The Buddhists teach the futility of attachments of any kind and see them as being at the root of all suffering. They say that as long as we remain attached we will live despairingly. They speak of the three types of attachment states – Attached, Unattached, Nonattached. They tell a beautiful tale which illustrates their meaning.
Imagine yourself in a very isolated situation where the only fresh water available must be carried from a great distance. Water is therefore treated as a precious commodity. It is placed in a large pot, used sparingly, and kept shaded under trees, guarded and carefully covered.
After having worked hard all day in the blazing sun – we look forward to that refreshing stop at the water pot. We lift the lid carefully, take the scooper in hand and dip into the precious liquid. As we are about to drink we notice an ant has somehow settled in our pot and onto our scooper. We are furious! How dare the ant be on our island, under our trees, in our water pot, on our scooper. We immediately crush it under our thumb. Attached.
Or we might stop a moment to consider that it is a hot day even for ants. The ant has done what is instinctively right for it – it took refuge in the only cool, damp and comfortable place it could find. We see that the ant is not really harming our water, our trees, our scooper or our pot. After deep, moral consideration, we drink around it, replace the scooper in the cool pot and cover it carefully. Unattached.
Or, when we see the ant in our pot we stop neither to consider what is the ant’s or what is ours, nor what is moral or immoral. We respond above morality. We naturally feed it a lump of sugar! Nonattached.
As the energy of chaos is released from your fields, mind body spirit, it may feel as though something is missing. You may wonder if the rapture happened and you got left behind.
Breathe.
You’re being returned to a state of purity, innocence and joy.
It’s going to feel uncomfortable as the burden of chaos you’ve been under is relieved. You may want to cry. You may be tempted to belittle self, the old habitual patterns of self-betrayal … Increase your self-care practices. Try not to embrace the old habitual patterns of negativity. They are clinging to you for dear life.
Don’t beat yourself up if you slipped into an old experience. It’s a memory fighting to survive. Gently acknowledge it, visit it, remember it, and release it once more.
Be kind to yourself as you flow into the new, and residuals slip away.
I must create a System or be enslav’d by another Man’s.
I will not Reason and Compare. My business is to Create.
~ William Blake
The afternoon of life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.
~ Carl Jung
Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rage at close of day.
~ Dylan Thomas
Post-mortem life:
Everything gets doubly precious, gets piercingly important. You get stabbed by flowers and by babies and by beautiful things.
~ Maslow
If name be needed, wonder names them both;
From wonder into wonder
Existence opens.
~ The Way of Life, Lao Tzu
Confucius said:
… When a man carries out the principals of conscientiousness and reciprocity he is not far from the universal law. What you do not wish others should do unto you, do not do unto them.
~ From The Golden Mean of Tsesze XIII
A wicked man who reproaches a virtuous one is like one who looks up and spits at heaven; the spittle soils not the heaven, but comes back and defiles his own person.
~ Buddha, The Sutra of Forty-Two Sections
This is the sum of all — righteousness.
In causing pleasure or in giving pain
In doing good or injury to others
A man obtains a proper rule of action
By looking at his neighbor as himself.
~ The Mahabharata
More flesh, more worms;
More wealth, more worry;
More women, more witchcraft;
More concubines, more lechery;
More slaves, more thievery.
(But) More Law, more life;
More study, more wisdom;
More counsel, more enlightenment,
More righteousness, more peace.
~ The Talmud (from Mishna)
We do not exist for ourselves (as the center of the universe), and it is only when we are fully convinced of this fact that we begin to love ourselves properly and thus also love others. What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean, first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give others.
~ Thomas Merton
You’re busy living life & thoughts, upsetting, keep poking the mind about someone.
You’re picking up on them having an issue with you.
Thought energy perceived.
You’ve forgiven, let it go, moved on. Yet these Smokey tendrils keep reaching for you, trying to pull you back in.
Be grateful you have this awareness. You know what to block.
Continue on the path.
The new cycle is a new opportunity to create Self and surroundings.
Choose who you let in carefully. Actors can keep up a facade for a long time… so give it time. It’s one of your gifts.
Allow Self to know Self before introducing an other particular energy or energies.
This new cycle is about discovering the new you and the gifts you’re meant to share in the world.
Don’t let an other steer your ship, especially right out of the gate!
When I was a girl, my dogs and I would go strolling through the wilderness. Whenever we’d come across a snake, they would paw and dig furiously at it, finally picking it up in mouth and flinging it out into the forest somewhere.
Dog :: reminding us of what is important in an upside-down world.
As I was half dozing last night/this morning, I was thinking about the thought forms in the collective field … those viruses of shame, guilt, anger, lust, those ideas we aren’t good enough, or worthy, those thoughts encouraging folks to think lowly of self, to hate self, to want to end self … and I called on the holy canine to sweep the collective field, rousting out these snakes and doing their thing to clear them.
I woke to near silence.
May all who work so diligently on behalf of the Divine, the Sacred called Life flowing within all beings and things, be blessed abundantly, surrounded by the Might of the Most High, protected, guarded and guided as they move in this world.
There’s a difference between seeing an other, admiring them, then copying them trying to imitate their existence in every way, shedding any sense of self … and … incorporating into the neural highways of one’s own mind, character and Self., those qualities which instill a greatness being birthed and expanded into an ever increasing “big bang” development of personal awareness.
You are a master at studying your environment. You take on the good qualities of those around you, and you leave the negative behind. When you’ve learned all you are able, you extract yourself. Then you implant self into another environment, and glean those new-found qualities in others, examples which can assist personal growth and expansion.
If people are unwilling to present self transparently, there’s nothing to embody, nothing of truth being presented as an offering, of a particular life. There’s nothing offered to present a growth opportunity in the environment.
So you go to another source, another meet-up, church, social function. Over and over again, you flow into situations and groupings, absorbing everything your discover that sits right with your soul … learning as much as you can, about as much as you can.
People are fascinating! There are so many unique ways of approaching life, and a never-ending example of greatness … all one needs do is pay attention, and learn.
We don’t have to take on every characteristic of those in our environment at any given time. We get to choose the building blocks from the examples we fill our environment with.
Creating Self.
What a Treasure!
What a Song!
Here are a couple interests for the morning out of one of my favorite authors books. I wish you many blessings. May health and spiritual abundance be yours.
I pray with gratitude for all the strengths and wisdom I’ve gained through suffering. I know it is sometimes the fastest way to gain knowledge. Since my life mantra has always been to “learn as much as I can about as much as I can” I try to stay in a state of grace while in a challenging position. Falling apart is often a way to gain wisdom and strength and courage to overcome whatever it is, in future scenarios.
It’s those “invisible friends” that assist us in the darkest hours. Be grateful, when the seen world and the people in it force you to step back, it will bring you to those who truly wish to assist you. Embrace them, even while the seen world insists they aren’t real.
One of the most wide spread habitual patterns among people is telling others what they should do to get along better, even without request. It’s a curious thing. Is it collective hypnosis? Why are people so concerned with molding the lives of those around them?
Maybe because that’s the role of parent, and most people are parents?
From personal experience, as one who used to point at the world outside self and say it needs to be fixed … a solitary life of shadow work during the past 20 years has led me to completely reformat my inner world, my Self.
It changed everything.
Sister, trust your vibrant inner knowing,
that lucid vision that speaks
to you. The truth you cannot
deny.
Nourish the fertile gardens of
your wild inner terrains knowing
that time of harvest will come… all things
flower in their time.
~*~
Cultivate patience and courage.
~*~
A role of the Priestess is to
midwife new worlds, into the
dream of our Mother GAIA.
A role of the Priestess is
to midwife Souls, her own
and others.
~*~
Hold fast to your path Sister.
You will be challenged
this is certain…. and know that your sisters
stand with you.
Remember such challenges
are only a test, an opportunity
to deepen in the Flowering
Essence of your innate
Soul’s
Wisdom.
Let us cultivate the Gift of our womanhood
and the commitments of our lineage to serve
the well being of all beings to nourish Life at
this critical juncture.
My wish is for you to bring in the new year with a version of yourself the world hasn’t seen.
Bring it in with a bang that beats any firecracker.
Bring it in with a confidence that explodes beautiful colors and never sizzles out.
Bring it in with a certainty so sure, there are no apologies when the lid blows off.
Make this your year and pay it forward to all of the years that follow.
opensenseme 