Ascension

Over the weekend, I continued to see the image of all of us radiantly filled with the ineffable love of God, liberated from all that oppressed, controlled and held us down in the depths of worry, despair, living unfulfilled lives even in depression and illness. 

I remembered another image, reflecting a similar vision,  in the wood carving by Gustav Dore of Dante's Divine Comedy shown below. While it does not depict exactly what I saw in my mind Friday evening, it is actually what was ahead of us as I saw us ascending individually and then rising and coming together as one bright light, drawing closer to a brighter light in the distance.

Paradiso Canto 31, by Gustave Dore, The Empyrean.
In the Empyrean, the highest heaven, Dante is shown the dwelling place of God. It appears in the form of an enormous rose, the petals of which house the souls of the faithful. Around the center, angels fly like bees carrying the nectar of divine love.*

While I've always been a bit frightened by Dante's depiction of hell in his Inferno, the allegorical story is powerful in its metaphor of the ascension of the individual soul, out of the dark hellish depths of despair, through surrender, and the expanding stages of light, likened to a stairway, as its rises up into the radiant light and love of total divine ecstasy, bliss, on the way closer to the beautiful union with the divine.

I share this with you, not to incur any fear of judgment because our creator does not judge, but to highlight the simple idea that when we surrender all that holds us and controls us, we will heal from our weakened state as we accept and experience only love which opens us to the ultimate love experience.  It is our perception of our own self-condemnation that we project onto our creator. The darkness itself, which controls and weakens us by condemning us, draws us away from the light with fearful, manipulative, controlling threats of judgment, self-rejection diminishing our sense of personal value and power. BY inflicting fear on us, it creates a strange sense of weakness and dependency, creating a fear-based allegiance to itself. By reversing that, we begin to grow in real power. We gain courage and strength and the longer we remain in that consciousness, we will build and stand strong and tall, able to withstand the cruel attempts to control by the darker forces.  Each time we stand up for our own dignity and value, honoring our own voice, view and self, we defeat the power of the dark.

We are here in this human life to expand our power and our light, not reduce it through fear. There is a one-way street to the divine, and it is out of fear and judgment into light and power.

As we realize the divine would never judge, and any idea otherwise is a dark and terrible lie that enslaves us to the great oppressor, we naturally surrender that lie. Then awakening begins. We awaken when we realize we are loved more than we can imagine and that nothing can ever reduce our creator's love of us. That thought is the antidote to hell's false power to control and subjugate us. It breaks its evil spell. God's love is always there as the sun is always there, regardless of any clouds. It seems once we realize this and allow it to free our minds, liberating us from our preoccupations of things in our mortal existence, then we are freed to live as we were always meant to live - in total love, peace, and joy as our authentic and unique selves and creators of our most magnificent lives.

Once we are free, we cannot ever be caged or controlled again. That is when our empowerment begins, launching on the way to divinity. Then we begin our spiritual ascension, propelling us closer to the divine, and empowering us spiritually in ways we could never have ever imagined.  As we become free, we become empowered, which is the greatest joy we could ever know.

* http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/gustave-dores-dramatic-illustrations-of-dantes-divine-comedy.html

Surrender

Imagine letting go - of everything - of everything on your mind, your life agenda, at your work, at your home, everything.

What would happen if you did that? What would happen if we all did that? What would your life be like, what would our world be like?

Can you do it? Can you feel the freedom, the joy, the peace, the total exhilaration, the total surrender - to God, to life, to love.

I can see us, all of us, one by one, as we let go of what holds us down, surrendering to the powerful draw of God's love, lifting up toward the brightest light our hearts can ever imagine, continuing upwards,  breathless, filled, transformed, utterly beyond bliss - all together flowing into God's unimaginably beautiful love and light.

Ultimate surrender.

These lyrics to Exhale, a beautiful song by Plumb, touched me deeply, giving words to what I was feeling, as I also exhaled all that holds, traps, preoccupies my attention.  As I invited the Holy Spirit to breathe even more life into my heart, I inhaled more of God consciousness and love. 

Totally beautiful, beyond words, yet words opened my heart to the awareness, consciousness, surrendering my entire being to this vastly beautiful experience. 

We are all here together, glowing brighter as we draw closer to God's light, all in love, ascending together, all in love which is itself the most beautiful love song ever sung, a profound  rhapsody to God's love, which loves us completely as we surrender and draw closer to it.

Just let go let His love wrap around you
And hold you close
Get lost in the surrender
Breathe it in until your heart breaks
Then exhale
Exhale

Oh God We breathe in your grace
We breathe in your grace
And exhale
Oh God we do not exist for us
But to share Your grace and love
And exhale

You are love

When you read the words above, "You are love," I bet your mind focused on the word "love," rather than on the word, "you."  Right? I know I did when I wrote that powerful, yet short phrase. Like most of us, I pray for and work toward being Love.

Maybe we know, or don't know, what love is.  Maybe we've heard a lot of stuff on what love is and most of it might be true.  But, the point here is on who you are.  

We are not our jobs, our families, our ethnic origins, our bodies, our health or lack thereof, our financial circumstances - wealthy or not, our homes or net asset value.  While those qualities and characteristics may be swirling around in our energy fields, in our consciousness, in our every day activities, they are not us and they do not define us.  

I know so many people, myself included, who struggle with being whole and holy people in a materialistic, money-oriented, cold, crass, corrupt world. I heard recently that for a woman to become successful she must be a "bitch." And, I certainly have met my share of those ladies. 

"Well, there goes ever being successful," I thought.  

I won't sell out the light of God or the love of God for ANYTHING. I won't be rude or selfish or mean or sharp-tongued, cavalier, nonchalant to get an upper edge on someone.  I won't be controlling.  I won't be polluted by the toxicity of our rotting old way, which by necessity must decline and ultimately cease to be. Will we still be standing in the ashes of the old world when the golden age peeks through the fog and smoke?  Everyday, we consciously or unconsciously encounter situations and people who challenge us to either be loving, kind, caring, honest and open or be controlling, manipulative, deceptive, gossiping, mean and closed. We may be deceived into thinking they have what it takes to be successful and financially viable in a diminishing middle class.  

Sometimes I feel like Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind who throws her fist in the air and declares, "With God as my witness I'm going to live through this and when it's all over I'm never going to be hungry again."

That is who Scarlet is, a powerful woman determined to not be defeated by the death and war around her. Forget the rest of the story, although it has significant psychological / spiritual merit.

Despite my own frustrations with less magnanimous people, I will not step down my standards of being loving. It's a tall order which requires discipline, prayer and mindfulness.  It's the good fight, I guess. But, it's the only way that leads us out of the dark, out of the overgrown, polluted cultural, political, economic and social climate in which we're all steeped today.

How are we going to survive what's at our doorstep and is already infecting us?  

With God all things are possible. And, God is love, and so are we - at the core of our being. There is nothing in our universe other than God and I believe God is even in the dark spaces where we think we're alone, abandoned, forgotten, left to die in the burned out battlefield of our interiority. 

When we choose God, choose to love, swallow hard sometimes, smile when we'd rather cry, stand up politely to the "bitches" in our workplace or world, and know that we are doing that all for a noble cause, we are being love. We are being true to who we are, who God made us to be, and who we really are.  

The old teachings of the church taught us - especially women (and all other oppressed groups of people) - to be slaves, servants and doormats to authority.  In order to stand up with integrity, with a commitment to survive, to get through this day or this hour on the way to that "more excellent way," St. Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 13, we have to do it with grace, kindness, gentleness, open hearts hearing the other persons' need to be loved and respected, to hear their exhaustion, their own drowning in the over-the-top spiritual toxicity levels like most of us, and yet at the same time, stand up for ourselves. 

When we honor the love, the whole value of Who is in us and Who made us and Who is calling us out into the light of our authentic being, out of the dark inner caverns, then we will begin to feel the power of that love.  

Please remember.You are love. Breathe that in, exhale the darkness, call in the light, breathe and know that you are a most beloved child of God.

Remember it through all that you are going through, through the pain, the disappointment and everything else.  You can discover heaven within your heart and mind and soul and draw it out into your life and the world.  It is there waiting for you. 

Return to who you are. You are love and you are loved and you are loving and all of that can be taken up many octaves, beyond anything you've ever known, but can and will know someday. 

You are love and nothing less.  You are love.