We Are Powerful

Eureka Women - Unknown Photographer

“Don't make yourself small.

Not for anyone.

If someone tells you 

you're too much...

too loud, too sensitive, 

too fierce, too caring, 

too intellectual, too optimistic, 

too realistic, too logical, too emotional...

just smile and move on, my friend.

Clearly, they aren't enough for you.”

L.R. Knost

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

“It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of

God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

—Marianne Williamson

“The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality--much error--in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun.” 

MaryBakerEddy-Science & Health Page 295:14-24

Energy Wasted Denying Truth

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

I’ve always been happy to have friends and family who are smarter and/or more knowledgeable than me. When someone tells me I’m mistaken about a “fact”, or that I’m interpreting something incorrectly, or maybe that my memory is faulty, I’m grateful for the correction. Much in the same way I’m thankful when someone tells me my skirt is stuck in my waistband, I’m glad if knowledge keeps me from spreading information erroneously. Apparently not everyone feels this way! Not only are we witnessing public figures fearing to say “I was wrong and I’m sorry”, but I’ve been noticing a situation with a loved one whose family has maligned him for decades. When did knowledge and the accumulation of information become something to be ridiculed? Metaphysical practitioners recognize that energy follows thought, so I’m not spending a lot of time replaying memories of behavior which I don’t want to manifest. But it sure is hard not to do so! 

“We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are. If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen patiently to the rebuke and credit what is said? Do we not rather give thanks that we are ‘not as other men’? During many years the author has been most grateful for merited rebuke. The wrong lies in unmerited censure, — in the falsehood which does no one any good.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 8:28

“You do not recognize the enormous waste of energy you expend in denying truth. What would you say of someone who persists in attempting the impossible, believing that to achieve it is to succeed? The belief that you must have the impossible in order to be happy is totally at variance with the principle of creation. God could not will that happiness depended on what you could never have. The fact that God is Love does not require belief, but it does require acceptance. It is indeed possible for you to deny facts, although it is impossible for you to change them. If you hold your hands over your eyes, you will not see because you are interfering with the laws of seeing. If you deny love, you will not know it because your cooperation is the law of its being. You cannot change laws you did not make, and the laws of happiness were created for you, not by you.” A Course in Miracles T-9.I.11:1-9

Reciprocal Interactions With Nature

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

“Nature becomes aware of itself through you, and you become aware of your stillness through nature.” Eckhart Tolle told me this today through one of his short and sweet youTube videos. It caused me to reminisce about my favorite nature documentaries."Wings of Life" is described as a love story from flowers to pollinators. Another reason this movie stayed with me is that its narrator is Meryl Streep. She tells us that the flowers multiply in beauty, with gratitude to the bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and bats. This gratitude turns my thoughts to things which fill my heart: people, music, nature -- movies like this one! In line with my quest to be with those who help my being, I will stay with entertainment which brings beauty and grace to life, turning away from inanities and programing designed to disturb the senses. Life is good, and I am grateful…

“Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to Him.” 
— A Course in Miracles T-10.V.7:7

"This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not 'for the loaves and fishes,' nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.” 
— Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 367:10-16

When Women Were Dragons

During a rare, sleepless night, I read a review of a new book: When Women Were Dragons, written by Kelly Barnhill. The book is dedicated to Christine Blasey Ford, as its inspiration came when listening to her testimony during the Brent Kavanaugh hearings for his Supreme Court appointment. The book, set in the mid-1950s, tells the story of  700,000 married women turning into dragons. This “dragoning” is triggered by too may years of women staying quiet, not asking questions one does not ask, not expressing emotions they are not supposed to feel. How many things would you never speak aloud? The review ends with this statement (which makes me want to start reading the book right now!). “The novel’s central questions and concerns link it to today. The suffocating silence concerning all things female exacts a high price, not simply on women, but on all of society. The welcome truth, as Barnhill sees it, is that the urge toward transformation can’t be contained — whether that change is physical and fire-breathing or mental and emotional. As one character admits, ‘I want to be bigger than myself.’” I’m ready, how about you?

“The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 96:15-20

“There can be no conflict between sanity and insanity. Only one is true, and therefore only one is real. The ego tries to persuade you that it is up to you to decide which voice is true, but the Holy Spirit teaches you that truth was created by God, and your decision cannot change it. As you begin to realize the quiet power of the Holy Spirit’s Voice, and Its perfect consistency, it must dawn on your mind that you are trying to undo a decision that was irrevocably made for you. That is why I suggested before that you remind yourself to allow the Holy Spirit to decide for God for you.” A Course in Miracles T-6.V-B.6:1-5

Mysteries Too Marvelous …

 Tijana Lukovic, "Wolf Moon"

 

Mysteries, Yes

by Mary Oliver

“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

 to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds will

never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads.”

“Listen,—perhaps you catch a hint of an ancient state not quite forgotten; dim, perhaps, and yet not altogether unfamiliar, like a song whose name is long forgotten, and the circumstances in which you heard completely unremembered. Not the whole song has stayed with you, but just a little wisp of melody, attached not to a person or a place or anything particular. But you remember, from just this little part, how lovely was the song, how wonderful the setting where you heard it, and how you loved those who were there and listened with you.” A Course in Miracles T-21.1.6:1-3 

A Thousand Treasures

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

What blesses one blesses all. Divine Love does not look fondly on one and turn away from another. Love is boundless and blesses the world as it blesses me — and it blesses me as it blesses the world. Love has never left us. It has nothing to do with form, it is everywhere. I must let go of meanings I have placed on divine Love and allow it to Be. Acknowledging the reality of our Being, affirming our goodness as the experience of God, knowing that everyone is created as a manifestation of divine Mind, these are some of the ways we bless ourselves and everyone else. Join me in falling in love today -- with Life!

“Each day a thousand treasures come to me with every passing moment. I am blessed with gifts throughout the day, in value far beyond all things of which I can conceive. A brother smiles upon another, and my heart is gladdened. Someone speaks a word of gratitude or mercy, and my mind receives this gift and takes it as its own. And everyone who finds the way to God becomes my savior, pointing out the way to me, and giving me his certainty that what he learned is surely mine as well.” A Course in Miracles W-315.1:1-5

“Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply, — to manifest [Its] power.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 501:13-18

Ancestry

My son and grandson

 

Ancestry" by Fred LaMotte 

My DNA results came back.

Just as I suspected, 

my great great grandfather

was a monarch butterfly.

Much of who I am is still 

wriggling under a stone.

I am part larva, but 

part hummingbird too.

There is dinosaur tar in 

my bone marrow.

My golden hair sprang out 

of a meadow in Palestine.

Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,

but I didn't get his dimples.

My loins are loaded with 

banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,

but I descended from Ravanna, 

not Ram.

My uncle is a mastodon.

There are traces of white people 

in my saliva.

3.7 billion years ago I swirled 

in hydrogen dust,

dreaming of a planet overgrown 

with lingams and yonis.

More recently, say 60,000 B.C.

I walked on hairy paws 

across a land bridge

joining Sweden to Botswana.

I am the bastard of the sun and moon.

I can no longer hide my heritage of

raindrops and cougar scat.

My mud was molded with your grandmother's tears.

I was the brother

who marched you to the sea 

and sold you.

I was the merchant from Savannah

and the cargo of blackness.

I was the chain.

Admit it, you have wings, 

vast and crystal,

like mine, like mine.

You have sweat, dark and salty,

like mine, like mine.

You have secrets silently 

singing in your blood,

like mine, like mine.

Don't pretend that earth 

is not one family.

Don't pretend we never hung 

from the same branch.

Don't pretend we do not ripen 

on each other's breath.

Don't pretend we didn't 

come here to forgive.