welcome to soaring september and the astonishing light of your being weekly segment…. i’m breaking tradition – yes, Yes, YES! – to not start the month in the usual way and to listen to the fierce love message to see the beauty in everything that emphatically calls to be expressed… so, yes, Yes, YES! You Are So Beautiful!! Take this moment, this beautiful moment to breathe in your beauty and breathe it out with an exuberant YES! today, i celebrate six years of living Hell YES! when something arises and i’m resonating wholeheartedly, hearing/feeling/sensing in every wild cell Hell YES!, i go for it full steam ahead… this practice grew organically from a practice begun almost eight years ago of saying thank you to everything that arises… of course there are many things that confound my mind as to why be thankful for that which is the beauty of the practice and is like contemplating a koan… it is a tried and true path for opening the heart this saying thank you, this saying yes, Yes, YES! Hell YES! breathing in, feel something positive… breathing out, say yes… breathing in energy, breathing out yes… breathing in peace… breathing out yes… may we whisper yes, Yes, YES with every breath… listen with me now to what the inimitable Charlie Chaplin heard singing him on his 70th birthday… ~ Love Prayer As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY”. As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody as I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it “RESPECT”. As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it “MATURITY”. As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment. So I could be calm. Today I call it “SELF-CONFIDENCE”. As I began to love myself I quit steeling my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it “SIMPLICITY”. As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything the drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is “LOVE OF ONESELF”. As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is “MODESTY”. As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it “FULFILLMENT”. As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But As I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection “WISDOM OF THE HEART”. ~ may we all walk in a sacred way today and every day with each breath a new beginning, each moment a walk in beauty with all our relatives traveling as one along the rainbow trail deeper into great mystery’s sacred web…
in this moment, this awakening moment, may we shower ourselves and each other with lovingkindness re-membering we optimize wholeness for all with the smallest of gestures… a SMILE, hugs, thumbs up, deeply listening, taking healing breaks throughout the day, flowers, a cuppa, coming home to the moment with every breath, seeing through the eyes of awe, being open vessels for life to flow through… every in breath, inhaling grace, every out breath, surrendering efforting and striving and pushing against the river… always trusting what is ours to do/be comes to us naturally; we need only listen to our one heart’s song whispering the way of the pathless path with heart… what an awesome august it has been, indeed, what a blessed space we have inhabited walking each other home in a sacred way through the fires of purification of the lionsgate portal to and through the portal of harmonic convergence when a wave of union, of communion, sweeps energetically across the planet re-minding, re-heartening all our relatives to our true, shared reality of one source, one body, one heart, one mind, one spirit… such a potent moment while still in the radiation of the new moon for living the grail quest-ion, what really matters? what breaks your heart? what breaks your heart wide open waking you up each moment to serve? listen deeply hearing the hum of our one heart re-joy-sing as we walk this path together coming home to our one heart, summoning the courage each moment to simply take one more step into great mystery’s sea of love energy,the ever expanding abunDANCE of a friendly uni-verse… today, i am re-joy-sing in the knowing that in the chaos, we are birthing a dancing star, a cosmos of peace and harmony guided by love…will you join me in placing your hans on your heart, our one heart and holding this intention wholeheartedly with every wild cell in your body, our one body? namaste, beloveds…
happiest of new moons in virgo – how i love this new moon and the opportunity to honor virginal power, being one with SELF (Stillness Essence Love Flow), i love this moon phase as the moment to go into darkness, the unknown, trusting that in emptying, surrendering to the divine, all is well as we open space in the depths of the watery womb to be seeded anew with our heart’s deepest longings… i love smiling with new moon as she breathes intention into life… i love this day of moving like the ocean in rhythm with the rolling waves, this day of peacefully being the loving presence of joyous bliss which is an act of wild abandon and rebellion when so much of gravity pulls us into fear and despair and paralysis until we stop the world and come home to stillness, the peace that passeth all understanding… ~ i am so grateful for this day of sweet surrender, this day of being one with the tides of life… seeing from vast ocean’s vantage point the intricate web grandmother delicately weaves connecting dots that on first glance appear unrelated until one looks homeward with angelic eyes of the heart discerning now the divine design patiently waiting in the wings for the blind to see… thousandfold thanks for this moment, this beautiful moment, this luminescent moment ~
today, we get to belatedly celebrate an important day in herstory/history as it’s three days after the day in 1920 (that’s ninety nine years ago) of the certification of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting American women the right to vote—a right known as woman suffrage… it’s a perfect day to celebrate all women of peace, all people of peace making herstory/ourstory with being peace on this eve of the virgo new moon, the being one in herself, sovereign moon, a perfect moment to plant seeds of peace… yes, today is a lovely moment to honor and celebrate the inspiration, the mother of this journey, someone being this peace pilgrimage every moment… peace pilgrim, in her late forties, committed to walking the planet being peace and in so doing, she planted and spread peace across the world demonstrating that a life lived trusting in a world of lovingkindness reaps an abundant harvest… never once did she lack for a ride or a meal or a place to sleep finding abundant generosity always surrounding her every step, her every breath… thank you for joining in the peace pilgrimage and making her story, our story, history… thank you for the astonishing light of your being, a beacon shining so brightly and helping to guide all of us home… may we place our hands on our heart sending love to our relations… when we find peace within ourselves, we are the kind of beings who live in peace with all our relations – may we all be peace… om shanti shanti shantihi…
today is the quintessential dreamy day, so much so that i don’t even real-eyes until the eleventh hour tonight that this dreamy, floaty day is the fifty sixth anniversary of the iconic ” I Have A Dream” speech… ~ “I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” ~ may our dreams of freedom and peace come alive today…
home sweet home, it feels good to be here and, with my eyes feeling so much better, it’s icing on the cake… the re-treat at the hospital-ity center with eyes closed so much of the time affords communing with the invisible realms in deep conversation about walking, dancing, re-joy-sing the pathless path with heart… ~ “Loving activism is not just sitting back and saying, “Oh it’s great, just ruin me or kill me.” Loving activism can be quite harsh in some cases, in actual action like getting arresting, or bluntly saying, “You’re crazy,” or, “You’re wrong.” Something with force, but more like the force of a martial artist. Like good old Grasshopper [from the TV series “Kung Fu”], he would throw the cowboy out the window with a smile on his face in a relaxed manner. So that’s loving activism where, even though you’re opposing this policeman or this person and you’re in front of them, you are not thinking that they automatically have to be evil. You are seeing the opponent not as an object of hatred, but as an object of concern – you want them to be better off, and you feel to oppose them is helping them getting better off in a particular case. The Pussy Hat thing, those marches were happy occasions. And this is the key, I think. Try to find the sources of happiness within yourself and around you, and then help the people who are unhappy, and therefore causing evil. You may have to share that happiness with someone who’s about to do some terrible thing, to help stop them from doing it. You may even have to be forceful sometimes, like a mother will be forceful with a child who’s hurting itself or going to hurt something else in some careless way. But they don’t hate the child. They just love the child. But you can have fierce love. You can have fierce compassion.” ~ Robert Thurman ~ ~ namaste
one of the things that breaks my heart is the image of children imprisoned in detention centers and their families trying to touch them through the glass walls… one of the things that breaks my heart wide open as i contemplate 15,000 migrant children being jailed by the usa as of last december is the two girls in california, Kaia and Lily,who decided to take action to raise awareness about each and every one of those children by painstakingly crafting 15,000 paper butterflies, each one representing an individual migrant child… let’s grow a movement that closes all child prisons and ensures every being coming here is treated with dignity and respect… https://butterflyeffectmigration.org/
Aloha Astonishing Light of Being Day! For a little more than two years now, beginning back on August 14 2017, i’ve been posting weekly segments on the astonishing light of being… even though i’ve followed doctor’s orders and spent another day in the dark to help my eyes, i can still feel the abundance of light pouring in today and so enjoy the presence of so many angels of light calling for an honoring of divine light consciousness… a quest-ion i’m asking everyone is, are you noticing even when your eyes are totally shut and you are in darkness, you are still feeling so much light? it’s as if our eyelid veils are lifting and light is everywhere… let’s turn now to a favorite poem on how to paint this light, how to be a shining being of luminosity… ~ I asked a hundred painters and a hundred poets how to paint sunlight on the face of life Their answers were ambiguous and ingenuous as if they were all guarding trade secrets Whereas it seems to me all you have to do is conceive of the whole world and all humanity as a kind of art work a site-specific art work an art project of the god of light the whole earth and all that’s in it to be painted with light And the first thing you have to do is paint out postmodern painting And the next thing is to paint yourself in your true colors in primary colors as you see them (without whitewash) paint yourself as you see yourself without make-up without masks Then paint your favorite people and animals with your brush loaded with light And be sure you get the perspective right and don’t fake it because one false line leads to another And then paint the high hills when the sun first strikes them on an autumn morning with your palette knife lay it on the cadmium yellow leaves the ochre leaves the vermillion leaves of the New England autumn and paint the ghost light of summer nights and the light of the midnight sun which is moon light And don’t paint out the shadows made by light for without chiaroscuro you’ll have shallow pictures So paint all the dark corners too everywhere in the world all the hidden places and minds and hearts which light never reaches all the caves of ignorance and fear the pits of despair the sloughs of despond and write plain upon them “Abandon all despair, ye who enter here” And don’t forget to paint all those who lived their lives as bearers of light Paint their eyes and the eyes of every animal and the eyes of beautiful women known best for the perfection of their breasts and the eyes of men and women known only for the light of their minds Paint the light of their eyes the light of sunlit laughter the song of eyes the song of birds in flight. And remember that the light is within if it is anywhere and you must paint from the inside Start with purity with pure white the pure white of gesso the pure white of cadmium white the pure white of flake white the pure virgin canvas the pure life we all begin with Turner painted sunlight with egg tempera (which proved unstable) and Van Gogh did it with madness and the blood of his ear (also unstable) and the Impressionists did it by never using black And the Abstract Expressionists did it with white house paint But you can do it with the pure pigment (if you can figure out the formula) of your own true light But before you strike the first blow on the virgin canvas remember its fragility life’s extreme fragility and remember its innocence its original innocence before you strike the first blow Or perhaps never strike it And let the light come through the inner light of the canvas the inner light of the models posed in the life study the inner light of everyone Let is all come through like a pentimento the light that’s been painted over the life that’s been painted over so many times Let it surge to the surface the painted-over image of primal life on earth And when you’ve finished your painting stand back astonished stand back and observe the life on earth that you’ve created the lighted life on earth that you’ve created a new brave world ~ Lawrence Ferlinghetti ~ ~ thanks be to great mystery for filling the air we breathe with luminous love…
we offer great thanks to our mother the earth, our father the sky, sister moon, brother sun and to all our relations for our earth walk, the way of the heart… as we (s)age into grace we return to where we began… the garden of eden, heaven on earth and we see everything as if for the first time… this present moment, this ordinary moment, this extraordinary moment all one in the same… when we rest fully in this moment, dwelling in the consciousness of the divine, we embody awe, awakened wonderfilled energy, and radiant light fills our being shining everywhere… now, we are home, we have arrived…
an angel transported me to the temple on the hill today where a priestess looked into my eye and offered healing balm and encouragement for the path ahead, and i am so grateful for the messages coming through in such a way that i could hear them and that this loving field is so overflowing with lovingkindness, yes, we can get through anything as we breathe together… gratefully, i share this heartfelt message fra angelico said to his co-hearts half a millennium ago, it expresses what i want to say today and everyday… ~ “I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not already, but there is much, very much, which though I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven. No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this precious little instant. Take peace. The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and courage in the darkness could we but see; and to see, we have only to look. Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, and wisdom, and power. Welcome it, greet it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts. Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage, then, to claim it, that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims wending through unknown country our way home. ~ Take Heaven! Take Peace! Take Joy! Take Love! Take Wisdom! Take Courage!
