Couple Things

Couple of Things

First, over the past few days I have been vibrating with the effects of a line I read from A Course in Miracles.  I want to share it.  A Lot.  "The Bible says that you should go with a brother twice as far as he asks."


The words came to me in a spell of sickening anger.  "Here's me doing my level best and here's "you" doing nothing to offset my burden and even making things harder for me and..." I picked up my book and opened to a few cooling words.  Poof.  Like cool water on flames.


Second, I want to share something that my wise Aunt Judy said to me on the phone the other day. "From now on I am living forward."


Also simple.  Also divine guidance.   Hurts, slurs, outrages, your own failures, from the past do not exist in a life lived forward.  Now, THERE is a clean light for your path!

Give more than you are asked to give.  Live forward. Big Love.  Amen.

Thawing

We are experiencing an arctic cold front here in the usually sunny South.  This strange weather has had us socked in for more than a week now.  Ice makes every path in or out treacherous for us and for anyone who might venture our way.  It has been a glorious, do-nothing time.  Hibernation.  Much needed and much appreciated after the holiday hubbub.  A time of reflection and assessment.  Big change is on the horizon but for now we are, I am, frozen here in this place.  

Giving me the time and space for some difficult inner work.  I rarely talk people down in my posts.  I have been tempted sometimes,  but is my wish to bring light when I write.  I write of making Joy our focus and intention.   I write about ascension practices.  Those who I might want to let loose on never read anything I write, so a little rant would not be likely to do much harm.  But then,  the word is a powerful thing.  Once expressed it has a way of coming to life.  I am not ready for that. Instead I say, Wage Peace.

But I have been feeling this heavy chunk of hardness growing in my (?) heart (?) soul (?) inner being...the specifics do not need to be listed here or anywhere.   Starting before the holidays but most especially weighty over Christmas when these hurts seem to be so much more unbearable for all of us  It is related, of course, to those expectations I have of the ones I would so love to give a swat to!  I am urged to expose them, at least to themselves, for the ways they have failed me and mine.  I want to shout at them, or write in all caps,

"WHAT DOES IT AVAIL A MAN TO GAIN A FORTUNE AND LOSE HIS SOUL?"

or just,

"COULDN'T YOU EVEN TRY TO DO A LITTLE BETTER?"

Just being shitty people is not murder or even assault.  They have done no real injury to me.  My outrage, my outrage and hardening is self-inflicted, you see?  And I have my own shitty history of failures and omissions  Which is the only reason I allowed myself to write these last paragraphs. "They" are just doing their life their way.  Which I did, and for which I earned my own portion of guilt and regret.  They will have to learn the consequences of what they do and fail to do, just as I have.  That thought makes me sad and sorry.  I pray for mercy for us all.

Because of this unrelenting cold, I have had opportunity in time and stillness to take a good look inside. The hardness which I thought was stone turns out to be something else.  Aha. I hold up a light that illuminates and warms that hard place in me. It isn't stone at all, I see.  Just a hunk of ice.  It melts a little under my closer observation.  In time, the light I shine on it may warm it more and cause it to melt away.  That is what I hope for.  One day, I will wake up and the hardness will be gone.

What is the light?  It is what remains of the love I have for "them" ignited by prayer.  "I trust you Father.  Papa.  Thank you for Your Mercy on me and those I love.  Keep me in the way of Your Will for me.  Amen."

Celebrate! Celebrate! Dance to the Music!

I am a devotee of many holy things.  I am a surprised Christian.  I am also a bit of a Buddhist. I am a humanist. An  animist.  I might be a druid.  I worship art and makers of art in all its forms. I celebrate all these and more.  I celebrate my waking and my sleeping and the moments in between.

I am  a Celebrationist.

My conversion happened like this:  our blended family had gathered and one of the step-people-in-law said to me, "Lisa, you are Just a Party Girl."  (She was being a bit snarky. I enjoy drinks and party food and people and happiness and I look for occasions to swirl those all together.  So yes, she was right...in her view.)

 I sassed her, "No, I am a devout Celebrationist."

As soon as I said it I knew it was the truth at the core of me.  :)  I prefer to live my life in Celebration. Once I named it I began to examine and ponder this term and how it applied to me and to my life.  As I did it became the intention in my moments and became more and more true as a natural result.

If I had a personal flag it would be a smiley face on a sky-blue field.

Yes, I like to make a party.  I would and could do it every day.  "It IS Friday!  It IS the weekend! The weather IS turning cooler!  The sun IS shining!"  There is always something to celebrate when I bend my attention to that perspective.

No, my life is not painless.  I have had sorrows and my portion of tribulation. Sometimes I let myself sink into them for a time. In recent days we have experienced pain and tribulation globally the likes of which many of us find incomprehensible. But that is not all we are.

I do delve into matters of the spirit.  I study all I can with the goal of ascension, not just for myself but for the ways I can help move the world in that direction.  I avoid the titillations of mainstream media and I pray for "The World" to get a grip on itself and turn some of the energy expended on titillation to better, more worthy things.

For a start by offering Love and Compassion to those around us.  By focusing on Joy and Celebration of everything that is RIGHT with our beautiful blue planet and it's amazing and diverse inhabitants.

There are probably some "serious" minded folks who consider me flaky and vacuous.  'K....But my background music is not a dirge! My favorite music is made of many heartbeats, clapping hands, laughter.  It is easy to sing along to and made for dancing!

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
~ Max Ehrmann, Desiderata
http://mwkworks.com/desiderata.html

Stormy Weather and Good Boots

I wanted to write out some thoughts I have had today regarding storms, fear, compassion, security, pushing through.  It seems to be hard to gather the words for some reason.  Maybe it's the residual effects of getting ready for the bad weather...maybe my brain is still swirly from the recent Atlantic cyclones.  I don't know.  I will just keep hammering at this and see if something takes shape.

I have some experience with big storms.  I am no weather expert but life here in the hurricane magnet of the Universe has been rich in hurricane events.

I experienced the catastrophic landfall event we call "Hugo" years ago....watching a a hurricane that had seemed to be nothing about me turn into a missile with my name on it....striking at my brother to the South and my mother to the North and with my little town in its sights, blasting straight up the interstate highway to my very home.  Exploding transformers. Splattering mobile homes.  Taking down protected forests and casting tornadoes across my state in every direction.  We here in South Carolina were stunned by Hugo.  It was a mega-maniacal beast of a storm.

Harvey out in Texas made our Hugo look like a spiteful child's tantrum.

But the  fear of the storm is as bad as the event, as bad as the recovery, isn't it?  Like this bad boy Harvey. Watching it's vastness approach. Comparing it's progress to the spaghetti string paths of projections. Glued to the TV as it rages.  Rescues and aftermath running continuous images that break the heart. Then having a bit of the drama brought straight to you  from halfway across the country in the spin-off weather bands containing violent thunderstorms and "conditions favorable for the formation of tornadoes".

We were flooded the past two years as a result of hurricanes Joaquin and Matthew, which came calling at the coast of Carolina and just hung around and stayed and dumped water until our little rivers could not hold another drop.

I am my Mother's caregiver.  Both times as those storms approached our coast I weighed the need to leave Mom's house and get her to safer shelter.  Neither time did it seem that we were likely to get major trouble from these Atlantic storms.  They were fairly small.  They were predicted to go elsewhere.  Then they turned and it was too late to get out of the way.   Small or not they brought water.

Both times I woke up the morning after the storm to find water up the front steps and fish swimming in the yard. Fridge flipped over and floating around in the garage. Power out.  Messy, destruction, stink, ruin of much of mom's property.  Both events were scary as hell but each time I got Mom out dry, with the help of rescuers.

I never had to climb out the window holding her and try to float us up onto the roof to wait for our rescuers to come with a helicopter. Watching those rescues and hearing the stories of what people had to find the courage to do to get to safety made me cry and filled me with fear.

Fear, fear, fear, fear...like sirens in my brain and chest.   I was talking to somebody about Hurricane Irma, as it approached just days after Harvey had hammered the state of Texas and I could hardly talk because my teeth were chattering.  (I never knew that was a real thing)

Because even though we have done this before, my mother is 89, in a wheelchair, fragile-boned, on continuous oxygen, a hospice patient.  There is a lot to consider in her case.  Is it safer for her to try to stay put even though we have had to be evacuated in the past?

The thing about fear...we need a bit of fear, but it tends to stupify and paralyze us.  Fear can work its way into the space in our minds that could be used better for finding solutions.  It can make us selfish too. Thinking of saving our own hides.  Devil take the ones behind us.

Then, in the midst of planning and preparations for our getaway this week I came across my green rubber boots.

Last year, after Matthew did it's mess on Mom's place and I was facing going back there to begin cleaning up, my husband made me buy the boots.  At first I resisted because they were not cute and did not look comfortable.

Let me tell you about comfortable.

When you have to work in muck that looks and smells worse than sewage; when you have to walk across water you just saw a snake swim through, when you have to put your foot in a dark place and you have no idea what might be in there...a pair of knee high boots feels just about like heaven.

Finding those boots.  Cleaning them.  Stacking them on my readiness pile.  These calmed me.

I knew I would be able to face the days ahead because I knew that when the time came I would put on my boots and get Mom out and when the time came I would be able to walk back in and start the clean up.  

Fear was put behind me and I got back to the serious work of getting ready.  Oh and I prayed.  Boots can only do so much.  But being more calm helped my brain work better to get us as prepared as possible.  I was also better able to think past our personal needs and give some thought to the needs of others.  I am pretty sure that thinking about others helps turn the tide on fear.

Another thing about storms and fear is that they pass. Once they do you can emerge from your shelter, assess the damage, put on your boots and start repairs. Then you can reach out to your neighbors.  Offer them your hands.  Be a human being.  Like all those rescuers in Texas.  Like the electric company linemen who worked all night those nights this week so we would have power.  Like the first responders working so hard now in Florida.

This storm, Irma, thankfully, passed Mom's place by unharmed.  When I got up Tuesday morning the swamp was where it belonged.  (Not in Mom's yard.)  The trees were standing.  My car was where I left it.  I got down on my knees and thanked God for this great mercy. Then we tried to touch base with all our people and learned they had come through with minimal damage.  Blessings upon blessings.

There is one thing more I want to say about these big catastrophic storms.  They are necessary it seems.  Last year, a scientist told me that hurricanes are nature's way of cooling things off here on Earth.  Like big turbines fanning heat off our oceans.  Maybe they work some of the heat off we humans as well.


Over the last weeks we have watched people set aside fear, anger and dissension and go help each other.  Other people witnessed and photographed and shared this phenomenon.  We saw and felt better about human kind.  Something to think about.        

Wage Peace

I recently posted the words "Wage Peace" on my Facebook page.  I did it because of the impact those words had on my heart when I first encountered them reading a little book called "Love Is All There Is" back in 2015 when my word of the year was Love and I studied it as hard as I could.

"Wage Peace" means that you actively choose peace in every moment.

"Wage Peace" is a call to arms!  Lift your arms.  OPEN them WIDE.  Offer gratitude. Offer kindness. A smile.  Offer solace and shelter.  Support.  Offer Big Love. Create peace right where you are and aspire to spread peace in your home, community and the wider world in the ways that you can.

Many people out there are waging peace right now.   With all the media attention directed elsewhere it is easy not to notice the peace makers.   I have been so grateful for the quiet reminders I have read posted in social media that the sword clashing and yammering  and violence and anger are not all there is to report about the world today.

It isn't much to do to wage peace.  It is the best that I can do.   Sharing the mission whenever and wherever I can.  It is not a new concept. But one we would do well to finally learn.

"Come on People now, smile on your brother!  Everybody get together, try and love one another right now..."  (Youngbloods, 1967....50 years ago.  50....)

Gifts Of The Spirit

⁴ There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.⁵ There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. ⁶ There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 
I Cor.12:4-6

This is a very personal story.  It came in one of the lowest points in my life and, in the way of those, a point which I will always remember as the one from which my life was reframed forever.  A moment from which I started allowing myself to feel joy and to hold hope again after a longish, dark spell.  “Every disaster holds a blessing” was re-explained.  My heart cracked open and light came in.

A series of unfortunate events had me in a bad place.  I found myself a full-time caregiver to my mother.  Neither one of us was happy about the way the situation was unfolding.  She had had complications from surgery after a fall after an exhausting move after losing her husband and her sense of security…more, too much.  After nearly two months in hospital and rehab she came home to a strange house in a wheelchair with aphasia.  In my care. 

I had to quit the job I loved at the church at the beach and somehow try to make this strange house in this strange “hometown” of hers familiar and home to my unhappy, confused and resentful mother.  On top of being homesick and missing my family and friends, I was feeling abandoned by some of the really important people in my life who seemed to have no idea what I was coping with in this strange and unhappy role.  Extended family and non-family drama which Mom seemed to think I should be able to resolve or at least mediate kept me tied up in knots.  And then the thousand-year-flood came and swept away half the work I had done to get things right in this place.

I do not want to fail to recognize the many Angels, who came to our aid, my aid in this difficult season…”walking-around-Angels” I call them.  I was amazed and grateful for those people who did show up with help and answers when I was out of juice for the work I was doing.   I had promised Mom I would not leave her.   But a cloud of resentment hung over this house.   Some was mine, some was hers.  In spite of the many gifts of light,  I began to see only the dark, the losses, the hurts, the abandonment.  That is the way of depression.

One morning early it had me on my knees.  At that time I think I was still praying to the ether.  God, but nothing personal.

“God”, almost a curse, “I can’t keep doing this.  It’s too hard.  I just can’t go on serving her.”

Clear as a bell:  “You are not serving her.  You are serving ME.”

Never before had I received such a clear message of comfort from my Source.  Direct. To. Me.  I did not originate that thought.  I was not capable of it.

From that morning until now those words are as clear in me as when I first heard them.  We are still riding the waves in this strange house and there have been plenty of storms since and more work than I can do to keep us floating. The message from God through Spirit stays with me.  And my service is given with measures of joy, honor, humbleness, gratitude. 

It is my hope that this story will allow someone else to open to the voice within and bless you too with gifts of the Spirit. 

Onward and Upward!  Peace, Joy and Much Love, Lisa

So What Else Is New

The last day of August...going out in a light rain...finds me reflective.  So, what else is new?  But this week the Universe mentioned to me that I was just possibly ignoring...side-stepping...reneging on my dharma. Well.  So what ELSE is new? I have been a lifelong avoider of that stuff!

Night before last I sent a letter.  An email actually.  I had been carrying around the thoughts contained there in my heart for some time.  I had been reluctant to involve myself in a family matter but having become involved by geography I pulled out my iPad and carefully, gently, wrote out my concerns.   I made a couple of loving edits and hit send. By morning the results I had hoped for were more than fulfilled.  Big changes were set in motion, for good or not, in a flow that started from my heart, carried on down the line by my thoughts, through my hands into the cyber-ether to the  mind, and heart of my friend and cousin.  I trust the results will be good for all concerned. I think they will.

Words have power and that has always scared me.  But I thought more about the gift of kind words yesterday. Given or received. They are so much mightier than harsh ones. Critical words carve away the self-esteem.  Complaining words drain the joy from any moment.  Angry words cannot be revoked and do hurt forever.  Careless words...someone once said to me: you never know how important what you say may be to someone else. That is a true truth. But kind words empower. Elevate.

These thoughts circulated and percolated as the day went on and I went around feeling an active kind of happiness that I had taken a positive action that had results.  Wonder if...could it be?  Should I consider that writing, which I love to do, is the tool with which I can make some contribution in my small corner of the cosmos?  Is it my neglected gift?

So this morning I read in my book of Celtic Wisdom, Anam Cara, by John O'Donohue a little passage about individual destiny and being in rhythm with your life.  He writes that there is a unique destiny for each person and that reneging on your own talent and potential causes you to fall out of the rhythm of your life.  He warns of settling for the mediocre as a refuge from the call.  I got that!  Been doing that a long time, very well. ("Nudge,nudge; wink,wink", says the Universe)

Just something to reflect on for the last day of August 2016.  Light rain lovingly washing away the hot, dryness of these end bits of summer.  Something to think about, and just maybe, to actively pursue. Break out of the old patterns: hiding out, hunkering down, getting by. Stepping out again into the rhythm of life that was my destined gift long time ago.  Now that would be something new.