Ye Old Curiosity Shop

France proclaims 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc

2012-01-07T21:53:00.000-06:00

France proclaims 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc

President Sarkozy will travel to Domremy, the village said to have been her birthplace, where he will unveil a plaque in the home where she is thought to have been born.

Mr Sarkozy will also visit Vaucouleurs, also in the Vosges mountains of eastern France, where Joan of Arc began her campaign to push the English out of France and put Charles VII on the throne.

Mr Sarkozy and far-right leader Marine Le Pen are battling over the mantle of the French patron saint Joan of Arc, a surprise player in the upcoming presidential election.

The two leaders are to stage rival celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the birth of the 15th-century Catholic martyr who has been appropriated by the far-right partly for her booting out of medieval English "immigrants".

The teenage peasant led the French army against the English after experiencing religious visions and was later burned at the stake, but her broad appeal to French of all political colours has ensured her immortality.600 year anniversary of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc Revealed

By Jeff Nisbet

On May 30, 1431, a young girl was burned alive for heresy and witchcraft in Rouen, France.

According to one account of the day, when she had succumbed to the flames the fire “was raked back, and her naked body shown to all the people, and all the secrets that could or should belong to a woman, to take away any doubts from people’s minds. When they had stared long enough at her dead body bound to the stake, the executioner got a big fire going again round her poor carcass, which was soon burned, both flesh and bone reduced to ashes.”
Although history tells us the victim was Joan of Arc, a simple shepherdess known then as Joan the Maid, the account of her execution shows even her gender was in doubt at the time—a doubt put to rest perhaps just a tad too neatly in the historical record.

Joan deserves a closer look.

Born on January 6, 1412, Joan is one of history's best-documented figures—hardly surprising considering that the records of her several trials still survive.
At age 13, a "voice" told Joan she had been chosen by the “King of Heaven” to bring “reparation to the kingdom of France, and help and protection to King Charles.”

One of the suspiciously precise details we know about Joan is her exact time of birth—one hour after sunset on January 6, a day variously known as the Feast of the Epiphany, the Day of the Three Kings, and the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Surprisingly, neither Joan’s mother nor any other witnesses at the “nullification” trial mentions that Joan’s birthday was an official holy day. Joan of Arc Revealed

Happy Three King's Day

Today is January 6^th or Three Kings Day or Day of the Ephiphany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany

Epiphany (Greek: επιφάνεια, "the appearance; miraculous phenomenon") is a Christian feast intended to celebrate the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to mankind in human form, in the person of Jesus. The observance had its origins in the eastern Christian churches, and included the birth of Jesus; the visit of the three Magi, or Wise Men (traditionally named Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) who arrived in Bethlehem; and all of Jesus' childhood events, up to his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. The feast was initially based on, and viewed as a fulfillment of, the Jewish Feast of Lights. This was fixed on January 6.

"Twelfth Night" is a reference to the twelfth night after Christmas Day, called the Eve of the Feast of Epiphany. It was originally a Catholic holiday but, prior to Shakespeare's play, had become a day of revelry. Servants often dressed up as their masters, men as women and so forth. Twelfth Night

Jean Seberg as Joan of Arc in the 1957 film Saint Joan. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

Joan of Arc at 600: the best of role models

As we celebrate the 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc's birth, let's remember what she stood for, because she is one of us

At the opening of his 1916 silent film Joan the Woman, Hollywood grandee Cecil B DeMille introduced the French hero Joan of Arc as "the girl patriot who fought with men, was loved by men and killed by men, yet retained the heart of a woman". A warrior at 16, a saint at 19, Joan – or Jeanne, to us French – is the world's first pop icon. Groovier than the Virgin Mary, sexier than the Mona Lisa, she has been a star ever since she told the English to go to hell in the late 1420s, and fans throughout the world are today celebrating the 600th anniversary of her birth.

How many historical figures can lay claim to having inspired more than a dozen biopics since the beginning of cinema? The latest one, Jeanne Captive, has just been released in France. And that's just films. Her frail figure in armour, carved in marble and stone, graces the streets of New Orleans, Washington, Paris, Montreal, among a hundred other cities. Ingres painted her; Verdi, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Honeger wrote operas dedicated to her. In theatre, the farmer's daughter inspired Von Schiller, George Bernard Shaw, Bertold Brecht, Paul Claudel and Jean Anouilh. A 1990s famous Japanese rock band called itself Janne Dar Arc, and several video games have enrolled the pretty but chaste fighter as their leading protagonist. For good measure, let us not forget to mention Leonard Cohen among his greatest fans: in "Joan of Arc", he huskily sings "I love your solitude, I love your pride, my cold and lonesome heroine".

Jeanne is indeed a fascinating figure, all the more so if you are French. Aged 12, I went through a mystical period when I feared I may, too, have to be burned at the stake for my country's sake. I had just cut my long hair very short and looked a little like Ingrid Bergman as Jeanne in Roberto Rossellini's film, or Jean Seberg in Oto Preminger's own version. I got slightly mixed up between the hundred years war and the French Resistance during the second world war, confusing the perfidious English with Nazi Germans along the way, but how could you blame me when even Winston Churchill had nicknamed Charles de Gaulle "Jeanne d'Arc"?

My confusion didn't last long as, a year later, the extremist-right National Front emerged on the French political scene, highjacking the lovely and audacious girl as their effigy. She suddenly became a political enemy; from hero, she became foe. For my generation, traumatised by the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen's party, she suddenly represented chauvinism in its nastiest form. From a freedom fighter, she became a hater of foreigners. She could have no place in our hearts.
We were fools. The left should have fought hard to reclaim Jeanne. She is not, as the extreme right historiography would have us believe, a royalist Catholic die-hard. She is a people's girl, betrayed by the king and burned by the church. In other words, she's a feisty little punk who paid for her audacity with her life. Let's say it loud and clear today, Jeanne is one of us! 2012/jan/06/joan-of-arc-600-anniversary

Secret Messages

2012-01-07T09:06:00.000-06:00

The messages have been arriving filled with synchronicity lately. They are deep, and filled with messages of heart and love. It gives me great joy that so many are now also "listening" to the messages.

It has been predicted by many that this was to be our last "Christmas" and a great awakening was to take place in the coming year of 2012. Elle of Crystal Links Blog has blogged on many wonderful articles that support her theory that we exist in a Holographic Universe.

The theory that reality, as we consciously experience it, is not real, goes back to ancient indigenous people who believed we exist in a dream or illusion. In our current timeline, we refer to the matrix, grids, virtual reality, simulation and hologram. Today many physicists are researching the concept of the universe as a hologram.
The universe is a consciousness hologram. Reality is projected illusion within the hologram. It is a virtual experiment created in linear time to study emotions. Our hologram is composed of grids created by a source consciousness brought into awareness by electromagnetic energy at the physical level. The hologram is created and linked through a web, or grid matrixes based on the patterns of Sacred Geometry. The hologram had a beginning and it has an end, as consciousness evolves in the alchemy of time. As the grids collapse, everything within the hologram will end, helping to understand what is going on in the world today.

On Christmas Day of this year, 12/25/2011 a wonderful young man appeared on the scene and left us with many great and wonderful "secret" messages for us to decipher. A wonderful young man named Ben Breedlove died on Chirstmas Day leaving us with his story. In Hebrew the name Ben means "son" and Breedlove is a message we can understand in these days. Here is a wonderful article by Greg at The Daily Grail.

Here is Ben's Story . And some of the comments left here touched my heart with the sweetness of the great synchronicities of this wonderful message to arrive for all of us who "listen" on Christmas Day, which for many represent the birth of Divine Love for all of us.

I watched the video yesterday from the daily news updates and was so moved I forwarded the link to several friends. Now today to find out he died one week later only makes the story more poignant.
As I recently posted I recently read and am rereading Holographic Universe. I believe his statements about finding himself inside an endless white room looking in a mirror with a rapper playing his song about finding heaven fits perfectly within the concept. Synchronicity is at play with the timing of the lyrics and him promptly waking back into life. The presence of the rapper who presumably is still alive does not in any way undermine the legitimacy of his experience or point to it as fantasy or hallucination, but rather perfectly fits within the framework of a holographic theory or even traditional spiritual theory of an afterlife in that the rapper was merely the form his consciousness chose to interpret the energy there to assist him in this nde, or for that matter the form the angel or spirit chose to represent itself…a familiar form to further underscore the message of the musical lyrics.
If it were merely a last minute attempt by a dying brain to rationalize its demise then the timing of lyrics and his resuscitation are highly coincidental, which is of course what synchronicity is – coincidences with profound meaning, which according to a holographic theory are coordinated by an implicate order aka universal mind aka God.
I for one am a believer and believe he is content and happy and continuing his journey. Clearly he learned lessons in this life and perhaps taught a few in his short but beautiful video effort.

—
Greg H.

And so beyond that immediate, gut-wrenching moment, what this terrible news brought into sharp relief for me was the simple fact that we are all gifted with something precious: life. Whether you're religious, an atheist, or just of a general spiritual bent, there is far too much to do in our time on this Earth to waste time being negative. Chase your dreams, while appreciating everything you have been given, love and be loved, and perhaps most importantly of all, do good.
Godspeed Ben Breedlove. Thanks for sharing your story.

Ben's favorite video
Kid Cudi - Mr. Rager - 2011

KiD CuDi - Mr. Rager - 2011found onHip-Hop

iJourney: iJourney.org: An Inner Journey

2011-12-04T07:17:00.001-06:00

iJourney: iJourney.org: An Inner Journey

Fabric of the Cosmos - What is Space - Reality as a Hologram - Illusion of Time

2011-12-04T07:12:00.001-06:00

Fabric of the Cosmos - What is Space - Reality as a Hologram - Illusion of Time

2011-11-28T21:36:00.001-06:00

Do you believe in miracles?

Not Photoshopped: Beam of Light Shines on Fallen Soldier’s Miracle Dog

Reported by ABC News’ Kimberly Launier:
It was an overcast day in Newport, N.H., when a simple “20/20″ shoot turned into something that made me wonder about life after death.

I was filming soldier Justin Rollin’s parents Skip and Rhonda playing with their dog Hero, whose rescue from the Iraq War zone where Justin died was nothing short of a miracle.

Sometimes when Rhonda hugged Hero she would softly pet her face and coo, “Justin, are you in there?” It was Rhonda’s gentle way of remembering their son and his last living connection to Hero. At one point, Hero wandered off and took a stroll in the backyard. All of a sudden, the clouds broke and a light began to solidify in a beam directly down on Hero — a kind of vertical halo.

As this dramatic ray of light was shining on Hero she turned to look at me, and it was all I could do to hold the camera steady and not drop it in astonishment. It was an unforgettable moment, and made me wonder if in fact Justin was in there. Then the light vanished.

I couldn’t wait to check my camera’s playback to see if it caught the stunning beam. When I saw that it did, I was so happy that I burst out dancing. It was a great moment to share with Justin’s parents. We all laughed together, and wondered if perhaps this had been a sign from Justin.

Watch the full story Friday on “20/20″ at 10 p.m. ET and read more about Hero and Justin here.

video platform video management video solutions video player

Advent - We Enter the Season of Violet Light

2011-11-27T06:05:00.001-06:00

The Dream of the Alchemists

The Violet Flame is a tool of self-transformation. Physical experiments in alchemy whereby base metals are transformed into gold are symbolic of what the Violet Flame does.

In medieval times, alchemists attempted to transmute base metals into gold, using heat to separate the "subtle" from the "gross". While there have always been alchemists who sought to create wealth by transmuting base metals, this process of transmutation is symbolic of a higher and more noble Alchemy - the Alchemy of self-transformation.

Alchemists of the Spirit did not seek physical wealth, but spiritual wealth. They sought to transform themselves into more spiritual beings, by becoming more loving, wise and compassionate. The Violet Flame has the capacity to bring about this transformation by transmuting negative elements within ourselves. The Violet Flame has the unique ability to transform fear into courage, anxiety into peace and hatred into love. This is why knowledge of the Violet Flame has been so prized throughout the centuries.

Alchemists of all ages have sought the mystical philosophers’ stone. Early alchemists pored over minutely ciphered texts in search of this stone. For them, it was worth a lifetime to decode the mystery of this "stone" which symbolized the transmutation of the lower animal nature into the highest and divine. The coveted philosophers’ stone - "the stone which is no stone" - was not physical, but spiritual, and created out of fire.

Some alchemists did discover the secret of the Violet Flame. According to Neoplatonist alchemists, the philosophers’ stone was a self-transforming fire that would lead their souls upward, by drawing up to the Spirit all qualities which dragged downward and opposed the spiritual essences. In the process, the "hard and refractory materials" in their bodies would be transmuted into a rare and more luminous material. In this sacred experiment, they said the alchemist would become "like the gods", pursuing "the gold of the wise and not the vulgar metal".

Transmutation, then, was not just a process which turned base metals into gold, but a spiritual process which raised the soul into a state of unity with the Divine.

The Violet Flame - The Alchemist's Dream

Life has been quite the roller coast ride for me lately. I have not felt competent enough to write any posts on here, perhaps that is a symptom of my inner journeys. I have had a glorious summer of beautiful, bountiful gardening. I started a small business of selling plants at a local farmer's market. It was very hard work but so very rewarding. It was in a section of town that has fallen into hard times, all the businesses have left for people with more money. Lots of old, beautiful, now empty buildings. I was chastised by many people for making this my area to open my business in. I should try for the booming, white, suburban areas. I am glad I didn't listen to them. I met the most wonderful people this summer. It seemed that I was surrounded by kindness and true, honest joy. Just the plain joy of living and being in sync with the pulse of life. It is a place that I strive to find each and every day. But in these times it grows much harder to find that "violet flame".

In reading back over some of my posts here, I discover how very wordy and boring some of my posts are. I copy and past way too much when I should only past waypoints. I will try to do better. I just want to share the secrets that I discover. But truly all I can do is show the way..........

So in this wonderful season of Advent, or the coming of the Violet Light I hope you will find your own secrets.

GA Homily for the First Sunday in Advent
by Rev. Steven Marshall

Seeking the Light

The First Sunday of advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. Like Lent, it is a penitential season and a preparation for a new cycle. Traditionally Advent is a time of fasting and praying. For the Gnostic the penitential seasons are a time for quiet introspection and self-reflection in preparation for the great festivals of Christmas and Easter.

Paramahansa Yogananda describes this inner work of preparation as a work of inner cleansing and purification.

"I will prepare for the coming of the Omnipresent baby Christ by cleaning the cradle of my consciousness and sense attachments; and by polishing it with deep, daily, divine meditation, introspection, and discrimination. I will remodel the cradle with the dazzling soul-qualities of brotherly love, humbleness, faith, desire for God, will power, self-control, renunciation and unselfishness, that I may fittingly celebrate the birth of the Divine Child."

http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/homily_Advent1.htm

http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/homily_Advent2.htm

During the season of Advent we are most acutely aware of those less fortunate and in need. As we perceive the pain and suffering in the world, we can often feel overwhelmed with the immensity of the divine work of redemption. The Book of Sophia describes this work of redemption in marvelous simplicity, not as an external projection but as an inner mystery.

"Do to all men who come to you and believe in you and listen to your words what is worthy of the mysteries of the Light, give the mysteries of the Light and do not hide them from them. For he who shall give life to a single soul and liberate it, besides the Light that is in his own soul, he shall receive other glory in return for the soul he has liberated."

The most precious gift we have to give in this work of redemption in the world is the offering of the mysteries of the Light, however we may attest to them, not by street corner evangelism or door to door proselytizing but by doing what is worthy of the mysteries of the Light to those who seek it and come to us. As one by one the Light is awakened in others, then the pain and suffering in the world can be transformed.

My wish for all of us is that we can each find our way during this journey of life to our own "violet light" and become wayshowers for all that search.

On the wings of a snow white dove

2011-06-14T22:02:00.000-05:00

Some days it just all comes together and the world turns golden. A bubble of a new reality drifts on into my dreams and doors open to the heaven that is there all the time. The trick is holding on to it.

I am an avid follower of Montalk, one the deepest thinkers on the planet Earth. I happened to stumble across his site this weekend to discover this new article Dawn of a New Cosmic Day

Here is a small snippet that took my breath away -

Timewars
How do thoughtforms tie into timeline dynamics? Once created, they ceaselessly pursue their programming until the astral archetypes delineating their objectives are fully manifested in the physical. That is their demiurgic function, to take an archetypal template and realize it in the physical. Usually they do this by exerting pressure upon the timeline at quantum bifurcation points, bending it toward the probable futures where their objectives are fulfilled. Thoughtforms may be interpreted as strange attractors located in the future, pulling various timeline pathways toward them like magnets attracting iron particles along their magnetic field lines.

The prime objective of the Demiurge is to fashion the Universe, to generate and perpetuate physicality. This objective is met every second as the Demiurge or World Thoughtform collapses quantum wave functions into tangible configurations, like a sliding zipper meshing together separate strands into a single line. Hence linear time ticks on with or without our participation.

The Demiurge is responsible for time itself, just as an author is responsible for time within a novel’s plot, or the subconscious for time in a dream. Lesser thoughtforms, which are but extrusions of the Demiurge, respectively modulate the properties of time according to their archetypal impulse. Weaker thoughtforms merely have probabilistic influence, nudging the course of events toward one probable future instead of another, while stronger thoughtforms could conceivably reformulate the entire timeline. An author may feel a weak impulse and merely change the direction of the story, or a strong impulse and rewrite it from scratch.

Christ and Yahweh signify the diametrically opposed primary extensions of the Demiurge rooted in divergent probable futures. In one probable future, the Christ thoughtform has accomplished its objective of spiritualizing matter, restoring all fallen souls, and placing physicality back under the reign of the Logos. In the other probable future, Yahweh has fully matterized spirit, enchained higher souls into the darkest of conditions, and thereby secured for itself the most exquisite energy source.

Each exerts its influence upon the timeline, each represents a particular state, aspect, or extrusion of the World Thoughtform, and each sends its feedback flow into the present from our perceived future. In turn, we send our feedback flow into the future via the causal consequences of how we respond physically, mentally, and emotionally. Our response increases or diminishes the strength of either future/thoughtform via the past-future feedback loop.
While the Logos is beyond even the Demiurge and is an eternal intelligence beyond time, the Christ impulse appears to be a provisional thoughtform active within linear time as a probability current flowing toward the best of all possible outcomes. Meanwhile, Yahweh is one flowing toward the worst. None can deny that these worlds exist as probable futures; it follows from the simple fact that not all futures are equal, thus some are better than others, and there exists the best and worst among them.

Christ and Yahweh are completely goal oriented like any thoughtform, ceaselessly working to fulfill their objectives, one toward ultimate balance and the spiritualization of matter, the other toward ultimate imbalance and deadening of spirit. Consequently, our timeline is under competition by two primary opposing time loops, or equivalently, our world is the intersection between higher and lower realms. This dynamic is represented in the Gnostic Christian symbol of the vesica piscis, two circles intersecting.

The late Philip K. Dick, science fiction author and modern Gnostic, speculated on the matter as follows:
The Logos is not a retrograde energetic life form, but the Holy Spirit, the Parakletos, is. If the Logos is outside time, imprinting, then the Holy Spirit stands at the right or far or completed end of time, toward which the field flow moves (the time flow). It receives time: the negative terminal, so to speak. Related to the Logos in terms of embodying world-directives and world-organizing powers, but at a very weak level, it can progressively to a greater degree overcome the time field and flow back against it, into it, impinging and penetrating. It moves in the opposite direction. It is the anti-time. So it is correct to distinguish it from the Logos, which so to speak reaches down into the time flow from outside, from eternity or the real universe. The H.S [Holy Spirit] is in time, and is moving: retrograde. Like tachyons, its motion is a temporal one; opposite to ours and the normal direction of the universal causal motion.
Equilibrium is achieved by the Logos operating in three directions: from behind us as causal-time-pressure, from above, then the final form, the very weak H.S. drawing toward perfection each form. But now equilibrium as we know it is being lost in favor of a growing ratio of the retrograde teleology. This implies we are entering, have entered, a unique time: nearing completion of the manifold forms. Last pieces are going into place in the over-all pattern. The task or mode of the H.S. is completing. Not beginning, not renewing or maintaining, but bringing to the end, to the close. An analogy would be the transit of a vehicle from one planet to another; first stage is the gravity of planet of origin; then equilibrium of both planets in terms of their pull; then the growing pull of the destination gravity-field as it gradually takes over and completes the journey. Beginning, middle, end. At last one senses the receiving field engage, and then correct. (Philip K. Dick, In Pursuit of Valis, pp. 64-65)
Corruption of the timeline stems from the corruption of the Demiurge, for the Demiurge is time. Both the quality of time and the fabric of history were affected by this corruption. If the Demiurge is responsible for time in general, the Corrupted Demiurge is responsible for linear time in particular, for the limitations imposed by linear time are favorable to its agenda. Those who succumbed to the Corrupted Demiurge underwent a Fall into the limited spacetime bubble we are now accustomed to, a realm where time marches ceaselessly forward toward entropy, atrophy, and decay and the senses are confined to the domain of matter and electromagnetic energy. These conditions, which define the Cosmic Sleep, serve to increasingly isolate us from true reality. Were it not for the influence of Spirit/Logos, every last one of us would be matrix puppets.
Hence the influence of Logos, which intervened through the Christ or Holy Spirit thoughtforms as a direct counter-reaction to the threat of the Corrupted Demiurge, may be said to be working “over and against” linear time. It counters linear time not by creating a reversed linear time flow, but a nonlinear type of time harmonized with the Logos. (In mathspeak: imaginary time. Tachyons don’t move backwards in time, but propagate in imaginary time. The opposite of causality is not reverse causality, but acausality). It works through synchronistic, nondeterministic, critical point intervention instead of cold mechanistic calculation. It works through the butterfly effect. Many of the parables attributed to Jesus pertain to this.
The Dissolution of Linear Time
As with the Philosopher’s Stone transmuting matter, sufficient etheric energy can also override linear time. The meta-civilization can exist outside linear time because they possess a quantity and quality of etheric energy that places them beyond the grasp of the particular World Thoughtform that still holds us firmly in linear time. The implication is that the Etheric Tide irradiating Earth may loosen that grip.

Put another way, the Dawn of a New Cosmic Day, which represents a major transformation of the Demiurge, would signify a major transformation in the nature of time as well. Time could change toward nonlinearity: variable time rate, selectable location along the timeline, and greater malleability in what directional heading time takes. Right now, linear time marches steadily forward like involuntary muscle movements during sleep, such as breathing, while nonlinear time is like consciousness returning to the body and resuming voluntary control.

The Etheric Tide poses both a dilemma and opportunity for the Corrupted Demiurge. While the dissolution of linear time would undermine the control it has enjoyed so far in our history, it can still reign afterwards should nonlinear time be successfully harmonized with its parasitic objectives.

This has already happened in certain probable futures, futures from which negative time travelers originate. These alien manipulators are entirely steeped in nonlinear time, for they use time travel freely, but even so they are saddled with limitations that force them to rely on cold calculation to pursue their agendas. Even with their nonlinear and demiurgic abilities, it seems they get befuddled and undermined by the even more subtle, synchronistic, and incomprehensible maneuvers of the Logos.
Timewars and Thoughtforms
Nonlinear time makes the past accessible and reconfigurable. Thus our reality is accessible and reconfigurable by beings who operate beyond linear time. This necessarily includes forces from our own probable futures who have already undergone the Etheric Tide and broken free from linear time, be they positive or negative.

If time travel is possible, it will happen sooner or later, therefore it already has happened at some point in the future, hence we are being visited by time travelers from our perceived future. This would be mere philosophizing were it not for alienology research confirming that time travelers do indeed comprise a portion of the alien presence. The other portions consists of meta civilizations that previously transcended linear time. Regardless of where within linear history the moment of transcendence was achieved, once beyond, one “joins the club” so to speak.

Warring among meta-civilization factions has the appearance of a timewar. As they attempt to reconfigure the past in their favor, we would experience a tug of war that continually adjusts our trajectory into the future. The subtler details are explained in my Timeline Dynamics article. The more our trajectory points toward their particular probable future, the stronger and more tangible they become to us. That is mathematical fact in quantum physics. This feedback loop resembles thoughtforms acquiring energy and tangibility and is intimately tied into that process:

Better probable futures are ones that have more of the Christ impulse defining their World Thoughtform, worse probable futures have the Yahweh or Corrupted Demiurge impulse underpinning theirs. The best of all possible futures is entirely of Christ/Logos, the worst entirely by Yahweh/Corrupted Demiurge. These are the “alive cat” vs “dead cat” outcomes in our cosmic Schrödinger’s Experiment. Currently the two states are superimposed, both outcomes exist in a mixed state, which is why both influences are simultaneously active in our world.

After reading this article I spent the rest of my day outside in my garden. It was one of those perfect June Days when the sun sparkles and your body can actually feel one with the earth and feel the great love of the "Holy Spirit". Time did not exist per se, I was one with life, all life. This is how we were meant to live. Deeply.

Returning to my blog tonight I happened to discover that my computer's clock was goofed up for some reason and was stuck on Sunday, June 12th. Imagine the tingly sensation that surged through me when I also discovered this:
Sunday, June 12th a Homily for Pentecost, the Coming of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost is a very important feast day in our Gnostic liturgical calendar. It commemorates the promised coming of the Holy Spirit to the Disciples, which was predicted by Jesus prior to his mystical death and resurrection. The mythic cycle of the liturgical year seems to come to an end at Pentecost, yet, for the Gnostic, it is the beginning of the true spiritual mission of the Christos. The Pistis Sophia describes twelve years of activity by the Logos among the disciples after the Ascension. It also describes the Apostleship of Mary Magdalen and the mythic cycle of the feminine power represented in the descent, suffering and assumption of Sophia.

Pentecost with the insertion of the Trinity season begins an entire half of the year, representing the mythic cycle of the feminine aspect of God, the season of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost, like Advent, is a beginning, the beginning of a new level of spiritual activity in our archetypal life. The Holy Spirit, like a great wind, blows into our spiritual life with something new, unexpected, and, even if somewhat unsettling, yet as a consoler and comforter that is not of this world.
The Gospel of St. Matthew states quite accurately "The Spirit bloweth where it listeth."

Pentecost (Whitsunday)

Intent: Coming of the Holy Spirit

THE COLLECT

Eternal Spirit of Wisdom, source of love and light; thou norm of the Father and the Son, who comest into the soul of man as the balance of righteousness and truth, we hail thee! Most holy comforter, dove that deifiest mankind; thou presence most secret and adored in all the worlds, hear our prayer! Thou who art the fire of Pentecost, who movest upon the face of the waters; who comest down as a mighty wind; and who renewest the face of the earth, we glorify thee, and rejoice in the all renewing majesty of thy deathless might, now and forevermore.
Amen.

THE LESSON

The lesson is taken from the Kephalaia of the Paraclete:

The fount of every blessing and all the invocations is the mother of life, the first Holy Spirit, the first mother who has come forth the father and first appeared, the glorious one who is the beginning of all emanations that have come to this world. Know that the grains of the dust of the earth can be measured, with the whole universe, one can count the grains of the dust of the earth year after year; but the length of time the Holy Spirit passed with the father, that one cannot count. He first formed her in his inner chambers in quiet and in silence; but when she was needed, then was she called and came forth from the father of greatness; she looked after all the aeons of the light.

THE GOSPEL

The gospel is taken from the Gospel according to St. John:

Jesus said unto His disciples: I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that She may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Her not, neither knoweth Her; but ye know Her, for She dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more, but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also. The Comforter, who is the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, she shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

The Gardener

2011-05-26T21:55:00.001-05:00

http://www.digitalblasphemy.com/graphics/640x480/gardener1640.jpg

The Mysterious Gardener
Stuart Wilde
{Excerpted from Plum Red by Stuart Wilde (unpublished)}

A tale about your silent power.
Many years ago in old China, there were a group of small villages on the banks of a muddy tributary of a great river in the province of Shan Tung. The villagers were very poor. The crops often failed, and the river flooded from time-to-time, making matters worse. The water really wasn't very clean; it carried disease and parasites, which affected animals, and sometimes the villagers became sick. At harvest time, bandits would come down from the hills, attacking the villages, and they would carry off the crop. The villagers' lives were miserable, brutal and hard.
They got together and decided they would build a temple, hoping that through prayer and dedication, their fortunes might change. The land around there was not particularly fertile or attractive, but there was a very nice spot under a small hill, which had a stream running past it. They consulted with a local master who knew where the dragon lines flowed, and he decided that that spot would be an auspicious place to build the temple. He insisted the temple be placed so that the hill was behind it.
Work commenced, and the villagers began hauling stones and digging the foundations, and about forty of them, men and women, were involved in the activity. Each took turns to work on the temple, then he or she would return to their work in fields, and so in this way the temple gradually got going in fits and starts.
They had been working about a month, when a stranger walked into the village. He seemed young. He was tall and strong, but not muscular. He sat by the village well, not far from the building site. The villagers were suspicious of him; they wanted to know who he was.
He told them he was a traveler, and he asked if he might rest by the well for a few days. He assured them he would cause them no trouble.
The stranger hardly ever spoke, except to exchange a few pleasantries with those that came to fetch water. He sat by the well for three days, watching the villagers building their temple. Finally, he asked one of them, "What are you building?" A villager told him their tale of woe, saying how the people had decided to build a temple, hoping that it might bring them better fortune.
The stranger nodded as if approving. A short silence hung in the air, and then the villager returned to his work. The stranger's presence soon became the talk of the village. They wondered who he was. Some said he must be a sage. Others disagreed; he looked too young to be a wise man. The stranger was dressed in an unconventional way. This gave rise to further discussions and speculation. He carried a long sword strapped across his back, and he wore protective clothing made of leather. His jerkin was studded with metal on the chest and shoulders. Yet the rest of his clothes were those of a peasant with one exception, tied around his waist was a silk sash. It was wound around him several times and knotted at the hip; from there it hung down to his right, almost to his knee.
The sash was plum red in color.

Some of the villagers felt he was an impoverished warrior, between assignments, looking for work perhaps. Others felt he might be a holy man. Yet he wasn't dressed as a holy man. Soon, curiosity turned to fear as it does at times, and the villagers met and decided to confront the stranger. They wanted to send him on his way. At first, the villagers thought they would organize a group of men to attack and kill the stranger. But it was pointed out by one of the medicine women of the tribe, that killing a stranger that had caused them no harm, at a time when the villagers were building a temple, might bring upon them even greater woes.
In the end, it was decided that they would ambush him at night as he sat by the well, and they would bind him, beat him, and take him down the road and set him free with a warning not to return. Six men were assigned to the task. However, things didn't quite go as planned. For when the men crept up to the well in the dead of night, the stranger was not there.
The next morning at dawn they found him seated in front of the temple playing a small instrument, which we know today as the Jew's harp. It's a small, round, metal instrument that you place against your teeth and pluck. It makes a very haunting, melodious, delicate twanging sound. The stranger sat there in front of the temple, playing his music; around him he had marked a very large circle in the dirt with a stick. The villagers approached cautiously, calling out to him, "Who are you? What do you want here?" The stranger said nothing.
The six men assigned to the task of ambushing him came forward somewhat hesitantly, armed with clubs and make-shift spears. The stranger didn't move. So the men shuffled further forward, as if making ready to attack. But when they got to the edge of the circle marked on the ground, they found they could go no further. It was as if an invisible wall surrounded the stranger. Now the men became scared, and they and the rest of the villagers backed away in a hurry. They all met outside the village to discuss what to do. By now they were all convinced the man was a sorcerer, one that had been sent by evil forces to hinder them.
No work was done on the temple that day, as the villagers were scared to go past the circle the stranger had drawn in front of the partially constructed temple building. So they just watched him from a distance. He hardly ever moved. Sometimes he played a tune, other times he sat in silence.
By dusk, they could bare it no longer, and one man was assigned to speak to the stranger. The spokesman shuffled forward to the edge of the circle, he had with him a bowl of rice. He bowed and called out saying, "Stranger, I have a bowl of rice here for you. We want to ask you a few questions?"
How many questions?", asked the stranger.
Hurriedly, the spokesman counted on his fingers, "Four questions, sir," he answered politely.
The stranger rose from his place in the center of the circle and came over to the edge of the circle, where the village spokesman was kneeling and holding out the bowl of rice. The stranger bowed and took the bowl.
The villager said, "We want to know your name. How old are you? Where are you from? And what is your occupation?"
The stranger squatted at the edge of the circle in silence, eating his rice, saying nothing. The spokesman knelt outside the circle, waiting for the answers.
When the stranger had finished eating, he said, "I will answer three of your four questions. I am thirty-three years old. I am from the mountains that are beyond the western ocean. I work as a gardener."
As he spoke, the villager noticed for the first time that the stranger's voice had a strange, eerie quality about it. It was soft and lilting, his words were spoken with an odd cadence that gave the impression the man was talking and singing at the same time. It was a bit like a version of plain song, that on occasions, you may have heard in church.
The spokesman rushed back to the others to report his findings. There was a cackle of confusion, as everyone talked at once. Is he really thirty-three? They wondered, he seemed far too mature to be just thirty-three. Everyone knew that the land beyond the western ocean was a land inhabited by ghouls and demons. Was he a demon? He didn't seem evil. No one believed he was just a gardener.
Night fell. The stranger sat in his circle and played his tunes. Sometimes he sang, and sometimes he played, and the villagers liked the music, and so they sat at a distance listening. He played most of the night.
Next day, the village spokesman approached again with a bowl of rice. The stranger took the rice saying, "Now, I will ask you a question. What are you building over there?"
"A temple sir," answered the spokesman.
"Where are the gardens?", asked the stranger.
"We have no gardens planned. We are poor. It is as much as we can do to pay for the materials for the building," answered the villager.
The stranger lent forward and said in his quiet singsong voice, "A temple without a garden, is like a song bird without a voice." Then there was a long pause, and he added, "I've come to build your garden."
"But sir," said the spokesman, "we have no money to pay you. At most, we could give you some food, as we do now."
The stranger replied, "I am not asking you for your money. I will begin tomorrow."
The spokesman rushed off to the villagers and told them how the stranger had offered to build a garden for the temple, that he did not want money, and that he would start in the morning.
The next day, the gardener from beyond the western ocean, sat for four hours by the stream, and then he sat for half an hour under each of eight nearby trees, and at dusk, he returned to his circle and played his little mouth harp. The villagers bought him rice.
The day after that, the gardener sat all day by some rocks, returning at dusk to his circle to eat. On the third day, he lay face down on the ground, it seemed as if he was praying. He did that all day, and once again, the villagers bought rice.
On the forth day, he just sat and meditated in front of the temple. On the fifth day, the villagers were now grumbling, "He says he's a gardener, and we feed him everyday, and he hasn't turned one sod of earth in five days. He's a fraud. He knows nothing about temple gardens. Let us be rid of him," they said.
The poor long-suffering spokesman was dispatched once more, calling to the gardener from outside the circle, "Gardener, we need to talk to you. We need to know why you are not working."
The gardener came over to the edge of the circle and knelt down opposite the spokesman, bowing to him politely, he took his bowl of rice and paused and said, "I am working. On the first day, I sat by the stream to talk to the spirit of the water to see what way it might prefer to be directed. Then I entered into each of the eight big trees, and I talked with the spirit of each tree to see which might be cut down and used, and which should be left standing. Then I had to make a friendship with the rocks and look at them closely in a special way, so I could decide which way they might best be placed. Then I had to think for a while and take note of every leaf on every tree, and, knowing which were deciduous and which were evergreens, I had to calculate exactly how the leaves would fall when autumn comes. Then I visited the spirits of the air, those that are familiar with this place, and I discussed with them what directions they might choose, when the late afternoon storms of summer are upon us. One needs to know these things. Then I wondered, measuring in my mind, knowing now the wind and its intention, how the snows of winter will lay upon the temple and its garden. I thought it best to twist the alignment of the garden slightly, so its main features faced more toward the south."
"Then I went into the ground, and I spoke to the rulers of the earth kingdoms, and it was decided at that meeting, that the earth mounds should be to the east, and the rock piles to the west. The stream would be requested to flow over the rocks. This will freshen the air and please the air spirits, without whose cooperation, we would surely be in difficulty. Then I played my little harp, talking to the birds to see which way they might respond to the disturbance created here. Then I flew along the dragon lines that pass invisibly through this place, and I realized there is a very powerful one that passes right through the temple, and it flows exactly through the middle of the garden. Providing of course, that we align the garden over the large circle I have already drawn on the ground. Placed in that way, you will find it most auspicious. For the dragon lines carry all the fortunate energy and well-being, your villages will ever need."
Then the gardener talked a bit about the interplay of invisible energies and the way they can knot up a place, or liberate it, depending on how they are understood and treated, but seeing that the village spokesman was now a bit overwhelmed and rather lost, the gardener fell slowly through his singsong cadence, toward silence and his rice bowl.
The spokesman rushed back to the villagers, his knobbly knees pumping up and down. He was a most energetic little chap and really rather likeable, in a simple and honest way. When he told the villagers what the gardener had said, they all calmed down. Now they felt better, as they were sure they knew that the stranger was not a demon, and some even said they were sure the gardener must be a great sage. Yet they were still puzzled as to why he looked so young; traditionally wise people were very much older than thirty-three.
The next day, the gardener began in earnest. He felled a large tree and stripped its bark and all its branches, and he then called the spokesman and three men over to carry the tree into the circle. Two men lifted one end a few inches off the ground, but it was so heavy, they had to drop it. Then the other two men tried the same thing at the other end, with the same result. Four more men were called. After a great struggle and a lot of huffing and puffing, the eight of them finally got the tree over to the edge of the circle, while the gardener stood to one side to watch. Of course, once there, at the edge of the circle, they could proceed no further, so they lay the tree trunk on the ground, and one man asked the gardener how they might proceed to the center of the circle, where the tree was needed.
The gardener walked slowly over to the tree trunk and standing straddled over it with one foot on one side and the other foot on the other, he bent down low, so his mouth was almost touching it. He began making a strange clicking sound with his tongue, and shortly thereafter, you could hear another strange noise all around. It seemed as if the noise hung in the air, suspended in and around the tree trunk, it was much like the sound of the snapping of twigs. The villagers stepped back wondering what was happening. Then the gardener went to one end of the tree trunk, and placing his hands between the tree and the ground, he lifted that end up effortlessly, as if it were light as a feather. Sliding his hands along the trunk of the tree, he arrived at the middle, and from there, he hoisted up the tree trunk, taking the enormous weight of it on his shoulders. He walked slowly into the circle and put the tree carefully where he wanted it. The villagers were amazed.
He worked all the next day bringing tree trunks into the circle. At dusk, the village spokesman brought him a bowl of rice. But this time the gardener declined, saying he was absolutely sure the rice was delicious, but that he wasn't very hungry and perhaps one of the others might be glad of a bit extra.
On the second day, the gardener moved rocks, and again he politely declined any food, saying that he felt a little too tired to eat, and that the food should be given to one of the others that had worked on the temple. On day three, he toiled all day moving earth, and again he declined to eat, suggesting that the extra rice might be shared with the children. And each day the gardener lifted heavy logs and rocks, and he toiled from dawn until sundown. Each night he made a slightly different excuse, declining the rice each time it was offered.
At night, he slept very little. Mostly he played his mouth harp and guarded his creation, while watching the stars on clear nights. Sometimes, he lay on the ground face down; you could hear him praying.
After a week or so, the garden was taking shape. There was something very serene about the way he had taken sand and gravel and raked it out in straight lines, placing large rocks in it here and there. And now the channel for the stream was halfway dug. You could see how it would flow from the north, past the temple, turning to the west to enter the garden, and meandering round the rocks and mounds; you could see how it would exit and continue on its way.
The first week passed, then the second, and still the gardener had not eaten. The villagers had seen him drinking from the stream, but he took no food. They felt he would soon expire, as no one can take on such heavy work and not eat for weeks on end.
Sometimes it rained, and you could see the gardener was delighted. He danced and sang and played tunes, and he splashed water around like a little child. Sometimes he sat in the rain for hours motionless. Other times, he'd lay on his back with the rain cascading over his body, while he laughed and laughed and laughed. The villagers watched from a distance, under cover, and they would start laughing with him.
All in all, the gardener worked for forty-two consecutive days, during which time he took no food. Then the garden was finished. It was like no other. It was not just the beauty and the composure of it that made it so special, nor the way it was aligned, nor the plants and rocks, or the sound of the stream flowing over the rocks. The garden had invisible qualities. If you are one that can see the dragon line, you would have noticed how they swirled and bathed the garden with an inner light. You might also have noticed that the fairy gods had set up camp on the mounds to the east of the garden, and you'd surely notice the water spirits playing, as they swept like dolphins over the little waterfalls that tumbled over the boulders.
If you ever passed by in autumn, you would have seen the leaves fall mostly in the center of the garden, and you would be more than a little amazed to see that they formed a special pattern, a symbol that was sacred to those parts. In winter, when the snow fell, it drifted in such a clever way that the paths through the garden hardly had any snow on them at all, yet the sides were piled quite high. You would also see how the icicles hanging off the rocks and crags were not haphazard in their formation. They hung beside each other, like upside-down crystal pikes made of glass, each parallel to another, all in perfect order. There were many strange and wonderful things to see in that garden. In fact, the more you looked, the more you saw. Especially, if you looked with your feelings and your heart and not just with you eyes.
On the forty-second day, the gardener called the spokesman, and he said to him, "Spokesman, the garden is finished, any of you may enter now. It and the temple will bring you more good fortune than you can ever imagine. But you will have to be patient, as it will take a while for others to realize this place has a special magic, but once they do, pilgrims will come, and you will have a steady source of income. And the military rulers of this territory will place a special protection over this temple and its gardens and your villages, and you will no longer be troubled by bandits. And the winds will blow gently, and the rain will fall in proper amounts on a regular basis. And all will be made well, in time."
The spokesman thanked the gardener profusely, and asked him what he wanted for payment, as now the villagers had seen the garden, they suddenly realized what it all meant. They were prepared to give the gardener a handsome payment or gift.
The gardener smiled saying, "You all prayed for a change in fortune, and you took action by beginning your temple, and you asked advice so your building would be placed on an auspicious spot, and then you asked for more fortune, so I came by to ensure you would not be disappointed. For is it not written, that the subtle way of the Tao gives rise to peace and order. Without your summoning the Way, it comes to you, without scheming, its plan is perfect."
The spokesman kissed his hand and said, "In the morning, we will bring you a plump duck and sweet meats and rice wine and a selection of the very best food we have. Then you can tell us how we might repay you, such is our unbounded, heartfelt gratitude."
The gardener smiled, and as the spokesman walked away, the gardener whispered under his breath a saying that he was familiar with, one that came from the sacred writings, "You cannot pay the sun, you are the sun. You cannot recompense the rain, you are the rain; you cannot remunerate the earth, you are the earth. And trying to pay the eternal Tao is extremely silly, for is it not written that you are the eternal Tao, the very living spirit that is in all things, eternal and immortal."
Next day, at dawn, all the villagers came to the garden carrying a plump duck, jugs of rice wine, and baskets filled to the brim with fine sweets and other delicacies.
But the garden was empty. The stranger had gone. On the rock in the middle of the raked sand, next to where the stream tumbled gently over the boulders, in front of the steps that led to the temple, was the little mouth harp placed there, all on its own. The same little mouth harp the stranger had used to call to the spirits of the garden. The one he used to talk to the birds with. The same harp he played to entertain himself while he guarded his garden for forty-two days. The little mouth harp was the gardener's gift to the villagers.
The villagers searched and searched, hoping to find him. They loved him and missed him, and they wanted to thank him, but he was long gone. They never did find him. The mysterious gardener, the one with the leather jerkin and the sword tied behind his back and the plum red sash wound 'round his waist—they never did find that man. He was not seen in those parts ever again.
Of course, the villagers eventually realized that the gardener meant no insult by leaving. He had to leave, it was part of his destiny to do so, for is it not written:

"When bronze and jade fill your hall,
It can no longer be guarded.
Wealth and place breed insolence,
That brings ruin in its train.
When your work is done, then withdraw!
Such is Heaven's Way."
- Tao Te Ching

http://www.stuartwilde.com/articles/redeemers/the_mysterious_gardener.html

The Sound of Music

2011-05-04T22:23:00.000-05:00

4 corners, 4 elements, crosses, Xs, flags, symbols, positive, negative, motion, spin, stars, humans are made in the shape of the universe. Taking a little esoteric stop on the magic bus today, secrets are everywhere.

When you look at the above movie poster for The Sound of Music, what do you see?

And the composer, Richard Rodgers is also famous for a musical documentary that most everyone from my generation recognizes immediately entitled “Victory at Sea”. My father was a WWII veteran and these documentaries played endlessly on that new contraption at our house called “television”. And the music from one of them became imprinted on my brain. It was called – Beneath the Southern Cross. A sultry, moody tango musical interpretation that accompanies this story

Beneath the Southern Cross is another essential Victory at Sea episode, 25 June 2007

Author: tavm from Baton Rouge, La.

It's the battle of the South Atlantic between the British ship Devonshire and the German ship Atlantis. Plenty of footage of South America, both as sympathizers to the Nazi cause and, much later, as American allies willing to aid their northern neighbor's cause...More compelling footage of sea battles accompanied, as always, by the stirring music of Richard Rodgers and likewise that of Leonard Graves' narration. Highly essential viewing for anyone interested in the way World War II was filmed for the record of depicting the what, how, and why of the decisions of the various world leaders and the way it affected the rest of the fighting men doing the actual battles.

Here is a link to a mp3 of “Beneath the Southern Cross” and the main theme of Victory at Sea.

http://home.comcast.net/~pflyersboy/victory/victory_at_sea_theme.mp3
http://home.comcast.net/~pflyersboy/victory/beneath_the_southern_cross.mp3

And The Sound of Music is famous for so many beautiful songs, one of them Edelweiss (like the swastika and the cross) has been corrupted and changed to fit Christian soldiers and white power groups. The true words of the song are taught and sung by………………….The Boy Scouts.

http://www.usscouts.org/songs/songbk2a.asp

10 EDELWEISS

Edelweiss, Edelweiss

Every morning you greet me

Small and white,

Clean and bright,

You look happy to meet me.

Blossom of snow

May you bloom and grow,

Bloom and grow forever,

Edelweiss, Edelweiss,

Bless my homeland forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelweiss_%28song%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_of_Music

During the Cold War, BBC planned to broadcast The Sound of Music on radio in the event of a nuclear strike on the United Kingdom. The broadcast would be part of an emergency timetable of programs designed to "reassure" the public in the aftermath of the attack. BBC officials didn't realize that a television broadcast would not be possible, because television sets would be rendered inoperable by the electromagnetic pulse effect.[3]

http://www.btinternet.com/~pdbean/threads.html

article about the BBC planned broadcast, if you thought the TV show Jericho was scary, read this

and some quotes that speak to me from Hazrat Inayat Khan

"But among all the different arts, the art of music has been especially considered divine, because it is the exact miniature of the law working through the whole universe."

"According to the esoteric standpoint, music is the beginning and the end of the universe. All actions and movements made in the visible and invisible world are musical. That is: they are made up of vibrations pertaining to a certain plane of existence."

"Those who have probed the depth of material science as far as modern science can reach, do not deny the fact that the origin of the whole creation is in movement, in other words; in vibration. It is this original state of existence of life which is called in the ancient tradition sound or the word. The first manifestation of this sound is therefore audible, the next manifestation visible. In the forms of expression of life, life has expressed itself first as sound, next as light."

"Philosophy or science, mysticism or esotericism will all agree on one point if they touch the summit of their knowledge, and that point is that behind the whole of creation, behind the whole of manifestation - if there is any subtle trace of life that can be found, it is motion, it is movement, it is vibration. This motion has its two aspects. There are two aspects because we have developed two principal faculties: sight and hearing. One aspect appeals to our hearing, the other to our sight."

And some links that speak to me about symbols and the universe and what all this alien language of symbols and multi levels of meaning are…

http://vincentbridges.com/?page_id=51

Fulcanelli’s Final Revelation: Raising the Djed at the End of Time

By Vincent Bridges and Jay Weidner

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Cthulhu.html

Battling Cthulhu

Who Is Cthulhu?

Cthulhu comes from the “fictional” works of H.P. Lovecraft. From what vision-world did H.P. Lovecraft perceive and write about “the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men... They had shape but that shape was not made of matter... the Great Old Ones spoke to (the first men) by molding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshy minds of mammals...” This, as will be seen, contains a great deal of truth.

I apologize for all the hopping and roundabouts, I doubt that sadly that I make sense to anyone but me. Like the elves said to Terrence McKenna, we want you to change your language, maybe we finally are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f7fZrQzgQc&feature=related

Indiana Jones: The Cross of Coronado

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Last_Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Alison Doody, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies. This film is the third released, though the twenty-fifth chronologically, in a series of film and TV productions about the adventures of the heroic fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones.

When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (played by Connery) vanishes while pursuing a life-long search for the Holy Grail, Indiana must retrace his father's steps in the hopes of rescuing him – and the Grail – from the clutches of the Nazi military machine. Worldwide, the film was the highest grossing movie of 1989

In 1912, boy scout Indiana Jones steals the Cross of Coronado, an ornamental cross belonging to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, from grave robbers, believing it should be in a museum instead of a private collection, in the process using a whip, scarring his chin, and gaining his fear of snakes. Although he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the police that Indiana was the thief, and he is forced to return it, while his oblivious father, Henry Jones, is working on his research. One of the robbers, dressed very similarly to the future Indiana, gives him a fedora. In 1938, an adult Indiana is on the robbers' ship, the Coronado, off the Portuguese coast, finally retrieving the Cross and donating it to Marcus Brody's museum.

http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/Cross_of_Coronado
The Cross of Coronado was a jewel-encrusted golden crucifix with a chain; named for Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado. It was believed to contain a piece of the cross Jesus was crucified on.

Coronado Naval Base barracks -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Amphibious_Base_Coronado

Complex 320-325, which is located at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado and is surrounded by Bougainville Road to the north, Tulagi Road to the south, Eniwetok Road to the east, and ROI Road to the west, looks like a swastika when seen from above. The final look of the 6-building complex as seen from the air, was the result of an oversight by Navy planners at the time. A draft study conducted by the National Register of Historic Places noted that the shape of the six-building complex was simply an oversight that went undetected during the Navy’s approval process

http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/blackwater-knights-of-malta-in-iraq/

12 Around 1, Miners, and Me

2011-05-04T05:22:00.001-05:00

I have a vast treasure trove of articles that I posted on a now defunct forum called "Stargate Zero 2012". I was a forum administrator for over 7 years. I was very upset when one day it just disappeared and all the wonderful articles were gone. That forum was my indoctrination into a new way to view all of life, as deeper, richer and find that connections abound. I often wonder if these connections are just happenstance or did we ourselves leave signposts to help guide us through the maze.

This is the beginning of my journey into finding a signpost:

Perhaps some of you may wonder why I just won’t leave West Virginia and the Sago Mine disaster alone. Well to be honest I wonder myself. But this story caused a strange rift to happen inside me. Almost like someone drilled a bore hole in my brain and flicked a light switch that opened up a strange doorway into a whole new way of seeing life and ordinary common events. And many strange things have continued to happen to me since. And not all of them good, but many are. Almost as if by journeying down this deep mine I took on my own journey to find the Golden Fleece.

Caves are deep dark areas of all human psyches, and anyone who has the courage to overcome their fear of the dark and hidden enclosed spaces are to be considered heroic in my viewpoint. Caves scare the hell out of me. Being trapped deep underground is something that I don’t think I mentally could survive. The dark hidden places within the earth seem to hold a very intense fascination for all of us. Something within all of our buried unconscious remembers this and it is a piece of our unremembered history.

The original story of who we are and where we came from starts with us being miners and cave dwellers. Miners to the brothers Enki and Enlil. And all the “Hollow Earth” stories of strange beings and men from the stars. You have to admit it does resonate in you.

The Sago Mine Disaster is like one of those hidden picture stories for me. You hold it one way and a unique story appears, hold it another way and another story appears. And strangely enough all the stories are stories within other stories and they all relate to who we are and where we came from.

12 around 1. Everything within our present existence is based upon this. 13 miners were lost and 1 miraculously survived.

Take a look at a clock face. Take a look at the painting of the Last Supper with Jesus.

12 around 1 is all about us discovering the sacred geometry of life and who we truly are.

Many strange synchronicities started to appear when I started looking at Sago. And like I said some were not good.

Randal came out of the mine in a deep coma. On the exact same day Ariel Sharon in Israel went into a coma that he never has come out of. The miners wrote stories of just going to sleep and I’ll see you on the other side. One of my dearest friends in the midst of Sago just went to sleep and never woke up. Her name was Sharon.

Weeping uncontrollably, somehow feeling responsible for her death for “looking” at Sago, I felt that I was trapped deep underground also. One night during all this darkness I was in my kitchen making dinner and pulled out plates out of the cabinet to serve dinner. Looking down at the plates my heart stopped. Right there in my hand was 12 around 1.

When my husband and I first got married money was tight and we started life out together with practically nothing. We had a bed, a TV, a folding card table with 4 chairs and no plates, silverware or pots and pans.

Our grocery store used to offer dinner plates for free if you spent around $20, and trust me $20 was a LOT of money back then. So over the years I have collected a mishmash of plates this way. Some I have 4 of, some 3 and some 2. But this particular plate I only have one of. And it is the first plate that we started our journey together with. Standing there in my kitchen holding this plate, that had sat there all these years, followed me from home to home, waiting silently, patiently for me to one day really see it and know that something or someone was speaking to me.

It is a perfect example of 12 around 1 and the flower of life.

Now if I haven’t totally convinced you of my craziness, if you’re interested take a journey with me to discover all the secret, hidden things that are locked up in this crazy ride of life.

And many tears later, I can read this article with new wisdom -

Roof Collapse Kills Miner in Eastern Ky.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PIKEVILLE, Ky. - A roof collapse at an eastern Kentucky coal mine killed one miner, a state official said.

The rock fall occurred about 900 feet inside the Maverick Mining Co. LLC mine in Pikeville, near the Virginia line, said Chuck Wolfe, spokesman for the Kentucky Office of Mine Safety and Licensing

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/355976/roof_collapse_kills_miner_in_eastern_ky/index.html?source=r_science#

And now we are back to 13. And on the other side of the river in Pikeville. Home of The Hatfields and McCoys. And home to where the families held a truce in 2003 and finally realized that we are all brothers and sisters.

All I know is that this story has opened my heart (my third eye) and leads me ever onward. The deaths along the way are so frightening to me. I spent the entire weekend frightened and curled up into a ball. I refused to look at it or go anywhere near it. So frightened. Was I making this happen? Just by looking at it?

I think that is my ego talking to me. Only God can make this happen.

This story happened late last week. I refused to talk about it, or look at it, I didn’t want anyone else to die. But they did.

One of my dearest friends died late Saturday night. Her name was Sharon. She was an angel. She rescued animals and homeless people. She loved life, she loved people. She was very special and kind.

She just went to sleep and never woke up. She just stopped breathing. She was 49 on Christmas Eve. I am going to her wake today. It is at 2099 Miner Street in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Dreams

2011-03-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

This entry is weird and long. So if you are not so inclined then move along. Nothing to see here. I wrote this as an entry in my daily journal and it is directed at my daughters.

Dreams and what to make of them? I so very rarely remember any of my dreams anymore that I was positive that I just didn’t have any. For years I always had the most vivid dreams. The majority of them were always frightening as hell. I was forever being chased by some monster (always male and always evil as hell). Most times I had some little child that I was trying to save or protect. Many times I would wake up sobbing and run into my babies rooms as they were sleeping to make sure they were okay. I think deep down my most horrible fear is that someone would hurt one of my children and I wouldn’t be able to protect them. Dreams are weird. I can’t remember ever having any happy ones. Just always this horrifying running from something and trying to save one of my babies.

Well a couple of weeks ago, I had this dream that I can’t get out of my head. It started out as this nice beautifully peaceful day. Everything was green, the sky was blue and I was playing with my granddaughters outside. Something alerted me that danger was coming. I gathered up all the girls, holding tight to all their little hands and dragging them inside to their apartment. We had to run up a bunch of stairs to get inside to their apartment. Something in my mind said that wolves were coming. I never saw any wolves and wouldn’t think that I would be afraid of wolves. Well we had to go up all these stairs to get inside. Each stair was a big wooden deck and they were arranged in a spiral. Holding tight to all three girls we ran up and up. Finally we made it into their apartment. It was a nice place but not where they really live, I had never seen this place before. I started to calm down and the girls were all making fun of scarety cat grandma. I set them up watching TV and began to look around. The first thing I noticed was the patio door was open and the outside deck was rotten and filled with holes big enough for a child to fall through and Gabby was headed right for it. I ran and slammed the door shut and locked it. Well all of you know me well enough to know that I am absolutely scared to death of heights, and the thought that a child might fall, and I wouldn’t be able to save them makes my heart stop. I think you can all remember how tight I used to hold on to your hands anytime we went on any kind of ride that took us up in the air. Then I made them some lunch (spaghettios) and everyone was happily eating and watching cartoons.

As I was walking around the kitchen reading the notes on the refrigerator I turned and there was a long hallway, like the hallway separating apartments on the inside. Walking down this hallway came an elderly lady who said hello and walked on past me. Next came this man. In my dream I realized that he looked familiar but nothing registered. He was in his late forties maybe. He had black hair and cold pitch black eyes. He had pockmarked skin and he was balding but combed his hair over the balding part. He wore a colorful tropical shirt, trousers (the dockers kind) and gym shoes. I immediately sensed danger but my stupid southern courteousness made me say hello. He asked to borrow some paper towels. I said sure and turned to grab some to hand to him. In a flash his hands went around my neck and started to choke me. He was incredibly strong and the more I tried to fight him off, it seemed the more he liked it. I became furious, kicking, twisting trying to break free but he was too strong. I began to sob as I realized that he was going to kill me and then my grandbabies would be at his mercy also. Just as I could feel his hands choking the life out of me, Heidi shook me and woke me up. I woke up scared as hell, and knew that she had saved my life. Now number one, Heidi never wakes me up but this one night she did. Number two, on the news the next day was the story of the BTK murderer and his sentencing. This was the guy in my dream. Now did I just have this guy in my subconscious for some reason, or did his evil persona just float on into my dreams, or did I actually experience one of his victims being murdered? Creepy, eh? I still can’t get this dream out of my mind. It was chilling to say the least and I know that Heidi saved my life. Now how and why did she know to wake me up just at the moment before I would have died?

Well told you this would be long, so no complaining –

I started to do some research on dreams (too scared to look up anything about the BTK murderer, can’t even look at his picture!). I found this place and here is a very good article on dreams. This place is the oldest American organization to conduct psychic research. They are our own real-life “Talamasca”. All you Anne Rice aficionados should be familiar with the Talamasca introduced to us in her novel The Witching Hour

Anyways here is the article and the link to their website is below, a pretty damn interesting place, with loads of old books and dusty secrets. I love it!
Dreams an exceptional Human Experience

Dreams are ordinary only in the sense that everyone has them. What makes them extraordinary and qualifies them as exceptional human experience are the gifts they bring to our lives if we learn how to receive them. I'd like to share with you the way I think about dreams and their importance, and then suggest answers to three questions. What is ordinary about our dreams? That's an easy question. Two, what is extraordinary? That's not so easy. Three, what defines dreams as exceptional human experiences? That's the one I think I'd like to explore with you.
Let me share with you my ideas about dreams, which are not necessarily the prevailing ideas about dreams, because they are outside of the orthodox psychoanalytic tradition. Dreaming and the dream refer to two different, though closely related, events. Dreaming is an intrinsic part of the sleep cycle that recurs every 90 minutes during the night and is associated with distinct psychological changes that signify a state of arousal of the organism. The dream, in contrast to dreaming, is a remembrance in an awake state of whatever it is that we can bring back from the previous night's dreaming experience. These two modes of consciousness resort to two different languages to say different things about the same organism. To understand the dream, we must begin with an understanding of the way the two languages differ and what it is we're saying when we speak the language of the dream. Our two languages appear to have evolved as a way of speaking to each other. read more here on dreams

Dr. Montague Ullman is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst internationally renowned for his work with dreams. In 1962 he founded the Dream Laboratory at the Maimonides Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York. In the mid 1970s he resigned as Director of Psychiatry, Director of the Community Mental Health Center, and Director of the Division of Parapsychology and Psychophysics at Maimonides Medical Center to devote himself to dream research and group approaches to dream work. He is a past President of the American Society for Psychical Research, the Parapsychological Association, and the Society of Medical Psychoanalysts. Dr. Ullman is the author of numerous papers on theoretical and clinical studies of dreams and dreaming. He is the author and co-author of several books, including Dream Telepathy (McFarland, 1989), Working With Dreams (J.P. Tarcher, Inc. 1979), co-editor of The Variety of Dream Experience. (Continuum Press, 1987), and co-editor of The Handbook of States of Consciousness (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1986).
And here is the link: http://www.aspr.com/index.html
American Society for
Psychical Research, Inc.
5 West 73rd Street
New York, New York 10023
USA

Sweet dreams all!

Mindscape

2011-03-20T18:27:00.002-05:00

Mindscape

Mindscape magazine is an eclectic mix of sub-culture and underground thoughts , ideas, discoveries , mysteries, musicians , films , books , gadgets and anything else that rocks the boat.

It’s a fun and irreverent look at the universe and everything within it. Sometimes serious, sometimes contemplative, but always thought provoking. There’s something for everybody.

A new magazine by Andrew Gough of the famous Arcadia discussion site.

Awakening

2011-03-19T18:34:00.000-05:00

I am happy how many people are feeling the same and questioning our lives. Once you "wake up" into the deeper divine it is so amazingly wonderful you want to send everyone to wake up.

But sadly, it doesn't work that way, since we are all unique my spiritual revelations don't make sense to everyone, and it is my journey and this is as it should be.

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Universal Truths

2011-03-17T06:06:00.000-05:00

I am changing and beginning to see how ALL of religion actually celebrates life, birth and renewal. We just don't realize it. Religion is a universal celebration of life and nature and renewal. And how very silly of us to kill each other over who's is better when they are all the same.

Today is St. Patrick's Day, a day to wear your green. And the green is returning as my little world wakes up and returns to life. It is so majestic and wonderful to walk outside in the mornings to hear symphonies of bird songs and each day way, way high up in the sky are the long legged migrating birds headed west. Are they like the gray elves headed for the West?

On Ash Wednesday we received the ashes on our foreheads to remind us Of the Most Important Truth in the Universe.
http://quantumtantra.blogspot.com/2011/03/most-important-truth-in-universe.html

Momento, homo,
Quia pulvis es,
Et in pulverem reverteris.

The most important truth in the Universe.

Remember, Man,
That thou art dust
And unto dust shalt thou return.

Remember, Woman,
That thou art water
And unto water shalt thou return.

Remember, Woman, thou art air
And unto air shalt thou return.

Unto earth shalt thou return.

Moby - We Are All Made Of Stars

2011 - The Year of Illumination

2011-03-08T21:49:00.000-06:00

http://www.leeharrisenergy.com/

Mirror of Erised

2011-03-07T22:42:00.000-06:00

The word "Erised" (pronounced eer-ih-sehd) is "desire" spelled backwards meaning the name could also be known as the "mirror of desire." The backwards text is a symbol of the odd nature of the mirror, because the mirror works in a very backwards way from regular mirrors in a way that it shows the inside and not the outside of a person. The inscription around the mirror reads "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi" The message backwards is "I show not your face but your heart's desire."

The Mirror of Erised is a magic mirror, which, according to Albus Dumbledore, shows the "deepest and most desperate desire of our hearts." The happiest person in the whole world would look in the mirror and see a reflection of exactly the way he or she is. Inscribed across the top of the frame is the following text:

Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi

Reversing the inscription and rearranging the spaces produces:

I show not your face but your heart's desire

Through the recent journey I've taken through death and life, I have made some discoveries about love. The first is that love is always there. Whether we know it or not, we are surrounded by an ocean of love. Our challenge is not to find love, as though it were a distant, half-mythical goal. Our challenge is to become aware of love. Like the object you search the house for and then find was in your pocket all along, love is right with us. Our task is to abandon the distraction of searching and give ourselves to the love that is always there.

Perhaps, when reading this, you thought as I did of the scene before the Mirror of Erised where Harry sought the Stone and suddenly found it in his pocket.

I would like to quote from this book 'Facing Death Finding Love -The Healing Power of Grief & Loss In One Family's Life' (1994) by Dawson Church. This is mainly a meditation over the author's loss of a new-born child. Writing of the earlier birth of his other son, in a chapter called 'Welcoming the Soul' -- to compare with what Ms Rowling wrote of the contrast between Voldemort and Harry: the different circumstances of their birth and the choices they made later.

And finally, from the same book --

If your heart is open, the soul of your baby will surely know it. Just imagine you were a stranger landing in a strange country, where you didn't know any of the customs or the language. How grateful you would be for a guide who would feed you, clothe you, teach you the language, and care for and protect you while you were learning to fend for yourself. If the soul of your child knows you welcome it and will be a loving guardian of its growth, it can easily make the confining transition into a physical body.

Lionel was traumatized by his difficult birth. It toook several hours after the umbilical cord was cut for him to calm down and got to sleep. For the next few days, he cried and cried. I knew that newborns can cry a great deal, but Lionel's constant crying began to weary me. We tried everything. We would feed him, clean him, burp him, cuddle him, and he still cried. After six weeks of relentless crying, I was at my wit's end. I felt as though I was on the brink of insanity. I wanted to throw him out the window.

'Why don't you try giving him an attunement?' Brenda then suggested. Doing this frequently when Lionel was in the womb had conditioned me to think of this primarily as a prenatal technique, not something to do after birth. I placed my hands over his body and shared a long, loving attunement with him. I spoke to his soul 'What is going on with this baby? Why is he so distressed?'

'He didn't know you were here,' his soul replied. 'You spent time with him in spirit like this every day while he was in the womb, then once he was born, this conscious contact suddenly stopped. He's reached out to you in spirit and found no one there.'

How could I have been so blind? I had been a presence welcoming and loving him all through gestation, and suddenly he finds himself born into this uncertain new environment, and his friend isn't there! The constant attunement signal he has been orienting to has suddenly disappeared, and he finds himself all alone. Of course he is distressed. I had been so focused on the physical level of actually having a baby I could hold and see that I had completely forgotten the spiritual level of parenting. At the soul level, I had abandoned my baby.

As I held my hands over Lionel's body, his crying stopped. His breathing became regular, and he fell asleep. He had rediscovered his friend. From that day on there was a complete change in his behavior. He cried infrequently and quickly stopped when we took care of his needs. He became an amazingly happy baby,and to this day is the happiest person I have ever met.

The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is.
In 1992, the Mirror was the final guardian of the Philosopher's Stone in its Chambers. Dumbledore placed an enchantment on the mirror, hiding the stone inside of it and allowing the mirror to transfer the stone to anyone who wanted to find the stone but not to use it. Anybody wishing more than simply finding it would see themselves making gold or the Elixir of Life, or in Professor Quirrell's case presenting the stone to his master.

When Quirrell/Voldemort ordered Harry to look into the mirror, Harry focused on finding the stone, and, uninterested in actually using the stone for his own purposes, saw his reflection pocketing the stone, at which time it magically appeared in his real pocket.^[1]

Harry did not do the hero's thing and slay the villain. Harry was the means that Voldemort brought death upon himself. Harry was the mirror that destroys the basilisk by reflecting the basilisk's gaze. He is like the 'fetch' that Emerald mentioned, 'a spirit counterpart of one's own soul that connects it to the realm of the Gods.' Loosely speaking, that could be the substance which produces the ecstatic state....

But how did Harry become able to be that mirror to begin with? Through Voldy's inadvertent semi-transformation of him. (I say "semi-" in the sense that the transformation, or alteration, was temporary, to the tune of 16 years.) The basilisk does not create the mirror with which it can itself be destroyed. But Voldemort does. (And he does so by choosing to act on the Prophecy, as DD drives home in HBP.)

But... even though Voldy made his own mirror, by altering/transforming Harry, Harry's response to that transformation - to use it against V rather than give in to the allure of Dark Magic - was all Harry. Even his mother's love protection didn't achieve that all on its own. He wasn't a static instrument, like a literal mirror would be; he was a participant. DD also tells us that it was Harry choosing to live up to the potential for love that his mother gave him that had allowed Harry to stay in the Light. And it was by choosing to stay in the Light that put Harry put himself into the position of being a mirror at the right time and place.

Are you a seeker or a finder

2011-03-06T22:15:00.000-06:00

The Cosmic Vanguard

Are you a seeker or a finder? This is a very important question. If you are on a spiritual path, have you found what you are looking for? Or are you still searching? If you are doing a spiritual practice, are you doing it to reach a goal or are you doing it just because you think it’s a good thing to be doing? Or are you doing spiritual practice from another position altogether—the position of being a finder? Being a finder means you are one of those rare individuals who has unequivocally found what they are looking for, and are now doing spiritual practice only because they want to continue to develop.

People who do spiritual practice but who are not yet enlightened tend to divide their lives between the “spiritual” part and the unspiritual part. When they are engaged with spiritual practice and spend time in the company of others who share their faith or conviction in the reality of Spirit, that’s the spiritual part. All the rest is the unspiritual part. People who are enlightened, on the other hand, see all of life as an unending spiritual adventure with no holes or gaps where Spirit is not present. What you see is what you get. It is really only the capacity to see and directly experience the life we are living with greater and greater depth and more and more perspective that liberates our awareness and awakens our consciousness of Spirit’s all-pervasive presence.

If you are a sincere seeker, then it’s important that your spiritual practice be imbued with a life-and-death commitment to your own liberation here and now. The short-term goal must be to get to the other side of existential doubt. You want to free your soul from both the ego’s suffocating self-concern and the outdated and spiritually unenlightened values of our modern and postmodern culture. First and foremost, you need to do whatever it takes to free yourself. Why? So you will finally be available to participate, consciously and wholeheartedly, in the greatest gift you’ve been given...which is the life you’re already living right now.

If you are no longer a seeker but one who boldly claims to be a finder, then that means you no longer have any doubt about who you really are and why you are here on this Earth. In your own direct discovery of and awakening to Spirit’s true face, existential doubt has died a sudden and irrevocable death, liberating an infectious confidence rooted deep in your soul. A true finder may or may not continue to do spiritual practice. If he or she does, it is motivated, as I said, by the desire to continue to develop and evolve. Indeed in the new evolutionary spirituality, making the noble effort to catalyze our own individual and collective higher development is recognized to be the very raison d’être of the human experience at the leading edge. But as finders we’re no longer doing practice in order to experience a spiritual epiphany that will convince us of something we don’t already know. Now we’re making the effort to evolve because we’re in love with life and are committed to unlocking its higher potentials through our own development.

When we realize that the process of life is Spirit in action, then ideally we would aspire for our entire lives to become an unceasing manifestation of its multidimensional nature. Even more importantly, we would expect our actions to embody its most significant qualities. That means we would be expressing freedom and creativity in and through the way that we live the gift of life. And this would occur both as the spontaneous expression of a liberated heart and mind and as the practice of evolutionarily enlightened living.

I became a spiritual teacher twenty-four years ago, after I found what I was looking for. Up until that point I had been an ardent meditator. The practice of meditation, for me, was the means to an end: I wanted to become an enlightened person, whatever that was going to mean. I took my practice very seriously. I also exercised vigorously every day. I was careful about what I ate. I sought out and cultivated friendships with others who shared my passion for Spirit. And, typical of my generation, I looked to the East to find illumination rather than to the West. Like so many others, I traveled to India. When I arrived, almost immediately I felt like I was home. This was because I entered into a shared cultural context where the inner quest was accepted as being a lofty and valid endeavor. I no longer felt like such an outsider. After two and half years, I met my last teacher and he liberated my soul when he uttered ten simple words: “You don’t have to make any effort to be free.” Upon hearing this, I made the transition from seeker to finder.

I have spent almost the last quarter century struggling with the question of how to take people with me on the greatest journey that there is: from seeker to finder to co-creator of Heaven on Earth. The first step is straightforward—to become a finder all any one of us ever has to do is let go of the fears and desires of the ego, absolutely and unconditionally. It obviously goes without saying that this is easier said than done. Freedom is letting go and letting go is freedom. In truth, it doesn’t take effort. It only requires you to love God or Spirit more than you love yourself.

Creating Heaven on Earth is another matter altogether. It requires enormous effort and a long-term commitment that means forever. It also requires practice, because all truly great creative accomplishments require endless practice. So how much practice are we actually doing to ensure our own development? How deeply have we realized the importance our own higher evolution has, if we desperately want the world to change for the better? These are important and relevant questions for serious people who are committed to change.

After so many years, what have I come up with as the magic remedy for both letting go and creating Heaven on Earth? Well, that’s simple ...we have to do it all! What does that really mean? We have to endeavor to take on and embrace every aspect of the human condition, individually and together, and insist that evolution happens. This approach has been called “integral practice.” Integral, in this case, means taking on our whole being, in all its many dimensions.

We can either approach the whole endeavor of practice from the “outside-in” or from the “inside-out.” Outside-in means we intellectually understand and appreciate the multi-dimensional complexity of our selves, and we aspire to engage with and develop as many parts of ourselves as possible because we have recognized that it makes good sense to do so. The inside-out approach is one in which we have already spiritually awakened, at least to some degree, to the perennial mystical truth that all is One. And from the direct cognizance of that Oneness, we endeavor to align and develop the many different dimensions of our own being. My approach is from the inside-out.

So what does a life of spiritual practice, a life in which Spirit is being truly lived, look like? If we are committed to creating Heaven on Earth, we need to pray or meditate every single day so deeply and earnestly that each and every time the result is freedom from fear and existential doubt. The goal is ultimately to get to that point in our own spiritual development where we no longer need prayer or meditation to know what the Truth is.

The highest form of spiritual practice, for those of us who aspire to create Heaven on Earth, is our relationships with one another. That means being willing to sacrifice anything and everything so that the intersubjective world of our shared culture becomes the stage on which the spiritual reality of who we really are, beyond our separate egos, comes to the fore. Think about it: If Spirit always comes before self, then the self that we are will always manifest as Spirit first. What could be more important than this if we want to change our world?

Another very important dimension of spiritual practice is the cultivation of what I call spiritual self-respect. That is because spiritual self-respect is ego-transcendence. We must do whatever we need to do to respect ourselves so that we can respect each other. It’s more important to respect yourself than to “love yourself.” In a spiritually awakened context, respect for self always means respect for God or Spirit. Respect for that which is higher is transformative because it instantly ennobles and dignifies our separate personalities. That’s very different from having to love your ego in order to feel comfortable being who you are.

If you respect yourself, you’re going to make the extra effort to take care of yourself. How you look from the outside is always an expression of what you believe in. Evolved and enlightened saints and sages from all traditions have already told us that the path to God is one defined by self-discipline, self-control, humility, and unshakeable commitment. Because of your rare degree of spiritual inspiration, physically you will radiate beauty, and emotionally you will vibrate with open-hearted self-confidence. This will be as a result of your own ceaseless efforts and submission to your own true heart’s longing.

Finally, and most importantly, because of our commitment to going all the way and putting all of this into practice, we will simultaneously create and reap the heavenly rewards. The life we have chosen to live and our relationships will become an ecstatic cauldron of creative ferment. Because Spirit is both freedom and creativity, our own empowering realization of spiritual freedom will give rise to an unusual capacity for creative engagement. The truth of God will emerge again and again and again through our own ongoing love affair with the possible.
http://www.andrewcohen.org/blog/index.p … rit-lived/

Learning to accept who I am and unafraid

2011-03-06T17:55:00.007-06:00

I wrote the following article on April 18, 2008 right after experiencing an earthquake in Chicago and outlying suburbs. It shook us all up pretty good. And pushed all the fear buttons, mine especially. Then as usual it just got freakier ......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_18%2C_2008_Midwest_Earthquake2008_Midwest_Earthquake

Tremors rattle people awake across Chicago area
By Jason Meisner | Tribune staff reporter
5:01 AM CDT, April 18, 2008

Authorities at the National Weather Service in Romeoville on Friday were fielding numerous calls from across the Chicago region about tremors that may have been caused by a small earthquake.

The tremors could be felt in downtown Chicago at the Tribune Tower, 435 N. Michigan Ave., for about 20 seconds beginning around 4:40 a.m.

The National Weather Service began receiving calls from all over the area at about that time, meteorologist Bill Wilson said. "We're getting calls from as far away as Valparaiso," he said.

The Associated Press was reporting an earthquake rocked people awake in Indiana.

The ground shook in Indianapolis and Evansville about 4:39 a.m. The shaking lasted about 10 seconds.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

All my birds were flying around like mad in their cages and strange noise sounded like it was coming from the roof. Dogs started howling all over the neighborhood.

totally bizarre and freaky!

oh for pete's sake this is freaky -

Today in History - April 18
By The Associated Press – 6 hours ago

Today is Friday, April 18, the 109th day of 2008. There are 257 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco, followed by raging fires; estimates of the final death toll range between 3,000 and 6,000.

A new perspective on the Mayan calendar end date controversy
William C. Treurniet, March, 2007

Summary. A previous study found a relationship between the number of earthquakes in the lower mantle and the structure of the Mayan calendar. As predicted by a model proposed by Calleman (2004), the number of earthquakes alternated in successive 360-day periods corresponding to the Days and Nights of the Galactic Underworld. The present study investigated the strength of this alternating pattern beginning in 1973. The data show that the pattern weakly appeared in 1991, but faded away only to reappear in 1996. It increased in strength from 1996 up to the present. These observations indicate that the pulses of the universal consciousness field proposed by the model were felt perhaps three years before the onset of the Galactic Underworld. The magnitude increased with each successive Underworld Day, and the trend suggests that it will continue to increase in the future.

I began wondering if that all this manifesting energy into matter stuff IS REAL
Are we learning how to dream our new 5th world into being?

I have had mystical, dreamy paranormal experiences my whole life. I also come from a family who have a high number of intellectual geniuses and a high number who have committed suicide. I have walked a tightrope most of my life, and struggled to not give in to "magical thinking", which my mother convinced me opened me up to being taken over by "demons".

Back in the early 90s (probably 1991) like this article above states, I had this recurring dream every single night for months. An ancient looking Indian man was walking down highway after highway. No one stopped to pick him up and it seemed that he grew more and more tired. I felt so sorry for him. But every night he came into my dreams and walked and walked. This went on for days and days. And then one night I began to dream that I saw with his eyes and then I knew that he was searching for me. I watched him walk up to my house and nod his head. I was happy that he found me, it felt good, I was happy that he got to rest, I gave him some water to drink. He told me that he had been looking for me everywhere and now he found me. I laughed and said what could he possibly want with me? You are a maker he said, you must help to bring the 5th world or we will all die. Then he touched my head and all I saw were huge nuclear explosions, and I grew so afraid, no no no, I cannot do this, I cannot, it was too fearful. You must do this or the 5th world cannot appear. You are a maker, you must help to bring about the fifth world. I ran from him and told him no, no, no this is too terrible you must leave. I pushed this dream into the back of my mind, but still the fear was in me. Then I discover the internet, discover the Hopi prophecy and 2012. Then I begin to think that I am killing people by dreaming and walk through coals of fire to not just end it all, that I am some evil creature of night. I now see that the only way to shock me awake was to make me look, and the only thing I would look at was people dying. But now, slowly, gradually, I am being cured of my fear of death, and cured that I cause things to die. And that I am not a demon or a devil.

Hidden inside of me has been this dream, and I have fought it and fought it.This dream came to me night after night after night. And each night this ancient Indian man walked until he found, "me".

2012 is a time of a great revealing, all lies must become truths. All must change and most importantly we must change. And time I think to discuss seriously how to bring about the 5th world we all so want and desire.

some articles that help to express what I am thinking here.....
2012 : A Time Odyssey
Sharron Rose

And this headline a few days later made me say well of course Magnitude-4.0 aftershock reported from Midwest earthquake AP - April 21, 2008
Ill. earthquake "a wake-up call". Was this message for me?

And here I am now on March 6, 2011 a quiet peaceful Sunday and it feels like I have traveled to the moon and back. I find that I have opened the door into light as in this video and stepped through. I am no longer afraid to be a "maker" as was told to me in my dream. I in fact cherish this fact and am so filled with the wonder of my life. And I now ponder that the Indian looking for me was in fact my higher self, I believe.

I feel that it's important to share these videos below; that will help to explain where I am now and who I am becoming and who we all are becoming. At some point you will be given the opportunity to accept this reality is much deeper than you could ever believe.

As discussion of 2012 begins to enter the mainstream media, fact and fiction concerning ancient prophecies, astronomical alignments and doomsday scenarios can easily get confused. This can happen especially if you live in Western Europe or North America and are exposed to the shrink-wrapped, dumbed-down soundbite melodramas that masquerade as news. So let us begin to clarify matters with a bit of etymology.

The word "apocalypse" does not mean "the end of the world". Apocalypse means "revelation" (Greek: Ἀποκάλυψις -translit. Apokalypsis), literally "the lifting of the veil" – a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the mass of humankind. The Greek root corresponds in the Septuagint (an early Jewish text) to the Hebrew galah (גלה), "to reveal".

Some days when the gyroscope inside of me is spinning fluidly, life is grand and I am so happy to be alive here and now. Even with all the terror, sadness, injustices and wrongness in the world. Even with all the terrible things I see within all that I thought were the "higher beings". Even with all the evil, even with 9/11 I begin to see and understand that it is all on track and spinning like it is supposed to, to wake us up, to reveal truth of our inner being-ness. On those days I feel full of light and hope and joy.

But still there are days where the media sucks me back into the matrix of "fake reality" and fear takes over my mind and my heart.

But now I know the keys that unlock the doors and all I have to do is unlock the doors.

My prayers now are for all of us to find the keys, and unfortunately each key is different for each person.

But together with each of our keys, a wonder awaits!

Our world shakes with revolution, inside and outside. All those "nuclear" bombs I saw in my dream are powerful changes manifesting inside of each and everyone across the globe. We are birthing a new world and labor is hard work. But joy awaits us.

Social and political change happen when a group of people have quietly changed in their minds and collectively hold an emotional opinion. The American Revolution was fought and won by only one-third of the colonists. (Another third favored British rule, and the last third just didn’t care).

The black revolution in America began with a shared feeling among the people. Before Rosa Parks sat down in the front of the bus, flicking the domino that sent racial segregation tumbling, the blacks of the south had quietly been talking. They told each other they had had enough. Their group decision changed America.

Raison d'être
"This is the true joy in life: To being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. To being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live.

I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." ~ George Bernard Shaw ~

And this one is for my youngest daughter and my grand daughter, someday they may read this and understand the secret that was being shown to them too.

This wonderful season of love

2010-12-10T06:03:00.000-06:00

I find myself learning to trust my life and love each and every moment of it. Most days are so filled with peace and joy that sometimes I worry that I will wake up from this most wonderful dream. I know truly that I am a child of love and am much loved. All I have to do is return the love.

I love that each day my email sends me love bombs of articles reflecting the love that is all around me and mine for the asking. I am in such a good place.

I wanted to share my article of today -

The Heart of Christmas
by Puran Bair

The birth of the Christian Messiah is an event of such magnitude that it corresponds to a change in direction on the horizon of the planet. For several days after the winter solstice, the sunrise appears at the same spot on the horizon. The day appointed for the birth of Christ is the first day when the position of the sunrise appears to change direction, reversing the shortening of days and beginning a period of greater light.

Christmas is the heart of Christianity, a time of rejoicing for the miracle of birth and rebirth, heralding transformation and forgiveness through the peaceful birth of the Prince of Peace, who has not yet said a word of His message nor yet performed an act of His love.

Hazrat Inayat Khan: "In reality the greatest miracle of Christ that any wise man or woman can see is the miracle of Christ's living heart; not wonderworking, but the living God presented to the world. This was the lighted faith which helped the darkness to vanish, not dogmas, doctrines, or theories which all came afterwards."

The heart of Christmas is celebrating the birth of the divine within, in the manger of the heart. A divine gift was conceived in each human soul, but it must wait to be delivered until the opening of the heart. Every time this happens to any of us, the wise men and women who are aware of the initiation gather to celebrate.

Every Christian who seeks for the Truth of Christ is a Sufi, for Sufi literally means, "Seeker of Truth." And every Sufi recognizes Christ as the savior of humanity. As Hazrat Inayat Khan, the great Sufi teacher, said,

"In the smile of the innocent child, there is Christ; in the warmth of the mother's heart for her child, Christ is hidden. In the unselfish, self-sacrificing love of the father, Christ shows himself. In the kindly attitude of a friend you can see the spirit of Christ. What is there which has beauty, tenderness, or gentleness which has not the spirit of Christ?"

Frankincense, used in worship and medicine; myrrh, used in embalming; and gold, of eternal worth, were given to the divine child in recognition of His dominion over life, death and eternity. We celebrate the birth of the Christ within, every day that we recognize the divine in ourselves or another. By our praise of a person's heart, in any of its four dimensions, we offer a golden gift of beautiful fragrance, a gift of healing and celebration that brings to life that which we recognize.

I celebrate the opening of your heart, the increasing light of your being and the truth of the divine within you by saying, "Merry Christmas!"

Day One of the writing life

2010-11-20T16:40:00.000-06:00

I purchased two teaching aides this summer to help me regain the self confidence to start writing in my own voice instead of copying and pasting articles that say something I want to say. They both sit unopened. But I approach things in baby steps and the fact that I have actually come here to my blog and started to write is a very big baby step.

I have had a dream for a long time of telling stories, but I am recovering from a stroke which only damaged my writing and verbal skills. But I am happy to say that I have made great strides in my recovery.

So little by little I will myself to find the key and open the locks that are keeping all those stories locked up inside of me. I have no doubt that adventures await.

I ran across this quote today, and I love it, and love the fact that yesterday the new Harry Potter movie opened and my daughters and granddaughters and I are all going to see it together for our holiday treat.

“And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” J.K. Rowling

Adventure awaits and calls to me to have no fear.

The Universe

2010-09-22T06:10:00.000-05:00

What if, Connie , loneliness was simply a feeling of impatience, telepathically sent to you by friends you've yet to meet, urging you to go out more, do more, and get involved, so that life's serendipities could bring you together... Would you still feel alone?

What if illness was just the signal a healthy body sent to urge clarification of your thoughts, feelings, and dreams... Would you still, at times, think of yours as diseased?

What if feelings of uncertainty and confusion were only reminders that you have options, that there's no hurry, and that everything is as it should be... Would you still feel disadvantaged?

What if mistakes and failures only ever happened when your life was about to get better than it's ever been before... Would you still call them mistakes and failures?

And what if poverty and lack were simply demonstrations of your manifesting prowess, as "difficult" to acquire as wealth and abundance... Would they still cause you to feel powerless?

Well, whatever you feel, Connie , I still consider you my only begotten, my champion, and my equal.

Are we close, or what?
The Universe

Blacksmiths of the Divine

2010-09-03T06:10:00.001-05:00

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut-tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his haul, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought.

Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing onward through life we go, each burning deed and thought creating ourselves and our world in which if we are lucky one day we wipe the fog from our eyes and begin to see the divine in all.

Nurturance of Life

Life, in this definition, is an individual's sovereign reality. It is subjective and impressionable. Life is the wholeness of experience flowing past the individual's field of perception in the present moment. Nurturance of life is the principle whereby an individual is in alignment with the natural expansion of intelligence inherent within all life. This alignment enhances the life energy that flows past the individual with the clear intent of gentle support. It is the action of opening to the highest motive in all people and in all life and supporting the flow of this highest intention towards its ultimate expression. In so doing, the action is performed without judgment, analysis, or attachment to outcome. It involves simply nurturing the highest energy that flows from all people and thus supporting the fullest expression of their deepest essence.
This is a departure from the normal perception that nurturing support can only be granted when others are in alignment with your personal will and desires. When, instead, you view everything in your life as an integrated energy flowing as an expression of ever-expanding divine intelligence, all life is honored as an extension of the Divine. All people and all forms of life can be nurtured and supported to their highest expression.
Energy is an element of life that is so subtly interwoven with form that it is one, in much the same manner as space and time are inextricably linked in union. Life energy is always in a state of becoming. It is never static or regressive in its natural state. You are very capable of nurturing this natural expansion of energy to forge new channels of expression and experience.
There are many specific actions that can be taken to nurture life. Each soul can transform energy through a wide variety of means. Working through your body, your soul is able to collect and store energy and redirect its purpose or application. This transformation of energy can occur on both personal and universal levels of expression. That is, within an individual's field of awareness at any time, energy can be transformed to conform more to a vision of personal welfare or aligned with a vision of universal welfare and goodwill.
One of the best methods to transform energy is through one's belief system. All beliefs have energy systems that act like birthing chambers for the manifestation of your perceived reality. Within these energy systems are currents that direct life experience. Your soul is aware of these currents either consciously or unconsciously and allows them to carry you into realms of experience that engage your core belief system. By consciously cultivating beliefs that expand and transform energy, you are more able to explore energy systems that are nurturing to life in all its myriad forms. When beliefs are clearly defined as intentions, your life energy engages fully in the present moment. Clarity of intention is essential to engaging the energy system of your core beliefs, and to allowing the nurturance of life to prevail in all activities.

Gratitude

If you are aware – or at least interested in having the awareness – of how perfectly the Divine supports your sovereign reality, there is a powerful and natural sense of gratitude that flows from you to the Divine. It is this wellspring of gratitude that opens the channel of support from the Divine to the individual and establishes a collaboration of purpose to transform the individual soul into a pure expression of divine essence. It is principally gratitude that opens you to connection and alignment with your divine essence.
When you project gratitude, regardless of circumstance or condition, life becomes increasingly supportive. This feeling of gratitude coupled with the mental concept of appreciation is expressed like an invisible message in all directions and at all times. Gratitude is an essential facet of love that opens you to redefine your purpose as a supportive extension of the Divine, rather than the whimsical outreach of fate or the exacting reaction of a mechanical, detached universe. Establishing a relationship with the universe through the outflow of gratitude also attracts life experience that is deeply transformative – experience that is richly devoted to uncovering life's deepest meaning and most formative purpose.
When you choose to align with divine essence and to live from this perspective as part of an ever-unfolding reality, you attract a natural state of harmony. This does not mean that your life is without problems or discomforts; rather it signifies a perception that there is an integral purpose in what life reveals. Life experience becomes meaningful to the extent that you choose to live in natural harmony with divine essence. When your personal reality flows in alignment with divine essence, you create lasting joy and inner peace.
It is the perspective of divine essence that all life is pure love in its fullest expression, and that in this single concept, all life is conceived and forever exists. This becomes the core belief from which all other beliefs arise. And as these beliefs expand outward, this core belief system emerges with a clear intent of supporting a fundamental perspective of seeing, nurturing, and appreciating the universe as the divine cradle from which all life is created and evolves.
These life principles are merely symbols represented in words and served to you as a potential recipe to stir awake the embers of light that tirelessly burn within. There are no specific techniques or rituals that are required to invoke their power. They are simply perspectives. In a real sense, they are intentions that attract experience that expands consciousness. They do not provide quick fixes or instant realizations. They are amplifiers of personal will and intention that clarify how one lives. Their profound transformative power is contained exclusively in the intent of their application.
Through these principles of transformation, you can become a master of empowering your deeper self. When you apply these principles with clear intent, you have the tools to accelerate the emergence of divine essence. You can awaken the perspective, insights, and empowered abilities of your divine essence to create new realms of possibility and shape them as learning adventures that expand and transform your consciousness. This is the underlying purpose of these principles, and perhaps the best reason to explore them.Seeing the Divine in All

I once again have been struggling to accept the fact that "my life" has meaning and power. I create from my heart in ways that are meaningful to me and always, always I let the fear and doubt enter and it clouds my vision with doubt and leads me through dark hallways of locked doorways filled with laughing mocking faces behind the doors. I doubt that my perception has any worthiness. But oh it does............ and now I see that perhaps my take on reality could be more powerful than I could possibly know. And perhaps I really can help to change the world for the better.

For months now I have been suffering with how humans can be so blind to the hopeless brutality being enforced by factory farming. I grew up nurturing chickens and loving them. They offered me a quiet solace for my aching heart when I most needed it. November Always Drags Me Down

We have all read of the recent egg recall which drew attention to the hopeless factory farming horrors imposed upon chickens. I think I may have helped in some little way to direct energy to bring this about - Recent discussion. A few days later the egg recall happened. And now I read this last night costco-takes-action-after-abuse-of-veal-calves-brought-to-their-attention/ with a video that breaks your heart.

Is it wrong of me to wonder if perhaps by directing my energy I have helped in my own little way. Why does something in me think it's wrong for me to think that I could possibly be a powerful magician able to change the world for the better? Perhaps that is one of the toils we must overcome, self doubt and fear.

Quantum physics teaches that each atom consists of varying numbers of electrons and protons, basically tiny flickers of energy, swirling around in a relatively huge open void. Imagine the size of our solar system, compared to the relatively tiny planets around our sun. So each atom is mostly contained of empty space. It is this empty space which every atom has in common. Science works hard to define this Unified Field. Our wisest sages have also done the best they can. It has been called the Tao. Our spiritual essence is what is contained within the empty spaces in each atom, of each cell of our own bodies. That Essence which is directly connected to the empty void in the atoms of the air around us, in the trees, in rocks, in every thing and every breath we take. The Tao. It is within. It is without. Kung Fu for the Spirit

It is Divine........................

I write like

2010-07-18T13:09:00.000-05:00

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

It's summer and the living is easy

2010-07-12T05:51:00.000-05:00

Albert Camus:

"In the midst of winter, I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer."

Summer will forever be my sweetest memories. I savor each day now and have gained some new awareness inside of me. Some watcher that makes me take note of the things that used to never cross my radar. I watch as I realize right outside my back door is a major expressway for the birds of the air. My patio door faces south and each morning there is this huge flight across my back yard of all sorts of flying birds headed south to their jobs of the day. Ducks, geese, crows, seagulls, and lots of little guys who seem to only be on short trips. I wonder where they are headed and what their jobs are.

My garden grows lush and beautiful. I relish each flower and each gift from Mother Earth. I so love the touch of my hands in the earth. I so love watering and caretaking.

Only another gardener can know the joy of growing things. But something has happened when we mass produce food. We have lost something of ourselves. I found this editorial this morning and it brings me hope that we are becoming more aware and returning to our built in empathy. I sure hope so. There is absolutely no reason for us to be so damn mean to the animals that give us the gift of life.

A Humane Egg

The Journey and losing faithful companions

2010-07-12T05:30:00.001-05:00

The path of the Questor is generally walked alone, sharing experiences along the way. Such is the metaphoric journey of humanity. As souls awaken, they realize there are truths beyond what has been told to them in the story of our creation. But where do they begin their journey into awareness?

Most begin with an epiphany or a synchronicity set up by their soul which leads them to question old belief systems, and things in their lives that have always been there, leaving clues, that were never addressed. We often store information in the subconscious mind until we are ready to access it.

My life continues to unfold in mostly shades of glorious sunshine now. Is that because I am growing older and more comfortable with the who I am or because I have found my feet upon this incredible journey of my life and each day brings new insights. I am no longer afraid of who I am, nor afraid of where I am going. I am just enjoying the journey.

But the journey is still filled with pain and sometimes unbearable pain. We recently had to make the decision to end the life of one of my faithful dog companions who was 16 and half years old. Our beautiful Misty girl. She was a rescue dog that Heidi, my youngest, went to like a magnet at the humane society. There was absolutely no choice, she was the dog that was coming home with us. The humane society had no information on her other than they had found her tied to a tree, and they guessed that she was maybe around a year old. That was so long ago. Misty had most certainly been abused but she loved her new family with the biggest love ever. And we loved her back. I cherish the years that she was with us and so look forward to seeing her again as she waits for us at the end of the rainbow bridge. Thank you for all the love Misty.

The most important information to understand is here

2010-04-25T10:38:00.000-05:00

The Wayfarer's Story

2010-04-25T10:26:00.000-05:00

Title: The Wayfarer
Author: Stephen Crane [More Titles by Crane]
The wayfarer,
Perceiving the pathway to truth,
Was struck with astonishment.
It was thickly grown with weeds.
"Ha," he said,
"I see that none has passed here
"In a long time."
Later he saw that each weed
Was a singular knife.
"Well," he mumbled at last, "Doubtless there are other roads."

The Wayfarer's Tale

Rev. Jonathan Mitchell

Wayfarers Chapel

May 25, 2003

Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20

Mark 4:21-23

Last Sunday, I started a series of sermons based on the Wayfarers Poem, Pause for a moment, wayfarer, on life's journey . . . And I suggested that we define the wayfarer to be anyone who has a story to tell. To the degree that we are all embarked on life's journey and have a story to tell, we are all wayfarers. This morning I want to reflect further on these questions: Who is the wayfarer who pauses? And in that pause, how do we tell, and how do we hear, the wayfarer's tale?

One of the things I observe about myself, whenever I have a chance to pause, is that all kinds of memories start to bubble up from within. It seems like a very chaotic process. Memories come in from all periods of my life and in no particular order. And I am just as likely to remember trivial things as I am the big events. To be sure, if I get to wondering how I came to be thinking about a particular period, person, or situation from the past, I can usually trace back a series of associations to its first trigger in the present. Yet this chain of associations can take me almost anywhere in very short order. In thinking about this recently, the image came to mind of the cauldron. The ever advancing present is like a ladle constantly stirring up the cauldron of memory, bringing to the surface first one memory and then another. And every day more ingredients are poured in—stir, stir, stir! But if memory is a cauldron, then what magic potion, or what poison is being prepared?

Well, who knows? But I pray at least, for myself and for all of you, that out of the cauldron of memory will emerge the wisdom of a life's experience—the unique wisdom of the total life experience of one unique and irreplaceable human being.

How then do we bring some order to our memories? How do we understand our lives as stories with an overall plot? When we pause, what do our stories tell us, what guidance can they offer for that part of the journey which is still to come? In relationship to our total life experience so far, we are much like editors. Our memories make up an enormous mass of manuscript, if you will, and it is up to us to boil it all down to a story that can be told and shared. In this process, we have, I would suggest, more creative freedom than we usually realize. Whatever has happened to you in the course of your life, you can organize and interpret that story in many ways. How you tell that story affects your outlook on life, or maybe it is better to say that the story of your life as you tell it to yourself is your outlook on life.

One of the simplest ways we organize and interpret our experience is to see the same things happening to us over and over again. It is as if our lives were a song with many verses, but with always the same refrain. The comedian Rodney Dangerfield made a career of this approach. I don't get any respect—the constant refrain of his routines—is funny in large part because we recognize in it our own tendency to see our lives as the same old story over and over. If we take such an interpretation too seriously, however, there is a danger that we will come to see ourselves as hapless victims circumstance. Surely our stories a need, at the least, a sense of direction.

There are other overall themes that can summarize our life experience as well. I once had a brief conversation with a visitor to the grounds of Wayfarers Chapel, who told me that he had been married here—the first time. He went on to say that his second marriage was going much better, that he had been young and foolish the first time and had married for all the wrong reasons. I could see that revisiting Wayfarers Chapel had evoked a wistful feeling for him. Older and wiser—this too is a theme that can organize our life story.

Or again, I had a wedding couple tell me recently that they wanted to play heavy metal music by AC/DC in their wedding. Luckily, they were joking. But, certainly, we can, if we choose, see ourselves as traveling on the Highway to Hell, and this outlook can have a certain seductive appeal. Another couple wanted Stairway to Heaven in their service. Which is it for you? Are you on the "Highway to Hell" or the "Stairway to Heaven"?

Popular songs, and favorite hymns, often express various ways that our life stories could be summarized. This is what makes them popular: we see ourselves in them. For example, consider a song Frank Sinatra made popular, I did it my way. The advantage of seeing your life in these terms is that it affirms the choices you have made in life as your own free choices, and it emphasizes what you have done over what has happened to you. Another good example is the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, We Shall Overcome. This is an empowering way to look at your life in that it recognizes that there are circumstances and injustices in your life you have no control over, while at the same time affirming your ability to resist. It suggests that you can make things better for yourself and for others. The "we" is significant too. In contrast to the individualism of "I did it my way", it invites you into a group identity and a common cause. Or yet again, consider Amazing grace . . . I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see. It is indeed a moment of grace in our lives when we can sing this song and mean it. It lets us acknowledge the mistakes in our lives as mistakes, while thanking the Spirit for bringing us beyond them. It invites us to a life of conscious gratitude.

Well, these examples could go on indefinitely. So I will leave it as a thought question for you. If your life experience so far were to be summed up in a song, what would that song be? I think you will find, when you reflect, that several of the songs I have mentioned, or others that occur to you, can be made to fit to one degree or another. As I said earlier, we have more creative freedom in telling our stories than we often recognize. We ourselves decide, so to speak, the name of the tune.

The importance of how we interpret our experience is brought out tellingly by Robert Haralick, in the introduction to his book, The Hidden Meaning of the Hebrew Letters. He writes:

We are involved in a variety of relationships with family, friends, work, community, country, world and God. The understandings and interpretations we give to each of these situations all complete a meaning we return to God. These understandings and interpretations are not necessitated by anything external. Nor are they fixed in some way so that our situation can have only one kind of interpretation. Each of our situations is inherently ambiguous, having meaning possibilities one way or another. And the choice of how to interpret, which way to interpret is ours.

By the meaning possibilities we complete, we establish what we have made ourselves. God tells us to choose life: choose to complete meaning possibilities that are holy. Do not choose death. Do choose meaning possibilities that are unholy.

Here Haralick alludes to our reading this morning from the Book of Deuteronomy:

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving God, obeying God, and holding fast to God. For that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

Life and death, blessings and curse - these are the choices God sets before us. I hope you have come to see that they are also the implicit choices we make as we tell our stories, whether to ourselves or to each other. We can tell our stories in ways that bespeak bitterness, resentment, cynicism, discouragement and despair. To do so is to choose to curse, to curse ourselves and others. Or we can tell our stories in ways that bespeak gratitude, forgiveness and compassion, that bespeak an aspiration to learn and to grow, that bespeak a commitment to contribute to the betterment of the world. To do that is to choose to bless and to support the forces of life.

Simply to retell our stories in new ways can be a transformative moment in our spiritual lives. We can realize that the stories we have been telling ourselves are destructive and self-limiting. We can come to see that we could just as truthfully tell ourselves more hopeful, more empowering stories. We can reexamine the stories of our lives so far in the light of these new interpretations. We can choose to bless and to live richer, fuller lives.

Who is the wayfarer who pauses? How do we tell, and how do we hear, the wayfarer's tale? I would suggest that these are questions for ongoing pause and reflection here at Wayfarers Chapel. May we be given the wisdom to tell and to hear our stories in their most life-giving tellings. And as we meet on the road, may we help each other to find the wisdom and the blessing in the wayfarer's tale.

Your Story is Important, Learning to Write It

2010-03-26T08:35:00.000-05:00

Life is like onions, one layer after another. And learning to realize that everything adds flavor to life so savor it all. And do not be afraid. There is only one you and we each our living only our story.

My birthday is fast approaching. And this year it falls on Easter Sunday, and I was born on Good Friday. The old children's rhyme comes to mind

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

My gift to myself for this birthday is to be brave enough to follow one of my dreams. The dream of sharing stories and the wonder of them all.

So I will begin, with a lesson on writing

All creative processes, be they in literature, engineering, computing – and even in love – always respect the same rules: the cycle of nature. Here is a list of the stages along this process:

a] ploughing the field: the moment the soil is turned, oxygen penetrates places it was unable to previously. The field gets a fresh look, the earth which was on top is now below, and that which was underneath has come to the surface. This process of interior revolution is very important – because, just as the field’s new look will see sunlight for the first time, and be dazzled by it, a new assessment of our values will allow us to see life innocently, without ingenuity. Thus we will be prepared for the miracle of inspiration. A good creator must know how to continually turn over his values, and never be content with that which he believes he understands.

b] sowing: all work is the fruit of contact with life. A creative man cannot lock himself in an ivory tower; he must be in contact with his fellow men, and share his human condition. He never knows, at the outset, which things will be important to him in the future, so the more intense his life is, the more possibilities he will create for an original language. Le Corbusier said that: as long as man tried to fly by imitating birds, he couldn’t succeed. The same applies to the artist: although he translates emotions, the language he is translating is not fully understood by him, and if he tries to imitate or control his inspiration, he will never obtain that which he desires. He must allow his life to sow the fertile soil of his unconscious.

c] growth: there is a time in which the work writes itself, freely, at the bottom of the author’s soul – before it dares show itself. In the case of literature, for example, the book influences the writer, and vice versa. It is this moment which the Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade refers to, when he states that we should never try to recover lost verses, for they never deserved to see the light of day. I know people who, during a growth period, spend their whole time furiously taking notes on everything which comes into their head, without respecting that which is being written in the unconscious. The result is that the notes, which are the fruit of memory, end up disturbing the fruit of inspiration. The creator must respect the time of gestation, although he knows – just like the farmer – that he is only partially in control of his field; it is subject to drought and floods. But if he knows how to wait, the stronger plants, which can resist bad weather, will come to light with great force.

d] the harvest: the moment when man manifests on a conscious plane that which he sowed and allowed to grow. If he harvests early, the fruit is green, if he harvests late, the fruit is rotten. Every artist recognizes the arrival of this moment; although some aspects may not have matured fully, some ideas not be crystal clear, they reorganize themselves as the work is produced. Without fear and with great discipline, he understands that he must work from dawn to dusk, until the work is finished.

And what to do with the results of the harvest? Again, we look to Mother Nature: she shares everything with everyone. An artist who wishes to keep his work to himself, is not being fair with that which he received from the present moment, nor with the inheritance and teachings of his forefathers. If we leave the grain stored in the granary, it will go bad, even though it was harvested at the right time. When the harvest is over, the time comes to share, without fear or shame, your own soul.

That is the artist’s mission, however painful or glorious.
By Paulo Coelho The Creative Process

And the Easter Egg that led me to these thoughts was remembering the story of Harry Potter and it's author JK Rowling. Some stories have the power of alchemy. The great secret of life. To make gold out of lead.

It is because of Love that Snape went from a man who was bent down, spying at
doorways, to a man who could make his own plan and literally fly on his own.

Let's see...Lily rejected her friend Severus, The Prince, for James, the Potter...Years later, Her son Harry loved the Prince's book so much he desperately hoped the Prince might be his Dad...isn't that a delicious bit of irony?

But Harry is still the magic mushroom for me. Think of all who were transformed by Harry, as agent-of-change. Dumbledore, Dudley, Dobby, Fred and George, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Sirius, Lupin, and probably others.

While I haven't undergone a personal spiritual transformation, reading 'Harry Potter' and puzzling out the ideas and discussing them over the years have brought about a shift in attitudes and perceptions. If it happened to me, then it's possible that Ms Rowling planted the seed in everyone who read the story. Millions were given a potential for change. So I return again to what I've said so often, though not so recently, that the alchemist is Ms Rowling, the Stone is Harry, and the process -Harry's story -

transforms us the readers.

Ye Old Curiosity Shop

France proclaims 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc

France proclaims 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc

President Sarkozy will travel to Domremy, the village said to have been her birthplace, where he will unveil a plaque in the home where she is thought to have been born.

Mr Sarkozy will also visit Vaucouleurs, also in the Vosges mountains of eastern France, where Joan of Arc began her campaign to push the English out of France and put Charles VII on the throne.

Joan of Arc at 600: the best of role models

Secret Messages

iJourney: iJourney.org: An Inner Journey

Fabric of the Cosmos - What is Space - Reality as a Hologram - Illusion of Time

Not Photoshopped: Beam of Light Shines on Fallen Soldier’s Miracle Dog

Advent - We Enter the Season of Violet Light

The Dream of the Alchemists

GA Homily for the First Sunday in Advent by Rev. Steven Marshall

Seeking the Light

On the wings of a snow white dove

Timewars

The Dissolution of Linear Time

Timewars and Thoughtforms

Pentecost (Whitsunday)

THE COLLECT

THE LESSON

THE GOSPEL

The Gardener

The Sound of Music

12 Around 1, Miners, and Me

Dreams

Mindscape

Awakening

Happy St. Patrick's Day and Universal Truths

2011 - The Year of Illumination

Mirror of Erised

Are you a seeker or a finder

Learning to accept who I am and unafraid

This wonderful season of love

Day One of the writing life

The Universe

Blacksmiths of the Divine

I write like

It's summer and the living is easy

The Journey and losing faithful companions

The most important information to understand is here

The Wayfarer's Story

The Wayfarer's Tale

Rev. Jonathan Mitchell

Wayfarers Chapel

May 25, 2003

Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20

Mark 4:21-23

Your Story is Important, Learning to Write It

GA Homily for the First Sunday in Advent
by Rev. Steven Marshall