Holding on to stuff we should be letting go makes it tougher!
For those of us who have enjoyed the cumulative freedom of catharses (plural) will know that it is like going through a very tiny knothole into the meadow of an actualized life. Hmmm kinda like a birth. Nature is rich with metaphor if only we could grasp it while we are in labour giving birth to our whole Selves! First there is the messy work – oh gawd. And then there is the sweet smelling frilly part. Smiles. The integration. The ‘ah ha!’ moment. You kind of get it and then over the passing days and months you find yourself living life just a little differently. More centred. More trusting of yourself. Expressing more of yourself from a deeper part of your heart. What you ‘got’ at the emerging from the knothole was only the beginning.
The knothole doesn’t let you carry too much baggage. Well – none. We begin naked and the first act of Life is first breath. Breathing in the ineffable life force – the force that will sustain us until we release it in our final exhale. The second act is the cutting of the umbilical. We are born to be free. Free to be our whole perfect actualized Self. This spark of all that we can be is the image of God that we have been created in. We are our own unique part of creation. If we do not create a life as who we really are and express all our unique and beautiful gifts – then those gifts just will not be. That song will never be sung, that poem never whispered, the child of infinite potential – still born.
We personify God in all kinds of ways. But let’s be honest, when you look at the vastness of the sky or the colour of your dog’s eye – can you really find the language to describe the indescribable? I guess creation in its infinity and evolution that includes black holes and super novas; the ‘law’ of the jungle; the brilliant efficiency of the Earth – air and water filtration, waste disposal (I hear the crows as I write), and the continual renewal – death and rebirth of the seasons (I hear the chickadee sweet talking) might have an element that communicates with this animal with consciousness – we humans. Why else would we have consciousness?
So – we have consciousness and we also have free will. Hmmmm – tricky of God. Always a fun ‘guy’! Here’s the way I see it: We are a seed dropped in the belly of our mothers. Within that egg of genes and chromosomes and earth stuff is a spark of consciousness – heaven stuff, if you will. And like all sparks – it has the potential for a glorious blaze – a conflagration – or it can be smothered. It is the offspring of all creation. What limits can there be? Well, a few and these are the parameters of our destiny.
There is a certain truth in all the talk and practice about law of attraction and visualization until your dreams come true. We can only arrive somewhere we believe we can go. And the stronger and more clear our belief or vision, the faster we get there. But, creation is impartial. Martin Luther King had a dream and it came true in Obama. Hitler also had a dream. It came so close to tipping the world into complete darkness. The caveat for a person of consciousness who truly wishes the blessings of happiness, peace and love, is that bliss only rises from within. The more clearly aligned to who we are meant to be, the sooner we arrive in that peace that passes all understanding.
We are free to create absolutely anything we can imagine. As a people we have – including the tools of our own destruction. A friend once said, it proves that God isn’t a vengeful God. Otherwise He would look at what we’ve done with all the beauty and bounty of this gorgeous planet and be seriously pissed. It’s a wonder we haven’t had a flood. oh. Oops. Maybe we will wake up before God smites us upside the head once and for all!
But here’s the thing. Forget about holding back the tsunami or stilling earthquakes (although ceasing underground nuclear testing might be a notion). The only thing that we can change – the only thing we have control over – is ourselves. If we want the Earth to regain her equilibrium and peace to reign, war to stop, disease to be eradicated, all the children fed and safe, then we have to bring that state about within us – in our hearts and daily practices. So catharsis may not be pleasant – oh boy. But, it is the necessary release of all that throws us off balance and out of clarity to our own beautiful life.
I stepped out on the ‘spiritual’ path to be released from fear. It started in earnest when my first son was born. My experience of love in gazing into his newborn face was the absolute of unconditional love. In that glimpse I knew unequivocally that I too was loved that way by God – Life Itself. However, like a dark menacing shadow, fear loomed. Latent memories of loss, abandonment and abrupt separation from my mother were still firing neurons in my brain and infecting my thoughts and actions – stealing the joy from one of the most blessed and pure of all relationships.
So in those 23 years, my search for release from fear has led me deeper into a desire for true peace. True wellness – vitality – joy – lightness of spirit. Lightness of Being. LightBeam was born of that journey through the brambles of the unexamined truths that form us – deform us – and aren’t even our own. I want to throw back my head in laughter and let the sun shine on my face. But to paraphrase Kahlil Gibran – to live fully and laugh all of my laughter I must be willing to cry all of my tears – and to release all of my fears.
9:11 was the second pivotal date in anchoring my vision. I felt that while the seismic waves of panic and incredulity spread across the globe, it was the people truly rooted in their own being who would come back to center sooner. In a way its no different than the world banking debacle which continues to resonate or the shuddering earth which continues to heave. By design or by default we as a human race are being called to claim what is important to us – and to disregard the rest.
We have looked so long to the outside for our security, comfort, belonging, merit and now the very earth we stand on is shifting. All of a sudden what was important isn’t – in many cases it is being swept away. The world of meaning we built up around ourselves to feel safe and important we now see is built on deceit and greed. The Earth who we have so long abused or taken for granted in a matter of seconds of an earthquake is telling us to get over ourselves. It’s time we dropped back down out of our heads and into our hearts.
Does it matter if the world ends in 2012? Does it matter if there is a God waiting to catch us like a football when we get tossed off the planet? I’m thinking there is a God and I am living my life as if there is. Because we have personalized God, ‘he’ can mean anything from a fairy godmother type to a raging tyrant – depending I suppose on our childhood conditioning. In my writing I often use the term Life (big L) to depict what I believe God to be. Life – no arguing that one – is creation, evolution, harmony. All kingdoms working interdependently. Each creature – each atom just doing its own thing – as best it can. Never questioning if it is as good as, or if it should, or how to outsmart the other. That’s how I see our role in the chain of life.
These gifts of reasoning and consciousness make it so much harder to just be. But if we can lash reasoning down to do what it does best – which is to sort the filing cabinet of the past and then rely on consciousness we begin to glimpse our own beauty and unique offering to Life. There are no problems or challenges of health, relationship, finances, or self esteem that do not offer us the portal to our greater Self. That Self (big S) is God. Is Life. The caveat is our own free will. When we wake in the middle of the night who do we follow? Gollum into the dark pits of despair in search of what is outside of us and ‘precious’? Or do we listen to the beat of our own heart and drift into sleep humming a beautiful tune we just made up? What will you choose? Fear which always sounds reasonable or creation which always brings joy?
Today I choose to be myself. I choose peace. I choose love. I choose happiness. Today I will be all that I might be.
