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The poem for today: Edge
Our first call this morning was from Mindy. First reaction: oh-oh, what’s wrong? She usually doesn’t call early unless she is in distress. First thing she said was “Charlie is OK.” Our son-in-law was driving to work this morning, going in early about 2:00 AM. As he crossed the Severn River bridge going west he had to rapidly respond to an oncoming, fast moving vehicle going the wrong way, toward him; he managed to swerve away to avoid a head-on! And he had the presence of mind to call 911 and alert authorities.
Just down the way, near Mindy and Charlie’s home the wrong-way car hit another head-on; both drivers were killed. A third car was also hit causing injuries. The police still do not know exactly what happened, how the east-bound car in the west-bound lanes caused this!
We are all so grateful we still have Charlie in our lives! And it is a reminder of just how precious our lives are! This inspired today’s poem:
Edge
Humans are fragile things,
Little more than the gossamer
Of a moth’s wings.
When we dance at the edge of flame
We flirt with oblivion, feeling real,
Believing it’s not a game!
The heat heightens awareness, we feel alive
Remembering each moment is precious.
Flitting too close we die.
An errant draft can set us adrift.
Away from the light we forget,
Wondering why, wandering from the gift.
Then the flame flares, calling like Buddha’s bell,
Reminding who we are and why;
We fly true and well,
And dance again on the ledge,
Conscious of our delicate beauty,
Floating in ecstasy, balanced on the edge.
©2017 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
PS: Mindy called as I was writing this. Thankfully it was a request for a quick ride to medical appointments. While driving to and from I did remember…!
New Year’s Eve: Out with the Old!
One of the teachers I am working with has asked us, as part of our year-end review, to release all the old habits, feelings, beliefs, thoughts that are not serving us. I’ve spent this week reviewing the year, in fact the past nine years, to dredge up and lever out the old “stuff” that’s “down there!” As another of my teachers would say, “it is time to metabolize that “stuff” and turn it into compost for new growth!”
2016 is a 9-year, a year for completion. 2017 is a 1-year, a year for new beginnings! Today is a great day to release the old to make room for the new.
Here is my poem to reflect on this process; a riff on the five elements of Classical Chinese Medicine and Philosophy:
Release—
Anger through forgiveness:
Grow through the lessons,
Rise with the lengthening days,
Draw on all the resources,
Create your own destiny!
Anxiety through surrender:
Expand through the lessons,
Allow engaging relationships,
Mature in thoughts and actions,
Manifest inalienable joy!
Worry through service:
Serve from the lessons,
Share from the heart,
Engage in all life offers,
Adapt to the Way of life!
Grief through acceptance:
Transmute through the lessons,
Balance loss with gifts,
Release emptiness for fullness,
Purify life through praise!
Fear through trust:
Contemplate life’s lessons,
Believe in your own power,
Feel free and confident in life,
Flow through the currents to Wisdom!
©2016 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
What happens next?
A couple of days ago, Rosemary posted on her Facebook page an article by an archeologist and historian about cycles of human history and how we may be entering one now. It is a provocative article! As I wrote my pages today (one of my practices is to follow the Julia Cameron “Artist’s Way” and write out three pages every day) This article was foremost in mind. Here is the link to the article: https://medium.com/@theonlytoby/history-tells-us-what-will-happen-next-with-brexit-trump-a3fefd154714#.e4rkcn9ib
And here are my three-pages I wrote today; my call to action was to “shed more light”! Here are my thoughts:
“The day before Equinox and the days are getting shorter. And finally the days may be cooling as well. We will see low 60s by Sunday. We are moving into my time of the year when things begin to slow and rest. It is a lovely time of respite. A good time to breathe.
Will we breathe after the election in November? What will happen between now and then? There is an ugly mood in the country, even the world, and it seems to grow uglier every day. Police killings, riots, violence, bomb plots by the crazies on all sides. The election seems to be attracting all the crazies – drawing them out from their holes, somehow giving them permission to raise their crazed cries of fringe creeds and beliefs to the point of drowning out saner voices of reason, logic, thoughtful discourse. Has it always been like this? Or has Trump set a new standard of low? It is a throw-back time, back to Jim Crow, racism, violence, hate, separation, distrust and deep-seated fear. What is to be gained by this?
Is it a cycle of history we are doomed to repeat, another mass kill-off of humanity, like the plague, world wars, famine? Do we need a purge, a cleansing of the human population to somehow restart evolution? Could it get this bad?
Or is there enough lifting of human consciousness now in the world to somehow counteract this pending cycle? Have we brought enough light into the world to defend against the darkness, to shed light into the shadowy corners and prevail? I don’t know. The world as it is currently configured hangs in the balance of my not-knowing. There is a pause now, of sorts, across the next seven weeks while we all consider. News will continue to flow and more of Trump’s antics and tactics will be revealed. The debates may come off to reveal the clown vs. the Stateswoman. But no one will laugh. And we will learn little. Then there will be a flurry, a fury of last-minute campaigning, and we will go to the polls.
It is hard to believe that the buffoon is close to a possible win. It reveals much about the country we live in. And maybe it doesn’t really matter who wins, because this is the country and will continue to be the country after the election. The population won’t change. The hearts and minds of our neighbors will remain the same. The hate and fear that created Trump, the candidate, will remain. There will be violence against the black community and there will be the attacks on the Muslim community. Clinton won’t stop this. And our government will continue to be hamstrung by the same forces that currently prevent real progress. Perhaps a tenuous balance will be found and we will continue to teeter on the edge. But the forces have been unleashed. Trumpism is here now, with a mean voice and no forgiveness. It may not even matter who “wins” in November as we may lose any sense of stability in the world
As I write these words I can too easily see a world war on the horizon. That is a scary thought but too real to deny. It would be irresponsible to deny this possibility!
So, then, what is the responsible thing to do? What is my role in all of this? What am I to do?
Be the light. Shed light on this real possibility. Talk about it, not in terms of fear but in terms of responsibility and action. Do I blog about this? Do I write a poem? Do I publish this “essay” in some form for people to consider? What is there, really, to be done to “prevent” the cycling of history we seem about to repeat? If we hold the light up to it and examine it most carefully perhaps there is a way to dull its edge. Perhaps it won’t bite quite as deeply. Maybe this is the best we can hope for, like the 2008 recession that, thanks to Obama, didn’t descend into a full- blown depression.
We all know a shift is coming. There can be no forward progress without change. We can “pray” the progress will not be in reverse. We can take action to shed light on the possibilities and rally all the forces to support our prayer!”
And we can build bridges, rainbow bridges of light, as the author of History tells us what may happen next with Brexit & Trump, Tobias Stone, concludes!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Choose to Live Your Richest Life
Choose to Live Your Richest Life
Have you ever gotten so tired of the way things are going that you say to yourself, ‘Enough!’? Maybe it is your finances or your exercise regimen or your weight or what you eat or a job that doesn’t satisfy you or a relationship that doesn’t serve your highest good. Have you reached a point where you have had enough and you’re ready to choose a different path?
Sometimes things have to get really terrible before we make that choice. You have to ‘hit bottom’ before you start to pull yourself up. Or maybe the Universe has to hit you on the head with a 2 by 4 to get your attention.
I am trying to learn my lessons before it reaches that point. I confess that I don’t always shift in time to avoid the 2 by 4, though. My goal is to help you learn to make the shift BEFORE that 2 by 4 hits you.
Many of my clients come to me because they feel ready to shift but don’t know what their next step is. This is the perfect time to start working on yourself and your personal growth. Others, though, come only after they’ve been knocked down and can’t figure out how to get themselves picked up. That’s okay, too, as we do figure out what to do next.
But don’t you want to avoid the drama? Avoid the ‘I must do something’ scenario and be proactive about making choices in your life?
The first step is to realize that you are always at choice. Even when it feels as if you can’t do anything to make a change, you are deciding (choosing) to stay the way things are.
There is a big difference between feeling that things are horrible, that they must change and knowing what to do to make that change. This is where it is important to ask for help.
Even if you don’t get help from a professional, for whatever reason, at least talk to a trusted advisor or friend. You don’t have to navigate big shifts alone!
Sometimes it is important to find someone to see what you cannot see, to help you find possibilities that, when you are stuck in the quicksand of a messy situation, are difficult to sort out. This is where seeking help is so important. Someone outside of the quicksand can see what is hidden from you and steer you in the direction of what you want instead of what you feel is holding you stuck.
A client of mine recently told me that she was driving along and suddenly realized that that day was the ‘ideal day’ that she had written as her homework from one of our early appointments. She was living that day and loving it! And was thrilled at the difference between when she started the process and where she is today.
You can have the same experience. Stop doing what you’ve been doing that keeps you stuck where you are uncomfortable, in any area of your life. Ask for help. Seek your ideal day. Choose a different path. One step at a time, one behavior at a time, one action at a time.
Your Richest Life awaits you!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Work Toward Wisdom, Not Just Learning
Work Toward Wisdom, Not Just Learning
The Dimensions of Learning are not the same as the Dimensions of Wisdom. With Learning comes Wisdom but the goal of Human Evolution of Consciousness is to access the Wisdom of the Universe without all the painful lessons through which most human beings must pass.
The human realm is an educational realm. The human lifetime is spent learning lesson after lesson and, it is to be hoped, gaining wisdom with each lesson learned.
Not every human being, however, is successful in this endeavor, for many choose to use every lesson as an opportunity to reinforce what they already believe to be true and, thus, they close themselves off from the opportunity to learn something new.
When one learns something new it can challenge one’s deeply held beliefs, or what one wants to believe is true. It is, therefore, easier for some to discard or deny the new truth so that they can cling to the old belief. These people cannot gain in wisdom and will not ascend in Consciousness.
Those, however, who seek Wisdom and see every learning experience as an opportunity to gain access to further Wisdom are ascending to the Dimension of Wisdom and are contributing to the Evolution of Human Consciousness.
Are you ascending? Are you learning to access the Dimension of Wisdom or are you continually encountering the same lesson over and over again?
Experience is not Wisdom.
Education is not Wisdom.
Information and Knowledge are not Wisdom.
Wisdom is the transcendent understanding of the deepest truths of the Cosmos.
Wisdom, when accessed by one who is ascending in the Evolution of Human Consciousness, informs one’s human life and cannot be denied or ignored.
One can only learn that which one is ready to learn. The Wisdom of the Cosmos is unchanging truth that is not incrementally or temporarily true. One can be highly educated on Earth and yet have little access to Wisdom, just as one can access many levels of Wisdom without Earthly education.
Do not make the mistake that an educated person is sharing the Wisdom of the Cosmos. You will know when a person is accessing the Dimension of Wisdom when a part of your Being, your Soul Essence, resonates with the Wisdom being presented even when your personality, on the human level, is resistant because your beliefs are being challenged.
Trust the stirrings of your Soul when you are being invited into the Dimension of Wisdom. The invitation is a Call to Ascend. With each step in this direction you contribute to the Evolutionary Journey of Human Consciousness.
ROSEMARY’S INSPIRATION: Wisdom versus Learning
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Rosemary’s “two minute” video: Wisdom versus Learning
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ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Evolve Your Light
When you became a human being, when you took your first breath of Mother Earth’s atmosphere, you began a journey of evolution. The journey of a lifetime is the evolution of your consciousness, from the moment you are born until the moment you take that last breath of air. At every moment in your life you are growing in your awareness of the world around you.
The question today is, ‘Are you evolving or are you attempting to stay where you are?’
So many people are struggling in this world because they are focused on using the tools they already have, on following the thoughts and beliefs from earlier days, on listening to what someone else is saying is true instead of going inside to seek their own truth. The shift that is needed is a shift in consciousness, an evolutionary approach to solving problems and to living life.
You were born as a bright light on the horizon of humanity. Everyone around you was waiting for you to come into the world. Even if you have a belief that you were unwanted, know that the souls around you then and now asked for you to arrive when and where and to whom you did.
Now, at whatever your current age is, those souls are looking to you for your light to shine on the path that you are sharing. How do you shine your light? By living your soul’s purpose, by being the light that you already are.
I see too many people choosing to hide. It appears to be so much easier to shrink from the spotlight and to stay on the sidelines of life. I don’t just mean refusing to get on the stage – I mean shrinking back from the enormity of what you feel is your raison d’etre, your reason for being here, your soul purpose.
It can feel like a tremendous burden or too huge a task to fulfill that purpose. Good. That means that you have tapped into what you are really here to be and to do!
No matter what form your life is taking at this moment, you are here to be the Light in the life of those around you. Lead by lighting the way for them to follow. Show by your example that you are willing to live your purpose and to be a Light in the world.
You don’t have to be famous, or on the stage, or find medical cures or solve world hunger, although you might. You DO, however, have a responsibility to the world to be the brightest light that you are able to be, right now, today, in whatever circumstances you face.
YOU are in charge of the development and evolution of your own consciousness. No one around you can do it for you. You were not born to find answers and then stagnate. You are here to learn the next thing, to study, to grow, to evolve.
How are you doing this?
This is where hiding does not serve you or the evolution of human consciousness. Reach out to learn what you can, to connect with others who are also on the path of the evolution of consciousness. Shine your light for them and allow them to shine their lights for you.
Take a class. Read a book. Join a group. Have a conversation.
It is especially important that you do your personal growth work. Clear negative thoughts and limiting beliefs that are holding you and your light hostage to them. Explore possibilities that will take you outside your comfort zone.
Evolve and shine the bright light that you are!
Please enjoy!
