Archive
Inspiration from The Divine Feminine: “Reach into the Future for Your Power”
Rosemary’s message this week suggests that we push our limiting beliefs and negative thoughts about ourselves into the past; then to reach forward to a “future self” we visualize as empowered and to bring that power back into the present. Please watch:
PS: Have a wonder-filled Holiday Season and many blessings in the New Year!
The Formless Future Helps Form the Present
And now for something completely different! (I warned you in yesterday’s post I’d be breaking out of structure today!)
Here is an audio clip from my Message from The Other Side delivered by Rosemary at her Conversation with The Other Side last Friday evening (12/7/2012). It is nearly 14 minutes long and contains valuable information for all of us to hear. But if you only have a few minutes, today’s subject is covered early in the recording.
Here’s the link: Richard’s Message
The key thought here is: the future of your creation depends on how you are being in the present moment. The formless needs to inform you in order to create the future.
There is a lot here in these few words! I’ll be writing about this understanding in the next few days! Enjoy!
PS: If you find this guidance useful, if you want to meet a Medium and receive a message from The Other Side, Angels, guides, Spirits (the future), Rosemary hosts a Conversation with The Other Side at least monthly. These Conversations are held online; you can join from anywhere. Click here for details. The January Conversation will be announced soon.
Brainwashed?
Yes, by one of the most powerful forces in my life (no, not Rosemary): my own ego!
As I have mentioned before part of my daily practice is to draw a couple of cards from my favorite decks to divine a sense of the energies of the day. One of my decks is the Crowley Tarot Deck and I use The Crowley Tarot by Akron and Hajo Banzhaf to continue to deepen my understanding of the cards. Today (Thursday) I drew the XVI of Trumps, The Tower. (I’ve included its image here). And my first reaction was: how cool to bring up this image of “destruction” as
I sit to write about brainwashing, its power and destructive potential and how to re-program from the brainwashing; in other words, destroy its impact and bring in the new images of self that are needed at this time!
This is 2012, and I am writing this on 12/12/12. Rosemary led a meditation today at 12:00 noon Eastern time, to activate and anchor the emerging energies of transformation as we draw near the Winter Solstice of 2012. What better time to let go of the old structures, the old energies, the old beliefs, the old brainwashing, those stories we’ve been telling ourselves for years, that may no longer hold any truth or power for us or over us.
And so I draw this card with its Tower, this burning, toppling structure that is an empty shell holding nothing for me as I move into the new energies at the end of 2012. Here are phrases from the guide book: “destruction of form…upheaval of values”, “enlightenment … that strikes like lightning and destroys … rigid ideas”, “overcoming one’s self”, “breaking open encrustations.” Wow, sounds like deprogramming to me!
The ego holds our beliefs, especially about ourselves. It is a wonderful friend, protecting us from both physical and emotional harm. It can also be our worst enemy holding us back when we are called to speak our truth, holding us to old beliefs when we receive new information that would help us grow, develop, evolve! The ego protects us but also holds us prisoner locked away in our tower. It is time for my tower to tumble!
And so I seek to burn down the current structures of my life, to sabotage my own ego, to break free of the bonds that fetter and hold me frozen in a place of safety but with little progress.
How? I will write more about my process and what is coming to me for tomorrow’s post. Meanwhile I continue all of my practices, which I have described in earlier posts. They serve me well and help me through the ego-generated blocks that no longer serve me. My practices are the “fire and kindling” I use to burn my imprisoning tower down.
Towers, so too brainwashing, can be good and bad. We need structures in our lives to hold us safe and help us hold the energy of the time; but when they impede our progress we need to burn them to the ground!
Burn your prisons down!
Oh, and happy New Moon (3:42 am EST, 12/13/12)! What better time to bring in the new energies of progress and transformatio
A Poem for Monday: “Shells”
Shells
The heart does not expand
From an empty shell.
The seed is there inside
Waiting for the moment.
It takes a special love
To break through that shell.
The germ hovers in bonds
Trembling in dark potential.
The light waits calmly
Just outside the shell.
The sprout presses its power
Seeking a weakness and release.
Suddenly love explodes
Through that hard shell.
The tender life wiggles free
Reaching toward the light.
The heart embraces all life
To escape that empty shell.
The community grows
Filling the world with love.
©2012 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
PS: Join Rosemary and me for a special meditation on Wednesday at noon: 12/12/12 at 12:00 PM Eastern/9:00 AM Pacific. Just dial 1-218-862-1300, and the code to enter is: 143201. We will be holding the space and welcoming in the energy of this special time.
A Remembrance of Trees
My reach today is extending out to all the trees I’ve known in my life. I have a lot of Wood Element in my Chinese Astrology chart. Trees have always been important to me; and now as I practice the 5-Element Qigong form which ends on the “standing on stake” pose I imagine myself hugging one of the trees in my life.
As a child growing up on the family dairy farm in Wisconsin, I was surrounded by trees and their gifts. There were several stately Hickories out in the pasture; we gathered their nuts every fall and let them dry and age a bit. During the long winter nights we would crack their hard shells and patiently pick out the little meats. These would go into the most delicious “refrigerator cookies” you can imagine. The Horse Chestnut in the front yard didn’t give us edible fruit; its nuts were fun to play with but very bitter. The shade of that lovely tree was the best; the broad leaves were dense, dark green and not like other leaves. The farm was named for the Maples that divide the big lawn into two columns. These had been planted by the original owner of the farm and were nearing 100 years old when I was a boy. I had hoped they were Sugar Maples and tried to tap them for their sweet sap but with no luck there. The wild parts of the farm were filled with Oak; and, yes, we had many squirrels housed and fed by these stately beings. And a favorite was a clump of White Birch down in a ravine. I tried once to harvest some bark to use as “paper.” I hope I didn’t damage them then. They are gone now along with the Chestnut and Hickories.
I encountered some amazing trees in Africa. I was there for a few extraordinary years in the late 60s and was fortunate to live in Ethiopia and tour East Africa. I loved the Acacias, initially so foreign looking to this sheltered farm boy. There is an ancient and tenacious quality about these trees; they weather all sorts of climate change looking like they belong to another age. They have lived through much and have many stories to tell. I lived in the middle of the Rift Depression but still at about 5000 feet elevation. The highlands above my valley rose to 10,000 feet and as I climbed the trails to higher villages I walked through forests of Bamboo and Eucalyptus. The scents and sense of presence among these beautiful beings was amazing: the essence of the eucalyptus in that density brought on euphoria; I loved that walk!
I lived next door to a Magnolia for a while. She was a real lovely and showed off with incredible blossoms every late spring. At that time I had a huge old Pecan tree in the back yard. I tried to harvest her fruit but she was so big I couldn’t protect her babies from insects; I guess they had to eat too! And in the side yard this little weed-like tree appeared; the next year it bore fruit: delicious little figs! In another yard in another time I lived with a wild plum in the side yard. This was the first tree to bloom each spring; and her flowers were so dense they would blow like snow in the cool breezes to cover our cars; it was fun to drive away with these flakes of purity trailing behind.
At my beloved school in New Mexico there is a gigantic Cottonwood down by the creek. I was never there for her blowing cotton but there were shreds still clinging in the woodpile, even in the summer. Did you know these trees’ cotton dissolves in the rain taking nitrogen into the soil as it goes? Did you also know that the cotton has been bred out of these trees so they can be planted in Colorado Springs without the “nuisance” of that cotton? I planted one of those cottonless Cottonwoods to be a shade tree for our grandson who is very fair-skinned. Faithfully she grew incredibly fast; almost as fast as the grandson! Aspen come to mind here because I love them and tried to plant clumps with the cottonwood. I had no luck with them; they prefer altitudes higher than our 6700 feet in Colorado Springs. We had to drive higher to admire their beauty. Did you know Aspen are rhizomes. There is a colony in Utah thought to be a million years old!
I am so grateful for all these trees in my life; and there are many more! Every 5-Element Qigong form I practice I hug a different tree for the wood element; I have a lot of practicing to do!
Have you considered all the trees in your life; and the pleasure they have given you; and the life?
PS: It’s not too late if you want to meet a Medium and receive a message from The Other Side, Angels, guides, Spirits. Rosemary hosts a Conversation with The Other Side tonight, December 7 at 7:00 pm Eastern. This Conversation is held online; you can join from anywhere. Go here for details.
Inspiration from The Divine Feminine: “Your Reach”
This week’s video reminds us just how far our energy reaches; the expanse of our influence:
PS: Have you ever attended an event with Rosemary? Have you ever visited a medium? Here’s your chance! The last Conversation with The Other Side of 2012 is this week, Friday, December 7, at 7:00 PM Eastern. It’s a Video Conference call, no need for you to travel! Just use your internet connection or even a phone!
Love and Self-Love: Part 2
(Post-Epilogue: Today, November 30, I broke one of my special, probably most precious, Yixing teapots, one that I’ve had with me for years. Another loss, this one more permanent than misplaced reading glasses and a lot closer to my heart. Lesson? Another one; very hard this time? Really? Clearly I am in a fast-paced learning mode at this stage of my journey!)
Self-Love. Not a simple path. Practice Love; begin with self!
It is even difficult to go back to my last post and read my own words on this subject. How do I love self, the clumsy oaf who swept his pot from the counter in an over-exuberant flourish? But life hasn’t stopped and I must Love on!
My first step in working through the lesson today, the loss of another precious object, is to accept impermanence. It’s all just temporary, right? Let go. Yes, of course, grieve the loss. But within the grief is the built-in praise. I can certainly find gratitude for all the years of service the pot gave me. My memories of pouring tea from it, admiring the design, experiencing the beautiful color develop over the years of use are still with me to celebrate. This is another reminder of the cycle in everything; the pot began as dirt in a ditch in China; the dirt was harvested, hopefully with ceremony, thanksgiving and praise; then it was processed into clay, worked, hand-shaped, finished and fired; somehow it made it all the way from China to me safely; and now it returns to dust.
When I worked with micaceous clay in New Mexico with master potter, Felipe Ortega, we experienced the entire life-cycle of the clay. I made several small pots; and while my first attempts were nothing to take pictures of, they were special to me. One of the assignments, we later learned, was to sacrifice a pot to the Holy. We each broke one of our pots against a post as an offering, as a way of giving thanks for the clay and for our hands that shaped the clay, and the Holy who shaped us all. The shards remained in that spot for years afterward. And we each took a shard from that pile of rubble to grind down and incorporated into our next pot; the cycle was unbroken.
I can do this with a shard from my teapot. I can keep it going, giving, by recycling it in a personal and useful way. The object doesn’t go away, it only changes its shape. “Pots are fashioned from clay, but it’s the emptiness that makes a pot work.” – Taoteching, Ch. 11. The pot may be impermanent, but the clay is still there as is the emptiness!
As another step in the learning, can I turn the curse at my ill luck at breaking the pot into a blessing? This is another practice I learned in Bolad’s Kitchen with Martín Prechtel. Oh, yes, I did curse myself, my luck, my inattention, my carelessness, my mindlessness as I watched the pot tumble to the floor and become shards. Then I withdrew before my anger spilled over too far to hit others in the path of my negative energy, the antithesis of self-love. And I went inside for awhile. And as I write I am still processing, learning to do it through words coming from the inside rather than holding it all in where it churns and festers. Where are the blessings that come from this loss? In a sense I have already done some of this work, thanking the pot for its years of service. But what about me? Can I find a way to bless me through this lesson? This is where it gets really hard!
I am here, at the keyboard, writing words that will help me work through the curses that I can’t take back. I am letting go the anger, giving it to the compost heap where it can metabolize back into usefulness rather than metastasize within me. And I can recall the years with the pot and all the use it gave me and the care I gave it during those years; we took good care of each other for a good long time. And I can place the pot in a corner of my mind to remind me to come back, cycle back to the present moment. And I can know that the pot can help me pay attention to everything in the moment; to expand my awareness beyond a narrow focus and take in my environment, appreciating very thing around me and near and dear to me.
So, I bless myself for my deep thought, my appreciation for fine things, my attention to detail and my broad and extraordinary experiences that come together to inform and refine my approach to life, and the impermanence that threads through it All.
And with moist eyes I come back to Love, even self-love as I accept my blessings and learn a bit more about forgiveness.
Love and Self-Love
(Epilogue: I went back to the post office this morning and they did have my glasses, pretty much right where I had left them. My immediate reaction was delight and gratitude, even for this small event. And then I asked myself about the lesson: mindfulness, gratitude, and never sweat the small stuff!)
In my on-going exploration of this subject of Self-Love (why is it so important?) I wrote something worth sharing in my daily “Pages” the other day:
It all comes back to trust. This is always hugely important. And trust falls back on Love. Everything rests on Love. All of creation springs from Love! And where does this love spring from? How did this “energetic” get launched, and “who” launched it? Of course, this is the mystery, this is The Goddess, The Holy. And this is Their echo across the gulf of time to now. It is Self-Love that launched all of Creation. It is the reflexive “thing” that initiated everything. And ultimately this “Thing” is a vast and unfathomable emptiness. It is the Void, the Deep referred to in Genesis. It is over this Deep that the Voice of Love spoke it all into being. (Or did She sing it?) How? Does it really matter? Why? This is the bigger question. Clearly, for me, this is about Self knowledge. It comes back to the reflection, the echo, the mirror we are for the Love Energy that pre-exists the All! That which came first is this “Thing” of which I write.
We, our consciousness, our love are the reflection of that original Love. This is the Image of God we wear and act. This is the image we see in every face, in every creature, in every being, in all of creation, The Created.
To Rosemary’s Video Inspiration and Exploration this week, her call to Self-Love, we respond as a reflection of creation and the creative force of Love. There is no way around it! If we are a reflection of the Love Energy that created everything, then we are Love and our response must be Love; it is essential for us to be the mirrors in which The Holy see themselves. Without us They don’t exist! Without our Love They show us faces of more limited emotions!
When we love ourselves, we love. When we love we reflect the face of Goddess. When we reflect the face of Goddess we are lovable and are loved. Love is this energetic through which all echoes reverberate. It is the Ether carrying the songs of praise across the valleys. It is the Water of Life carrying the whales’ songs from wave to shining wave. It is the Earth carrying the deep ground vibrations, the songs of the rocks from peak to purple peak. All of this is Love, nothing more. There is no deep mystery here other than What started it all. And maybe this question doesn’t really matter either. If Love is All then the beginning is Love as well. Accept this and everything becomes clear and real.
So, the words of Jesus are true: God is Love; and Love is God. We are Love; we are God. Love is both inside and outside. It is the substance and the substrate. It is the container and the contained. It is the bridge across the gulf and the gulf. It is emptiness and everything. It is nothing and All. It was before the beginning, It is now, and It will be after the end.
As a creature of now it is my purpose to reflect this power of the Universe, this Love in all that I do and through my very beingness. If I am Love, God, this creative force, this very Life Consciousness, then I can only be and act out of Love. And this includes loving me.
Self-Love. Not a simple path. Practice Love; begin with self!
“Gratitude and Loving Yourself” a Commentary from Richard
Have you reviewed the video and commentary by Rosemary from her FREE weekly MuseLetter? I posted them over the past couple of days; if you want to receive them directly you can subscribe here. Today here are my thoughts on the support Rosemary offers for living a conscious life and her theme of the week, Gratitude and Loving Yourself:
Self-Love. Some days this is really difficult. Rosemary writes everything is perfect just as it is right now in this moment; everything is in agreement with The Plan; everything is unfolding just as it needs to, bringing the perfect Plan into reality. Yes, we have lessons and are learning lessons, everyday, with every unfolding moment. And as we learn these lessons we move into next moments that are also perfect because we have experienced (maybe even learned) these lessons.
And the first step toward self-love is gratitude for self and the lessons being learned. OK, then I have a lot to be grateful for! Examples abound every day. I just got back from the post office, went to get my reading glasses out of my pocket (where I “always” put them) only to come up short; no glasses. So I search every pocket, in the car and various places I may have left them. No luck. I get angry, especially with myself for misplacing my “stupid glasses”! (As if they were suppose to remember where I left them!)
Over-reaction? Of course! Yet another lesson in – what? Patience with myself, always putting things where they “belong”, mindfulness? I’m reminded of a Zen story about a monk who goes to his master believing he is ready for the test of enlightenment. The monk dashes through the rain and puddles with his trusty umbrella to his master’s hut, bows and humbly kneels before the master fully prepared. The master asks: “On which side of the door did you leave your umbrella?” Unable to answer the monk even more humbly withdraws to meditate on mindfulness for another 7 years!
Gratitude for the lessons is one of the lessons! I am alive and healthy and unharmed. I can return to the post office tomorrow to see if I left my glasses there. Meanwhile I have a spare pair. And they are only “drug-store” reading glasses; easily replaced. Were they worth the anger and upset at their loss? Of course not. Did my anger at myself gain anything other than upset that extended to others in my presence? Not at all. Did I learn a lesson here? Maybe. Will I lose something in the future. Certainly. And will I learn the lesson today so that the next time I lose that thing I can let it go, forgive myself for the lapse and move on? Only with continued practice!
We are all every moment of life practicing at being alive, being fully present, being conscious in every moment. This is what the lessons are all about: our opportunity to practice. And when we get pretty good at one lesson we get a new one to practice. This is where the acceptance comes in. This is where the self-forgiveness enters. When we are grateful for these opportunities we do, in fact, begin to move toward self-love.
I would add a second step toward this practice of self-love; the next step after gratitude is trust. We have to trust the Plan, that there is a Plan, that there is a purpose to it all. And we have to trust that our lessons are part of this Great Plan, that we are alive at this time with everyone and everything around us in perfect order and proper unfolding of the grand structure that is in process of becoming. I have to trust that losing my glasses today in some small, almost infinitesimal way, contributed to the process of becoming. One more opportunity to practice self-love in spite of my frustration with myself contributes to the Scheme.
This trust is part of the mystery. How can I possibly believe that my loss and my lesson on patience and self-forgiveness, self-love contribute to the Unfolding Perfection? There is no proof here; there is no evidence, not even a shred, that this incident is significant. But I trust that it is. And because I trust I continue to practice. And because I continue to practice, learn my lessons, I am ever so slowly improving myself, taking steps on my journey. And maybe, just maybe in some completely mysterious way, that I may never understand or realize, the world will be a better place.
Self-Love. Not a simple path. It begins with gratitude and moves to trust. And there is so much more…practice, practice, practice!
Inspiration from The Divine Feminine: “Love Yourself”
This week’s video urges us to love ourselves and to demonstrate this love by holding healthy boundaries and by trusting our intuition:
PS: If you would like to hear more from The Divine Feminine Rosemary offers a FREE short call every Monday evening, 8:30 pm Eastern time. She channels a message about the energies for the week and offers other information to guide us toward living a more conscious life. Register to receive the call-in number!
Men and The Goddess 