reds of the Japanese maple trees, or the clearness of the autumn blue sky that provides a backdrop to the clouds in a usually overcast sky. We notice these things, notice their beauty, even perhaps notice their perfection, but fail to go that extra step and really connect with it: feeling the trees and their dance of interconnectedness, bursting into bloom yourself along with the geraniums in the pot on your windowsill, becoming the bird intent on seed-gathering to acquire energy to store for the cold winter ahead. We don’t usually feel what it is like to BE an aspect of nature, even though we are an aspect of it ourselves.

By denying a true connection to nature we deny an essential aspect of Self.

There is tremendous value in connecting with animals, trees, and other elements of what we consider to be nature. These elements, are part of our home, part of our world, and are as such connected to us, to humans, in a very intimate way. We share space. We share air. We share resources. Not only that, but we share in the creation of our world, the global creation of the reality we know as life. And because of that there is an undying connection between us as humans and ALL of the so-called “natural” elements of nature.

Think back to a time when you were connected with nature. For most of us this happened easily and naturally when we were children. True connection to nature is a childlike state, a natural state, a state of innocence. Rediscovering your own true connection to nature now will help you reach that state again more easily, time and again, and provide for you a spiritual home to which you can return over and over, always having this base of existence and perception to belong to. And being more often in a state of childlike innocence leaves us so much more open to vulnerability and openness in every aspect of our lives, allowing us myriad opportunities for growth and understanding.

But how can we re-connect to nature if we think we have lost this in the mundane aspects of living life?

It is not enough, for some, to simply state an intention and then order the universe to “make it so.” New pathways of perception need to be forged, new roads to awareness.

For me, what has helped remake these pathways has been two things: being open and being present.

I invite you, then, to find your own corner where you can feel nature. This can simply be a spot near a sunny window in which you can feel the rays directly upon you, but feel free to use your yard, a park, any open spot where you can sit awhile undisturbed. There need be nothing “magical” or special about the place, for truly, nature will find you wherever you are.

Sit comfortably in your chosen spot, then, and imagine the time when the things around you didn’t exist. There were no buildings, no electrical lines, no lawns, not even the trees you see now were there. Once, in time, things looked very different from the way they look now. If you allow it, you can imagine this time, for you possess a connection to it. It is in your genetic memory, in every cell of your body. Imagine each cell, then, unlocking this distant memory. See in your mind’s eye the immense past, every possibility, every moment of time, hanging between you and time’s dawn. You have access to all of it. Now notice the thread that runs through these pages that flutter in front of you, the pages of the past. There is a single thread that weaves its way through ALL of time, through every moment, through every experience, and that is the thread of nature, of our connection to the Earth and to every element of the Earth, every tree, every plant, every stone, and every living being. Keep looking and you’ll notice that this thread is connected to you as well. Do you see it? Can you feel it now, tugging gently at you, a little insistent, reminding you of your immense past, of your deep connection with All That Is?

There it is, then. Your connection to nature is there whether or not you have felt it all along. It is undeniable, this connection we all possess to one another, to the Earth, to every living being on the Earth.

The lessons from connection to nature are many and varied and often depend on the individual, but regardless of perspective there is always growth opportunity through human connection with nature. After all, it is your home. It is your life. To deny nature is denying an aspect of Self, and to fully embrace nature, to accept it in all its splendor, ugliness, and beauty, is a huge step in actually accepting your Self.

I invite you to embrace your connection with nature, then, to embrace the fullness of your humanity, which will in turn bring fullness to every aspect of your life.

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