Seeds

I want to become

Who I’m meant to be

But the seed knows not the flower

So I must be open

To new understandings

To all possible notions

And even what I can’t imagine

Without hesitation

Uncertainty

Or distrust

I want to become

All I’m meant to be

But the seed knows not the flower

So I must be willing

To let go of everything

Every truth I think I know

Everything I think I own

Illusions of scarcity

Security

And control

I want to become

The ultimate me

But the seed knows not the flower

So I must be ready

To break free of this tiny shell

To push through life’s heavy burdens

Trusting that beyond their darkness

A life-giving light

With everything I need
Awaits

Unconditional Love

I’ve been reading “The Five Levels of Attachment,” by don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. At the same time, I’ve been working to understand the concept of “unconditional love”.

My understanding of the message from the book is that our attachments to our beliefs get in the way of our following our own, best path. The more strongly we are attached to a belief, the less likely we are to challenge it, even if it becomes almost impossible to make that belief work with what we see around us.

People kill and die because of their beliefs. That belief may be that only their religion is right, that their country is the best, or that their physical body’s shape, size, or color is somehow better than another.

The Dalai Lama, the well-known Tibetan Buddhist teacher, explains the difference between attachment and unconditional love:  “Attachment and love are similar in that both of them draw us to the other person. But in fact, these two emotions are quite different. When we’re attached we’re drawn to someone because he or she meets our needs.[…] On the other hand, the love we’re generating on the Dharma path is unconditional. We simply want others to have happiness and the causes of happiness without any strings attached...” He neither accepts nor denies that unconditional love is possible, but he does explain it quite clearly.

People harm each other because of attachments to a belief that there is a limited way to love. I’d bet on the fact that you know someone who believes it is wrong to love outside of your race, your religion, or to love someone of the same gender. Those same people may tell you that God doesn’t want you to love in the ways they believe are wrong—and they may also tell you that God loves unconditionally. 

Perhaps they explain this as a paradox—that God loves unconditionally, but with a few conditions.

A Yoruba priest, Kalila Borhgini says, “God’s love is unconditional, but God also has expectations and requirements.” She accepts this and, a little later, calls it a paradox.

Baptist Rev. John Piper writes, “There is such a thing as unconditional love in God, but it’s not [...] for everybody. Else everybody would be saved, since they would not have to meet any conditions, not even faith.” What I get from this is that God loves us unconditionally, only if we have faith—which is of course, a condition.

I don’t believe in paradox. My feeling is that when we see something as paradox, it’s because we are seeing part of the equation incorrectly. 

2+3 will never equal 4. No matter how attached I am to the number three, as long as I hold it in that part of the equation, I am going to come up with a paradox because the only thing that logically fits, is another two.

Consider this statement: God is everywhere. 

At first, I took that to mean that God was here with us, all the time—that God was always present, right along with everything else. In time, I considered the possibility that God was neither another dimension superimposed over what we see and feel, nor a presence far away that was somehow aware of everything else.

Maybe God isn't here WITH everything, but AS everything. Maybe God’s presence “everywhere” really means that everything and everyone is God. 

Einstein and other physicists tell us that all matter is actually energy. Slow down energy's vibration and you get what we call matter. This means everything we see, feel, know or imagine is energy. Our thoughts and feelings, our movement through space, and even our bodies. 

Everything is energy. God is everything. Therefore God is energy. This equation makes sense to me. 

Perhaps God slowed down bits of that energy in order to experience what we think of as the physical realm. 

In the Law of Attraction teachings (also called the teachings of Abraham) it says, “Unconditional love is staying in the vibration of Source regardless of the condition.” To me, this says that we can only love unconditionally if we are in alignment with the vibration of the Universe (God). In a way, this is saying the same thing as the Baptist Reverend--that faith(or alignment with God) is a condition of unconditional love. 

One could look at it to mean that only God can love unconditionally, but if we did accept the premise that God is all, then God is us, and we are God and therefore, we should be able to achieve unconditional love.

I will make mistakes and you will make mistakes, yet God is perfect. If we are God, then mistakes do not take away from our perfection. How can that be? 

If I am God and you are God, then the concept of ‘loving thy neighbor as thyself’ has a different flavor. Thy neighbor IS thyself and both of us are God. We are meant to love ourselves and others and God constantly and equally, because they are one and the same and Divine—and therefore perfect. It’s like saying God has unconditional love for us because we are Divine and perfect aspects of God. That equation seems to ring as true as 2+2=4. Both sides are equal and the same. 

Catholic Fr. Vincent Serpa writes, “God does love us unconditionally in that he loves us even in our sins. But he cannot love our sins.” This is the “love the person not their actions” version of “unconditional” love. It represents an attachment to the “good and evil” concept. 

But maybe the way we choose to manipulate the energy around us (the way we choose to live our lives) is not good or bad. Maybe that judgment is irrelevant to God. Maybe God does not have any expectation of how we will use our time in this physical realm, but instead, has a knowledge that all aspects of God will always be aspects of God regardless of how we shift that energy—that no matter what we do, we are still perfect.

We would not put the three in the 2+3=5 equation unless we had a really good reason to believe that the three belonged there. If we were to accept that this paradox of expectations and unconditional love is a faulty equation, what attachment would have caused us to create it?

I think it’s an attachment to conditional love that moves me—and others—create the paradoxical equation. 

In my most rational moments, I don't actually believe God loves one person more than another. I accept that everyone and everything is an aspect of God, and that God loves all aspects of the Universe equally. Therefore, what I do here has nothing to do with how much God loves me.

The first time I considered that idea, I was surprised by a wave of fear. Why would that be a scary thought?

As a small child, I wanted to be loved unconditionally but I learned that love was conditional. I believed my parents were not capable of giving me unconditional love because I was not capable of being "good enough". If I believed unconditional love was possible, I also had to accept that my parents chose not to give it to me. This is harder to accept than to believe there’s an unknowable paradox—which would allow me to never have to look at the situation too closely.

In order to imagine this need for unconditional love being fulfilled, I personified God. I gave God the quality of requiring a condition for love, a quality that actually belonged to my parents. Like many (as my examples above display) I developed an attachment to the belief that "unconditional" love would be given to me if I followed a certain set of rules.

An attachment to this belief has several benefits.

For one thing, I can solve the greatest dilemma of my childhood. With God, I can finally be "good enough" to receive “unconditional” love. 

But also, by believing that God’s unconditional love actually has some conditions, it gives me an illusion of power. If I do “God’s will” then surely God will love me more. I will become one of the chosen, the beloved, the saved—whatever name you’d like—by fulfilling the conditions imposed by my belief system.

If I give up the attachment to the concept that I gain God’s love by following certain rules, does that mean I have to believe I can’t gain God’s love?

Yes. That's true. I can’t gain God’s love because I already have it. We can't ever lose it.

If we have to follow rules in order not to lose God’s love, we live fear-driven lives. There is constantly the possibility that I might lose the love I need, so my actions are driven by the set of imposed rules in my belief-system.

If I truly accept that God's love is unconditional, then I am no longer driven by fear of losing that love. It is that fear that seems to hold us to the rules of society—the things our society has decided are "moral” or “right”. Without that fear-driven base, It seems I would no longer be governed by the laws of man. I would be free to act exactly as I'm called to act. The moral "dilemma" would not exist. 

Our attachment to the concept of "good and evil" may be the hardest one to release. How many paradoxes would be wiped out of existence if we saw that this is really a societal concept, not an actual law of the universe? We would not have to hold ourselves (mankind) to a different standard as the rest of nature, for one. We would not have to judge ourselves or others harshly for "making mistakes", for another. We all know we are going to "make mistakes" yet we live in resentment, shame and guilt. 

If we were going to release our attachment to societal morals. We would have to raise our children in an entirely different way. When a toddler first experienced rage and struck out to show it, we would not tell him what he was doing was wrong. Instead, we would teach him that everything and everyone IS God, just as he is, and that when he strikes out against the world, he is striking out against himself. 

Of course he would not understand this as a toddler, but neither does a toddler understand “wrong”. We drive that into children until they believe it and then expect them to accept the "paradox" that God loves unconditionally—with some conditions.

Awakening Child

Have you imagined it?
I have.
I suppose it’s become a kind of a legend. We’ve all heard the stories, although I’d be surprised if I ever met anyone who actually knew someone this happened to. It’s terrifying in a primeval way that I don’t really understand, and that is exactly the kind of thing that legends are made of.

I am speaking of the long term coma victim who finally awakens after decades have gone by, and finds the world to be a different place.

Imagine for a moment, you have fallen asleep at age twelve and then you wake up to find you are more than fifty years old.

This is what I am feeling, inside, at this moment. For several weeks a part of me has been gradually regaining consciousness. Although, throughout my life, she has sometimes stepped up when she was needed, for her it has been as if in a dream. While she was able to be the face of anger inside me, the protector who would go to any length to make sure I am safe, she has remained a twelve-year-old child...
And at the same time, she has never been a child.

What do I say to this twelve-year-old who has missed so much? How can I comfort her? How can I get her to a place where she can accept that she is now not only an adult, but an aging one whose has children who are mostly grown and a thirty-plus-year relationship with a man who is over fifty, as well?

The twelve-year-old began to show herself at the Soul Retrieval, but she was only testing the waters. She stepped forward and spoke to the Rainbow Lady of things we had already talked to our regular therapist about, months earlier. Since then, she has been awake more and more often.

I really was not aware of much the twelve-year-old said to the Rainbow Lady, at the time of the Soul Retrieval.  So I asked her about it in an email. This is part of her reply:

I believe it was during the 3rd soul retrieval process when you were working on the time that your 12-year old stopped playing the piano. The old, false conclusion that you had was that if people found out what you were really like, they would stop liking you, and that "I am not the way I should be." The old limiting behavior that you developed from that was "don't let them know what I'm like, don't share anything." I asked, "How does that hurt you?". You said, "Lots of ways - nobody else shares anything either."
I asked, "How does that behavior hurt others?" You said, "I have something to offer and they don't get it."

I think that you felt these old these old conclusions and behaviors had come from your father (although that specific information is not in my notes.) Does this feel like what you were remembering and asking about?

Reading the words she had put down in quotes was unimaginably fascinating to me. It was like eavesdropping on a conversation between others because I had no memory of having said those things. I know at the end she had me write down all the new beliefs we had established during the session, but some of them were truly new to me as I did not remember having discussed them with her during that session.

That's because in the past, if the twelve-year-old was awake, I was not. Only now am I experiencing a little bit of co-consciousness with the angry adolescent for the first time.

The Flickering of Spirit

The more in tune I beome with my own spirituality, and the more I share that with others, the more people I come across who are willing to share their views and beliefs. Consequently, I have incredible conversations – some in person, some in email - with quite an eclectic group of people. From New-Age to the oldest Religion on the planet - Shamanism, and including those who follow Christian, Hindu, Budhist, and Muslim teachings, and my friend the Rabbi, I hear so many truths - and they are all a piece of the whole.

There are themes that run through every belief system I’ve come across, so far, but it is the ideas that push the edge of my own understanding that call to me most.

This morning, I received an email from a young man who has a lot of interesting, mind opening ideas about faith and spirituality. While he was raised Christian, can quote the bible better than many Christians I know, and still holds Jesus in his heart, his thinking is as far outside the box as my most new-age acquaintances. For someone so young (I think he is in his late twenties), he seems to have done more spiritual growth than many people two or three times his age.

So I will ask you to read his words with an open mind. What he says will not feel right to everyone. Mostly I believe the problem lies in semantics. We don't have the language to describe that which we can't see, hear or feel. It's a little like substituting words we might use for smells to describe color. It just doesn't work.

To me, the essense of his words is very thought-provoking.I would not push any ideas on anyone. I only bring this up here because these kinds of discussions are the most interesting and important ones to me, right now. I would value whatever you have to say - whether you agree or not - and hope to read some comments that can bring out the same kind of explosions in my mind and Mind (The distinction should become clear, soon).

A small part of the email JB sent this morning:

Recently, my 'spiritual' path has led me to a realization that may be a culmination of all that I've learned. It is a sort of truth that I will in no way be able to escape, nor would I want to. So I'm gonna be honest and share it, and although it may seem strange or ridiculous, maybe it could be of benefit to you in some way.

Ok. My search for God, Love, Truth, Soul, etc has led me to this unavoidable realization: My own Mind is my God! And when I say God, I mean the real deal...I don't mean it as a way to devalue God, I see it in such a way that God now is realer and greater to me than I have ever imagined. And it is just that - Whatever I imagine, think or believe about God, it is contained within my Mind, my Mind gives me the power to imagine it, think it and believe it.

I know you're somewhat familiar with meditation and eastern thought, and one of the concepts is that our Minds need to be controlled. Like that [Osho Tarot] card says, 'The Mind is meant to be a Servant'. Well, we cannot even think or state that 'the mind is meant to be a servant' without using the power of the Mind. What we have a problem with is not the Mind, it is often the content of the Mind, certain automatic thoughts we experience, often irritating, worrying, or negative. To me, those thoughts are actually Good, because the Mind, my God, is so graciously showing me something I need to deal with, heal, work with, take care of. If I avoid them, it is neglectful, If I fight them, it is harmful - so essentially, I must treat them with love and respect, because just like those thoughts...I am part of my Mind.

I read this with a little skeptisism, at first. Yes, the concept of worshiping ones own Mind could be seen as blasphimous or even kind of crazy. We are not supposed to see ourselves as God...
Or are we?

Here is part of my reply to him:

The question of mind and Mind...

To me, Spirit (God) is like another dimension that is overlaying what we see and feel in the physical world. God is everything. Everything is God. It’s as if everything we experience in the physical world is the dream while the overlay - the Spiritual dimension - is what's real.

I can sense Spirit [God], but not with my mind... More like Spirit is in, around and through my mind and body. It connects me to everything else. The separateness is the illusion – and it is a necessary illusion.

So when you say your Mind is your God, I feel that it is close, but not exactly it. It isn't the physical brain, chemicals, electric impulses, etc. that are God or "You", it is this overlay of Spirit. I suppose it is not unlike the "third eye" or the sixth chakra. It feels as if "I" am inside my head, but my head, my mind, my body are all just a physical representation of me! It is the invisible connection between my brain-and-body and everything else in the universe that is God.

You say you feel as if your Mind is your God – to me it seems as if we are all God. That's how I see it, anyway.

So - the capital M - Mind vs. the small m - mind = Spirit vs the physical world.

There is a guidance that seems to come from the Mind, but there is also chaos and deception which comes from the mind. How easy it is to fool ourselves! How easy to distract, ignore, deny... and that is not God. The physical mind will lose it's brilliance, and one day it's light will go out completely. It is that overlay of Mind that will shine on... and it is that clarity of Mind that can guide us on a true path while we are here in these physical bodies.

The illusion of this planet, our physicalness, is necessary or it would not exist. We are meant to be here on this planet. There are obviously many lessons still to learn. Becaue we are all part of the same thing, the lessons learned by one faction of the whole will be gained by the entirety of Spirit. We can't all have the gift of understanding God or interpreting the Mind. If everyone had the kind of connection to Spirit you speak of, no one would fully invest in the physical world and learn the lessons we need to learn.

Sometimes I feel that I am completely connected to Spirit, especially recently. Maybe the lessons I still have to learn have more to do with things beyond this physical world? As I am letting go of the burdens of the physical world, and at the same time going through a letting-go process as my children grow up and move on, I am less connected to what is here and more connected to that invisible overlay - more Mind and less mind. More and more often I feel guided, moved by something I can sense almost as strongly as seeing something right in front of me.

Tomorrow, I'm doing a Soul Retrieval. To me, it is about fine-tuning that overlay - the Mind  - and bringing it more together, more inline with the Universe, and more to the surface of my mind.

I've had some fear as the Soul Retrieval gets closer. Part of my fear has been that I am moving closer to releasing the physical world with each step I take. While the Mind may be willing, the mind is also overwhelmed with the worldly need to survive, and so I think that is what the fighting, the fear, has been about.My mind is working very hard to hang on to everything because it runs on a physical kind of instinct - as opposed to the directed and guided Mind.

So… tomorrow is the Soul Retrieval.
I haven’t slept well in several days – between the dog waking me numerous times each night and the chaotic dreams that persist, I am tired. I’ve stopped worrying about the lack of sleep. I am going with “things are as they are meant to be”. Whatever state of mind (or Mind) I am in tomorrow, it will be exactly as it should be.

Last night, in the dreams – in which I am still sometimes on a ship, and am constantly in near total darkness – I saw little pieces of light in the distance. Sometimes the lights were stars. Sometimes it was more like seeing something out of the corner of my eye, and when I turned the light would be gone.

At 2:30, I went outside with the old lab and as I stood on the driveway, waiting for him, I watched the fireflies flickering in the fields. In my half-asleep state, the fairy light of the fireflies seemed a profound reflection of the lights in my dreams. I was thinking, just as Spirit is within us and we are all Spirit, these little flashes of brightness are also a part of the entirety of God. I saw each as a soul piece, a tiny part that was flying free in a field, showing off it’s brightness to anyone or no one and waiting to be reconnected to the whole.

And that’s when I knew I was ready for tomorrow. Sleep or no sleep, dreams or no dreams, tomorrow I am going to search for the flickering lights in my MInd - the Spirit that overlays my mind.

And I know that whatever I find will be exactly what I am meant to find.

Journey to the Safe Place

The room smelled sweet. Soft white noise blocked out the world. Pillows covered the white plush sofa. She pulled a curtain over the door, and another over the window, closing the space off from the outside.

I sat down. We talked for half an hour, her asking, me trying to answer. There were uncomfortable pauses that I felt I should fill.
Mostly, I didn’t.
I knew that if I tried too hard to find something to say, all the words would leave and be replaced with the panicky fog.
I waited to be asked.
I answered as best I could.
It was good enough.

When I dared, I looked at her face.

Calm – no, serene.

There was no rush there, no expectation, no judgment.
It felt right… as it should be… as I’d hoped it would be.

And then she talked about finding a safe place.

I was told I would have to walk down ten flights of steps. This was a little disconcerting. Either I was up ten stories – not something I enjoy – or I was going to descend to an underground cavern. The thought of going deep into the ground made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.

I closed my eyes, lulled by soft music.
She spoke.
I had to choose.

I was in a round tower. I told myself it was safe, strong and secure. No one else was there. In front of me was the arch of an open window. I couldn’t see too much, but I knew I was high above the ground. I wasn’t yet certain what was down below. I found myself wanting to approach the window, but I was afraid to, being up so high. It made my hands and feet tingle as heights always do.

It was time to head down the winding staircase. I ignored the numbness in my hands and feet and walked down the first flight of stairs. I rounded a bend and saw an identical arched window. Outside it was bright and the sky was summer blue.

After descending another flight, I found another arched window. I got a little closer. Below I saw green grass with lavender patches spread out in the sunlight.

It's the purple meadow!

I knew the bench was there, but I couldn’t see it yet.

It must be directly below me, near the tower.

Another flight down and then another. From the sixth floor, I was even with the tops of the tallest trees that surrounded the meadow. I remembered being in the meadow - the one in the real world. I remembered how exhilarating it had been the first time I stepped out from the trees and saw the open space surrounded by trees and covered in grass and lavender. Anticipation turned the memory to reality. I hurried down to the next level.
Half way down. No time to stop at the window.

Safe, protected, warm, inviting.

Fourth floor.
Third floor.
I had to see if the bench was there. On the second floor, I paused, hands on the window ledge. Leaning out a little, I could see the bench. My clipboard and pen were there, waiting.

The bench in the purple meadow

(taken during my private retreat last month)

Only one more flight to go. Down the steps, around the bend...

At the bottom, I found an arched doorway where the windows had been. The door was open. A warm breeze wafted in.

Lavender.

I stepped into the light, heat radiating on my face. I walked to the bench and put both palms on the seat, feeling the warmth of the sun on its surface.

The Purple Meadow

(Taken during my private retreat, last month)

Sitting, I looked around at the blooming meadow. Like a waiting friend, a deer took a step toward me, moving halfway out of the woods beyond the meadow.
I smiled at her welcome.

I reached down to run a hand over the tops of the blooming lavender, feeling the caress of their soft petals on my palm. The breeze moved my hair against my face.

So safe and warm, so incredibly comforting...

When I looked up, the deer had come close. Cautiously, I reached a hand out to stroke the side of her face. The instant I touched her, she stared into my soul.
It was intense.
Strength and knowledge, love and wisdom emanated from the moist and dark-brown depths of those eyes.

Leaving my body behind, safely seated on the bench, I stood up and walked with the deer. She led me across the meadow to a pond I hadn’t seen before. Pushing aside the tall grasses and cattails, I stepped to the edge and looked at my reflection in the glass-like water. I was beautiful; ageless, knowing, light, and unafraid.
In my eyes I saw determination.

I don’t have far to look to find myself.
I am here.
I’ve always been here.
I’ll always be here.

“When I count to five…”

It was so unexpected, so sudden.

“One”

I was swept back into my body.

“Two”

The deer watched me from the edge of the forest.

“Three”

I rose from the bench and turned towards the tower, but already it was losing substance, wavering, fading before my eyes.

“Four”

I closed my eyes, locking the vision of the meadow behind my lids. I felt the gaze of the deer on my back and I knew it would always be there.
Watching… guiding…

“Five”

I opened my eyes.
Blink.
Blink.
I was back in the room with the pillows, the sweet scent, the white noise…

Back to the real world.

Or is it?

*****

(Here are two computer drawings I did this afternoon.

I posted these a few hours after putting the rest of the post up.)

Seeing the Pond

Reflection