Our children are given to us for such a short period of time. As the parent of two teenagers I am acutely and poignantly aware of how short our remaining time together within the same house is.
One question that has been valuable to me lately is this: Fast forwarding 10 years, what do I want most to have imparted to these precious human beings? For me, the answer is that I want to have imparted the path back to being peaceful, whole, and free. To trust themselves completely, and to honor their truth and follow it where ever it may lead. To embody their wholeness and to live from there. And, being clear on what my highest values in parenting are, the next step is to embody and model those values so loudly, so clearly, so consciously, that everything to the contrary doesn’t stick. If you’re like me, the values I desire most in parenting are also those which I most deeply need to learn myself. And because we cannot create on the outside that which we do not embody on the inside, the next act is to consciously, intentionally, and religiously release all barriers that I hold within myself to embodying these truths and these values. Only then will I be able to create these on the outside. And so, the work of parenting, is to be differently, and not do differently. The doing will naturally follow the being. The Embodied Root Wholeness is one path for honoring and releasing the barriers, it's my way. What's your way?
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Did you know that the Ayurvedic Sciences believe that food is only 30% of the energy that we ingest, digest, and process every day? The rest is all the energy we encounter as we go throughout our lives - things like other people, verbal and nonverbal communications, travel/commuting/driving, "entertainment." like tv, movies, videos, music, and so much more.
Amazing. For me, I prefer to fill my cells with the wildest, purest, most natural sources of energy available. How about you? If you suffer from seasonal allergies, go out into nature and find the root plant. Touch it. Honor it. Feel it. See how it feels inside the body. What does it want you to know? What does it evoke inside?
Allergies represent a place where we do not feel safe in the world - the world is literally attacking us, we are defending ourselves against the world. Consider that. That means that on some level we do not feel safe in the world. Our deepest truth is that we are an aspect of Source. And, there is nothing in this world that is not also an aspect of Source. Seen or unseen, all was created by the Great Creator. We are an aspect of that, and so is everything else. And, because we are Source, and so is everything else, there is nothing that is inherently unsafe for us... in our deepest layers we are all connected. On some level we are already connected to it. If we trust ourselves to open to and examine the belief that we are unsafe in the world, and the energetic patterns connected to this belief, then we can restore our own wholeness, and heal this pattern. What does the "allergen" want you to honor and release? Our whole lives we are taught to NOT touch things.
But when we touch things we feel things. If we want to know the truth in our bodies, we must feel things. Touching the world around us is a way to learn about ourselves. How things feel inside. What is true for us. We must re-establish, remember, reconnect with the truth in our bodies on the spiritual awaking path.. (Go ahead, trust yourself to handle it.) Touch the next five things that you see, and make note of how they feel inside your body...what sensations are elicited in your gut, your heart, your throat, your root. Just hold them, touch them, and see what happens inside. This beautiful shrub is a Quihoui Privet, a member of the Olive family native to Korea and China. It makes me feel giddy inside. Pro Tips for touching in nature:
Enjoy!! Today's message from the woods: That's you, too.
There has been recent rain, and the woods were glowing, glistening, brilliant in the sunlight. And when I asked the simple question, "What is important for me to know now, my eyes were drawn to the tree and those were the words that accompanied the sight. And, so many of the messages that I receive in the woods are about feelings, not words. And the feelings that these words and this image evoked were as follows: - That magnificence, that brilliance, that beauty...that's you, too. Blindingly, brilliantly reflecting light. You can trust your God-given magnificence and brilliance, you can brilliantly shimmer with light and reflect your beauty unashamedly. Proudly. Naturally. It is natural to be brilliant. It is natural to stand alone, while being interconnected at the roots. It is unnatural to hide. This spontaneous message was particularly beautiful because I had entered the woods in a completely different state. I was angry, I was caught up in an energetic pattern, a program, that was re-experiencing a time when it felt unsafe to be me, to stand alone, to be free. A time when I experienced rejection for being blindingly, trustingly, freely brilliant. And, I had released the outgrown patterns with the following statements: - I release the pattern of not trusting myself with my truth. - I release the pattern of not trusting myself to handle my truth. - I release the pattern of not trusting myself to be free. - I release the pattern of looking externally for safety instead of internally. - I trust myself to be free, to be safe being free. - I trust that it is safe to be free. - I trust myself to stand alone in my freedom. And then, later, this beautiful message: that brilliant, stand-alone being, that is you, too. Thank you, thank you, thank you. [As I embodied this beautiful message, another meaning to the words occurred to me as well: we are all one, and that tree is you, too. But that came from the brain and contemplation, and was not the original message.] Never again get angry at someone for "being different," or "being difficult." Get angry at a system that seeks to control others and make them amenable, agreeable, compliant, controllable. See the root problem for what is really is, a belief that anything should be different than what it naturally, innately, intrinsically is...not for the symptom.
Our True Nature is fearless and wild and free. It is whole and complete and perfect...always.
Any feeling that is not this inherent truth, that does not feel connected with our inherent freedom, is an acquired construct of man. A belief, held in place by energetic patterns. And, because our beliefs are ALL acquired, and because they are constructs of man created for the sole purpose of controlling that which is inherently free, they are not true. And they can be released. Underneath the energetic patterns and beliefs if an awareness of our True Nature, an awareness of our connection with the Divine. It is the meaning and purpose of my life to free myself of these acquired energetic patterns, and to guide those that seek the same to find their own path to freedom. If this speaks to you, reach out. Let's connect. Clearly Van Gogh did not paint pictures of haystacks because there was an unmet market need for them. There wasn't, and wouldn't be for many decades. He painted haystacks because there was an unrelenting truth inside of him that needed to be expressed. A truth that was so painful that it simply must be honored and followed, regardless of where it might lead or how it may be received.
Like Van Gogh, those of us on a radical, revolutionary path of inner spiritual wholeness cannot expect the external world to be a proper gauge of the quality of our truth of our experiences. We cannot look for followers or approval or the acceptance of the mainstream, conventional path to validate our truth, instead we must turn inward and follow the only metric over which we have any control: fidelity to truth. And then, when our inner compass vibrates, when it rings and fills and tingles with the thrill of fidelity to a truth we didn't even know we knew, the truth that is felt so clearly within the cells, we hold a prize far more fulfilling than anything the outside could bestow. We hold awareness of our divinity alive within our church. Like a human tuning fork, humming with the song of the divine. Whatever we create, express, share, sing, or offer from this embodied bliss is filled with this same wholeness, this peace, this knowing, this freedom. And that is how we experience heaven on earth, right from the middle of our ordinary, extraordinary lives. |
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