Ascending and Descending

Many people - most people who would read a blog like this - are looking for a spiritual experience.  We seek to ascend, to progress beyond this earthly physical plane.  It's worth asking why.

We began as spirit forms, we are originally spiritual beings having a human experience.  The desire we have as human beings for a spiritual experience is largely a desire to remember where we came from.  We know at some level deep within that there is a connection to something higher, but our conscious minds filter that out, and it's not hard to see how that happens.

In order to get into these bodies, we must have had to go through some conditioning to leave the higher dimensions and enter this physical world.  It's more limited here, with time and space and gravity to deal with, and there must be some training involved because I imagine there's quite a difference.  I imagine there are lots of cool things they can do out there, but we have things here they cannot experience.  We can see flowers and sunsets because these eyes interpret light.  We can feel joy and sorrow, laughter and pain, love, sex, delicious food, we can build and paint and sing and this is all part of being alive.  We can physically feel energy in our hands and inside our chests.  They need to know about this, as did we, and that's mainly why we agreed to enter into that birth process.

So we make our agreements and go, then we feel the warmth and the love of mother's body all around us, and then we run out of room, so we know about space already, and after some pushing and shoving we have light, and air, and fingers.  And we have to learn how to work all that, and walk and speak and go to the bathroom without making a mess, and that's a full-time job.  Then we have school.  It is not a big surprise that the consciousness of spirit gets crowded out. 

But just because it's forgotten, that doesn't mean it's gone.  Spirit is the driving force behind this body, this brain, this rational thought, and we know this deep within because it was never gone.  Some of us wake up to its presence and want to know more.  Some of us want to ascend beyond this earthly plane and graduate.

If we truly came here for a reason though, and we just want to get out, we might have to come back and do it again.  We could finish up our time here and look around the cosmos, look at what we've done here and ask what we've accomplished.  Maybe we spent our energy surviving in a harsh environment and then realized that we were already going to survive.  We died and we survived that.  And then we may ask what the point was.

And in the asking of that question the whole view could just flip.  Maybe the point was not ascending after all, but rather completing a good solid descent into the flowers and the sunsets and the laughter and all the rest.  Maybe the act of truly becoming an integrated part of all this manifested creation was the original idea.  If we connect strongly with what we see here, we can connect more strongly to what is beyond.  I don't think we're going to learn how to connect anywhere by skipping what's right in front of us.

I am really curious about what's going on out there in the universe, and I am exercising this animal brain to receive different kinds of sensory inputs, but I am also motivated to get a full load of this experience here.  Because you don't learn how to connect by refusing to connect.

One more thing: you are already ascended.  Your higher self is up there, and was with you before you were born, and will be waiting for you when it's done.  We are multidimensional beings and we do not only operate on one plane.  If you believe that, and you can connect here, it will help you connect elsewhere, and there may be no real ascending to do.  Just connecting, and remembering.

So this is a thought that favors descending as a step toward true progress.  It's not the only step, but it's one we could miss if we set our sights on the stars and trip over the pebbles.

Awakening

Greetings to the great celestial entities, facets of the Divine Almighty and yet fully individual, many in one, e pluribus unum.  We extend our honor to the Holy Multiplicity.  We feel a deep gratitude for your help through the ages, for your kindness and your love.  We delight to hear anything you have to tell us, and today we have a specific question.

We hear of a great awakening which some say is coming to our planet.  We hear that Gaia herself, the earth mother is beginning to stir, that human culture is getting ready for a step forward.  We hear of times like November 11, 2011 or December 12, 2012 as special moments.  Do you see any movement like this?  If this is real, how can we contribute toward the highest and greatest good?

After a pause Jupiter wishes to speak.

Human kind is constantly moving forward.  You do not need to wait for reserved points in time to make your progress.  You can elevate your own vibrations right now.  Just close your eyes and ask for it.  Go ahead, do it now.  You will ascend to some degree.

Events are coming and they will not be end times unless you see today as merely the end of yesterday.  Creation is constantly unfolding, constantly renewing, constantly being reborn.  The flowers of spring and the autumn leaves are constantly becoming what they are, as are you, as is all of life and all of creation.  Don't look too much at the ending of yesterday, it could cause you to miss the new creation of today.

There are some who look with fear toward futures they imagine, full of endings.  Help them if you can, to know that these are beginnings, that we create them together, that we all have a hand in shaping the creation in our own image.  Some will understand this and others will not.  Help the ones you can.

We can only create in our own image.  We cannot make what we do not know.  So you are responsible for the source of your own creations, your own spiritual image.  Create it with care, choose wisely whether to feed it joy or sorrow, gratitude or disappointment, love or anger.  This created spirit will be reflected in all you do - and you have a huge impact on everything around you.

People are bringing energies together for some very good unified work and you can look forward with joy to creations of love and beauty.

We offer blessings and love from the dimensions where we live.

And Apollo has something to say.

Your revolution will occur within yourself.  Others will affect you but your growth is your own.  Their revolution is fully theirs and you will surely affect them, in profound ways, most of which you will not know.  You are fully responsible for how you affect the world, and at the same time your field of growth is mainly within.  Your main purpose here is internal.  "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and these things will be added unto you."

In no way does this mean that you are not responsible for conditions.  You are powerful creators and you have been given much.  Thus much is expected.  The power to create is an awesome responsibility but this is not scary at all.  It is a delight, it is a kick in the head, in all the best ways.  We get to create beauty and joy springing forth from what we have within.

So your field of growth is within yourself and it extends throughout the world.  It is both and it is neither.  You directly affect it all, and you can only create from within yourself, and there is infinite influence from all the other creators.  Simultaneous truths exist and they only seem contradictory to your finite minds.

There is nothing special about those dates, they are names for points in time, useful for measurement but arbitrary.  But there is something very special about the way people are coming together with common purpose at those times.  By agreement and by coincidence of numbers, gatherings are forming and energies are coming together at key times.  There will be great steps forward materially, socially and spiritually, not because of the dates but because of the energy.  It will be magical.  It already is.

If you would help, remind those who will listen to keep the love in it, to consider help before anger, to look toward more benefit for more people.  Spirits are coming together already on your planet and beyond it, and the combined power will continue to grow.  The force of unified spiritual energy is a powerful agent and it is awakening with a great magnitude.

Saturn is the last to address us.

Conditions in your world are trending toward improvement all the time, but progress comes with occasional individual and collective setbacks.  Two steps forward and one step back sometimes, and a correction is now in process.  It will be completed soon.  It was needed, to bring about a greater good.  This is coming.

There was once a Golden Age when we needed no laws because natural benefit flowed from all by nature.  That was before the Babylonian apple felt the lips of Eve as your story has it, before the nature of good and evil was known.  Advancement now comes with some letting go.  The tree is pruned to allow for the growth which will surely follow.

There are those who can be helped, who will understand these ideas and who will respond.  Help the ones you can.  We have not expressed an opinion about the others.  Do not try to create benefit where it cannot be created, there is a lifetime of work available where you can do some good. 

You are blessed beings in a blessed world and there is light and love for you all.

Yes and No

I am very grateful and thankful for the word Yes.  It is a powerful and open concept and I welcome its growth within me.  It is the word of potential, of growth and creativity, it moves forward into an unknown and new future.  The word is present in every known language because the idea is hardwired into the human outlook.

That other word is the one every two year old knows, when he first learns to exercise his own power.  It is a really strong force in its own way, it can stop even some things those giant grownups create, but you can't really take it anywhere.  It is a powerful blocking force but it cannot create.

Human children learn their power early.  Just as they learn to walk and speak, they learn the power they have to affect their environment, to take part in the creation of their own reality.  Though the big grownups praise his first unsure, unbalanced steps, the young one continues learning to walk until he can do it gracefully, easily.  He doesn't stop with that first halting expression of ability.  And we don't stop developing our power with the concept of No.  We develop into Yes.

We are expected later to have positive alternatives instead of just blocking.  It's considered more supportive to propose feasible constructive options.  We build that later as personal power matures, and in that sense, Yes is built upon No.  Power and ability feels good, and the stopping force of No is only the first power we realize as we grow.

It still feels good though, even the negative power feels good, but not as good as the last time I was all about Yes.  There was a nice romantic whirlwind recently, ill-fated but instructive.  As it ended I determined not to lose the depth of feeling that had opened up within me.  I saw its value, felt its creative flow and have been more open since then to receive the internal light and energy to help keep the Yes response flowing.  In some ways that decision to retain the sense of depth is what led me to a deeper practice of spirit.  I had this magnetic open thing inside and they found me.

I am grateful for the way the positive affirmative response affects my spirit and even my body.  There is healing in it, there is unity and power from beyond myself - unlike No, which is isolated and local.  Yes is open and free and creative, it aligns with all of creation.  And I align with creators everywhere by feeling the power of Yes coming from deep within.  Yes brings the universe together with us.  It's like paddling the canoe in the direction the river is flowing.

There are a couple of scary parts to saying Yes to new ideas.  One is about taking a deep breath and stepping into the unknown.  New projects and new directions will bring change and we don't know what the future will hold.  This is a concern to be overcome, because I don't know what the future will bring if I say No either.  The illusion that I do know what's coming is a transparent one.

There's also a concern that the river of opportunity will flow where I don't want to go, or lead to directions that are not in my best interest.  We need to reconcile acceptance and cooperation with the productive setting of our own goals.  And in some cases, we need to exercise our personal responsibility by saying No to the ideas that are not best for each of us.  It's that same old word, used for a much better purpose these days.

I intend to say Yes far more often than No, and in response to more important and more satisfying things.  I intend to use the word No for the best possible reasons, to stay true to my own path, for the highest and greatest good for myself and those around me.  So be it, and so it is.

Intentions: Unity and Clarity

Intentions:  Unity and Clarity

There has been a lot written about the Law of Attraction and not all of it is recent.  In Proverbs 23:7 it says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he."  The ancients knew that thought creates reality, so why has it been such a secret?  A recent book talks up the Law of Attraction and is actually called, "The Secret."  It's like some of those Zen sayings which carry deep wisdom but which take time and effort and discipline to understand.  So this note is intended as a step toward understanding.

Examples are all around us.  Yesterday morning I couldn't find my wallet.  I looked all over and made myself late, and left without it.  I didn't get pulled over and I paid cash for lunch, and on my way back in, I had the thought that it's going to just appear out of nowhere without any effort on my part.  It wasn't a willful forced intention, just a feeling of certainty, felt deeply enough so that I said out loud, "It's just going to pop out from somewhere and be there right in front of me."  And within one minute I caught the right visual angle and there it was on a chair in the kitchen, having fallen between two grocery bags, literally one foot under my nose.  I just giggled for about three minutes and again just now remembering it.

It happens far too often to be a coincidence, it happens all the time, and it happens with small and large things with equal ease.  The Universe (a.k.a. God) doesn't care about scale, planets are created as easily as flowers.  There is a really powerful mechanism at work here and we can use it if we know how. 

UNITY

Some people are better manifestors than others, and some things manifest more quickly and easily than others.  And the difference is not so much about scale or scope of the tangible creation that comes out, it's more about the ways in which the "man thinketh in his heart."   (Of course it works for women too.)  The difference is clarity and unity.  If we simply know the desired results are coming, know it and expect it and want it without reservation, it happens all the time.

So how does it work?  The clarity and unity were easy to achieve with my wallet, I hadn't spent more than a couple of minutes thinking about it.  And it manifested so quickly because it was such a certain expectation.  Some other things are harder to get so certain about.  Not because of scope, the universe doesn't care about that, it's because the issues can be emotionally complicated.  We don't always have unity of purpose:

·     A desire for financial affluence can come with a reluctance to deal with a more complex tax environment, or issues in handling investments, or concerns that our friends and loved ones will act differently toward us.

·      A desire for deeper romantic relationship may come with a reluctance to give up time spent on things we currently enjoy, and may bring other unforeseen changes to our lives.

·       A desire for any improvement may come with concerns about being able to handle the results, or possible thoughts about deserving the benefits, or a thousand other concerns.

The universe will respect our fears and aversions as well as our proactive desires.  If you want thing A, and A comes with B, and you don't want B, you're not getting either one of them.  So we need to work on B and look clearly at the fear, the concern, the issue, whatever you call it, and bring it out into the open.  Because if we let it keep hiding in the shadows, it will keep preventing A from coming to you, and the check won't be in your mailbox and she will not kiss you.

Now, people say not to focus on the negative and that's good advice.  It's unproductive to let thoughts linger that tell us, "I really need to lose weight, I'm overweight and too big, blah blah, etc." If we focus instead on feeling the ideal weight and size within our body it's more productive.  Especially when it leads to changes in diet and exercise that flow naturally and easily without drudgery or self denial.  These changes can be a freely flowing result of the images we carry inside us.  This is all good, and we can harm ourselves if we focus on the negative in the sense of investing our attention on it.  Attention is a huge psychological and spiritual magnifying glass that creates growth and manifests results wherever we direct it.  So we need to be careful about that.

But ignoring real issues is a different thing entirely.  We need ways to shed light on the dark forms hiding in the shadows, to examine them clearly without degrading into negative self-talk ("I'm too big, not good at that, whatever.")  We need ways to think about issues in productive terms, and one productive tool is language, the phrasing, how we say things, this affects how we think about them.  People think language comes from the inside out, that it's an expression of the inner self, but it's a two-way street.  Careful construction of some key phrases can improve our internal perceptions.  Language can affect thinking from the outside in.

It has been said that we need to be careful how we phrase our intentions, and this is true.  But it's not true because the universe has a bunch of lawyers who will pounce on every word.  It's true because the form of our statements determines how we perceive the issue within our spirit.  And the universe responds to exactly what we hold within our spirits.  So we do need to be careful and, shall we say, intentional about what we say and how we say it.

For example, a poorly phrased concern might be, "I don't want to have to spend my time managing a bunch of investments.  It's not the kind of thing I like to do and I'm not very good at it."  Maybe you can see how that might restrict the flow of affluence.  Let's take some steps and see what we can do about a concept like this:

·        Acknowledge the personal truth we find.  One truth might be that you really do not like to spend time on financial matters.  Another might be that A really does come with B in this case, we do have to take care of our things and money is one of them.  A third might be that we're really not very good at it, though it may be lack of experience.

·       Work within the truth.  If I don't like doing it, and it has to be done, where are we then?  Look for some creative ideas at this point, such as, what if someone else does it?  Ah, but then they'd want to be paid.  But wait, we're doing this because there is some money to be managed.  If they do a good job the pile could grow and we could pay them with part of the proceeds.

·      Don't ignore it.  That would be giving up.  If you want to stop working on this and go to work on something else that's fine, but if you really want A, you need to find a way to work with B.

·       Rephrase the concern.  Something like, "I would be happy to pay a good advisor to manage investments for me and share in the proceeds."

·       Your thoughts and concerns will be different, and the steps you take may look different than these.  It's your job, it's your homework to find productive, clear and unified intentions for your own purposes.  The old song says, "No one else can walk it for you, you got to walk that lonesome valley by yourself."

This is not just a matter of playing with words to make it look good on paper.  It is managing the way we think about things.  An old saying says, "You are what you eat."  Your view of the world and your overall tone is the direct result of the momentary thoughts you have had throughout the years of your life.  You feed thoughts into your spirit by the thinking of them.  You are what you eat psychologically and spiritually, and what you eat are those thoughts you entertain on a momentary basis. 

And you can change your diet.  "I would be happy to pay a good advisor to manage investments for me and share in the proceeds."  The phrases and restructured thinking that you create, to bring about your own intentions for your own life, can help you achieve the clarity and unity that create results. 

CLARITY

So far we've been talking about unity, the alignment of intentions toward a single purpose, reshaping and redirecting those which could work in unwanted ways, working toward the achievement of single-mindedness.  But what about the clarity part?  What about that first step of becoming clear with ourselves and the universe about what the heck it is that we actually want?  That would seem to have some influence, right?

In a way this is the easy part.  It's certainly the fun part.  It's your wish list, but it needs to be more than idle wishes.  It will need attention, that great growth agent, and cultivation over time.  It is helpful to write the intentions down, because writing forces the thoughts to be complete sentences at the very least, and clear ideas when at their best.  Plus a written result is a great way to reapply your attention over and over again.  Some people put their intentions up on their bathroom mirror and repeat them out loud every morning.  Some take the time to rewrite them frequently, and that's my mode, I'm a compulsive scribbler and I like my journals.  Either way, it takes an investment to have your statement of goals (intention) become a major part of your mental process (attention.)

Steady attention creates clarity, it hones and refines goals, it handles concerns by dispensing or integrating.  It feeds a constant diet into the inner depths of mind and spirit which directly touch the creative power of the universe.

Groups are forming all the time to come together and announce their intentions to each other, and to add their combined power together, applying it to the creation of manifest reality.  Look for phrases like "intention circle" in Google or meetup.com. Groups can enhance clarity through feedback on the statement of people's goals.  And again, the structure of the statement is a direct influence on the nature of your internal thoughts - and that in turn is the direct interface to the creative power the universe has ready for you.

Your life is your own art project and you get to take it anywhere you want.  This will take time and effort.  But what major wonderful part of your life has not taken time and effort?