Igor Gruppman Plays Tribute to Ukraine

https://youtu.be/i-jyP2vs30s

As the world watches the destruction of Kyiv, we feel great sadness. A native of this city, Igor Gruppman, is a violinist with the Rotterdam Philharmonic  Orchestra. Recently he performed this tribute to his country. It has been in my head all day and nothing has moved me quite so much as this video, which I share with you here. 

For some reason, this HG Wells quote also has stayed with me today: “We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.” The Time Machine, 1895

What is Happening?

Do you believe in magic? It’s a good song, that’s for sure. We all want to believe that things can happen just because we think about them, but is that magic? Perhaps it’s simply the way things are. Thought is powerful. Tonight I watched a documentary called “You Can’t Kill Meme”. Frightening stuff, but I’m finally beginning to understand what has happened to us in the past few years. The mind control being exercised by large groups of people is scary, but what of the few people who utilize the internet to exponentially heighten their thought manifestation? To quote one man, “Introduce an element of chaos to break down social hierarchies.” Without citing specific instances, what I’ve ultimately taken away from this informative video is that we must be pure in our reflection of Love and its energy. There was one woman who came closest to my way of looking at the task before us as “lightworkers”, but unfortunately she wandered off into the ozone, talking about Obama being a time traveler and going to Mars. Let’s stay on point! I have friends who are working for Truth and Love by the food they ingest and the information they spread about a pure way of living. There are many paths and we all have a purpose. Let’s not be afraid to spread love and joy!

“One of the ways in which you can correct the magic-miracle confusion is to remember that you did not create yourself.²You are apt to forget this when you become egocentric, and this puts you in a position where a belief in magic is virtually inevitable. ³Your will to create was given you by your Creator, Who was expressing the same Will in His creation. ⁴Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything you create is necessarily a matter of will. ⁵It also follows that whatever you alone make is real in your own sight, though not in the Mind of God. ⁶This basic distinction leads directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment.”

A Course in Miracles - T-2.VIII

All

 

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You.

From: ‘The Subject Tonight is Love’

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Finding Solace in a Library

 

“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."

[Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]” 
― E.B. White

Love Out Loud!

 

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

The smoke still hangs in the warm spring air in Eureka Springs. An early morning fire in a house partitioned into apartments left five homeless, having to jump out of bed and leave with what they could grab while barely awake. One of my dear friends is among the refugees, and it has brought home to me the plight of anyone who must leave their homes quickly, and then have no place to return. Another long-time friend was taken by ambulance to the hospital this morning, with alarming symptoms and an uncertain prognosis. My heart is with them, and hence with the world in the individual and collective plights. I am reminded to love more inclusively, to reflect and absorb the infinite Love which is All. Love heals lives, because it is life. Everyone we come into contact with throughout our days has a story which involves joy and sadness. We never know what others are going through, but we do know the importance of being kind. So let’s do that, okay? “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Dalai Lama XIV

“Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see the light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you. In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it.” A Course in Miracles T-23.in.6:1-8

Holy Relationships

Deva Premal and Miten

My thoughts turn today toward the holy relationship. We have many relationships in this life and, if you're like me, you prefer to think of all of them as holy! If God is Love, and we express that Love, then isn't every thing we do coming from that Love which is our essence? Unfortunately, this is not true. What we think of as love is often colored with human emotions such as guilt, jealousy, lust, and fear. This is a hard admission for any of us to make. A dear friend has been talking to me recently about a relationship he is ending. I have been thinking back over relationships I could have stayed in to this very day and where that would have led my life in different paths. The thing that keeps coming back time and again is that each and every relationship I have ever had was based in some way or another on the words, "I want". Maybe I wanted to be loved, maybe I wanted to be IN love, maybe I wanted a love affair like the movies and songs tell us is the be-all, end-all. My friend is feeling sad for the loss of this relationship. He liked so many things about this woman, but there were some basic differences which caused their incompatibility. He could have stayed and been contented, but there was something missing: It wasn't a holy relationship. It was based on expectation of change and other material desires. My friend innately knows there is more than settling down with someone because it's easy. And I know he will recognize, within himSelf, what it is he's waiting for.

“My holy brother, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between you and your fantasies. Let my relationship to you be real to you, and let me bring reality to your perception of your brothers. They were not created to enable you to hurt yourself through them. They were created to create with you. This is the truth that I would interpose between you and your goal of madness. Be not separate from me, and let not the holy purpose of Atonement be lost to you in dreams of vengeance. Relationships in which such dreams are cherished have excluded me. Let me enter in the Name of God and bring you peace, that you may offer peace to me.” A Course in Miracles T-17.III.10:1-8

Music Opens Perceptions

Performance at Thorncrown Chapel

Music ​opens our ​mind to things we may have forgotten​,​ or​ ​perhaps​ have​ never known. I love to sit with ​a ​symphony orchestra, opening my mind to only the music, until at some point I feel there is nothing else in the world. I recall Wayne Dyer talking about muscle testing using different items. ​Holding an organic banana ​near his heart ​allowed full strength in his son, whereas holding a CD of raucous music left him much weakened. ​We all enjoy music in many forms, and ​on multiple​ levels. Something we would ​like with friends at a party may not compare to the quiet strains of Bach, which take us deeper within ourselves prior to meditation or writing. Find the music which opens you to hearing the messages which  Life, Truth, and Love are offering you. Surround yourself with this river of salvation and see where it takes you!

“Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He was a musician beyond what the world knew.​ ​This was even more strikingly true of Beethoven, who was so long hopelessly deaf. Mental melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede conscious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart. Mortal mind is the harp of many strings, discoursing either discord or harmony according as the hand, which sweeps over it, is human or divine.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 213:19-29