There’s a magical feeling to this week as we come to the close of our journey with MKMMA. So so much has ‘happened’ but it feels more like an unfolding, a transformation than a happening to me.
I have stayed the course, sometimes reluctantly, and I am very glad I did so. Huge virtual hugs go out to Mark, Davene and all the wonderful staff and guides (big hug to my guide, Sheila especially).
My confidence, my self-worth, my peacefulness, and my happiness quotient have all been upleveled as I learned to really trust ‘the world within’.
This beautiful image showed up on Facebook the other day and I was struck by the symbolism. It feels to me a metaphor for who we are growing to be as we conclude this six months. I grabbed a favorite book, Animal Speak, The Spiritual & Magical Powers ofCreatures Great & Small. It’s a wonderful guide for finding one’s totem animal (or insect, or bird). The keynote of elephant is Ancient Power, Strength and Royalty. The keynote of butterfly is Transmutation and the Dance of Joy. How perfect to see these so gorgeously depicted as One!
“If elephant has come to you be prepared to draw upon the most ancient of wisdom and power. You will have an opportunity to either help yourself or others reclaim your/their most primordial royalty.”
“When butterfly shows up, make note of the most important issues confronting you at the moment. What stage of change are you in? Butterflies appear to dance as they light upon flowers. They awaken a sense of lightness and joy. They remind us that life is a dance…so dance!…dance brings the sweetness of life back.”
May you continue to be grow in the Strength and Power of the elephant and claim your Royalty! May you continue your Transmutation into the best you ever and claim your Dance of Joy!
Surrender. Perhaps that word brings up images of someone blindfolded on his knees, perhaps it looks like saying “I give up” in an argument or a game. Another possibility: Surrender means to just let go of any and all preconceived ideas of what something (or you!) “should” look like. Surrendering efforting. Breathe in effort and contraction, breathe out surrender and opening, aka The Law of Least Effort.
Defenselessness: Chopra writes: Today my awareness remains established in Defenselessness. I relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I will feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I remain open to all points of view and am not rigidly attached to any of them .
I am focusing on this aspect of the Law of Least Effort because, for me, it counteracts the most deeply engrained felt response that has tripped me up in my life. As a student of A Course in Miracles, I have committed to memory several phrases. One I use as a mantra is “In my defenselessness my safety lies.”
Let go. Surrender. The Law of Least Effort is a great friend that allows me to breathe.
A friend of mine wrote an essay a decade or so ago which has become an internet most-shared. I think it sums up this Law. She writes:
“She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go….She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right. …In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore” (listen to the video below for the full essay)
Well, this week has found me challenged to be present to the work. It doesn’t feel like resistance; rather, just a low-level lack of enthusiasm. The blahs.
Maybe it’s the rain. Oh Lordy, has it been raining. Enough already. Maybe it’s the aftermath of a horrible blast in my neighborhood that decimated several retail establishments, and has left the neighborhood looking just like those photos we see of streets in other parts of the world that have been bombed. Maybe it’s….
Oh and here’s the rub, the irony…. reading the above, I reflect on Scroll 6. “Today I will be master of my emotions.” OK. Got it. Time for a reality check. I have let my emotions rule over my resolve and my productivity. I am reminded of some lines from Howard Thurman.
“Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in fair weather or in foul, in good times or in tempests, …I may not forget that to which my life is committed.”
And from Scroll 6:
“There will be days when I must constantly struggle against forces which would tear me down….Today I will be master of my emotions.”
Chopra states : “The source of all creation is pure consciousness . . . pure potentiality seeking expression from the unmanifest to the manifest. And when we realize that our true Self is one of pure potentiality, we align with the power that manifests everything in nature.”
Pure Potentiality…that’s what we are! And how I manage to hide my light under a bushel and stay in my comfort zone, playing so so tiny in my life has been a mystery to me. But that mystery is unravelling, little by little, as I am learning to allow the fear, doubt, unworthiness, guilt, hurt feelings and anger that keep me stuck slowly be transmuted by changing the way I look at things. No need to overcome, but rather attach a different feeling! Oh my, this is so cool, and for me, probably the most challenging imperative of this entire journey. I see progress in myself, yes, but it takes mental vigilance minute to minute, especially in the area of fear. My word in the Franklin makeover this week is diligence, and I promise to be diligent in this endeavor. Especially diligent in reminding myself of the question: Do I pursue what I want, or do I continue to do what’s comfortable? I found this writing by C. Joybell C. that inspires me.
“I have realized; it is during the times I am far outside my element that I experience myself the most. That I see and feel who I really am, the most! I think that’s what a comet is like, you see, a comet is born in the outer realms of the universe! But it’s only when it ventures too close to our sun or to other stars that it releases the blazing “tail” behind it and shoots brazen through the heavens! And meteors become sucked into our atmosphere before they burst like firecrackers and realize that they’re shooting stars! That’s why I enjoy taking myself out of my own element, my own comfort zone, and hurling myself out into the unknown. Because it’s during those scary moments, those unsure steps taken, that I am able to see that I’m like a comet hitting a new atmosphere: suddenly I illuminate magnificently and fire dusts begin to fall off of me! I discover a smile I didn’t know I had, I uncover a feeling that I didn’t know existed in me… I see myself. I’m a shooting star. A meteor shower. But I’m not going to die out. I guess I’m more like a comet then. I’m just going to keep on coming back.”
This week’s webinar notes ended with:
Be still, and know that I am God
Be still, and know
Be still
Be
I have facilitated meditations many times, still do, and these exact words, breaking the phrase down to the one word, is the way I lead the people into the silence!! And, my personal short prayer has been for years: Peace, be still. (see my Who is Diane? page) No coincidences in Spirit!
There is no order of difficulty in miracles.
One is not “harder” or “bigger” than another.
They are all the same.
All expressions of love are maximal. ~ A Course in Miracles
Albert Einstein also said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
It seems to me that everything we have learned and practiced and struggled over during this journey, which is coming soon to a close, can be summed up in these three quotes: we are learning to see how beautiful our life is, just as it is in this moment, and just as it is flowering into.
We have been taught to see the Truth, Beauty and Goodness in life. We have been encouraged to continually choose again to grow and embrace how magnificent we are. We have had our eyes opened to our potentiality so that we are becoming fluid in choosing again and again to see our life as unfolding miracles. Even when stuff is up, even when we feel small and even when we feel weak and powerless…we can choose again. We can use the 7 Laws of the Mind, we can see clearly our path ahead, and we can choose to see the miracles all around us every moment of every day, of which we are a part.
We are nature’s greatest miracles, and I choose to remember that for each of us.
Loved Haanel this week. #31: …”the only difference between His spirit and your spirit is one of degree, that a part must be the same in kind and quality as the whole”.
Philosopher Koestler developed the concept of holons: The idea is that everything is not only a whole, but also part of a larger whole, so a “part/whole” or “hol-on”. Ken Wilber continued Koestler’s work in more recent years. One of Wilber’s tenets is that Holons have agency, individuality, and deep autonomy. If we really grasp that, we can clearly see that, as Haanel states: “you will have found the secret of the wonderful power of concentration, the key to the solution of every problem.” This says that even though we are indeed a part/whole of Universal Mind, and so “we live and move and have our being init”…we are free to use our power of autonomous thought consciously, for good or for ‘evil’ (not fond of that word, but will use it here)! I can be what I will to be! Within the bliss of knowing I AM a part/whole of that which created me!
#8: “When you begin to perceive that the essence of the Universal is within yourself—is you—you begin to do things; you begin to feel your power; it is the fuel which fires the imagination; which lights the torch of inspiration; which gives vitality to thought; which enables you to connect with all the invisible forces of the Universe. It is this power which will enable you to plan fearlessly, execute masterfully“.
YES!
The dash. Someone long ago referred to our time on Earth as a parenthesis ineternity. Joel Goldsmith used it for a book title, and much more recently, Deepak Chopra used it in a writing. I was very reluctant to make those index cards showing my dash, my parenthesis in eternity;… and I am very glad I did. Not wanting to look at the time I logically (according to heredity and age of death statistics) have left in this time on Earth, the simple act of drawing the timeline, and choosing a particular time of year I adore (late August/early September) and counting how many of those precious seasons I have left, was powerful. But not scary. ‘Do it now’ has much more meaning now, and of course, the card exercise simply underscores the 5th Scroll. The word imperative comes to mind. The reading and the exercise are an imperative call that simply cannot be ignored.
My DMP had been bugging me. For weeks I fought sitting down and making the revisions I thought it needed. After all, I had decided to change one of my PPN’s from Liberty to True Health. So that must mean giant changes to my DMP, right? Can you say ‘procrastinate’? My wonderful mastermind partner heard me say every week on our call that I was going to do it…this week. Finally, I made a renewed promise to her, and myself, that it would be done this week.
As I sat down to begin editing, I first changed the PPN at the top of the page. And…without any conscious thought, I typed out a definition of True Health. My definition! It took about half a minute.
TRUE HEALTH:
Mental Clarity & Curiosity, Physical Vigor and Well-being, Emotional Balance, Psychological Soundness, Financial Freedom and Continuous Spiritual Growth.
Would you believe after writing this definition, I went to my DMP, read it through, and all that needed doing was a few little shifts in wording! No major revision required! True Health was there all the time!
I am reminded of the words from the Bible: “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” This is just how I feel now! Renewed!
Speaking of renewal, I am sitting in a coffee shop, and outside I can see little shoots of spring flowers poking through the wet earth, and outside my own living room earlier this morning I noticed the ornamental Cherry is budding! Hooray for Springtime!
I am writing this on Saturday the 6th. For the first time in all the weeks of our journey, I missed the Friday night deadline. Well, perhaps this was no accident. I hadn’t made time to watch the movie this week, until today, and I also had signed up for a free live webinar to take place this morning. Guess I needed to wait for both these events to occur before I took ‘pen to paper.’
So… I will break this post into 3 segments: The webinar this morning was called Something From Nothing with Stuart Davis, an artist in many mediums that I have followed. This webinar was to introduce an upcoming 6 month on-line course focused on moving forward a creative project that is wanting to be birthed. The tie-in with our work right now is our exercise on reading obituaries and being present to the three questions posed to us. I admit I have not followed the instruction to read obituaries because last Saturday I officiated a memorial service for a woman I have worked closely with in the writing of her service since August 31st of last year. She passed at Christmas. Working with her, I have been immersed in the dying process, and the three questions posed in the exercise. So how does this tie in with today’s webinar? Stuart put us through a very deeply profound meditation. He asked us to first vision ourselves looking down on our body lying lifeless on a table. Next, he asked us to think of an event from our first 5 years of life, then move forward to around our 10th year and think of an event, then our early teen years, our early 20’s…and then in the silence continue to vision events in our life every 5 years or so, until current, and to notice our feelings as we hover over our body, at the same time remembering these events. He then posed two questions:
Is there anything more I have to offer in this life, something to create?
What do I want to make sure I have added to this story of my life? He then brought us out of the meditation a few moments later. It was very very powerful.
I just finished watching I Am. My younger daughter, Karin, and I had a long telephone conversation last Wednesday evening. The subject of homelessness in Seattle came up. Seattle has a very challenging problem currently. Karin and I talked about the good works that are being done, toward housing and temporary tent cities; however, there is a segment of our homeless that simply do not want to be helped. Generally, they are living in our neighborhoods in run-down mobile homes, and most are addicted. The trash situation is deplorable, and used syringes are a common sight. And…the car smash and grabs and home break-ins are escalating. Our inquiry to each other was what can we do, what on earth can be done with this aspect of the homeless community? One wants to feel compassion, and yet the criminal element must somehow be dealt with. We were in high frustration before we hung up. I had said to her that there needs to be more intervention in families that are vulnerable early on to stop the progression, and that it was a matter of people feeling disenfranchised and powerless that leads to this heart-wrenching societal situation. Watching I Am brought forth so beautifully the problems of disconnection in our society, and how each of us must be part of a solution. I will pass my DVD on to my daughter. And somehow, perhaps she and I can figure out how, in some small way, we can do something together to help this very immediate issue in our own backyard.
Another lovely linking occurred this week! The book, The Traveler’s Gift by Any Andrews had been recommended to me. I went to his website, and after browsing around, I downloaded a summary of his 7 Decisions from the book. Here they are:
The responsible decision: The Buck Stops Here
The guided decision: I Will Seek Wisdom
The active decision: I Am a Person of Action
The certain decision: I Have a Decided Heart
The joyful decision: Today, I Will Choose to Be Happy
The compassionate decision: I Will Greet This Day With a Forgiving Spirit
The persistent decision: I Will Persist Without Exception
I love this quote from the Forgiveness decision: “I realize today that it is impossible to fight an enemy living in my head. By forgiving myself, I erase doubts, fears, and frustration that have kept my past in the present. From this day forward, my history will cease to control my destiny. I have forgiven myself. My life has just begun.”
Here is a little clip of Andy with Robin Roberts of Good Morning America.
I have been thinking a lot about the heroes’ journey, and who in my life I see as heroes. There are many. The woman whose memorial service I wrote and will deliver this Saturday for sure is a hero. She had a dream and a powerful vision to see social justice and racial equality prevail in our country, and even though she was a ‘minority’ and did not come from an environment that supported her, she worked tirelessly, from the time she was a teenager for that cause. It was frustration and pain with what she saw happening that kept pushing her to excel in academics, and achieve a doctorate status in her career path of social work. When the pull of the vision of what could be, and how she could contribute, was so strong it couldn’t be denied, she set about teaching and mentoring those who could carry the vision forward. There were many setbacks and challenges, but she never ever allowed her vision to fade. Too early she contracted cancer, and the last few years she was without voice, literally. Through her will and her vision, she continued her work for as long as she could. She accepted the hero’s journey and her contribution to social justice will be long remembered.
My commitment to myself is to continue to step forward in my own journey. I am grateful for the clarity this MKMMA adventure has given me. Michael Beckwith said, “Pain pushes until the Vision pulls.” I see this six months as a space that has opened up to allow the pull of my DMP, my Vision to be so strong, that the painful push has receded into the nothingness from whence it came.
Kindnesses have shown up in abundance this week. I really love this Franklin Makeover process. Even though my focus this week has been self-control, kindness is very much present too. I wonder if this will be a progression where even though we choose a different virtue each week, the ones before will be so imprinted on our subconscious that we continue to ‘see’ them too! Awesome sauce!
Self-control. Wow. I have observed self-control in others more than I feel I have exercised it in my actions. I did not keep my promise to go to bed by 10 every night so that I could get up early. I did not stick to my menu plan effectively. I guess this week has pointed out to me where my desire to see these changes isn’t strong clear and vital enough to see me through correcting behaviors…consistently. As Haanel says this week in 32, “This is because the Spirit of the thing is the thing itself, the vital part of it, the real substance. The form is simply the outward manifestation of the spiritual activity within.”
It’s rained daily here in Seattle for a week. Today the clouds parted and the sun arrived. I’m off to enjoy!
And…from the Universe
Pssst… Diane, it’s me again. You deserve more, you know, much more. And I just happen to have “some.” Imagine. Try this. STOP trying to predict, and therefore limit, where it’s going to come from. Just know it’s going to come and let me figure out the rest. Cool? The Universe
Diane's Master Key Journey 