Tag Archives: awakening

Do you choose to wake-up or stay asleep?

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unnamedSource: Zen Flash 

I love to walk barefoot in the mud. To feel earth’s wet, oozy goodness squishing between my toes, sliding across my skin.

I love to dance in the rain. To stand high on the top of a hill feeling the sky washing down against my skin, my hair flattening against my skull, my face soaking in the nourishing waters pouring down.

I love to swim naked in the sea. To slide effortlessly through crystal clear water flowing against my skin. To feel the waters of the universe caressing my body, holding me up, holding me in its embrace.

All of these things I love to do because they remind me how alive I am. How of the universe I am. How limitless my possibilities are in a world of wonder and awe.

All of these things I love to do are part of my path. Just as all the travails and triumphs I have experienced, the hardships and the missteps, the joyful leaps and the stumbling tumbles, they are part of my path that have carried me here, to today, where I have a choice.

Do I stay asleep or do I awaken?

Without all of these things, I would not be me where I am today.

Just as all the things you have experienced, endured, witnessed, fallen in love with, stepped away from, eased slowly into or leapt blindly into,  stumbled haltingly through or rushed fearlessly within, all of these thing are part of your path that make up the journey of being you.

They are not who you are. They are your how. The how of how you got here, to this moment where you can choose to fall back to sleep, or awaken.

We humans spend so much time focused on the how. So much effort trying to get through, over, into, out of circumstances, situations, opportunities, we forget it is not the ‘how’ that creates our journey, it is the what we do with what appears on our journey that creates the one we are today.

Immersed in the how of whether or not we step, leap, dance, cavort, we forget we have the power to awaken completely to our divine essence. To our brilliant light, our amazing grace.

And so, we focus on the how, thinking it will make a difference to what happens in our life.

It will not make a difference if we choose to stay asleep to our magnificence.

When I was an infant I crawled. I am an adult now. I can still crawl, but I can also dance, leap, jump, skip, walk…

No matter how I move through the world, how old I am, how rich, poor, slim, fat, tall, short. It doesn’t matter the colour of my skin, the depth of my roots in tribal soils or the wearing of my knees from prostration before the God or gods of my knowing,  it is what I choose to do that makes my difference one of awakened bliss or stumbling in the dark guilt for being alive.

Do I choose to wake up or do I choose to stay asleep?

As Alan Watts asks at the end of this short video on waking up, “You put yourself in this situation. So it’s a question fundamental. Do you define yourself as a victim of the world, or as the world?”

Waiting for Christmas

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DSCF0639It is that holy time of year again. A time when here in the northern hemisphere, we await the coming of the light after the long dark nights of winter. It is a time when the Christian world awaits with expectant breath the coming of a child. A time when fir trees are adorned with glistening lights and carolers sing out to passers-by and children smile at snow falling and presents piling up under the tree. It is a time to celebrate the sacred nature of our world, the miracle of life, the waning of darkness soon to become light.

This is a time for renewal, for pause, for welcoming in the light. It is a time to make room for gifts, the gift of life, the gift of love, peace, hope and joy.

It is a time to celebrate the human condition in all its manifestations here on earth. It is a time to celebrate the coming into being – of not just the Christ child, but of all of us.

This is a time of awakening. A time to make room for the spiritual aspects of our nature, the holy essence of our being human. It is a time to slow down, to live in the moment, to appreciate the small things of life unfolding in wonder every day. From the delicate light and warmth of a candle flame to the quiet stillness of the darkness just before the dawn, this is a time to prepare, to make ready, to enter into the anticipation of life coming into being and of light following the darkness.

In this time of waiting and awakening, I invite you to take a deep breath in. In. Out. Breathe. Let your eyes gently close. Let your jaw relax, the muscles of your face soften.

Breathe in. Feel the coolness of the air as it enters your body.

Breathe out. Feel the warmth of your breath as you exhale. Feel the air upon your skin, the softness of its caress.

Feel the world around you, growing quiet, settle into peacefulness and breathe.

Breathe.

Imagine you are standing beneath a star lit sky high upon a hill. Around you the world spreads out in the darkness. Above you a blanket of stars glitter in the velvety dark sky.

Imagine you are all alone yet connected to the millions of others who stand as you do, alone upon a hill beneath the star littered blanket of night.

Imagine, as you breathe in, they breathe out.

Imagine, as you breathe out, they breathe in.

Imagine you are all one breath, connected through this one air you share and breathe into, connected to the millions of others breathing with you. This air that nourishes your body, is the air that nourishes theirs.

And as you stand, breathing as one, you spread your arms wide, raise your face to the moon and stars above and whisper,

“I am here. I am willing. Let the night and the moon and the stars give way to what is to come. I am waiting for the light. In my waiting I open my heart to the beauty and the wonder unfolding all around me. I open my arms to receive the gifts of this season of peace, hope, love and joy. I am waiting.”

We are all waiting.

Together.

Let your body feel the peace, hope, love and joy of this wondrous time of year flowing all around and within you. Feel your heart soften, your breath deepen, your mind open wide.

Sit and breathe in the beauty all around, open your heart and mind and soul and body to receive the gifts of the Universe shimmering in the light of a million stars showering your heart in Love.

Breathe. And be one in joyous expectation of the coming of the light.

In this time of waiting, let Love be your companion. Let Love light your way. Let peace be your path from darkness into light.

Now  Breathe. Quietly.

And in this moment of quiet, let a song arise within your heart and you wait patiently for the sun to return, for a child to be born.

Let us each be the light in the darkness awakening for all the world to know peace, hope, love and joy.

Namaste

 
Expectant Silence  (An Advent Poem)

In expectant silence
the world awaits
the coming
of a child
heralding
a world
of peace
hope
love
and
joy.

In the quiet
of dawning light
I await
morning
streaming rose and gold
threads of glory
filling the sky
with the promise
of a new day
born in the darkness
of the night

silence descends
light enters

I feel
the breath of the Divine
rising up within me

awakening my soul
with fluttering wings
and with each breath

I become an oasis
of peace
hope
love
and
joy.

 

A world of wonder makes a difference

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It happens this way every morning. I sit down to write, unsure what words will appear upon the page. And then they do, appear.

Which, as I write that, I realize is a bit of a contradiction of what this blog is all about. It’s about ‘conscious difference-making’, which means, being conscious throughout the day of what I’m doing, what’s happening around me that makes me different and makes a difference in the world.

On the other side of that equation though is the ‘trust’. I trust in the Universe. I trust the words to appear every morning. I trust them to flow from the collective consciousness into which I am connected. I trust the ‘muse’ to turn up and write her way through me onto the page, or as in this case, the screen. I trust the Universe to turn up with me in co-creative expectation of wonder, light, and beauty. And she does. Every morning, just as she has for the past five+ years when I first started writing a daily blog (Recover Your Joy).

Writing a blog every morning has been a journey through awareness and consciousness arising with me. It has awakened me to the awesome power and possibility of life as I begin my day consciously creating that which I want more of in my life, and this world.

And in its awakening, I know, now is not the time to numb out or check out. Now is the time to keep awakening. To become one with the heartbeat of the world calling me to be my most magnificent self.

It is the call of the evolutionary spirit. To awaken. To arise. To become aware of our thinking, doing, acting, being and becoming. Now is the time to awaken to our magnificence and let it shine.

I participated in the second session of Andrew Cohen’s, “Living an Evolutionary Life” last night. An hour a half spent exploring the edge of my knowing of conscious evolution. An hour and a half immersed in following the threads of our conversation of the interplay between evolutionary consciousness and evolutionary culture. What does it mean? How does it appear? What are its capacities to create new in the world? What is it emerging? What are we creating together?

It was a conversation that moved beyond the intellectual, deep into the being. Feel it. Breathe into it. Become it were the guidelines.

It was a conversation that leaned into the edges of our unknown knowingness. It delved into the questions of what it means to be  consciously co-creating our world. What it means to be actively engaged in becoming all that we are here on earth to become, consciously aware of the power manifested in our singular and collective humanness to  create a world of wonder, a world beyond our wildest imaginings yet a world that is infinitely possible when we let go of believing that what got us here is all there is to know about our presence here on planet earth.

It was invigorating. Exciting. Energizing.

From across North America, we shared our thoughts, ideas and wonderings, the phone lines humming with anticipation of the propagation of ideas being seeded upon the field of our collective consciousness awakening. We followed the thread of inquiry, growing it into consciousness as we wove in and out, skirting the edge of the known, leaning into the vast field of possibility beyond the known as ideas and words deepened into awareness of our connectedness and capacities to create wonder on earth together.

It made a difference.

When the final good-bye was spoken. After the final line clicked out into nothing but space and time to reflect, I breathed. Deeply.

We have the capacity to create a world of wonder, a world of peace and love and joy. We have the capacity.

It’s our thinking we don’t that gets in the way of our becoming that which we seek on earth and within our hearts.

Last night I tapped into the field of infinite potential that is life on earth. I slipped into the reverie of imagining a world worth living for every human being who shares the collective space and time and the very air I breathe on this giant ball spinning through the Universe that we call Planet Earth.

I know who I am on this planet. What I don’t know is who I can become when I co-create a world of wonder with a group of beings conscious of our collective capacity to breathe into the unknown and become what we never imagined possible….

I am excited.

Life is evolving and I am discovering the miracle of my life unfolding within its embrace.

Namaste.