As events unfolded through the latter part of last month, I found myself blowing into my little God Whistle asking for strength.  It was a February of change and challenges that shook me more than anything had for quite some time.  The strength did come and right beside it flowed wisdom and comfort.

I dubbed this last month a period of “Bethie finding her religion”.   There is nothing like situations that metaphorically or literally bring me to my knees to remind me I’m not in charge here and frankly, there’s very little I’m in charge of around here.  And isn’t that a relief?  If I had to rely on myself to spin the planets, orchestrate thousands of different processes in my body, raise the sun, set the tides, we’d be having a lot of chaos in the world.

Often I don’t post about the particulars of the sh*t hitting the fan in my life.  It is found in between the lines of my poems and posts.   What I do tend to write about is the place I finally land, a little stronger, a little wiser and ultimately returning to what remains when all else falls away — that all consuming Love that’s back of Everything.

I’ve not yet reached the point where I’m grateful for all the contrast and challenges when I’m in the thick of it but I know enough now to see that I’m always grateful for the delicious expansion that comes just as soon as I’m willing to take my own hands off the levers of control.  As Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote “in the difficult, are the hands that work on us”.  Yes … the hands … not my hands.  Once again I am reminded of the humility and surrender in a simple prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.  Surrender is so much a part of the fabric of this Universe.  As surely as the day must surrender to the night, so must I give right of way to the “hands that work on us”.

I’m going to post some quotes from A Course in Miracles which played a big part in “Bethie finding her religion” again.  In the ensuing weeks I’ll post some lessons from the workbook.  There is much in ACIM I don’t understand but I’m comprehending more of it than I have in the past and I find the lessons to be so liberating that I believe they actually could be life-changing.

“There will come a time when images have all gone by and you will see you know not what you are.  It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound.  Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is.  When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on no assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt.  There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this.

I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not
know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look
upon the world or on myself.

Yet in this learning is salvation born.  And What you are will tell you of Itself.”

Chapter 31, V:17

“The truth in you remains as radiant as a star, as pure as light, as innocent as love itself.”

Chapter 31, VI:7

This is the final passage in the text:

“And now we say “Amen.”  For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm eternity.  The journey closes, ending at the place where it began.  No trace of it remains.  Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone.  Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly and all creation recognizes You, and knows You as the only Source it has.  Clear in Your likeness does the Light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You.  For we have reached where all of us are one, and we are home, where You would have us be.”

Chapter 31, VIII:12

And finally I leave you with a passage from the poem entitled Today, by one of my favorite poets: William Stafford.

“Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now, You could close your eyes and go on full of light.”

Imagine a world where
“not one illusion is accorded faith”

If it isn’t the voice of strength,
if it isn’t the voice of love,
if it isn’t the voice of confidence,
it is the voice of illusion.

Imagine according your faith only
to the voice of strength, love and confidence.

Imagine withdrawing your consent,
your agreement with all else.
Imagine paying all else no mind.

Imagine.

["not one illusion..." is taken from ACIM]

This world is full of miracles.

They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering.

They are the dream’s alternative, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream.

The body is released because the mind acknowledges ‘this is not done to me, but I am doing this.’

And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead.

~ A Course in Miracles ~

Home is where Dorothy wants to return and finds that she always had that power to get back home via the ruby slippers. Yet, when she wakes up in her own bed, she’s told she never left home at all.  She was just dreaming a dream that she had left it.

Home then becomes a metaphor for Who We Really Are, the stuff of God.  And, we, too, can never leave it.  We can only dream a dream that we have left it.  Dream a dream that we are separate and not whole.  But it’s only a dream that we leave home.  We can’t ever really leave home.  We don’t undock from the
“mother ship”.  It’s not possible, not even in death.  So the perception of separateness becomes the dream we are dreaming.

And then we wake up, little by little, in stages at times and remember that Who We Really Are is whole and perfect and so much an integral part of this beautiful, friendly, benevolent, grace filled and peaceful Universe.

I believe that promise of waking up from the dream of separateness, pulses at all times within each of us.  Call that promise the ruby slippers, if you will, but it’s no magic.  It’s real and any moment is a moment to stop what we are doing, take a deep and conscious breath and remember Who We Really Are right now.  We are that beautiful, peaceful, benevolent, friendly, grace filled Universe, too.

Breathing in beauty, I remember.
Breathing in peace, I remember.
Breathing in benevolence, I remember.
Breathing in friendship, I remember.
Breathing in grace, I remember.

I remember, I am home.  I never really left it, after all.  And yes, Dorothy, there is no place like Home.

Simply do this:

Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is;

all concepts you have learned about the world;

all images you hold about yourself.

Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, or good or bad,

of every thought it judges worthy, and all ideas of which it is ashamed.

Hold onto nothing.

Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught,

nor one belief you ever learned before from anything.

Forget this world,

forget this course,

and come with wholy empty hands

unto your God.

~A Course in Miracles~

We can let our lives be directed
by the same force that makes
flowers grow.  {…}

To trust in the force
that moves the universe
is faith.

Faith isn’t blind it’s visionary.
Faith is believing that the universe
is on our side, and that the universe
knows what it’s doing.

Faith is a psychological awareness
of an unfolding force for good,
constantly at work in all dimensions.

Our attempts to direct this force only
interferes with it.
Our willingness to relax into it allows
it to work on our behalf.

Marianne Williamson
A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles

“You cannot wake yourself.
You can let yourself be awakened.”

~A Course in Miracles

I like the emphasis here on letting.  Not forcing but allowing.
And then an interesting synonym for “let” is: sit still for.  This
is to suggest that to let something come about requires no
action on our part except perhaps a releasing of individual will
and a resting in stillness.  No forcing, no action.  Just resting.
Stand still and allow, let the Universe support you.

This theme is also found in the The Field Center studies.
Here we find the Four Noble Truths:

1) Anything can happen.
2) You can’t make it happen.
3) You can let it happen.
4) If you let it happen to make it happen, it won’t happen.*

Interesting paradox isn’t it: if you let it happen to make it happen,
it won’t happen.  That is because the letting entailed in making
something happen is just another method of forcing the individual
will, albeit tying it up in a sophisticated bow.

This helps explain how sometimes when we find ourselves “at
the end of our rope”, an answering soon follows.  Why? because
finally personal will has been surrendered.  We have ceased to
bang anything into place, we have even come to the conclusion
that we don’t have all or even any of the answers.  In this state
of surrender and uncertainty, we have lost our grip on forcing
our will and have entered the portal of willingness.  A willing-
ness to finally concede that we don’t have the answers; we can’t
make anything happen and a corresponding receptivity to the
creative force of the Universe.  And miraculously it seems, at the
moment we are literally brought to our knees in surrender, answers
soon follow and manifestations appear just at the 11th hour.

So then it would behoove me to let go of my headstrong reasonings
that I have any of the answers, to let go of any forcing or trying to
make something happen.  To rest in that sweet spot where I don’t
stop caring about what I want.  On the contrary, I care deeply but
I now have the wisdom to know that an entire Universe can work it’s
magic far better than anything little me could possibly bang into place.
May that wisdom deepen in me so that I no longer have to be at the
end of my rope for answers to be let in.

*©www.fieldcenter.org

This water is love, the source of all being.  It is freedom and power, unrelenting, unending.  It overcomes all barriers which lie before it through its unending flow.  But yet its pressure is gentle.  For the rocks over which it flows, it is soothing and purifying.  For that which dwells within it and on the banks along the side, it is a life giver, flowing and gentle.  And yet, when it is thwarted, as with the dam, it prevails through its unrelenting nature.

There is nothing that you can do, nothing you can fail to do, that will keep love from you.  There is no blame you can place upon yourself that will stop the flow of love in your life.  Love is the blood that flows in your veins, the breath that goes in and out of your body.  Love is an essential part of who you are.  It cannot be stopped.  It cannot be overcome.  And even if it is forced underground for a time, still it flows and will again be made visible in your life.

You are blameless before this love.  You are not judged and found wanting.  You, exactly as you are right now, are deeply loved, are a part of love, are made of love eternal.  You breathe and it flows.  You live and it flows.  You are love.

The life-giving source is within you and it is the foundation of your freedom.  The more you allow yourself to become one with the flow of love, the more freedom you will experience in your life.  The more you give it away, the more it will flow in to fill you.  The more you acknowledge its presence within you, the more you will flow and glow with love and freedom, going so deeply into the holy center of love that you finally see and know and feel who you are:  a shining beacon of love and light in human form, as holy and free as anyone who has ever walked the earth and ever will.  You–yes, you–are the ultimate expression of love.

The rocks of fear may pile up around you and in front of you, but you are not those rocks.  You are the flowing stream of love and you will prevail over the barriers and watch them crumble and tumble before you.  Such is your power, the power of love.

~Quado, as channeled by Carrie Hart

Where concepts of the self have been laid by
is truth revealed exactly as it is.
When every concept has been raised to doubt and question
and been recognized as made on no assumptions
which would stand the light,
then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary,
clean and free of guilt.
There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
I do not know the thing I am
and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am,
or how to look upon the world or on myself.
Yet in this learning is salvation born.
And what you are will tell you of Itself.

~A Course in Miracles~

I want to linger inside the silence
void of sound and distraction

long enough to see for myself that love’s only obstacle
fear, really is just a paper dragon

I want to let every barrier to love fall away

I want to liberate what sleeps within me

and awake resplendent in all that remains:
your pure and perfect love

©heartsdeesire