-Devlyn Steele
As I start this inspiration, I am not sure if this is about going after your dreams, or lost dreams. Here we are already in March, time flies. All those ideas we had about a New Year and a new decade seem like a long time ago. We are back in our routines and instead of being enthusiastic about today, we are looking forward to better weather. We are no longer focused on losing weight, or quieting smoking or the other 100 promises we made to ourselves.
What happened to all great ideas we had about change?
What happened to our dreams?
As we were getting ready to enter this New Year it didn't matter if we declared resolutions or not, we still dreamed. We have had dreams our entire life about a better life. We have seen ourselves healthier, wealthier and happier. We traveled, loved and were loved while we had adventures in life. In our dreams, our bodies were in amazing shape and full of energy. We created success at work and had wealth. Dreams...
Go to a mirror and take a good look at yourself. What have you done differently in these last two months? The New Year began, January and February are history, and what is different in your life today? Did you follow through on any of your resolutions? Are you closer to your dreams?
I hear people consistently talk about the things they want to accomplish in their lives. We all want to lose weight, get in shape, make and save more money, get ahead, quit smoking and more....or do we?
Here is the dirty little secret about these broken promises: we don't really want to keep them. The real reason we don't accomplish our goals is because we don't do the work. We want things to simply "happen" for us just like in our dreams. Except that life doesn't work that way. There are no magic solutions, but dreams do come true.
Yes, dreams do come true. The reason why we don't do the work to make our dreams come true is because we don't dream the right way. We only dream a part of the story and that part is always the end.
Imagine you have a book in your hand. By the end of the book the character will have gotten through the obstacles and be in the place we want to see the character wind up in; however, we start at the beginning. We start at the beginning because we want to go through the struggle with the character. It is how the character deals with the journey that is interesting to us.
It is the struggle and the work that is always inspiring to us. We have shows on TV where people lose weight week by week. We don't want to skip all the weeks of work to just see them at a lesser weight with pictures of what they were before. We want to see them go through the challenge and adversities, it is their work that captures our attention.
There are shows where a love interest is picked. There again, we are not interested in watching a show of who they picked without the rest. We want to see the weeks go by and the good and bad connections, the disappointments, the pain and the joy. We want to see every part of the story.
A person's wealth or success is not very interesting by itself. The story becomes interesting when you hear that the person came from a tough situation and overcame it. Bill Gates and Steven Jobs not graduating college and how they made it and their struggles captures our imaginations. The founders of Google working out of a garage and stories of this nature are what we want to hear.
Henry Ford and his success is what we read about, not the generations after who followed, because how he created the success is more interesting to us than how someone continues it on. We don't walk in at the end of a movie, we want to see it all. Imagine watching Rocky standing up at the end of the fight and not all he went through to get there, would that be interesting to you?
However, when we dream for ourselves we dream ourselves in great shape, in love, with money....instantly. When it requires struggle, challenges, going through obstacles and hard work, we get disillusioned. We get disillusioned because we just dreamed the end story for ourselves and get frustrated when it doesn't happen like that.
Your character has a complete story to live, don't rob your character of the journey. Start living your dreams today and embrace the complete story. Just like we are not interested in end stories alone, we also would not want to watch the beginning of a story over and over. That is how we live our lives stuck at the beginning repeating it over and over.
Start dreaming in complete stories and start living your dreams today. As you go through your journey, all the parts are part of your dream, not just the end of the story. When you dream in complete stories you are living your dream every day and you are working towards creating the life changes you want. It is the struggles, how you get through the obstacles and the work that makes your life interesting. It is the journey and your willingness to move forward towards creating change that determines the quality of your life and your character. Start living your dreams today.
However, I have great news for you. If you decide to make positive changes in your life, you can! I have even better news, change can be very simple.
The first is this: make a commitment to put the effort into getting what you want. New Years' is not the only time you can make a resolution. Resolving to make a change is something you can do at any moment, so long as it is done with a commitment with real intention and determination.
Do not let another two months slip by! Two actions and two months from now you will be on your way to a new place in life.
Inspire someone you love...
Monday, March 8, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Cruelty is a choice
(NaturalNews) The more forcefully we ignore something, the more power it has over us and the more strongly it influences us. Taking a clear look at the foods produced by modern methods and what we have been conditioned to accept, we find misery, cruelty and exploitation. Therefore, we avoid looking deeply at our food, if of animal origin, and continue floating in that big river in Egypt (the Nile). This practice of avoidance and denial, applied to eating, carries over automatically into our entire private and public life. We know, deep down, that we cannot look deeply anywhere. If we do, we will have to look deeply into the enormous suffering our food choices directly cause.
So, we learn to stay shallow and to be willingly blind to the connections we see. Otherwise, our remorse and guilt would be too painful to bear. We, therefore choose to ignore and remain ignorant and inattentive to the pain and suffering our eating causes.
Being unwilling and unable to see, confront, and take responsibility for the hidden ocean of horror we condone to those who are as sentient and vulnerable as we are, we remain hardened and blind by choice. We choose to be blind when we shop for, prepare, and eat the flesh of other creatures. Becoming insensitive to the pain that we cause daily to defenseless animals, we also become insensitive to the beauty of the creation that we oppress and disconnect ourselves from this at every meal.
The desensitizing of millions of children and adults on the massive scale, that consuming millions of tortured animals daily requires, sows countless seeds of human violence, war, poverty and despair. These outcomes are unavoidable, for we can never reap peace, joy and freedom for ourselves while sowing seeds of harming and enslaving others.
We may speak of love, kindness, freedom and a gentler world, yet it is our actions, especially those that are habitually practiced, that determine what future outcomes we and others will experience.The cycles of violence that have terrorized people, both historically and today, are rooted in the violence of our daily meals. Though animals cannot retaliate like people can, our violence toward them retaliates against us in the form of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, constipation and more.
By confining and killing animals for food, we have brought violence into our bodies and minds. Our meals require us to eat like predators and thus see ourselves as such. We cultivate and justify predatory behaviors and institutions that are the antithesis of the inclusiveness and kindness that accompany true spiritual growth.
Because cruelty is inescapable in confining, mutilating, and slaughtering animals for food, we have been forced from childhood to be distracted and inattentive perpetrators of cruelty. As infants, we have no idea what "veal", "turkey", "egg", "fish" or "beef" actually are, or where they come from. We don't know what horror is visited upon helpless creatures in order to create the easily available concoctions being spooned into our little teething mouths and developing our consciousnesses.
In time, we accept this indoctrination of denial and cruelty as normal and our meals become rituals of distraction and repressed sensitivity and guilt. The price we pay for this is the dulling of our innate intelligence and compassion.
So, we learn to stay shallow and to be willingly blind to the connections we see. Otherwise, our remorse and guilt would be too painful to bear. We, therefore choose to ignore and remain ignorant and inattentive to the pain and suffering our eating causes.
Being unwilling and unable to see, confront, and take responsibility for the hidden ocean of horror we condone to those who are as sentient and vulnerable as we are, we remain hardened and blind by choice. We choose to be blind when we shop for, prepare, and eat the flesh of other creatures. Becoming insensitive to the pain that we cause daily to defenseless animals, we also become insensitive to the beauty of the creation that we oppress and disconnect ourselves from this at every meal.
The desensitizing of millions of children and adults on the massive scale, that consuming millions of tortured animals daily requires, sows countless seeds of human violence, war, poverty and despair. These outcomes are unavoidable, for we can never reap peace, joy and freedom for ourselves while sowing seeds of harming and enslaving others.
We may speak of love, kindness, freedom and a gentler world, yet it is our actions, especially those that are habitually practiced, that determine what future outcomes we and others will experience.The cycles of violence that have terrorized people, both historically and today, are rooted in the violence of our daily meals. Though animals cannot retaliate like people can, our violence toward them retaliates against us in the form of heart disease, cancer, arthritis, constipation and more.
By confining and killing animals for food, we have brought violence into our bodies and minds. Our meals require us to eat like predators and thus see ourselves as such. We cultivate and justify predatory behaviors and institutions that are the antithesis of the inclusiveness and kindness that accompany true spiritual growth.
Because cruelty is inescapable in confining, mutilating, and slaughtering animals for food, we have been forced from childhood to be distracted and inattentive perpetrators of cruelty. As infants, we have no idea what "veal", "turkey", "egg", "fish" or "beef" actually are, or where they come from. We don't know what horror is visited upon helpless creatures in order to create the easily available concoctions being spooned into our little teething mouths and developing our consciousnesses.
In time, we accept this indoctrination of denial and cruelty as normal and our meals become rituals of distraction and repressed sensitivity and guilt. The price we pay for this is the dulling of our innate intelligence and compassion.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Please, Daddy, Don't Do That Again!
By Tim Wright
When my son was only about three years old, he and his sisters were playing a game that involved chasing each other though the house with loud giggles of laugher erupting every few minutes whenever one of them came close to tagging one of their siblings.
The giggles were interrupted suddenly by a loud crash followed by a blood-curdling cry of pain. I jumped to my feet and ran to the living room where the apparent mishap had occurred. My son had come around the corner too fast and had fallen head first into the corner of a table. I quickly picked him up from the floor where he was lying and held him in my arms both to comfort him and to examine the wound. Streams of blood gushed from his forehead.
By the time we reached the emergency room, his tears had subsided a bit, but I was nervously anticipating the slight trauma still ahead of us. After examining my son's forehead, the doctor confirmed that he would need to stitch the wound in order for it to heal properly. The good news was that the cut would require only one stitch. The bad news was that the doctor planned to do it without any anesthesia. "We can stick him once or we can stick him twice," the doctor informed me.
I was then told that giving him a shot to anesthetize the area would be just as painful and traumatic as giving him the single stitch. The shot would then have to be followed by a second "stick" to actually stitch up the wound. I reluctantly agreed with the doctor and opted for the single "stick".
I encouraged my son that he was being a "brave little boy" as the doctors and I gently strapped a restraining device around his tiny body to keep him from thrashing around on the table during the procedure.
Inside, I was fighting back tears as he looked at me with frightened, but trusting eyes. "Keep looking at Daddy," I encouraged him. "You're being a very brave little boy." His huge eyes remained locked on mine as the doctor gently washed out the cut and prepared to stitch the wound shut.
"Okay, here we go," the doctor said quietly. "It should be quick." "Keep looking at me," I said, trying to smile and draw his trusting eyes into mine. "Daddy's right here." With precision and swiftness, the doctor quickly stabbed the curved needle into the swollen flesh near the cut on my son's forehead. My son's eye's widened as he gasped in pain. Then in a whimpering voice that carried the sweetness and innocence that only a three year-old can summon, he looked up at me and said, "Please don't do that again, Daddy."
My heart broke. How do you explain to your three year-old son that the pain he is experiencing-the pain that, in his mind at least, was caused by me-was inflicted with love, with a desire and design to bring healing? Oddly enough, that is one of my most precious memories of my son's early childhood. The procedure was over almost as quickly as it had begun and, after a few hours, my son had returned to giggling with his sisters. (Running in the house, however, was forever banned from that point onward.)
His trust and sweet response to the ordeal continues to pierce my heart with love for him. This episode is also a reminder for me of our heavenly Father's love and care for us and for those around us who may be experiencing a painful season in life.
In my mind's eye, I can envision God holding us as our Father whenever we're hurting and telling us to keep our eyes on Him and to trust Him, even if we don't understand why things are happening to us. When we're tempted to blame Him for our pain or to cry out, "Please don't do that again, Daddy," we can take comfort in knowing that He is very near to us, that He loves us and to trust that, even though we may not always understand, there is a higher purpose at work in everything that happens to us.
So keep your eyes on Him. Trust Him. He's holding you and healing you. He will never let you go. Know, too, that giggling-or however you experience joy-will soon be a part of your life again.
When my son was only about three years old, he and his sisters were playing a game that involved chasing each other though the house with loud giggles of laugher erupting every few minutes whenever one of them came close to tagging one of their siblings.
The giggles were interrupted suddenly by a loud crash followed by a blood-curdling cry of pain. I jumped to my feet and ran to the living room where the apparent mishap had occurred. My son had come around the corner too fast and had fallen head first into the corner of a table. I quickly picked him up from the floor where he was lying and held him in my arms both to comfort him and to examine the wound. Streams of blood gushed from his forehead.
By the time we reached the emergency room, his tears had subsided a bit, but I was nervously anticipating the slight trauma still ahead of us. After examining my son's forehead, the doctor confirmed that he would need to stitch the wound in order for it to heal properly. The good news was that the cut would require only one stitch. The bad news was that the doctor planned to do it without any anesthesia. "We can stick him once or we can stick him twice," the doctor informed me.
I was then told that giving him a shot to anesthetize the area would be just as painful and traumatic as giving him the single stitch. The shot would then have to be followed by a second "stick" to actually stitch up the wound. I reluctantly agreed with the doctor and opted for the single "stick".
I encouraged my son that he was being a "brave little boy" as the doctors and I gently strapped a restraining device around his tiny body to keep him from thrashing around on the table during the procedure.
Inside, I was fighting back tears as he looked at me with frightened, but trusting eyes. "Keep looking at Daddy," I encouraged him. "You're being a very brave little boy." His huge eyes remained locked on mine as the doctor gently washed out the cut and prepared to stitch the wound shut.
"Okay, here we go," the doctor said quietly. "It should be quick." "Keep looking at me," I said, trying to smile and draw his trusting eyes into mine. "Daddy's right here." With precision and swiftness, the doctor quickly stabbed the curved needle into the swollen flesh near the cut on my son's forehead. My son's eye's widened as he gasped in pain. Then in a whimpering voice that carried the sweetness and innocence that only a three year-old can summon, he looked up at me and said, "Please don't do that again, Daddy."
My heart broke. How do you explain to your three year-old son that the pain he is experiencing-the pain that, in his mind at least, was caused by me-was inflicted with love, with a desire and design to bring healing? Oddly enough, that is one of my most precious memories of my son's early childhood. The procedure was over almost as quickly as it had begun and, after a few hours, my son had returned to giggling with his sisters. (Running in the house, however, was forever banned from that point onward.)
His trust and sweet response to the ordeal continues to pierce my heart with love for him. This episode is also a reminder for me of our heavenly Father's love and care for us and for those around us who may be experiencing a painful season in life.
In my mind's eye, I can envision God holding us as our Father whenever we're hurting and telling us to keep our eyes on Him and to trust Him, even if we don't understand why things are happening to us. When we're tempted to blame Him for our pain or to cry out, "Please don't do that again, Daddy," we can take comfort in knowing that He is very near to us, that He loves us and to trust that, even though we may not always understand, there is a higher purpose at work in everything that happens to us.
So keep your eyes on Him. Trust Him. He's holding you and healing you. He will never let you go. Know, too, that giggling-or however you experience joy-will soon be a part of your life again.
EGO
Our ego likes to be in control. It likes to know how things are and what’s going to happen. Underlying this desire for stability and predictability is a deep fear that the world is a dangerous place. The ego fears it will not survive without continually being on guard. The truth is: we cannot control what happens in life. And under the natural law of attraction, we tend to attract to us what we focus on. Substitute TRUST for fear and the world becomes a gentler, happier place.
"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety." -- Deepak Chopra
Here is my spiritual practice. What is yours?????
Share - T Curtis...
My spiritual practice is becoming the way I live my life. It is staying connected to that power that is greater than I am. That deep inner knowing of what is right or wrong, the intuitive sense of what to do in any given situation and to cause no harm. My intention is to make the world a better place through my deeds, words and actions. This is my spiritual practice. Whether I am taking a walk in the woods, spending time with family or friends, working or sitting in meditation is to be in spiritual practice. It is not a time that I set aside to do, but something I aspire to live in each moment.
"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety." -- Deepak Chopra
Here is my spiritual practice. What is yours?????
Share - T Curtis...
My spiritual practice is becoming the way I live my life. It is staying connected to that power that is greater than I am. That deep inner knowing of what is right or wrong, the intuitive sense of what to do in any given situation and to cause no harm. My intention is to make the world a better place through my deeds, words and actions. This is my spiritual practice. Whether I am taking a walk in the woods, spending time with family or friends, working or sitting in meditation is to be in spiritual practice. It is not a time that I set aside to do, but something I aspire to live in each moment.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
KARMA
Swami Chidananda in which he describes the true meaning behind the ancient concept of karma (from his biography, This Monk from India):
If properly understood, the Law of Karma is a law which give infinite hope. It says that a man’s destiny is in his own hands. It says that he shall depend upon himself. He is the one to decide on the pattern of the experience to come.
He is the master of his destiny. He is the architect of his fate. He has nothing to fear in this universe, nothing except his own wrong actions and thoughts. He has to say: ‘Who has the power to give me any experience that I do not choose to select for myself? No one on earth has the power to injure me, to bring sorrow upon me, to inflict destruction or evil upon me!’
Thus man takes infinite courage. He is determined to guide his own life into a future containing bliss and radiance. The Law gives him an inducement to sow the right type of seeds and to fashion all his activity along ideal lines.
It is this Law which upholds the moral standard of this universe. Had it not been for this Law, there would have been no inducement either to avoid evil or to embrace good. Both these lines of action spring out of this glorious Law. Man knows that if he does not avoid evil, he will sow weeds and thorns. He knows that he should do good because he will be the blessed enjoyer of the fruits of those good deeds.
According to this view, the Law of Karma is not a doctrine of fatalism. On the contrary, it is a doctrine of high orderliness, serving as the basis of the moral order in the whole universe, and the attitude instilled into man by this Law is fearlessness.
It fills man with fearlessness and infinite courage and a great urge to be ideal, good and lofty in all his thoughts and activities.
If properly understood, the Law of Karma is a law which give infinite hope. It says that a man’s destiny is in his own hands. It says that he shall depend upon himself. He is the one to decide on the pattern of the experience to come.
He is the master of his destiny. He is the architect of his fate. He has nothing to fear in this universe, nothing except his own wrong actions and thoughts. He has to say: ‘Who has the power to give me any experience that I do not choose to select for myself? No one on earth has the power to injure me, to bring sorrow upon me, to inflict destruction or evil upon me!’
Thus man takes infinite courage. He is determined to guide his own life into a future containing bliss and radiance. The Law gives him an inducement to sow the right type of seeds and to fashion all his activity along ideal lines.
It is this Law which upholds the moral standard of this universe. Had it not been for this Law, there would have been no inducement either to avoid evil or to embrace good. Both these lines of action spring out of this glorious Law. Man knows that if he does not avoid evil, he will sow weeds and thorns. He knows that he should do good because he will be the blessed enjoyer of the fruits of those good deeds.
According to this view, the Law of Karma is not a doctrine of fatalism. On the contrary, it is a doctrine of high orderliness, serving as the basis of the moral order in the whole universe, and the attitude instilled into man by this Law is fearlessness.
It fills man with fearlessness and infinite courage and a great urge to be ideal, good and lofty in all his thoughts and activities.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
An inside road to Salvation
The source of reality is inside you. It is your essence.
Here Jesus points the way to hidden dimensions, not simply the conventional notion of Heaven. When you go inside, you are aware of activity such as thoughts and feelings. Your instinct is to pursue the activity that brings pleasure and avoid that which brings pain.
But Jesus spoke of a completely different inner reality. The consciousness hidden behind your thoughts is the consciousness that upholds all intelligence in the universe. It is personal and collective at the same time. The personal is made up of your relationships, the collective is made up of the myths and archetypes common to all cultures. Both dimensions are you, and you can begin to connect the two as a bridge to the sacred.
Sit quietly when you have time to be alone and undisturbed. Choose a prayer that you feel comfortable with, or a phrase from that prayer. Silently repeat the words to yourself, letting them settle naturally into your awareness, becoming softer and deeper. Continue for at least five minutes and up to twenty minutes. This kind of sacred repetition is common to every religious tradition.
When you open your eyes, let your gaze settle on a sacred image. Ask this figure to embody itself through you. Gently feel a connection. Don’t force this, just put out the intention that the archetype merges with your being. Some people use angels for this purpose, which is the same as asking for the essence of God to reach you.
Now contemplate the specific qualities you want, such as love, compassion, or forgiveness. These are archetypical energies that you are asking to express through your thoughts, emotions, and actions. By calling on your higher archetype, you will find yourself thinking and doing things you never expected as the person you know.
Adapted from The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).
Here Jesus points the way to hidden dimensions, not simply the conventional notion of Heaven. When you go inside, you are aware of activity such as thoughts and feelings. Your instinct is to pursue the activity that brings pleasure and avoid that which brings pain.
But Jesus spoke of a completely different inner reality. The consciousness hidden behind your thoughts is the consciousness that upholds all intelligence in the universe. It is personal and collective at the same time. The personal is made up of your relationships, the collective is made up of the myths and archetypes common to all cultures. Both dimensions are you, and you can begin to connect the two as a bridge to the sacred.
Sit quietly when you have time to be alone and undisturbed. Choose a prayer that you feel comfortable with, or a phrase from that prayer. Silently repeat the words to yourself, letting them settle naturally into your awareness, becoming softer and deeper. Continue for at least five minutes and up to twenty minutes. This kind of sacred repetition is common to every religious tradition.
When you open your eyes, let your gaze settle on a sacred image. Ask this figure to embody itself through you. Gently feel a connection. Don’t force this, just put out the intention that the archetype merges with your being. Some people use angels for this purpose, which is the same as asking for the essence of God to reach you.
Now contemplate the specific qualities you want, such as love, compassion, or forgiveness. These are archetypical energies that you are asking to express through your thoughts, emotions, and actions. By calling on your higher archetype, you will find yourself thinking and doing things you never expected as the person you know.
Adapted from The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2008).
Saturday, February 20, 2010
LOVE----
Love, in all its fragile forms, is the one powerful, enduring force that brings real meaning to our everyday lives…but the love I mean is the fire that burns inside us all, the inner warmth that prevents our soul from freezing in the winters of despair. –Bradley Grieves
I always thought of love as the exchange, the giving and the receiving of energy in the myriad forms of life exchanges. Knowing that we all experience love differently is what makes the exchanges so difficult for so many of us. Often unable to articulate what it would take for us to feel the love of our partner, we flail about in our relationships, feeling more emptiness than connection. We long to feel full of love but don’t know how to actually feel it when it’s aimed at us directly.
When love works, it is a transmission of goodness. It awakens the seed of goodness that lives in us. But many people do not get this transmission from the loving acts that other people offer them. It is not just a mental transfer that happens through words. Waking up the seed of our own loveliness is visceral. You feel it in your body. I remember learning that the love we extend happens through our heart center, and that the love we take in happens though our backs behind our heart. I am not alone with serious tightness and blockages behind my heart. Whether they are small compliments or deep gestures of generosity, learning to let the experience of being loved into our physical bodies is worthy of attention.
Opening up to receive love is only part of the work. In order for it to work its alchemical magic, there must be an internal space to hold this received love. This is how the seed of our own loveliness matures into a thriving energy that transforms our own life and can reach out to others. I never fully understood that while the process begins with the transmission of goodness from the outside, it is sustained by the container we create in ourselves for love to collect in us.
I never thought of myself as a chalice of love. Nor, have I really considered that all of the goodness that has come into me over the years has collected and grown there, making me more and more myself. For so long, I have focused on the exchange of loving gestures, that I never considered the paradigm that holds the love in you. Robin McKinley’s beautiful fable, Chalice, a story that captured my imagination recently is the perfect metaphor for this new discovery. When love is alchemy it transforms us from the inside out. As the honey chalice in her story portrays, for love to work its miracles it must be something that sticks in you. It is the ability to hold our own goodness, sparked by others, but growing in our own conception of ourselves that heals us. Contemplating myself as a chalice of love is something that I think may change everything.
I always thought of love as the exchange, the giving and the receiving of energy in the myriad forms of life exchanges. Knowing that we all experience love differently is what makes the exchanges so difficult for so many of us. Often unable to articulate what it would take for us to feel the love of our partner, we flail about in our relationships, feeling more emptiness than connection. We long to feel full of love but don’t know how to actually feel it when it’s aimed at us directly.
When love works, it is a transmission of goodness. It awakens the seed of goodness that lives in us. But many people do not get this transmission from the loving acts that other people offer them. It is not just a mental transfer that happens through words. Waking up the seed of our own loveliness is visceral. You feel it in your body. I remember learning that the love we extend happens through our heart center, and that the love we take in happens though our backs behind our heart. I am not alone with serious tightness and blockages behind my heart. Whether they are small compliments or deep gestures of generosity, learning to let the experience of being loved into our physical bodies is worthy of attention.
Opening up to receive love is only part of the work. In order for it to work its alchemical magic, there must be an internal space to hold this received love. This is how the seed of our own loveliness matures into a thriving energy that transforms our own life and can reach out to others. I never fully understood that while the process begins with the transmission of goodness from the outside, it is sustained by the container we create in ourselves for love to collect in us.
I never thought of myself as a chalice of love. Nor, have I really considered that all of the goodness that has come into me over the years has collected and grown there, making me more and more myself. For so long, I have focused on the exchange of loving gestures, that I never considered the paradigm that holds the love in you. Robin McKinley’s beautiful fable, Chalice, a story that captured my imagination recently is the perfect metaphor for this new discovery. When love is alchemy it transforms us from the inside out. As the honey chalice in her story portrays, for love to work its miracles it must be something that sticks in you. It is the ability to hold our own goodness, sparked by others, but growing in our own conception of ourselves that heals us. Contemplating myself as a chalice of love is something that I think may change everything.
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