The Real Treasure

I was talking with my friend this morning and she was expressing her concern that humankind is not evolving quickly enough to make a difference in the world as we know it. We are going the way of self-destruction, she declared, offering many examples of our lack of enlightenment, one of which was the Republican Convention that she had recently watched!

Don’t you agree, she asked. I’ve heard this argument before. I have, in the past, not wanted to look at that side of humanity, preferring to extol our higher virtues, embracing hope and faith. Now I come at it from a different perspective.

I said to her, yes, I have to agree that we are doing our share of lying and killing and destroying, and I am curious how it shows up in my actions, in my feelings, in the perspective I have on the world situation and in my daily life.

I’ve become aware that too often I use the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’, or ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘trying to become better’, or ‘working on changing’. Enlightenment in those terms seems to me to be a competition for who can get there, and who can get there the fastest.

For 40 years I’ve been a member of the Unification Church. The founder, Rev. Moon, is dying. I’ve agreed as well as disagreed with many things over the years that have been associated with the Church’s practices, but through it all I’ve respected Rev. Moon’s efforts and contributions. Last night I had a dream.

Rev. Moon was reading my journals. I had given them to him, and was busy explaining what each experience or insight meant. He said nothing, being a silent witness to my life. I realized that my reaction, even considering that these journals were a recording of what I had learned, and how I had grown, was one of fear. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be understood, that I hadn’t done enough, learned enough, grown enough. Here I was afraid that another would sit in judgment of me when it was me who was judging myself all along.

“Sometimes it takes a great sky to find that

first, bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart.”

–David Whyte, The Journey

Who Am I?

“I have only this breath and this presence for my wings

and they carry me in my body whatever I do

from one hushed moment to another.”

–David Whyte What I Must Tell Myself

Who Am I?

Who am I who lives here

Above the Earth and below the Heavens?

Who am I, but the one in this moment

And the one I let go of again and again.

Who am I? In this existence

I truly am invisible and invincible.

Who am I—the bud, the blossom,

And the debris.

Boundary is another word for loving me,

And breathing is the only reality.

In Brennan Healing Science we explore our core wound—what is it in me, that embracing this thought or emotion, or letting it go, would cause my death? Our core wound generates a core belief, which is the lie we tell ourselves.

If I believe that I am not enough, then underneath that belief is the reality that I will die if I truly believe that I am not enough. And so I fight for my life to prove it is not so.

Either way out I must die. It is true! I must die to the self that has embodied that belief, discovering the belief, breathing into it, and letting it go.

If I am not enough, then I am living a lie. All are shadows that I must embrace in order to let them go.

“Now let me cast my shadow against life.” –David Whyte This Life

Where Is Your Pearl?

“You tell stories about diving deep in to the ocean but where is your pearl?

There is some merit in the suffering you have endured

But what a pity you have not discovered the Mecca that’s inside.”    -Rumi

Every morning I do a spiritual practice. Part of it includes diving deep into that ocean and letting my “pearl” as Rumi so elegantly describes it, the “Core Star” as defined by Barbara Brennan, shine forth.

I feel my physical body. “What’s here now.” “The body never lies.” It’s morning time, so I can definitely feel my physical body: where I’m holding, where I’m pushing, where I’m stuck. I use that as an indicator as to how my energy is connected and interacting with the energy around me: how my chakras are spinning.

From there I ground. I focus on my Earth connection, and trace it up through my body to find my Heart’s Longing, and reach up to find the contact point that connects Me to the Heart of the Universe.

This then is what creates the holographic link that is my Core Star, my proof that I Am. I feel it—this bigger than me-ism. It travels up through my intention for life, radiates in an ever decreasing spiral around me until it hits my physical body again and each cell explodes with purpose, intention, longing and life.

I remember an awe-inspiring time I felt this undeniable “proof” that I Am. My daughter had called me up to tell me she loved me. It was 5 a.m. and I went back to sleep afterwards only to experience this Unfolding:

“It was the exploding fireball, the uncurling fern leaf

the expanding of universes—pulling my soul apart.

I wrapped my arms around you to cradle and protect

And was burst apart by the power of the unfolding

(for you weren’t mine to contain)

and I joined in the flaring forth.

My small self, unable to contain your beauty and your loveliness,

Felt each love in my life bursting forth from each cell of my being

Truly, birth is a time of offering, and a time of connection—

Love creates new universes.”

And yet, even with this “proof” before me, in me, as I am reading Rumi I become curious. I ask myself: “You find your Core Star every morning—are you living like you have?”

The Link between Spiritual and Physical

has always fascinated me. Ever since I was a child I would feel the connection between essence, electrical, chemical and physical. We have a thought. It travels our neural pathways only to end in an abyss.

Synapse is the scientific term. At that point we must let go of it. It is supported however, by chemicals, neurotransmitters, ahh, and even the emotional connections of the body at that moment. This is the space between. The space between one thought and the next, between one moment and the next, determines the results of our physical action and creation.

The electrical impulses of the neurons jump the synapse bringing our thoughts into physical manifestation--seen as I write this blog and my fingers move across the keyboard as I contemplate what I am writing.

This space between axons and dendrites, nerve endings and muscles, this abyss that our thoughts must navigate is the same "space between" that we access when we meditate or when we do centering prayer.

This is the space between encapsulated by Michelangelo in his captivating painting of God and Man, hands both outstretched, fingers reaching--but not touching. The space between Spiritual and Physical--and the Word became Flesh.

I have been holding this space between, and as I do I feel that it is not a stop. It is not a separation as our world of duality would have us believe. In this space feel the connection (like an axon and dendrites) that is the power to create and act. The space between (the synapse) is a thought/reality waiting to be willed into action.

Recently I've been looking more closely at my spiritual practice. I found I must practice the art of going in and letting go.

Now here is another practice--being present in the stillness and allowing it to connect through the space between to another. To create a relationship to the outside--outside of my perspective, outside of the moment, outside of the spiritual, outside of my Self--this is the reality of our lives.