blog

"Personal entanglements. We all seem to be troubled in one way or another by them. We are busy people. We seem to literally live by the clock. We hesitate to give too much of a listening ear to our long-winded friends. We struggle with the demands of our children. We seek the shortest and least demanding solutions to many of our daily problems.

Why do we act so? Why do we fear the flagrant spending of our valuable time? Why do we hold this commodity so precious and so dear? Probably because we feel that we don’t have enough of it to spend. Maybe because we don’t want to give so freely of something so rare and meaningful.

But pause and consider, dear friends. This commodity that we prize so highly will pass us by whether we use it or not. We cannot store it as money in a bank. It was meant to be used; because if it is not, it is then gone anyway. Why not spend some time assisting in a valuable cause or organization? Why not spend some of it idly with a friend who needs our healing companionship?

For you see, by investing our time in such worthwhile causes, we are investing ourselves in life. We are allowing ourselves to become part of the ever changing, ever growing universe of self and God. We are interweaving ourselves into the living, growing tapestry of life. This enmeshing of self with life affords us the opportunity to grow with the expanding cosmos. As we blend with this, our perception and understanding of Infinite Life, of Infinite Spirit grows and deepens. What a beautiful reward to reap! What a joyous life to live!

So, dear friends, say yes to life. Do not shrink from it as a wilting flower shrinks from the sun. Grow in love with life as you become a part of its activity, a part of its energy. Grow to a fullness in spirit and join the ranks of life, love, and fulfillment. God bless your endeavors."

paradoxes

posted 3/4

love/hate....

faith/doubt...

happy/sad...

laugh/cry....

light/dark...

hot/cold...

park/don't park...

sometimes when we love, we can also be very angry, letting in the dark side - even for a split second....

in order to have faith, we need to doubt at times -

it is in the testing that brings us to faith...

when we are happy, we can also remember in that same second a special time that made us sad...

when we laugh, we can also spontaneously burst into tears...

in order to find the light, we must sometimes be in the dark, otherwise we wouldn't be able to find it...

when we are cold, our fingers and toes burn as if they were hot...

and sometimes it's okay for others

but not for us!

human nature....

ah the paradoxes of life...

and so we live it daily.

i came across this article

and identified with it

completely...

perhaps you will too..

Paradox Paradox Paradox

by William Bloom

"I feel like ranting and being flip about serious stuff. This is a protest to the Great Joker who set up the cosmos and created a particularly weird outpost for these peculiar little creatures we call humans, us.

Oh yes, I know that we are all supposed to have some level of choice about who and where we are, but I don’t remember ever being asked whether I wanted to exist in the first place. I don’t remember ever being presented with a simple tick-box question. Yes or No. Would you like to enter the time/space dimension? Would you like to become a conscious being? Would you like to be caught in the long suck of time, perpetually drawing you forward into change? Would you like to be a soul that can make choices?

That last question is of course very tricky, because at some point presumably I could not make choices, so I could never have chosen to be able to make choices, could I!!

But here, for me, is the biggest paradox. It is totally bizarre that as a human being (who was given no choice in having choice) I am able simultaneously to be both a primal self-interested reptilian creature and a soul with cosmic consciousness. Arghhh. Now I know full well that some of my readers may be squeaky clean and only focus on the Light, always wear freshly ironed clothes and never fart, but sometimes, you know, you just have to let rip! Don’t you? Don’t you ever just go mad and need to scream and rant? (What’s that, missus? You’re nicely controlled and never do that kind of thing? Well, loosen up, sister, loosen up.)

One Good Meditation

Why all this explosive communication? Because over the last six months I have had the greatest expansions of consciousness and sensations of Love that I have ever experienced, and it has shaken me up! They have happened mainly in meditation.

Since my early twenties I have had a daily meditation practice which I love. Most importantly, it gives me the space and time to relax and center into myself, and then let my heart, mind and body, my full consciousness and psyche, be aware of what exists, be aware of the rain cloud of knowable things. There is no greater pleasure than to sit like a great radar disk, open, receptive, allowing impressions, sensing the wave fields, beings and dimensions that permeate this wondrous, multidimensional cosmos. As Sogyal Rinpoche once said about meditation, “If you don’t come out of it feeling better than when you went in, you’re doing something wrong.”

In a good meditation, I can pass through dozens of different states. First, there are all the changes to my feelings and energy field, as I slow down, centre and breathe through my various levels of agitation. Second, there are all the impressions and sensations that belong to my relationships, social life and work. Then I just breathe and witness the flow of the infinite field. No wonder Yogananda in his classic biography stated, “One good meditation is worth a year’s living.”

And sometimes what happens in meditation is startling and dramatic. On my website journal in August last year I began to describe a new consciousness I was experiencing, but then I couldn’t write any more about it. It was too complex, challenging and intense.

On one side, I was ecstatic. I was finally passing through a threshold that I had first felt some twenty-five years ago. I knew this new state of consciousness was there, but I had not been able to expand into it. Trying to achieve it only made it more distant. At last I was calm, soft and open enough that my psyche was able to melt and stretch into a new form of awareness, witnessing the witness, and connecting with new fields of benevolent bliss in dimensions I hardly understand.

This was and is a huge and profound blessing that I am still integrating. But I don’t want to sound as if I’m boasting: Look at how expanded my consciousness is! Admire my shiny new awareness and deeper connection!

The Challenges of the Cycles

I can’t boast about it because there is another rougher side to all this, which all of us experience in the cycles of spiritual growth.

When we open, sense and receive new impressions and fields, there are wonderful sensations, expansions, enlightenments and illuminations. But, at the same time, our nervous systems and psyches are more vulnerable. As we open, we also become more raw. New energy floods into us. It is benevolent but it is also powerful and we can become over-stimulated. At the same time too, our usual everyday sense of self may be shaken up, transformed and fragmented and our reptilian survival psychology may become agitated, anxious and taut.

Already vulnerable, the new energy fuels and vitalizes every aspect of ourselves. Everything we are is amplified. Not only are love, wisdom and goodwill greater than before, but so too are all our negative patterns of insecurity, defensiveness and aggression. Our soul consciousness is expanded but so also is our primal unconscious. Stuff lurking in our psyches, underworld slithers out of the dark recesses of our shadow self to experience light and transformation.

This is the normal rhythm of spiritual growth, initiation and expansion. More energy, more connection, more consciousness, will all stimulate challenges.

So here I am, folks. In a new state of connection and awareness, and also in a new state of challenge. Luckily, gracefully, I am almost through the turbulence of that piece of growth and I can feel the solid base of integration. Thankfully I have been here before many times and I know this cycle of expansion and challenge. It is normal and healthy. I even teach about it and try to help others with it.

So here’s the gist, brothers and sisters. Be prepared. When spiritual growth surges, new energy flows in and it will vitalize and shake up everything within you. And right now it would be completely inauthentic of me to write about all that in a sweet, poetic prose style. Mystics are also intrepid explorers, aren’t we?

I look forward to the next test on the journey, because it is always worth it. I’ll meet you there, on the next swerve. All my love, William."

www.williambloom.com

virtual therapy for the soul

posted 3/5

have you been fed today?

has anyone told you that you are truly loved?

if not, then...

won't you please let me be the one?

http://www.bettertobless.com/movie3.html

or perhaps you'll be a johnny today?

http://www.stservicemovie.com/

happy 38th my darling son

posted 3/7

damian peter my first born...

devoted, adorable, marvelous, incredibly awesome, noble

my love forever

mum xoxoxo

Don't Mess With Granny | Funny Jokes at JibJab

amazing!

posted 3/8

this entertainer juggling to the beatles' abbey road...

wonderful

love the beatles

love the music

love his rythym

so amazing....

love manifest

posted 3/13

"Blue skies with white clouds on summer days.

A myriad of stars on clear moonlit nights.

Tulips

and roses

and violets

and dandelions

and daisies.

Bluebirds

and laughter

and sunshine

and Easter.

See how He loves us!"

~ Alice Chapin

science and spirit working together

posted 3/14

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened -- as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding -- she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another. This is one of those "must sees" for it is too amazing not to experience this amazing woman!

click on picture to see her video:

or go to: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229

very very touching...(thank you Rosie!)

happy friday everyone!

Amazon.com Widgets

happy st. patrick's day!

posted 3/17

there is a lot of irish history in my family background...

alas, not a lot we know about it

for my mother's maiden name was

hickey

which should have been a clue

but our grandfather

her father

preferred to think of himself as an

englishman

and hid

all evidence

of ireland

from us all...

it makes me sad

to know this

and with such a common irish name

it makes it difficult to do the research

to find out anything

which we have tried

on several occasions...

but it must be there in the blood nevertheless

for there is intinctual evidence...

i remember my mother showing us

the irish jig that she learned as a child

i was wowed as a kid myself...

and when i saw river dance

i was reminded of her all

over again

it was my mum up there

on the stage

just like them all...

she had missed her calling...

of course back then

i didn't know anything about

traditional irish dancing

and thought she was just

dancing a funny dance

but i was still impressed

and i loved it when she

performed for us all in

our little front parlor...

she named me deirdre

after the irish heroine in

John Millington Synge's book

deirdre of the sorrows...

she read it as a child and avowed

that she would call her first daughter

deirdre

and so it came to pass...

i am sad that she never knew her

heritage

even sadder still that i don't know

either...

perhaps it explains my love for

irish music and dance and

the land and the food and everything

else to do with ireland...

some day i will visit properly

and not just a stopover in shannon

that i made back in 1968 on my way from

boston to bristol...

so here is my wish for all who visit today:

wise words straight from an irish heart,

"May you always have walls for the winds,

a roof for the rain, tea beside the fire,

laughter to cheer you, those you love near you,

and all your heart might desire."

i hope you enjoy the music

it's called "Cry Of The Celts" (Lord Of The Dance) by The Fire Of Dance Ensemble from the album Fire Of Dance 2

Just wonderful!

have a great day one and all, may you be blessed with the luck 'o the green!

roots

posted 3/18

"To be rooted is perhaps the most important

and least recognized need of the human soul."

~ Simone Weil

yellow

posted 3/20

"The sun...in its full glory,

either at rising or setting --

this, and many other like blessings

we enjoy daily;

and for the most of them,

because they are so common,

most men forget to pay their praises.

But let not us."

~ Izaak Walton

good morning everyone! is your sun shining?

or is it slipping beneath the horizon?

whatever time it is...i wish you yellow in abundance

and another night or another day to enjoy all its beauty

let us pray

posted 3/21

today is good friday

one man died on the cross

2008 years ago

and we remember him

with love and gratitude

his sacrifice was for us all....

in just five years

4,000 soldiers

have also sacrificed

their lives for us...

husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, nieces, nephews....

how much longer can this go on?

this is an appropriate day to remember

them all...as is every day...

to pray for their souls

and for those

who have been injured

in this wretched call of duty...

and to pray for those who remain

in sacrifice for us all...

may god bless and keep them all

amen and amen