New Ways of Relating - Part 2

The karmic 'pull' of energy fields that resonate with each other is what causes the 'triggering' mechanism that is so familiar to people, where something that someone else does creates a reflexive response of discomfort, anger, or withdrawal within oneself. This interweaving of energy fields happens because both persons involved are in need of healing of the same issues, although the manifestation of the issue may occur quite differently in each.

To move beyond karmic relating, it is very important to be able to stabilize your own energy field. To the extent that this becomes possible, you are no longer easily drawn into the interactive energy pattern and can operate independently according to your own positive Divine intention.

Stabilizing of one's energy field is a function of stabilizing light within oneself and stabilizing one's relationship with the Divine. To the extent that you wish to move things to a place of healing in your relationship life, freeing yourself from karmic patterns, it is important to take responsibility for this aspect of being. The Practice of Alignment can help with this, as can other forms of attunement to the higher vibrations of light. Blessings.


See also New Ways of Relating

Overcoming Numbness

Television often saturates the senses so that they become immune to responding emotionally and with humanity to scenes of violence or cruelty.

News media also saturate the senses so that they become immune to hearing or seeing people committing atrocities or being harmed.

In the face of sensory and emotional saturation with the pain of the world, it is easy to become numb, just as it is easy to become numb in the face of one's own deep pain. And yet numbness is not the best solution to this problem for it merely suppresses the pain that one feels temporarily; it does not do away with it.

What is more useful for the world at large and for each individual who is growing is to bear witness to pain with a sense of compassion - with a heart that is larger than the pain itself. By bearing witness with a sense of compassion, by making oneself 'an instrument of peace' to use the expression of Saint Francis - "Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace," the pain can be held within the context of an overriding purpose to help. Even a small amount of bearing witness without becoming numb is often a greater help than one ever knows.

"Make me an instrument of Thy peace and love" opens the heart, allows healing to begin, and sends love into the world. In the presence of conflict, suffering, and pain, it creates the full intentionality to bring healing love to all who suffer or are afraid, including oneself.

Making Miracles Possible

There are two avenues of movement that open the door to the miraculous, and both lead to the same end.

There is the path of reaching toward God in any of the many ways that the human heart and soul is capable of reaching. This allows Divine miracles to enter life, even where no conscious relationship with the Divine has existed before.

There is also the path of reaching toward the deepest truth of self. Scrupulous honesty and an unwillingness to blame others can also open the door to the miraculous.

When one reaches toward the deepest truth of self as if extending toward the bottom of a well, one finds at the bottom, always, the space in which love dwells. Yet, before finding that, one may also encounter the feeling of an emptiness in which contact with love's presence seems to be lost. Here the question arises: How do you feel love? How do you express it? How do you diminish it? How do you withold it? In the presence of reaching, once blame toward others has been released and one is solely responsible for the presence or absence of love, in that sacred space the door to the miraculous opens. For the reaching toward love and the reaching toward God are the same reaching. One is to the Source of life without - to the Creator of all. The other is to the Source of life within - the Divine source of love at the center of our being.

Reach in either direction and you will open the door to the miraculous.

Speaking to the Animals

We walked slowly around the property, Malcolm chanting an ancient Native American song that had traveled with him from another lifetime. This song created sounds of joy and sacredness from deep within his throat and heart. He gave these to the Earth and to all creatures. We had not decided on this simple ceremony in advance, but felt it as an expression of the heart to ask the bear that had taken apart the bird feeders a month ago to respect the sacred boundary we were creating and to invite it to partake of the spiritual nourishment that is present, here, in this holy place. Malcolm was not speaking just to the bear but to all creatures, sharing his desire to live in harmony with them.

Yo-oh-hey-yo. Hey-ey-yo-yo.... he sang.

We wound our way around the bird feeders several times and around the edge of the opening in the trees that surround the house.

Yo-oh-hey-yo. Hey-ey-yo-yo....

A dog next door, hearing the chant, started barking very loudly and with a desire to communicate. His owner apologized, saying he was not usually like that. We offered a specific blessing for the dog, who was being affected by our ceremony.

Coming back to where we began, we touched the Earth in reverence and gratitude, fingers pointed downward. Having blessed the Earth, our small ceremony was complete.


See: Visit From a Bear
Eagle's Cry - Native American Flute - John De Boer

Gratitude

The natural response to the sacred is gratitude,
for what is sacred confers blessing,
and what is blessed produces joy and gladness.

Where gratitude is absent, one is not fully experiencing
the sacredness of the sacred.
There may be words that are used
or practices that are undertaken,
but only a grateful heart is witness to blessing.

Photo: Claude Renault - Prayer - Varanasi - Uttar Pradesh

Honoring and Saying Goodbye

There are ways of parting with things and people that give honor to the sacred in life. Sometimes these movements of leave-taking can be made internally through attentiveness and prayer. Sometimes a gesture is needed to express to the universe and God the gratitude one feels toward what has been given. These gestures of honoring can be made in relation to objects, plants, animals, people, places - all things that we give value to.

I was inspired to write this by my saying goodbye to a very modest wooden box that had served as the platform for an altar for many years. Though its muted carving had been hidden by an altar cloth and so was invisible to others, I knew that this carving had been handmade with love a long time ago and that the box had served a most sacred purpose. Despite the fact that it was a 'thing,' with a consciousness limited only to its cells and the vibrancy of life within it, I felt its value as I parted from it at the local Transfer Station where wood gets recycled or disposed of.

Always, in parting, the gesture of gratitude mitigates whatever sadness might exist about saying goodbye to something loved. And so it was at that moment when I left this box there with many other pieces of wood and took my leave of it, giving thanks for its existence in my life.

All things ask this of us, all people, all places, all that we encounter in life - the small and the large. The inner wisdom of the moment must override whatever conventional sense we have that is produced by society's estimation of what is important and what is not, to allow the heart to express its love in full measure. This is the basis for honoring - gratitude and love toward what has been given. And in all things, we can make the gesture of reciprocity, especially when saying goodbye.

Here is a a simple prayer of closure upon parting - even parting from a box:

Thank you for being in my life.
Thank you for bringing your existence into it.
Thank you for serving so well.
I give you back to the universe with gratitude and love.