In the Castle

So I've been reading this book, "Entering the Castle" by Caroline Myss.  It's essentially about finding your inner path to God and your Soul's purpose.  She refers to it as "contemporary mysticism."   It's pretty heavy.  Maybe the majority of my followers (what? a whole 10 or so people out there) like to talk spirituality but don't necessarily want to live spirituality.  I wasn't quite sure I wanted to either; and when I got into the book further and combined with rich class discussions, I stated to wish I hadn't opened this can of worms.

You see, for me, at least, when I do the "work" as Byron Katie calls it, my life always seems to fall apart.  Then, between classes, there is a brief respite of calmness, centeredness, synchronicity and then as soon as I start a new one, boom!  the entire world starts exploding all over again. 

Have you ever experienced that in your own life?  I'd be curious to hear.

As far as I had always thought, mystics were these weird, social outcasts that holed up in monasteries or other holy places to connect with God; yet rarely were able to connect with regular human beings.  She is offering a way to be a contemporary mystic, where you can live in this world and still retain a fierce connection to God-like principles.  Seems a little unattainable to me at first glance.

And I think back on my life and I realize that I've never had a plan.  I've not had a lot of guidance.  I've been left to "figure it out" all alone.  I want to beat myself up for being almost 40 and not yet "achieved the greatness" that I thought I'd have achieved by this point.  And when I think about everything I've done, I become a little exhausted; most especially when I think of what yet I have left to do.  Caroline says that it's at this point you can, "let your soul have at it.  Get your mind out of your soul's way."

When you finally choose to "enter the Castle" as she likes to use as a metaphor for her specific set of exercises and meditations; your have a hightened sense of awareness, indicating the "divine has entered your Castle."   And then, from personal experience, watch out!

For instance, "the Divine may manifest in your life in a series of challenges meant to wake you up from thinking that you control your world and everyone in it.  Or perhaps God send you something to endure that seems to have no purpose, no meaning, and is, at least from your perspective, completely undeserved.  You will ask yourself, "Why me? What have I done to deserve this? Why do I have to endure this? What is the reason?"  This mystery may make you struggle to explain what you perceive as an injustice until you accept what God has chose for you."

Aha!  I always knew that sneaky critter called God was up to no good in my life!!  I knew he was out to get me from day one!  Here is proof!  {so says the Ego mind....}

One of the first things that comes to my mind is that in order for humans to explain our situation, we must use words. Words are only symbols that represent emotions and experiences that are soooo freakin old!  How can I define my feelings in words?

Well then, how can one explain what is happening to them?

Laughter is one good example.  With humor, we engage a more primitive part of our being and therefore, theoretically can bypass the Ego mind, perhaps.

Love is another.  When we engage our heart-center and truly act, without fear from this sacred place, we are free from other influences which inhibit truth and grace.  Love, above all is the gift of oneself.

Finally, time and space.  When I am able to just be free from commitments and away from the influences of friends, even though, they are helpful at some times, I feel as though I am free from all burdens.  As I sit in meditation, I realize the humility and grace I have for "God" {or that higher spiritual order to whom you may relate.  You don't have to call it God, it can be referred to by many names, but it's the Greater Energy Force beyond and behind Everything.} Humility is a bitter pill to swallow.  But, like most medications, the affect last long after the immediate discomfort.

I have no idea if what I've written tonight is of any value.  For me, however, the act of writing it was immediately rewarding.  The idea that maybe one person caught a glimmer from what I wrote is satisfying beyond measure.

Broken Heart

I recently had an experience where someone whom I trusted and opened up to totally deceived me and then abandoned me.  It wasn't easy to take.  My EGO is furious.  My EGO wants revenge.  My EGO wants to cry all the time.  My heart feels soft and wounded.  I am scared to ever try and open up again for fear of being hurt again.  It seems that I repeatedly fall into the same trap over and over again.  See Coyote post.

What sets this experience apart from others is this: he was both the "safe, adoring suitor" and the "possible rejection".  For most of my life I've had a lot of the "either-or".  When I was young, I mostly had a lot of dangerous, risk, rejection, abandoning, ridiculing, you name it.... people were not always that nice to me when I was young.  As far as I can remember, the only person I could trust was my big brother.

As I grew older I experienced a lot of safe love, but love that was deceptively safe.  They'd be there alright, but somehow withhold their affection, reject me for some flaw or hold me accountable to some mysterious standard that they even had hard times defending.  My big brother was long gone at this point, with his own adult life.  I was alone.

When I met my son's father, I had felt I had had enough of the games, the ridicule, the rejection.... I was ready for a commitment.  He seemed utterly desperate for stability.  I thought I could provide it.

Needless to say, that didn't work out very well.

As I try and wrap my mind around what happened to me in this latest love debacle, my heart keeps screaming, "Jill!!!  Wake up!!  Don't you see that YOU are the key to your own happiness???"  Sure.  I see it.  But, still, it would be really nice to share this happiness with someone that I loved and respected and that loved and respected me.

I see so many people in unhappy relationships.  I see so many odd couples.  I see my ex-husband, who, by many standards is challenging and is in a year-long relationship.  Who is this woman to put up with his aloofness?  The chaos?  His self-centered-ness?  Is she really that self-aware that she can handle it?  OMGS!?  When I say that I feel like a total loser and that I will never find someone to love me.

I really struggle with this self-love stuff.  I mean, honestly, I take good care of my self, I am pretty, athletic and I am hygienic.  I am an awesome mother.  I am better off than a great deal more of the population I see on a day to day basis, yet I struggle to find someone to treat me with respect.

Do I deserve this?  Am I destined to live this out for my entire conscious life this round?  When will I find solace in being me? And when will others see the same?  Is this my angelic story, as Neal Donald Walsh would suggest?

The weird part is that I was feeling a lot of self love at the time this man appeared into my life.  I was being totally honest with myself and I didn't yearn for love and poof! this guy appears from nowhere and pursues me hard.  I was 'going with the flow of the Universe', trusting in the goodness I had wanted.... He said things I had longed to hear.  He did things I dreamed of doing for so long.  I thought I no longer had it in me.... yet he awakened something in me I thought I had lost.  Then, as quickly as he appeared, he disappeared.  My soul seems to have been awakened from a long sleep and is a little groggy and isn't quite aware of what is going on.  Now, the absence of the admiration seems to indicate that it never happened in the first place.  The not knowing seems harder to handle.

Maybe it was only a dream.  Maybe I should look at it as if it were only a dream?

The sense of urgency to "find someone" before I am too old seems to override the sensible idea of being happy with what I have.  I then fear that I will lose what I have because I am so focused otherwise.  All this self awareness seems to only confuse my life rather than infuse it.  I wish I were ignorant, simple-minded and small.  Then maybe it wouldn't hurt as much.

I heard Indigo Girls sing once, that that "we are sculpted from youth, the chipping away makes me weary.  And as for the truth, seems like we just pick a theory..."    And I guess I thought I was changing myself with all of this self help stuff, but I think I am the same as I ever was.  Makes me think that I can't possibly surrender to the nature of it all.  Maybe I need to finally decide to let events occur without my involvement or influence and surrender to some kind of "Joan of Arc" experience.  Are those even available in this day and age?  And if so, do I really want that?

This idea of surrendering to a higher power seem to sound like defeat.  Maybe it's grace.  I am not sure.  But, honestly, I have not much fight left in me.  Today, I feel like sharing that I am lost and confused.  I am sad and angry.  I am falling apart.  And I am ok with it.  Because I have no other choice.  You know, it hit me as I was writing this; I am not going to change.  No one changes.  It's rather our perception of the world that changes.   And that, somehow, in some small, quiet space inside of me, is reassuring.

And that makes me remember the either-or thing.... one instructor recently said that Ego believes in Either-Or while Spirit believes in And-Both.  I like that sort of thinking.  So, while for now I feel like I am stuck with either being alone and happy or with someone and sad; maybe Spirit is awakening me to a new reality of being in love with myself and being wholly loved as myself too!

Roots Final Conclusions

I have been humbled in a recent life event that has left me questioning, why?  Why me?  What did I do to deserve this?  How did I manifest this?  And it’s got me kind of fearful to even think at all because I am terrified of what will happen next.  During the last ten weeks I’ve been faced with a few chaotic occurrences which leave me questioning my faith.  I read or heard somewhere recently that chaos heralds major shifts or changes.  I remain fearful insomuch that such change will fail to result in “goodness” rather than more struggle.  It’s like I’m ducking and hunching over in fear, aching with expectation of more bludgeoning, more loss, more rejection, more abandonment, more stress.   I’ve lost sight of reality.  The shadows on the wall appear grotesquely huge, inhuman and otherworldly.  I am surely suffering a panic attack because the Ego lost out over what it so desired.  My vanity is exposed.  My vulnerable soft-under belly is sore and calloused with past hurts. My story repetitiously replays in my head, numbing any sensation of truth.  Where do I go from here?

Onward.  Into my Castle.  For here in this worldly realm, our greatest challenge lies in accepting that there is no evil, no matter, no absence of life, substance or intelligence.  There is nothing to hate.  There is no sin, sickness or death.  Undressing in the deep chambers of my Soul, I become humbled and humiliated in my vanity.  All there is for me to see and know is the truth that I certainly do not know anything other than “knowing all things and doing all things, I am independent of all things.  I am absolutely free.”  I am the observer of that which I am and yet, I experience and embody this moment fully in my being.  Choosing to suffer and replay old tragedies does me no good other than to keep me mired in self-pity and self righteousness.  This is not spirituality.  This is narcissism.

I find it illuminating how close self-awareness and spirituality come towards the edge of narcissism.  One quick slip of the wrist, the thought, the mind, the heart and poof! You have gone off the map of your good into the choppy waters of self-indulgent thinking that can overpower the ideas of unity and oneness and become a vicious vice for addiction and self-deprecation.

So, I believe I can say with purity of spirit, that I understand I cannot will outcomes on the “patient nor against evil, nor for Good.  I may only tell the truth about God.  The Truth is its own will.”  Surrendering to the power and presence of God within and all around me is a humbling experience.  One that my Ego certainly resists with great fervor.   My imperfection is my perfection.  My humanness is my innocence.  My struggle is my freedom (when I finally lay down my arms and bear witness to the fact that it is I that I am fighting).

So, yearning for possessions, for romance, for peace, for truth, for understanding, for partnership, recognition, safety, love; these are all things that I can find inside of my soul.  As Rumi said, “Friend, our closeness is this.  Anywhere you put your foot feel me in the firmness under you.  How is it with this love, I see your world and not you?”  Seeing passed the yearnings and looking beyond the veil, the truth lies in wait.  Do I have the courage to claim it?

Dolly Parton said, "Storms make trees take stronger roots." I remember in one class I used the analogy of a tree in our discussion to make a case that trees don't fret about when to flush their leaves or when to bloom.  They just do it.  And as I weather the storms of life, I seek to find an equilibrium where the highs and lows, the light and the dark, the high winds and the calm silence become my norm.

I have these words floating around my head: vanity, vulnerability and rejection and I find it appealing that each definition brings me closer to the shift that was inevitable to unfold.  Vanity's definition starts with excessive pride and ends with worthlessness.  Vulnerability is defined as  being susceptible to physical or emotional injury.  And finally, rejection is the turning away from... and I just find pure irony in that in order to heal the pain I feel, I must turn away from that which isn't the truth.

As I move forward on my journey, I recognize my divinity.  I realize my truth.  I accept this truth as the truth of ALL.  I am grateful for my life.  I surrender these words to the magical, mystery of the LAW.  And so it is.

And so it is....

As a student of Science of Mind, Religious Science, I am learning so much about the process of manifestation.  And, isn't that what we are all searching for?  How to make real our dreams?  I recently sat down with our Reverend and ask these very questions.  "How do I stay on track, get what I want out of life and still be 'virtuous'?"  She smiled sweetly and sort of laughed.  The truth, she advanced and I caught, almost immediately as the words first came out of my mouth, were rather simple, yet not so easy to attain.
"Just believe it".

I've been watching Rio with my son lately and there is a similar thread of process.  Believe and you will be free.  All the mystics I've been reading lately say the same thing: believe, in your heart of hearts, don't let Ego Mind infiltrate, stay in the present, trust and surrender to "GOD" {insert your accepted term here} and you will find the freedom you were seeking.  Because, one book said that, and I sort of believe, that we only suffer from the symptoms of our disbelief not the actual disbelief.  The actual disbelief is nothing more than a construct of the Ego Mind attempting to retain control over its own existence in your life.

So, with weight loss, for instance.  It is so easy to become swept up in the hype of fad diets, magic pills, extreme measures (both dietary and physical alterations) thinking that your reality can be altered from the material plane.  I don't know what to say about this.  I've been athletic my whole life.  I weigh the most now that I have ever weighed in my life.  It's not an easy thing to surrender to.  I've struggled on the material plane to alter my current physical state with little luck.

Someone mentioned that it could be energetic.  Maybe diet pills and extra laps around the track won't suffice.  It's a matter of some greater, deeper, struggle that my Ego Mind and my heart, my true self, must finally reconcile.  This seems to be a diet of negative words, negative actions (poor diet and bad habits) and negative fear (believing I will never find my perfect form, shape or condition).    

So, now, with a full and open heart I am working on the belief that I am in perfect form, shape and condition NOW.  Not after the diet pills take effect, not after I run 100 miles, not after I have surgery.... NOW.

So I let it be, just as it is, knowing it is perfect, AND SO IT IS.

Self Knowing

For most of the last week dualities presented themselves to me in the most mundane of circumstances.  In my 5 Gifts class one student asked where "Good" and "Evil" lie within the "Eternal Oneness of God".  Conversations played out with my girlfriends about how boyfriends do this "wrong" and why can't they just get it "right".  There was the slightly passive tone in a family member's email suggesting how I have let them down.  Or the way a colleague expressed dismay when I tried to help out with a project in which they had wanted to take the lead and I felt like I had overstepped my bounds.

All of these situations prompted waves of guilt and feelings of "un-deservedness" and as I began my homework for my Roots class, reading Emmerson with a sense of resignation, the pages reflected back to me My Truth.  An inner knowing reached up from the inner shadows of my heart to confirm that "my life is not an apology but a life" and should I choose to "believe my own thoughts, what is true for me, in my heart; this, is genius."  So, whether or not It was always there and I have feigned to recognize It, or It appeared as a teacher for this week, no matter.  Self Knowing is Mine and Mine Alone.

Emmerson writes that the rule of wisdom is to never "rely on memory alone but bring it to judgement into 1000-eyed present."  I am aware of how often I live in the present moment burdened with my past hurts.  I find myself again and again emptying the contents of my baggage for others to bear witness to, as if to attempt to vindicate my behaviors or even my current state of existence. I know that it is my innocent way of trying to explain myself, yet he writes, "to be great, is to be misunderstood" and I always resist the idea that I am great.

I think, in the end, when we do find courage to bring our thoughts out of the dark recesses of our hidden chambers, from deep within the fear-laden lair of the Ego Mind, we can see them for what they really are; which is to know them for our own thoughts, from our hearts, which is, in so many ways, the Mind of God. In fact, Ernest Holmes says, in the Science of Mind, that If God is all there is, then past, present, and future -- time experience, and form -- if they exist at all, must exist as some part of the Truth.  If this Truth is all there is, we also must be included in It and we should identify ourselves with It.  Thus, the Allness of Truth automatically includes the Reality of our own being.

And so it is.

Morning Yearning ~ Mourning Yearing

I have so many things I want to cover in this post. First of all, I wanted to say THANK YOU to Ken and Tim and Cristian and Luciana who made my Thanksgiving particularly special. Being away from family (my extended family) is hard enough, but when I am forced to give up my son for holidays, it can be particularly sad. My friends helped me find the gratitude amidst the sorrow.

Then, onto tonight. A beautiful full moon. My first free night in many. I sat outside, underneath the Maiden/Mother/Crone moon and said a prayer. I reaffirmed my gratitude for my life and all my blessings. I asked to let go of the fear, doubt, insecurities, rejections, sorrow, and sadness I have tried to release over the last year. I sat with the utter stillness and knowing that everything is connected; the past and the present, the living and the dead, the lost and the found…. It’s all just one thing and I am one part of its brilliance. My light is just as important, just as brilliant, just as unique as any other in the infinite light of life.

I read from Pema Chodron’s book, When Things Fall Apart. She writes, “Although this is ordinary Buddhist thinking, …difficult to hear that what we reject out there is what we reject in ourselves, and what we reject in ourselves is what we are going to reject out there.” And she goes on to write of how we habitually erect a barrier of blame around us to keep us sheltered as we fortify it with judgments of who is “right” and who is “wrong”. Instead of holding on so tightly to what are our held beliefs in an effort to make things right or wrong in order to justify our very existence, she asks if we could try the middle way. “Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we’re not entirely certain about who’s right and who’s wrong?” And I have sensed in my self a strong urge to hold onto the idea of who hurt who and who was in the wrong and what is the right way to be, in the last few months. I’ve struggled with my anger and my sorrow. Holding on tight because if I were to let go I wasn’t sure what would follow.

I sat there in the dark shadows amidst the moonlight in my backyard. Leaning over so that the spiders wouldn’t be able to crawl down my neck. Seeing it clearly in the illumination of the intuitive, compassionate Luna: the darkness is only the absence of the light. What I passed through, the hatred, the blaming, the judgment, the mourning for my loss, the abuse, etc., was nothing more than the opposite of what I am. I am, in short, the light.

So I sat and contemplated another awesome author, Mark Nepo and his Book of Awakening. On November 27’s entry, he begins to talk about the morning and how the small light of the beginning breaking through every day is of a wisdom so large and clear that we seldom see it. We go throughout lives and get all dirty and tired and sore. The day is a challenge and the night comes as only a respite for the weary. Sooner or later, he writes, “we each must sleep. We must surrender to the quieting of all intent and regret, so that the small light of beginning can rise in us, again and again. There is no escaping this profound simplicity: what happens covers us like dirt. It covers our hearts and minds, till at the shore we call exhaustion, we slip into the water of sleep in a daily sort of baptism, so we can begin again.”

And that made me think of Ben Harper’s “Morning Yearning” and we so often want to shut the curtains and keep it dark. We don’t want to face the Shadowy Bitch of our lives and face the realities and fears and things that seem right or wrong. We want to sleep through them. Dream them away. But they come, every day, with another day to get it right. And we are always still just learning. Every day. It’s a new day and there is all this space, from Earth to the Moon and back to hold all of our fears, sins, doubts, sorrow and anger. We can let it go and it becomes part of that darkness that only serves to show our truth: the light of who we are.

I had had this piece of artwork I had made that was, well, a collection of the emotions evoked when I thought of my past and all the pain. The main image was this scary shark with all these angry words surrounding the image. It was as if the shark would jump off the page and tear off my lower lip. I’ve held onto the artwork, waiting for the “right” time to burn it. I’ve held onto it, maybe subconsciously, as if I were holding onto my covers, over my head, shutting out the light of the morning. The Mourning.

And I quietly placed this on top of the fire. It quickly and easily disappeared into the nothingness. Ashes floating up to the heavens. Set free.

I promise to open the curtain of my fears and sorrow upon the light of my soul. It’s going to be a beautiful day.

　

Gratitude

Thanksgiving is approaching. It evokes fond memories of my family playing Jenga while waiting for the turkey to roast. Or, there were the late nights in front of the TV, rubbing full bellies, as the college team of choice vied for championship. And then, there are other memories. When I was in Tahoe, an “orphan” as I labeled it, we’d all gather, the rest of us who had no family to travel and see, to feast and drink and party together as one united disjointed family. We’d have fun, for sure, but in the end, I’d always think of what it would be like to “have a family” and have a REAL Thanksgiving.

I actually can’t remember the last Thanksgiving I had with Martin and Ziggy as a family. I know that we had just returned from a pretty tumultuous and devastatingly operatic trip from the East Coast; I can’t remember what we actually did to “give thanks” that year. Because, honestly, there wasn’t much to give thanks for.

I think we both realized that our world was crumbling around us. I think we both realized that we had different cultural ideals. We were, in short, breaking apart, in a time when most families are celebrating their togetherness.

I know things only got worse from mid October to about February when I finally did leave. I can’t really remember all the details, just sorted memories, fights, yelling, things that give me panic attacks to this day.

His mother is coming this week to visit. She still views me as the perpetrator and he as the victim. I guess it’s all a matter of perspective. I get queasy just thinking of her in this hemisphere. I know Ziggy isn’t exactly fond of her, but he succumbs to his fatherly persuasions. At least, that is how I see it. But in the end, I don't have a way to keep them apart.  This is my life and I need to accept it. 

In the end, have I learned anything? Well, I can tell you whole-heartedly that I became significantly more aware of what gratitude really means; at least in the last year or so of my life. Today, one of our Practitioners was presenting at the front of Church and she was talking about having a Gratitude Journal and how it can impact your life. I don’t necessarily practice it regularly, as I liked to, but when I do, I find that naming the things you are grateful for only increases the amount of things to be grateful for. They may not be the exact things you are wishing for, i.e, more money or more things….. But should you find yourself open to what the Universe is willing to pass onto you, as you believe, you’d be amazed at the gifts bestowed.

So, for instance, I’ve focused on my abundance and financially security since leaving my ex-husband and there hasn’t been a day that I’ve dreaded being away from him. And I’ve been only focused on my health and well being, specifically focused on my on self image.   It has been a real issue for me most of my life.  And frankly, if I don’t feel like a Goddess now, I don’t know what is real!  I feel so good, without liposuction or tummy tucks! 

Life has a strange way of working out.

I read someplace recently that some people (the mean ones) were brought into your life to teach you the things you didn’t want to do or be the kind of person you didn’t want to be.  This makes me all the more comfortable in my life that I have led. I am grateful for my life, the goods and the bads. I don’t care that I don’t remember the last time I was thankful to be with Martin. I am just so grateful that I am no longer with Martin; and that it no longer matters.