The poem illustrates a melding of two beliefs: there is no place where God is not and Abraham’s idea that you can never get it wrong.  Hence, life or love never fails — you never fail.  God is with you always no matter how exhilarated you feel or how low and unimpassioned you feel.  God is with you in both the simplicity and the complexity of your lives.  God, Spirit, the ineffable, the mysteriously indefinable, is that which courses through you continuously without end.

image locale

I have fallen between the cracks
and landed in the spaces
where love never fails

Beloved, you are my captor
and I am bound by your love

I hear you whisper softly
don’t speak. words fail here, just listen

churning on the seas of your desire
I am the rising and the falling

the beginning and the ending
the fullness and the emptiness

journey to the furthest point of your yearning
I am the anguish and the exaltation

I am the grain of sand awakening the pearl

I am the morsel you are tasting
be it bitter or sweet

quench your deepest thirst here
where you think I’m not

I Am.

©heartsdeesire

I leave the meetup, get in the car and immediately call home, since the plan is to now go home, pick up my daughter and leave for a concert.  Back story is I don’t like to be late and I don’t like to be rushed.  So I’m checking in with my husband on the status of our daughter getting ready, since we have to leave in one hour. Not only does she have to get ready but she has work to be done before we leave.  My husband says that my daughter’s not up yet.  It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon.  I’m gobsmacked.   I’m telling my husband we’ll never make it on time.  Not only that, I’m saying she often does this, she’s rarely on time lately.  I explain how I’ve been struggling all week with getting her out the door on time for things.  And then I’m thinking, I just know she’ll do a half ass rush job at the work she has to do.  And who sleeps ’til 3pm?   Wait, there’s more … if we don’t get there early, parking will be hard to find, I’ll be stuck in concert traffic, yada, yada, yada.

I hang up the phone.  And then I just said STOP.  For crying out loud, just STOP.  I stop and take a deep breath and remember I just left a meetup.  What did I just learn in the meetup?  I will tell you what I just learned and how I used it.

What actually happened here?  Just the facts.  What are the facts and nothing but the facts, m’am?

FACT: I called home and was told that my daughter is not up yet.

That’s all that happened.  That’s the facts, period.

All that other stuff is just blah, blah, blah.  A story I made starring me and my unwitting daughter and the script went like this — well you heard it all already.  Did any of it serve me or her?  Are they giving out any awards for the one person who can get their panties in a wad quicker than anyone else?  And if they were, would I even want that award?  Well I might, for you know what and giggles, but no, I don’t really want to be the fastest panty wad twister on earth.

Here’s what I want.  Here’s what I always want and that is to feel good and happy and clear.  So I just learned a new tool to do just that.  And I like this even better than Byron Katie’s: is it true? because it just by passes all of that.  I’m still asking a story if it’s true in the BK model.  Why get vested in the story at all, why not separate it out altogether and get down to the bare minimum.  What are the facts?  The rest is all a choice I make to have it mean this or that.

Immediately I realized how this could help a friend who doesn’t really get along with her boss.  Every time she gets an email or a phone call from this boss requesting such and such, she goes right into the story of what that means. And it’s often a story that doesn’t serve her; it’s a story that leaves her feeling less than and wanting to change jobs. So what do you do in that case?  You take the facts only.  Boss calls.  Boss wants to review my document.  Boss has made these changes to my document.

What does it mean?  It means nothing and everything, depending on what you tell yourself about it.  Strip it all down to its bare minimum, just the facts.  Before you, me, we get caught up in the whirlwind of what it all means, just stop, take a deep breath.  Ask yourself: what are the facts?  Look at the facts and decide, choose selectively, mindfully what you want to make of it, if anything at all.  Or choose just for this one moment, choose to have it mean nothing at all.  You can always come back to that subject and plaster it with all the meaning you want, but for now consider halting all the story about what *anything* means.  Feel the pure relief in that.

Thankfully I drove home sans the irritation over potentially being late or rushed because I realized it was all a resistance, filled to the brim, story.  And by the way, we got to the concert, no traffic, found good close parking and had plenty of time to spare.  We had a great conversation standing in line chatting with people we’d never met before but found so many crazy synchronistic things we shared in common, including the names and breeds of our dogs, the names of our kids, it just went on and on.

Things just flow and line up so much easier when I take the time to line up myself.  In my heart, I always want to be in my corner.  In all of our hearts, we all want to be in our own corner, our own good friends.  Just the facts and nothing but the facts, is a great and easy, user friendly tool to use and is definitely a keeper in my tool box.

“We wind up on the shores of our own subconscious and we are not sure what is real.”  ~ from the movie Inception

I viewed Inception for the first time this weekend.  What a fabulously brilliant, complex, multi-layered movie.  I could watch it again and again and come up with a new insight every time.  Here, I’m only going to speak to what seemed to me the most glaring, the most obvious point it was making.

“…building a dream based on memory is the easiest way to lose your grip on reality…”  That’s a direct quote from the movie.  Let’s change the wording slightly: building a life based on memory is the easiest way to lose your grip on reality.  How did you color that memory?  Was it a pleasant memory or a not so pleasant one?

Let’s take the movie for instance.  One character believes: I am a disappointment to my father.  Or is he?  Perhaps he is a source of pride to his father.  How will he know which is true?  He will know by the seeds he plants and waters, nurtures and visits often what will be true for him.

It’s the same for all of us.  The seeds of thought we plant in our minds, the ones we visit often, the ones we take to be real are the ones that will take root and appear to be very real.  They may become the seeds that ultimately define us.  Yet none of us ever wants to, in our heart of hearts, define ourselves by limitation.  Kahlil Gibran once said – “we are the sons and daughters of life’s longing itself”.   And I believe we are also the sons and daughters of a Love that can never fail us.

The main character in the movie is plagued by guilt.  In the end, he has circled the globe and now faces the man who holds his final and ultimate freedom.  Yet, ironically, the man who holds his true freedom is really … himself.  The redemption he has been seeking has always been within.

As St. Francis once said – “we are what we are seeking”.  The truth that’s been locked up, that some chose to forget, until now … is that we are always Love seeking to know and experience more of itself, more Love.  We are the flower always leaning into and naturally drawn toward the light.

In the end, what remains, what eternally remains is — Love.  Love is the pure oxygen sustaining us.  We only know love, we only know joyful pride, we only know beaming appreciation.  Perhaps everything else is the dream we are dreaming.

We are already that which we are seeking and when we wash up on those shores, the world is “too full to talk about.”

So…back to our regular scheduled programming.  I’m a bit Johnny-come-lately or should I say Bethie-come-lately on this, since the song has been out for many months now, but how much do I love Beyonce’s song – Halo.  When I sing the lyrics, it’s not the love of my life I’m addressing, for me, it’s God, Spirit.  It’s the Beloved with a capital “B”.  It is such a beautiful way to tap into Spirit, to sing — “everywhere I’m looking now, I’m surrounded by your embrace …  it’s like I’ve been awakened … you hit me like a ray of sun, burning through my darkest night … you know you’re my saving grace, you’re everything I need and more”.

And yes there was a time, actually many times when I’d thought I’d go it alone.  Sometimes I thought, hey God, I’ve got this one handled.   Other times I just forget to lean on Spirit altogether only to find myself humbled again at the pure ecstacy of standing in the light, the love and the all encompassing perfection of Spirit.

This youtube version below was adapted for the Hope For Haiti now project several months ago.  What a beautiful demonstration of love to sing to an entire nation – I can see your halo.  What if we said to everyone we met today, silently or otherwise – I can see your halo.

Remember those walls I built
Well, baby they’re tumbling down
And they didn’t even put up a fight
They didn’t even make up a sound

I found a way to let you in
But I never really had a doubt
Standing in the light of your halo
I got my angel now

It’s like I’ve been awakened
Every rule I had you breakin’
It’s the risk that I’m takin’
I ain’t never gonna shut you out

Everywhere I’m looking now
I’m surrounded by your embrace
Baby I can see your halo
You know you’re my saving grace

You’re everything I need and more
It’s written all over your face
Baby I can feel your halo
Pray it won’t fade away

I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo
I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo

Hit me like a ray of sun
Burning through my darkest night
You’re the only one that I want
Think I’m addicted to your light

I swore I’d never fall again
But this don’t even feel like falling
Gravity can’t forget
To pull me back to the ground again

Feels like I’ve been awakened
Every rule I had you breakin’
The risk that I’m takin’
I’m never gonna shut you out

Everywhere I’m looking now
I’m surrounded by your embrace
Baby I can see your halo
You know you’re my saving grace

You’re everything I need and more
It’s written all over your face
Baby I can feel your halo
Pray it won’t fade away

I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo
I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo

I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo
I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo
Halo, halo

Everywhere I’m looking now
I’m surrounded by your embrace
Baby I can see your halo
You know you’re my saving grace

You’re everything I need and more
It’s written all over your face
Baby I can feel your halo
Pray it won’t fade away

I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo
I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo

I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo
I can feel your halo halo halo
I can see your halo halo halo

Songwriters: Bogart, Evan Kidd; Knowles, Beyonce Gisselle; Tedder, Ryan Benjamin

“Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight.”
~Mary Oliver~

What do you love?  This was a question from the powerful weekly question.  G. K. Chesterton wrote: praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul.  And I say — yes, yes, it totally could be!

Many years ago, I watched a soap opera, The Days of Our Lives.  It had a tag line: like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.  Today I would like to “bogart” that phrase and say — like sands through the hour glass, so are the Days of Our Love.

It’s a brand new shiny day stretched before you.  What shall you fill it with?  How about noticing what you love?  What lights you up from the inside out?  What delights you?  What makes you smile?  Notice and nurture it.  This is the essence of animating this life we are living.  And to feed and water what we love in life is to flow energy in the direction of that which feeds our heart and soul.

There was a book entitled Happy For No Reason.  It speaks of giving out awards, not necessarily literally but noticing and praising, either out loud or silently.  The best smile of the day.  The most beautiful flower of the day.  The most vocal bird of the day.  The most engaging store clerk of the day.  You get the idea, noticing the little, simple things.

While up in the Cascades I noticed there was a variety of pine that we don’t often see in the lower elevations.  Their needles were inches upon inches long.  One evening I watched as the sun went down, how the light hit the pines just so.  How it glistened on the tips of the needles as a gentle breeze brought forth clusters of sparkles.  I loved that moment of noticing just that and I’m still milking that one tiny moment.

It’s the simple things in life calling us to it.  Some days we want to run and leap into its arms.  Other days it calls us gently, softly with a whisper barely audible but always there, beckoning us forward.

Breathe deep and gather in the fragrance of all that lies before you today.  For none of it means anything until, with our own unique brand of attention to it, we give it dimension and depth.  Perhaps the richest discoveries of all lie in the simple, the trivial, the once easily overlooked.

]]> http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/08/09/days-of-our-love/feed/ 4 Beth/Bethie getbent http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/08/07/behold/ http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/08/07/behold/#comments Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:24:49 +0000 heartsdeesire http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/?p=2976 ]]>

Behold this new day.

It’s your opportunity

to leave the stamp

of who you are

right smack dab

on the cheeks of it.

MWAH!!

I’m back!  So I’ve been to a Wisdom of Your Face retreat for 5 days and it was truly transformational.  I have to tell everyone in the new age community who loves learning about new models of thought, check this out.  You may have not seen anything like this.  Louise Hay and the author of The Wisdom of Your Face, Jean Haner are collaborating on a book together.  Louise Hay, herself, has said this is the most fascinating material she has come across in the last 10 or 15 years.  Pretty amazing stuff, if it’s impressing Louise Hay.

Now for the big news.  This retreat took place in a mountain lodge up in the majestic Cascade mountains of Washington state.  There were less than two dozen of us and guess who was there?  OMG!!  Louise Hay!  I was so starstruck and I even told her so, among other things.  Her gracious reply to me was, “I’m just a person”.  Yes, just a person who happens to be one of the forerunners in the new age community for the late 20th century.  Just a person who is the mother of affirmations.  Just a person who has influenced, inspired and motivated millions of people. Wow!

I have some notes from Louise for all of you that are appended below.  I agree with Louise (look, I’m already on a first name basis with her :), this is the most exciting material I’ve recently come across.  It’s the next modality I will be studying.  I won’t be able to share much from it right now because it is highly specialized.  However, if there is anyone who can distill and simplify material and make it user friendly, it’s me.  If you would like to get a taste of what the material is about, visit the website link above and consider signing up for the newsletter.  I believe she adds celebrity face readings to those.

First I’d like to blend two ideas, one from Louise the other from Jean the author.  Louise talked about living a life of making decisions.  She is 83, she began this decade deciding that her 80s would be the best decade of her life.  She looks and acts as if she is living it.  So the power is in the decision, simple and clear.  What Jean adds to this is the idea of making tiny decisions or tiny changes incrementally that add up to an eventual tipping point.

Let’s use an example: you feel stuck in your life, want new things to flow in.  Consider making a tiny decision to clear out a drawer or the top of a closet.  Next week or every other week clear out a little more clutter.  When we release things we no longer need, it frees up space to bring new energy into our life.  That’s just one example, apply this to anything you want to enhance or change in your life.  Do you love being around people but find yourself stuck indoors a lot, perhaps you even isolate yourself.  Go downtown or into town, where there are people around, make eye contact with them, pick up some friendly conversation with the store clerk, for instance.  Is your life busy, busy, busy, constantly on the go?  Are you exhausted as a result?  What tiny thing can you do to replenish yourself?  Could you go to bed 30 minutes earlier?  Could you knock off a few minutes on your workout routine just to sit and breathe mindfully?  Tiny decisions, tiny changes, incrementally add up to a tipping point.

The notes I took from Louise Hay’s short talk:

Make decisions about how your life will unfold.
Do mirror work – say in the mirror every day, no matter how uncomfortable it feels at first: I love you.  I really love you.
Affirmations:  All is well.  Only good lies before me.
What you put in your body in terms of choice of thoughts and choice of food determines the quality of your life.
When faced with a challenging situation, LH will say this 300x a day if necessary:

All is well.
Everything is working out for my highest good.
And out of this experience, only good will come.
I am safe.

She gave us a well being card with that last affirmation on it.  I have it autographed!  Goosebumps over here!

Those of you in Chicago and the West Coast are in for a treat because that’s where Jean Haner usually does her work.  Check out the website, if she’s at a bookstore near you doing a face reading, go, go, go!  I promise you if learning something new lights you up, you will not regret it.

]]> http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/08/04/decisions-decisions/feed/ 15 Beth/Bethie book http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/07/29/for-a-new-beginning/ http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/2010/07/29/for-a-new-beginning/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:59:23 +0000 heartsdeesire http://simplyblessed.heartsdeesire.com/?p=2952 ]]>

I begged my husband, please let me read you this poem, it means so much to me (appended below).  He says he doesn’t like poetry unless it’s one of my poems.  Sweet.  He relents, I begin to read him this poem and am not half way through it before I’m crying.  It’s one of those poems where I wondered — did the author go inside my heart and read what was written there?

How did he know I’ve been afraid?  How did he know I thought I’d dump every idea of exploring consciousness and life?  I tried to convince myself, I’m older now, I don’t need to make the grand experiments anymore.  Maybe I don’t even care anymore.  Maybe I’ll never care again.  Maybe this small, safe place is where I belong.

I thought, if I don’t make big, bold footprints in the world, I won’t be noticed.  Big, scary things won’t happen to me then.  You see, if I’m not noticed, I can’t be hurt.  I’ll just go over here and carve out this small, quiet space and I’ll be protected.

I didn’t decide all at once that I can’t live happily like that.  I didn’t exactly turn a corner all at once either.  I tiptoed up to it, peeked around the corner and retreated.  Then I’d do it again and again and again.  Until one day I could say, I invite my true sense of adventure and exploration back in.  I invite Life back in again.

I turned the corner because I am a devotee of expansion more than I am a devotee of fear.  This is the path of my heart and soul.  I choose to follow it now.  Again.

* * *

For A New Beginning

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plentitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

~John O’Donohue~
To Bless the Space Between Us
A Book of Blessings

Ever wonder where the repository is for all these things we are advised to “let go” of?  Is it in some remote location where the other half of long lost socks and gloves go?  I don’t know but I have pondered how it is that we actually do “let go” short of changing the subject — so I’ve come up with a process of sorts.

I encountered a meditation at the end of Sonia Choquette’s audio book, “Trust Your Vibes”.  There’s an instruction in it to let the part of you that calls itself “I” to move out of your right eye.  This would be the locally focused “I”.

I decided to adapt this and use it for all fears, judgments, perceptions, beliefs, any thoughts that are not in harmony with my highest good.  When a thought like this is felt, stop and release it, let it go, through the right eye.  My friend Ahmee suggested adding the words — “not real” as she releases it.  Another idea is to say — I release you and return you back to your “native nothingness”.  Native nothingness is a phrase used by Florence Scovel Shinn.  Saying “not real” is equivalent to I release you and return you back to your native nothingness, the latter is a little more disruptive of the dissonant thought.  I think anything that disrupts and disturbs a pattern, can help change it.

There’s also a grounding exercise that Sonia uses with one hand on the heart and one hand on the belly.  I decided to adapt this too with a small meditation that can be done at any time of the day, as many times as you would like to use it.  Right now I like to begin my day with this and then sprinkle it throughout the day.  It is one hand on heart and one hand on solar plexus or the upper part of your belly.  Take four slow, deep conscious breaths with the solar plexus expanding on the inhale and collapsing on the exhale while mentally repeating the words: allow Spirit to flow freely through me today.  Allow me to have thoughts that support my highest good today.  Add anything you feel called to say in this short meditation.

This breathing exercise of four conscious breaths, as instructed above, can be used at any time of the day without the hand on the heart, etc.  Feel yourself tightening up in the middle of a meeting, or in traffic, or at any time, stop and do those four, slow, full conscious breaths.  This will pull your awareness away from what isn’t serving you and summon a new and refreshing energy.

That’s it for today, just a few tips to help us all recall our way back to home base.  I’m attending a retreat in a few days based on Chinese face reading.  This is put on by Jean Haner, author of the Wisdom Of Your Face.  I would love to come back with more ideas to share with everyone.