Divinity in disguise

Love ....

by the way you walk,

by the way you sit,

the way you eat.

This world very much needs love.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

Flowers, elegantly scattered among us, are sacred signs from heaven.  As delicate living vessels serving as iconic conduits to the divine, they are tangible evidence of heaven's dusting of itself everywhere on Earth. Gentle, colorful, yet brilliantly detailed in their exquisite design, the flowers are here on Earth to remind us from where we came and where we will return.  Even among the trees, and mountains, in harsh desert or tundra climates where virtually nothing grows, a fragile delicate tiny white edelweiss thrives.  Everywhere nature speaks to us, calling us to remember our true home.

Heaven has been described by those who have gone and returned as a place of incredible color, brighter than any colors we know here, where  flowers are abundant.  Eckhart Tolle says that flowers are native to heaven and are planted on Earth as reminders to us when we forget, as we all do inevitably, of the perfection and beauty of our real home, our eternal home. So, it is no wonder that roses and lotus are symbolic of that perfect spiritual state of communion with the divine.  

Beauty and love are so intimately wed they beget each other.  Beauty is a reminder of love and love creates beauty.  When we meditate or look at flowers, our minds are gently enveloped by the beauty that is love and inspires love and helps us to love more.  And, clearly love is a divine act that heals our world, evolves our souls and brings us closer to heaven.

All the great spiritual masters have invited us to step into our highest spiritually evolved state by meditating, thinking upon love and beauty.  If we did nothing else spiritually but look at a beautiful flower, we would have entered into a spiritual inner sanctum.  But, the reverse, sadly is also true.  If we killed all the flowers, all the beauty in our world, we would have reduced the love, the life force itself, the nourishment for our souls and we would have lowered our divine ability to create and to live.  We would have stifled the prana, the spiritual air we need to live, in our world.  

Dr. Masaru Emoto, a well known Japanese scientist, has done extensive research on water, frozen and then viewed in its crystaline state (i.e. snowflakes) and found that focused intentional human thought affects the water crystals profoundly.  Thoughts of love and thankfulness, when directed at water, result in a beautiful, perfectly designed lacey snowflake, many of which seem to display a double tetrahedron* (star of David) at its center, which is the universal pattern of creation.

Creation's life-force, which we now know builds in a kind of lacy pattern, makes everything in the universe. It is the ultimate power. Obviously, a substance that is without that creative power, is in a weakened state and cannot create.  In other words, it is powerless in itself. Therefore, non-creation is non-power. So, never underestimate the power of love to create. We all have that power, seeded within us. We just have to decide to use it.

You can only imagine how wonderful your life would be if you chose more wisely, to love yourself and everyone and everything in every moment. The more love you invite into yourself, the more powerful you become and the more able you are to love others and help them know this truth also. Love makes you powerful - even if it is gentle and kind as a beautiful water lily.

On the other hand, when loveless, condemning, critical, destructive thoughts are directed to water, a chaotic mess emerges, formless, without the lacey design for creation. The following photo is of a water to which was directed hate-filled thoughts and a threat to kill.

But, the good news in Dr. Emoto's research reveals that polluted water, which under the microscope is dark and chaotic, can be changed into the beauty of a love crystal through prayer, as the following photo displays. 

In short, we can change our water from lifelessness to the essential life-giving, vital substance for all of life. Dr. Emoto's research suggests the awesome effect love-sent water could have on the Earth - to heal the planet, all species and us. Since all animate life is comprised primarily of water, the power of prayer could be magnified all over the world if we all consciously sent prayers -intentional focused thoughts - inviting heaven's love into all the water everywhere and into ourselves, our own minds and hearts and chose actions of love.  

On some level, all of this is a mystery, as is all of life, but if we can remember and in that remembering reconnect to the divine within us and live out of that fountain of love, we will transform ourselves, each other, our entire world into a living sanctuary, mirroring heaven - even if just a bit.

Maybe we can make every thought, every deed, every action, everything like a flower - a thought flower, full of love, remembering heaven and of the transformed crystalline water, flowing out into all the water, then life, the earth everywhere might be healed.

Then we might also heal our own bodies, our own lives, our communities, our countries, our entire planet, if we all would consciously focus our thoughts on being love, of being human flowers - beautiful, elegant, compassionate, magnanimous, serving mercy to all - absolutely unconditionally, since love itself is unconditional.  It's simple really.  We just have to remember who we really are and the flowers are here to remind us.

 * double tetrahedron:

Increased violence may be due to pole shifting

A few years ago there was a strange, eerie, report of thousands of black birds found dead in Alabama.  Scientists at the time couldn't figure out what had happened. Then, there were stories of flocks of Canada geese, who normally arrive in the spring in a certain pond every year like clockwork, but they were now landing in the center of a playground.  And, saddest of all, I think is the rapid decline of bees.  Without bees, the entire planet would starve.  Seriously? Seriously!

Then, the increased frustrations in the Middle East and all around the world.  It's like everyone everywhere has blown a gasket.  The massacre in Connecticut, the random killing of firemen outside Rochester, NY, and the list is endless.  So, what is going on?  It would be too simplistic to say it's an ancient prophecy that's coming true and the end is near.  Sorry folks, that doesn't work for me.  So, like so many others, I just wondered about it all, while praying for sanity to arrive to our tumultuous planet.

More recently, I've read about the imminent north / south pole reversal.  Attached to that are also all kinds of doomsday stories, but it's more likely that it's a natural part of the Earth's lifestyle, having happened before many times.  The magnetic circumference of the Earth has been changing rapidly over the last 200 years and recently has shifted just enough that birds, bees and whales who sound out their global patterns based on those magnetic lines are being led into strange places.  

The poles are shifting.  That's all.  

Well, that's not all.  While no one really knows how a total reversal could effect us, there is another phenomenon that we need to be aware of - for our safety and for our sanity. As the full moon effects tides, that same pull on our Earth's magnetic web has strong effects on people emotionally. Those who are sensitive or mentally / emotionally unbalanced will be affected by this shifting of the poles. Even you, a perfectly sane and healthy person emotionally, may even feel a bit weepy at times.  

The shifting of the magnetic pull on the earth will affect us emotionally.  If you're romantic, you may find yourself proposing to the love of your life.  If you're angry, you may find yourself flying off the handle at the slightest thing.  We are emotional beings and our emotions are going to be affected by the pole shifting.  It's not so much that something dramatic is going to happen that's going to hurt us.  It's more likely that our tempers will be stretched to the brink and we may do things we never could have imagined doing.  

This is a time, unlike any other in our civilization's history, that we need to be mindful and listen to our emotions, give each other a break, love our neighbor as we've never loved before.  Be kind, be patient, and remember that we are all in this shifting time together and the person who has been rude to you today is under the same influence as you are.  The only difference is he or she may not be aware of why.

We can be aware of this and take extra precautions to be safe. We don't know where the next random act of violence is going to break out.  So, be careful, be wise, be gentle on each other and hug your children and your spouse and thank God that we all have another day to love each other. Pray more.  Meditate more.  Expand your consciousness more and don't put off doing the things you love for another day.  Today is the day.  Live it loudly and joyously.

See also:  http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/26/us/new-york-beached-whale/index.html

A child shall lead them

O Father, Lord of heaven and earth,

thank you for hiding these things

from those who think themselves wise and clever,

and for revealing them to the childlike. 

Yes, father, it pleased you to do it this way.

  Matthew 11:25-26

from Alex* -

Heaven is not the next world; it is now.

Heaven is not up in the sky; it is everywhere and nowhere.

Heaven is a place that is not a place.  It's eternal.  All other places end.

Heaven is a time with no past, present, or future ... it is always now.

When I was in the car, I tried to move my legs.  I realized that they would not move.  I went through a light and I heard music. Then I was in the presence of God.  He had a body that was like a human body, but it was a lot bigger.  I could only see up to his neck because, like the Bible says, nobody is allowed to see God's face or that person will die.  He had on a white robe that was very bright.  I looked down at my legs and I could move them again.

Even right now as I tell you this, I feel in my heart just like I did when it happened. 

Everything was perfect.

*The boy who came back from heaven by Kevin & Alex Malarkey, p. 48.  ( Tyndale: 2011) A true story about Alex Malarkey who was in an almost fatal car crash and visited heaven while in a coma.  His recovery is nothing less than miraculous.

Winter Solstice

Giant Sun Eruption Captured in NASA Video*

Today's Winter Solstice was a bit uneventful on this typical bleak late-December day. Raining in Portland, blizzards in the Midwest and heavy snow in the eastern U.S. are all seasonal events which block the sun while all the other news distracts our attention from the sun's important day. 

The ancients built special structures to catch a glimpse of the sun on this darkest day of the year.  They realized the awesome life power of this great majestic star in our sky.  They knew, as we do also, that this day has always been about the sun. They sensed the mysterious nature of this great energy source that causes all life on the Earth to flourish.

                                 Newgrange in Ireland, built approximately 6,000 years ago,
                       welcomes the sun's alignment at exactly its longest point of the year.**

But this season's solstice reveals a surly sun, as stormy in sun power as the Midwest is in snow power, curling, swaggering and staggering tall fiery plumes into the solar system.  

"Although it didn't unleash a killer solar flare or devastating coronal mass ejection, but it is undergoing a fascinating period in its solar cycle," according to NASA which finds the sun's activity especially interesting.

"As can be seen from the SDO image above, the solar magnetic field is twisted and warped, channeling million-degree plasma high into the sun's atmosphere in the form of beautiful coronal loops. This is all because the sun is fast approaching "solar maximum" -- an exciting time when the sun's magnetic field is most stressed.

"We can expect a lot more flares and CMEs from now and through 2013; although these events can damage satellites and threaten power supplies, they're not the flares described in doomsday myth."

Sometimes we take it all for granted - the sun, the moon, the stars and life itself here on Earth.  But, it's all an amazing synchronization of creative power, moving in a kind of cosmic choreography. The storms predicted on the sun in 2013 may mean some flare effects here - maybe some satellite systems will not work, or phone calls will drop, but seeing the sun this late into the year makes me happy that we're beginning to return to shorter days until finally we can bask in the sun on a beautiful beach in July. It's all wonderful and perfect,  this great powerful radiance up there.

*The sun as seen through the SDO's 171A filter. Credit: NASA/SDO

**http://www.mythicalireland.com/astronomy/ancientastronomers.html

A return to innocence

The beauty and power of this holy season has an inextinguishable light to it, a kind of silent effervescence that whispers to our hearts to hold up, to have hope, to once again allow the mystery and magic of that long-ago star-canopied night to awaken our hearts.

As you survey the landscape of your inner mind, traversing the endless sprinklings of a million stars, can you see a light, a tiny light growing and expanding in the far distance? As you draw closer to it, can you see the radiance expanding until you find yourself looking at the same thing the others gathered there are also seeing?  Can you see what they see?  That tiny light is a gathering of a hundred bright angels encircling around a precious beautiful baby.  

Stay there for a moment, let that beauty fill your heart and mind with the wonderful sight.  Let it filtrate all your senses, wordlessly, with the essence of all that is beautiful, holy, wonderful, perfect. Let the words fall away, and listen.  Can you hear them?  Can you hear the top notes of the angelic choir.  You are in the circle now, you are standing there with them.  Can you see this radiant baby? His eyes are closed, yet he seems to be lighted from within.  Have you ever seen such awesome love right before your eyes?

The world is at war, but when wasn't the world at war? Even then, it was immersed in heinous crimes at the time of His birth whenever that really was. Yet, despite that or perhaps because of it, heaven sent a special baby to remind us that the spirit is awakened in those who are free, humble and as spontaneous as a child.  Then, as now, children were being killed by the dark forces.  

How terribly ironic that at the birth of Moses, the dark powers were so threatened by the power of such innocence that they killed the children, and also at the birth of Jesus.  Now?  What does it mean now that "the child" is in peril, everywhere?  Could it mean that a great leader will be born now?  Could it mean that the time of the ages has come and a great shift is going to occur again and with it the birth of a kind of savior who will unite us all, under heaven's banner of real love?  Isn't it time that we awaken and realize that we are all loved equally and inside our hearts we can all traverse the starry night to the center of all that is and see the birth and rejoice at the awesome beauty of that luminescent child?

It is the age of the child.  Today, this very moment, it is the age of the child - the child within all of us.  That baby seen in the midst of angels is also within you - as you realize - and is you.  As you embrace that beautiful radiant baby within your mind and imagination, you embrace that child in all people.  As you allow him/her to grow up, you are transformed.  You are a different adult because of him/her than you think you are now.  

That imaginal experience will not leave you unaffected.  Allow yourself the full emotional experience of it and then allow the love to flow out of it and spill out into your world and our world.

No Words

There are no words to express the shock and horror of the tragedy in Connecticut, the incomprehensible insidious evil that snuffed out the lives of 20 children and six beautiful adults who taught and cared for them.  The slaughter of these precious innocents on top of a list of other horrors against children in this country and world-wide is impossible to endure.  So, there are no words, only tears, only prayers of comfort to the parents which so many loving people are offering them.

This morning, very early, I awoke to a vision of Jesus with arms outstretched, wearing his red tunic - as seen above - and I knew he had been there that day to receive their precious innocent souls into his most loving arms to be safely carried into paradise.  It was comforting to know that.  It was comforting to be reminded that he met them and carried them into the arms of our father.  They are safe, now.  The terrible loss is now that most unimaginable pain.

Yes, there is much for we as a  nation to do in the days ahead.  I would love to see "gaming" censored to eliminate the insane violence of it all. Yes, I would love to see stricter gun laws, but what are we to to about these random acts of madness, violence and killing?  While we must protect our children, I don't know if we can and that's the part that terrifies me the most.  

But, today, the darkness of these days is oppressive and while it does seem hopeless, we have to wake up - again and again, more and more until we are all awake - and stand as one on behalf of all that is good, loving, healing and whole.  

I offer my prayers and love to these dear childrens' parents and the family members of the six adults who were killed.  

Teary day

It's raining in Portland this morning. Almost in response to last night's terrible act of violence, today's dark overcast sky is filled with December's somber tears from heaven.  When a still unnamed gunman opened fire in a busy shopping mall yesterday, bustling with Christmas shoppers, he had already made a clear decision to be just another blind follower of this rapidly deteriorating culture of death rampant across our once lovely planet.

Any act of violence that violates the fundamental law of God that has asserted since antiquity, "Thou shalt not kill" is an act of utter powerlessness. This poor desperate man, so utterly empty of any light, of any power, revealed to us all on the grand stage of the local and national news what was already secretly buried in his heart - fear, anger, suppressed creative potential and a sense of utter powerlessness and hopelessness.  We don't need to know much else - what his childhood was like?  what drugs he may have been on, what happened in his job or lack thereof.  We know that his soul had been blemished terribly.  He, like the other two he killed, was a victim of his own impotence as a human being.  His frustration screams out in the blood he spilled.

We can't be reminded enough that we all have an awesome power within us and we exercise that power (or false belief in powerlessness) in every thought we think, action we take - smile or frown we offer externally.  I've often wondered if what we do shapes what we think or if what we think shapes what we do. But, I do know that we all have the power to be deciders of our fate and fortunes. If we can see that our lives reveal a low state of imagination and simply don't measure up to our highest hopes and dreams for our lives, then we are thinking wrongly.  

Even if we don't know how to change what's going on in our lives, we are never completely without resources.  Pray!  PRAY! and Pray some more!! Even if you don't believe, pray!  Even if you're a died in the wool blind atheist, pray!  Pray even for more faith and more will to pray. Pray as if your life depended on it, because your life does depend on it.  And, not only your life, but all our lives.

We are all connected on this great web that stretches across our globe and every thought you have affects every action you take and every action you take affects those around you - like the butterfly affect.

If you are troubled by the news and what's on your television, change your mind.  make a choice to be loving to a stranger.  Buy groceries for the local food pantry, put a dollar in the Salvation Army red pail outside the grocery store.  Every act of kindness, is a spot of light added to our fabric of light that also sweeps across the planet.  

Maybe we can't make North Korean stop its insane weapons machine, or stop the heinous civil war in Syria, or urge Israel and Palestine to find some kind of amicable solution to their sad relationship. Maybe we can't really do anything about the rape and violation of women in Africa, or the child slavery in India or the other corrupt and genocidal terrorism among Uganda's Lord's Resistance army or even about what is being produced in Hollywood that's affecting the minds and imaginations of our children and all people in the world, but we can choose - each and every one of us - to be and do goodness, be love and be truthful with ourselves and others in our lives. 

If we can take a determined stand to be part of the great wave of light and love, truth and goodness that is also sweeping the planet, our hearts will rise up and fill with the power of creative solutions to these problems.  we cannot be passive today or any other day.  We cannot just get up every morning, go to work like any other day and not take a stand either for or against being consciously aware and part of this great humanity. 

We all have the power to be light in this world. We are divine beings with the power of choice.  We can choose and we do choose.  Today choose to love your neighbor, support the poor, care about what's going on and expand your potential and your own personal power by choosing to be strong and be strong in the love that is buried deep within you.  Love yourself.  Love yourself enough to release all that awesome power within you to be a powerful warrior of light.

The way of the light warrior

Pure ecstasy.  Soaring free, skybound, alive, untethered, carried aloft by the expansiveness of all that is - all that is real - immersed in the gentle essence of the great spirit of freedom and love.  In this pure state of essence, your eternally young spirit experiences itself as awesomeness and unbounded joy.

But, today, on earth, heavy drug usage is common, sadly seducing users into an attitude of apathy while hopelessly stagnating many - young and old - everywhere except in war torn countries.  It seems that those who seek to experience a sense of freedom, expansiveness and a kind of other-worldliness turn to drugs for that experience, rather than untether themselves from all that weighs down their beautiful spirits, and explore the true path to that experience.

Sometimes when we talk about the spiritual life, we describe it in lofty terms of flight and light and expansiveness and joy, love and peace. When we hear a call to enter that realm - that inner realm - it can be almost frustrating if we don't understand how.  It's one thing to hear the call but it's useless if we don't understand the practicality of how to do it.

Imagine your spirit is a feather - a beautiful white feather of a seagull.  It floats up and drifts wherever the wind sends it, soaring up and away.  In a way, the spirit is like that feather. It is very light and it's that lightness that is joyous.  We are by nature joyous, loving, gentle, strong, peaceful and incredibly creative and wonderfully relational.  Yet, our lives have burdened us so heavily, for so long that we don't even realize how to fly anymore.

So, who wouldn't want to be as free as a bird, soaring above all the heaviness of our world here?  The single one thing that weighs our spirits down the most is criticism, condemnation and a sense of isolation and separateness from each other.  Usually that pattern of criticism and judgment stems from childhood. We are taught to be self critical and we teach our children to be self critical, measuring ourselves against the peer group, the dominant culture or our traditional culture.

Our nagging worry that we're not good enough weighs us down tremendously. It becomes almost habitual and serves as an unconscious force that sabotages all our joy and peace.The negative opinions of the status quo police also weighs us down.  This conspiracy to imprison all our souls to this "consensual matrix" is as old as the human race and is founded on fear. The source of that fear has many faces. Some might say the fear of God is a primary source. Yet, the truth is just the opposite.  God has always - through prophets and wise people - called us to be free. God isn't fear. Fear isn't creative, nourishing, uplifting, expansive or life-giving.  Fear is stiflying, reductionist, smothering, controlling and diminishing. 

God is Love.  God is who is calling us to lighten up, lose the fear and have the courage to be true to your own heart, let go of all that anchors you, holds you down, reduces your self esteem and clips your spiritual wings. You may want to do some personal inventory and release all the fear that's holding you down, tethering you to this dark age.  We may even be afraid to let go of our fear.  We may find it is so habitual and so deeply intrenched that letting it go is a major feat of mindfulness. You can pray for help and the effort will be won.

There's an ancient line that has been repeated on pyramid walls and ancient papyrus that says, "As above so below."  That beautiful phrase can be interpreted many ways.  But, it suggests that our  outer lives are a reflection of what is going on inside our minds.  If our lives are full of judgment and condemnation, poverty and pain, that is a fairly good reflection of what's going on in our minds.  If your life is calm, free of drama, full of joy and love and peace, creative, your mind is also. 

This may be why St. Francis of Assisi welcomed "Lady Poverty" because the simplicity of our singular love of God, each other and ourselves would result in a diminished need to consume quantities of goods.  Maybe this is why the great mystics and saints fasted.  In emptying themselves, their spirits gained altitude and soared into ecstatic states.

It is letting go of all our fears, all or anxieties, all our self doubt, our perfectionisms, our greed and jealousy, that allows us to slip out of the handcuffs of fear and soar. By letting go of all those negative attitudes that result in conflict, that threaten our free imagination and our sense of personal love of self and others, we can experience joyful surrender and awaken to the awareness that all we need is God and love of each other.  True freedom is in that beautiful, bright new awareness that nothing can separate us from each other in love if we are free of all the stuff that had imprisoned our souls.

Maybe the best place to start is to look at what frightens us the most and listen to what's going on in our lives.  What does it say about what's going on inside you? The outer world is only a mirror of our inner kingdom. We can't clean up the exterior without first cleaning us the interior. 

For each of us, this may be the beginning of a journey that has no end.  As we lighten our loads, we will always find more and more inside us that limits our creative freedom and our awesome abundant power to move mountains and cure lepers. It is a process of lifting the veils that obscure the light within. A true warrior of light will be willing to face his or her own inner fears and begin the journey of  on-going spiritual evolution. It is the only way to real life and ecstatic joy.

Not of this world

As spiritual beings having a physical experience, we are like angels in human bodies.  But, unlike the angels, we too often forget who we really are. 

Spiritual masters since ancient times have described our dense third dimensional world as the lowest level a divine spirit can descend.  As divine spirits in material bodies, we are truly strangers in a strange land while on Earth.  In our truest state, we are beautiful light beings of incredible power, radiance and love encapsulated in these earth bodies. We are powerful beyond our limited minds have ever allowed us to imagine. Here, we are imprisoned in narrow limited imaginations about who we are and what we are capable of becoming.

Since our senses are so strong, and our spirits so light, our spiritual intuitive guidance is often drowned out. Consequently, we have to be reminded of this fundamental truth of who we are. When we can remember who we are, we are able to listen more intentionally and activate our miracle-making ability within our souls.

Today, many have forgotten who they really are and are completely immersed in the planet's dark confusion, caught up in the power plays and the violent, fatal attraction of the control/victimization power plays that engulf life on Earth.  More than ever, we have to remember and remain mindful of who we really are. 

We need to walk through Earth's smoky battlefields and remember who we really are. We can choose to be here and yet not let what is going on around us dissuade our peace, nor lure us into the tempestuous storms that have taken the entire planet hostage.  We can walk in the light, be at peace, emitting the most beautiful holy light of heaven that radiates into and through us out into the world, regardless of what is going on outside us, around us or to us. We can do this if we can look for heaven within ourselves and focus with a renewed commitment to this consciousness and attention to what is beautiful, radiant and loving.

This is not easy.  It is the hardest thing anyone with any sensitivity, any heart, can do.  But, to survive, we must do this. 

The following are just a few thoughts shared by those wise ones who were once also in dark challenging times.

Jesus tells us in The Gospel of Thomas not to do what we hate and to "Be Passerbys."  He also reminds us often that, "You are in the world, but not of the world."

And, one of the most beautiful writings on this is from the Bhagavad Gita:

"When your mind has overcome the confusion of duality, you will attain the state of holy indifference to things you hear and things you have heard. When you are umoved by confusion of ideas and your mind is competely united in deep samadhi,* you will attain the state of perfect yoga."


*Samadhi is full communion with the divine in a state of perfect peace and detachment from all that is going on around us.  The Christian definition might be "the kingdom within."