Today I am just back from New Mexico and finding myself
again in the red rock and high desert energy of Sedona and Cottonwood. On these early days of summer the temperature
has been in the triple digits for several days.
It’s Hot!
Now there are thunder clouds gathering to the west and I can
see the falling of rain in the distance.
We are often teased by these vistas; and in these wide open spaces the
thunder heads may fly over or around us and we might receive no respite from
the heat. But today I hear the Hopi’s
have done ceremony and called for rain, so now I witness the trees blowing and
feel a tangible change in the air pressure and add my hope to their prayers
that it will rain.
With or without a change in the weather, I rest in the
assurance that our current persistent circumstances are good and exactly what
is called for . . . comfortable or not.
At this moment I sit in the air-conditioned comfort of Chai’s coffee
house nursing a pomegranate white iced tea – a lovely red pink concoction
tinged with just a hint of honey for sweetness.
It is the color of Homer’s “rosy fingered dawn”; morning and the promise
of a new beginning.
We are paying attention.
I returned home last night to find that my comfortable and easy living situation
is going away at the end of July and I must once again move my wheels and be “on
the road to find out”. I am surprisingly
not contracted by this ostensibly “bad” news. It is clear to me that it is time for me to
move – something else and something new is being revealed. My task is not to make something
happen but to be open and receptive and notice when and where the next gift is
offered.
I am even more embedded in this posture of “allowing”
following our weekend workshop on the topic of “moving out of victim
consciousness”. We had a group of twenty
counselors and counseling graduate students at Eastern New Mexico University in
Portales. This is the second time we
have taught a for-credit class here framing everything with our shamanic and
psycho-spiritual approach. We do not
just bring new information and understanding but a different way to look at
ourselves and the universe that precipitates measurable awakening moments in
ourselves and our students.
In other words, “We got our minds blown.”
We spoke a repeated theme over the weekend that said we do
not need to become more self-empowered because we are already powerful. We do not need to try to change our
uncomfortable circumstances; we need to appreciate the now moment in which we
find ourselves and then allow the gifts and blessings of a benevolent future to
be revealed to us, without our manipulation or planning.
We do not need to be more
powerful; we need to release the limitations that keep us from the awareness of
our true personal power that is ever-present and considerable. This is consistent with the idea that you are
as spiritual as you ever need to be; you do not need to try to be more
spiritual. We want to instead focus our
energies on becoming more human which means to more perfectly embody our
omnipresent spiritual nature in human form.
Those who outwardly strive to gain worldly power are like
hamsters running on a wheel. They think
the accumulation of material wealth and the subjugation and enslavement of
others transfers real power to them.
They are sadly mistaken, and their misguided desires become obsessions
and addictions that are like a bottomless dark pit of despair.
On a less sinister level, trying to control our
circumstances and manipulate others (even to save them) is an addiction. The nature of addiction is that we must ever
increase the dosage of the addictive substance or thought form in order to maintain
a consistent pleasant feeling or effect.
Being successful in controlling and manipulating persons or
circumstances then does not make us a more powerful person. It is just evidence of our victim status
because we can never quite get the circumstances of our world to line up to our
satisfaction.
It is my recurring challenge to not be “against” such souls. My “against-ness” adds more energy to this
toxic vortex and so fans the flames and fuels the fire. It is possible to notice these pockets of “resistance
to awakening” without being in judgment against them. I still hold that the power of discernment is
a gift of spirit. But I do better to
love and bless these pieces of shadow and trust that all are on their own path
to awakening however slow, arduous, or twisted the way.
It is useful to admit to the boxes, the belief systems, we
have accepted or constructed around ourselves to give the illusion of safety
and security. We will not entirely
become “box-free” today, but we will aim to make all our boxes bio-degradable and
pray that as needed . . . they will fall away.
