Archive
Friday’s poem, third in the trilogy this week: “Next”
I’m sitting here, all in white with my mantra and mala beads, fresh from the first day of “retreat” with Deva Premal & Miten and Manose. I’m feeling very mellow, connected, in a deep state of peace. And, yes, almost like this is “Next.” Rosemary and I are in retreat within the Gayatri Sangha for seven days, every day at 1:00 pm EDT. The energy that Miten is invoking for us each of these days is that of “Compassion, Forgiveness and Gratitude.” These are deep blessings for all of us to bring peace and joy into our lives! May it be so for you. May this be the next step for humanity!
Next
When I stop long enough to dream, to
Consider what comes next—there hovers
At the edge of my perception a
Disturbance in the air, a blur, a rush—
It’s like the invisible whir of Hummingbird
Wings; little tornadoes just beyond—
A flicker at the corner of eyesight,
A glint of movement too fine to be.
I wonder what higher consciousness looks like.
Is it a monk sitting silently on a cushion in a corner?
Is it even a human form available to five senses?
Perhaps it is that disturbance at the edge, beyond.
I cannot linger here for long in a conscious state,
Exploring this edge of what remains real.
I drift into a different dream and shift in shock
To wonder: Is this fluttering vibration a next me?
©2020 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
THANKSGIVING TRANSFORMATION: Richard’s Commentary
The title of Rosemary’s post of her poem, Butterfly, holds deep meaning in itself. Thanksgiving and Transformation aren’t words that go easily together, but if we give the pair a bit of thought there is more there.
We are now moving well into the last month of 2014. All the turkey trimmings are gone or put away. Is your sense of “thanksgiving” also put away with the November decorations, thrown out with the bones of the bird? Or do you practice gratitude all year long?
Rosemary’s second butterfly in her poem says: “Nothing is static. Nothing stays the same. The only constant is change.” Can we be grateful for every change? Can we look at every change as part of a greater transformation as explained by the third and smallest butterfly? This is the challenge the poem presents. It is the every day, small changes, moment to moment, that generate the transformations of our lives. And gratitude every day, moment to moment for those small changes leads to “thanksgiving transformation.”
Can you hear the vibration that rings between these two words? There is an echo between them, they are “light shadows” – we are thankful and we transform; we transform and we are thankful – every day and in every way. Thanksgiving Transformation is a state of being – continuous gratitude for the continuous state of change we experience. Thanksgiving Transformation is Life!
There is another pairing of words the squirrel of the poem brings to us: Presence and Preparation. These set up another vibration, the echo between being present in the moment, experiencing it fully, and being prepared for the next moment, that moment of change. It’s almost asking that we exist in two states at once; the dynamic about being prepared for tomorrow’s change while being fully present today is the challenge.
And this dynamic, this vibration is present in every breath, every heartbeat. As we inhale we breathe in appreciation, gratitude, thanksgiving for everything, especially the change of our body chemistry with the intake of fresh air. As we exhale we prepare for the next breath, exhausting the stale, used up air and the byproducts of our metabolism.
From the smallest change in our body chemistry, moment to tiny moment, to the great transforming changes in our lives, day-to-day, year-to-year, we are blessed. At the microcosmic level every moment is a miracle. And at cosmic scales, the beauty of the remnants of a supernova, as just one example, pictured here, are mind-boggling! I am in constant thanksgiving for all of it and all the blessings. I may not always be prepared for the coming changes, transformations, but I can truly give thanks for them!
Thanksgiving Transformation. You can’t have one without the other!
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: Start with Gratitude
Now that we are in the full swing of the Holiday Season Rosemary offers some good advice for the whole month of December in her “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: Start with Gratitude
FRIDAY’S POEM FROM “RHYTHMS AND CYCLES” – Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude
I wrote today’s poem in early 2013 as a way to live that year, life. There is a cycling about this poem of circles, hinges and turnings. And with faith there is a spiraling that powers the evolution of consciousness. There may be other acts that we, as humans, need to live by, but for me these are three of the most important ones:
Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude
Three acts to live by:
Love, where it all begins
And ends.
The circle of everything
Turns with the tides
As the Moon loves down.
Forgiveness, in the middle,
The hinge.
It all turns on this act,
Swinging ‘round and ‘round
As a gateless gate for passage.
Gratitude, the end,
No end.
Turning about the center
Where it All rests
As we give thanks and praise.
Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude:
Grace.
©2014 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Assess the Necessity
Each person has a different definition of what is necessary in their life. To some, a fancy car fits into that category. To others, it is private school. Some consider necessity to include only one pair of serviceable shoes and to others, a different pair for each outfit in the closet.
Ours is not to judge what another considers a necessity in their life. However, it is important to decide consciously what is a necessity in Your Life.
Have you been thinking that a partner is a necessity in your life? Maybe you are avoiding doing some personal growth work to reclaim disowned parts (often the powerful ones) of your own Self and you have been misled into believing that another person will bring you to wholeness.
Do you have an amount of money that is a necessity for you to feel safe and secure? Is money something that you chase because you feel you never have enough, or that you never are enough?
The word, necessary, itself can be reduced to air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat (and less than we in the Western world are used to!) and maybe shelter from storms. As I write this, many thousands of people have been tragically struck by nature’s ferocity and have reduced their definition of what they really need to these few things.
And, yet, we somehow feel that we need more, we need to BE more.
Look at your ‘necessities’ and decide if they are really necessary to your life and to your happiness. Look at your relationships and ask if you really need more from the other person. Look at your career or business or work. What is really necessary there?
Appreciate how much you have beyond the basic necessities of life. We live in a society where we have music wherever we go. We drive cars or travel on trains and buses and planes to move from place to place. If you are reading this you have a computer or a smartphone on which to read it. You will probably come into contact with at least one other human being in the next week, if you wish it, so you are not totally alone in the world.
In November in the US we celebrate Thanksgiving and everyone speaks of Gratitude as if it’s a once-a year concept. Of course, most of us remind ourselves to feel gratitude often but we sometimes forget that we have huge blessings every day about which we can feel gratitude. What are your blessings beyond the necessities?
And it’s important to think of yourself as more than enough! You have a mission, a purpose, in being on the Earth at this time. You have all the resources available to you to complete your mission, to fulfill your purpose. Are you aware of that? Have you done the personal work to identify your Soul Purpose so that you can arrange your life to focus your energies on living that Purpose? Have you cleared the blocks that hold you into thinking that you are not enough? that you don’t have enough?
Humanity is evolving and each of us must step into our power, our empowerment, our Purpose. YOU ARE ENOUGH, just as you are, today!
And you have enough. Assess the necessity of everything in your life. Does it serve your Purpose? You might be surprised at the answers you get when you ask this question!
PS: You too may experience channeled messages from Rosemary. In fact you can receive personal messages from Guides, Spirits, Angels and loved ones who have crossed over at the next event: a Conversation with The Other Side December 6 at 7:00 pm Eastern. Click for details
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: Assess the Necessity
My “Two-Minute” video for the week: Assess the Necessity
Note: this clip was taken from our October gathering for Satsang.
PS: You too may experience channeled messages from Rosemary. In fact you can receive personal messages from Guides, Spirits, Angels and loved ones who have crossed over at the next event: a Conversation with The Other Side December 6 at 7:00 pm Eastern. Click for details
Monday’s Poem; and the I Ching for the Month
I have two offerings for today to start your week and your “moonth” as the New Moon from this past Friday begins to swell into our consciousness. First Monday’s Poem:
I wrote this as a reminder of three important virtues I want to hold firmly in mind as I work to transform my too often negative and troublesome emotions to these virtues to lift my consciousness and grow a healthier attitude.
Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude
Three acts for 2013:
Love, where it all begins
And ends.
The circle of everything
Turns with the tides
As the Moon loves down.
Forgiveness, in the middle,
The hinge.
It all turns on this act
Swinging round and round
As a gateless gate for passage.
Gratitude, the end,
No end.
Turning about the center
Where it all rests
As we give thanks and praise.
Love, Forgiveness, Gratitude:
Grace.
©2013 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
The I Ching Gua I cast for the next four weeks, the last month before the Chinese New Year, February 10, is an interesting one. Using my yarrow stalks I cast five yin yao, all 8s, before I cast the final yang yao, a 7. The hexagram looks like this:
This is Bo and using Alfred Huang’s The Complete I Ching it means “Falling Away.” The lower trigram is Earth or Kun and the upper trigram is Mountain or Gen. So we have the mountain resting on a stack of yin lines which is pretty unstable. Think of a landslide as the mountain tumbles down to the low lands.
The Decision of this Gua is:
Falling Away.
Unfavorable to have somewhere to go.
For those of you interested in the I Ching you can pursue the meaning of this gua farther as you will with your trusted references. Here’s my take on the gua and the timing of it:
This is a good time to go inside, look inward for stability. This is the last month before the New Year. It is a good time to seek stability in this unstable time. Clean up, clean out, get organized. Sweep away the decaying underpinnings and get ready for the year of the Snake.
Contemplate all of those things that are not working. Let them go. Meditate on new things that might work better and bring some new stability. The mutual gua of Bo is Kun – Earth over Earth, Responding, Receiving. Again, look to receive some inner guidance.
Note also there are no changing lines in this gua. So the situation is stagnant. Again the message is to wait it out and seek inner guidance.
This is my interpretation of this gua for me at this time. It may or may not apply to you and your situation or the times themselves. But as our government seems locked in turmoil and stagnation this just might be an appropriate gua for others. In any case it is always good to go inside to seek guidance.
And this mid-winter time is a great time to just be with what is.
PS: To start 2013 off with incredible guidance from The Divine Feminine you can get the 8 recordings Rosemary made at the end of 2012 during her Wisdom of the Week (WOW) calls. Get them here.
“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!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: “Gratitude and Loving Yourselff”
Here’s Rosemary’s commentary on her weekly video I posted yesterday:
In this season of Thanksgiving and holidays we focus on being grateful for the blessings in our lives and for the people who are sharing our journeys with us. But have you taken the time to move into gratitude for yourself?
What traits do you have that you can feel grateful for? What aspects of yourself do you need to learn to love? Gratitude for yourself in all your parts is the first step toward loving yourself.
Most of us find it very easy to be grateful for the friends we have in our lives. Some of us can be grateful for our families, or at least some family members. But what about YOU? We are so good at analyzing ourselves and finding fault when we would give someone else a lot more leeway. Have you ever felt self-critical? Do you catalogue your mistakes or the things you wish were different and focus your energy on these things? Do you find it easier to focus on what you don’t like about yourself rather than those aspects that you do like?
If you answered ‘yes’ you’re not alone. But consider that every single aspect of you is important to the WHO YOU ARE at this time in your life. Every bit of you is lovable, whether you believe that at the moment or not. WE asked you to come to Earth to be a part of the process of the unfolding of the Plan of the Universe and you agreed to join us. Thank you.
So if you are perfect right now, in this present moment, and your role is to learn lessons and to help everyone around you to learn their lessons, then every thing that you have done and every aspect of who you are contributes to all of the lessons being learned. Just as you are grateful for those around you, be grateful to yourself for being just what you agreed to be.
Everything that you see as a fault in yourself has some purpose, even if you don’t understand it at the moment. If you wish to change something about yourself, then change it. But do so from an energy of gratitude for the lessons that you have learned and from the space of not needing to be that way in the future. This is a much higher energy than to be in disgust or frustration with yourself!
Each of us is on a path of personal growth if we are living a conscious life. We are constantly moving forward by assessing our lives, changing that which we wish to change, lifting our awareness to higher perspectives and moving on to the next level of being. We are learning lessons all the time. Whatever we see in ourselves is serving a purpose or has served a purpose on our journey. Being in gratitude for ourselves is the starting place for loving ourselves.
Accept yourself and every moment of your life up until this point. Every backward glance over your timeline can carry with it an appreciation for all that you have learned. Some lessons came clearly and easily and others were difficult or tedious to learn. You might still be in the midst of some tough lessons or you might be in a more peaceful moment in your life. And every single lesson has brought you a step further on the path of personal growth. Every aspect of your person has been a loving contributor to every lesson. Be grateful. And love every aspect of yourself.
Loving yourself is not just an emotional thing. It is an important step along your personal journey. I declare today ‘Love Your Wonderful Self Day’! I love you just as you are. Now take that to the mirror and say, ‘I love you!’ to the reflection you see there. And express your gratitude for at least 1 part of you. Smile. Congratulations!
PS: Did you know you can get these video messages and my commentary directly by email every Friday? When you subscribe I also include a GIFT as a thank you for joining my list: a professionally recorded 7-minute audio recording to help you relax and de-stress. Subscribe Here
Please enjoy!
Men and The Goddess 