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So tomorrow begins the final month of 2008. Pretty crazy, right? I remember a parent telling me when I was a young teacher pup of 26 or so that the older you get the faster the time goes. And she was right.
The cold and the snow and the urge to hibernate add some interesting facets to the end of the old year, and the beginning of the new. And it's such a fascinating time to be alive on the planet. I can't think of anything to complain about.
Can you?
If we're creating another dimension, it might as well be paradise.
Terence McKenna
We are more powerful than we know.
An axiom of depth psychology is that when the gods of mythology are
denied or repressed, they force themselves into awareness
symptomatically. Hillman notes that when the gods are not given their
proper place and recognition they become diseases. There are gods in
symptoms. Symptoms are gods. He says, 'It is mainly through the wounds
in human life that the Gods enter . . . because pathology is the most
palpable manner of bearing witness to the powers beyond ego control and
the insufficiency of the ego perspective.'
- Gene Toews, "Remembering Soul in Symptoms: A Mythological
Revisioning"
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It's time for the Gratitude Fest. Why not write thank-you notes to the
creatures, both human and otherwise, that have played seminal roles in
inspiring you to become yourself?
Who have been your guides along the way, both the purposeful teachers
and the inadvertent helpers? Who has seen you for who you really are?
Who has nudged you in the direction of your fuller destiny and awakened
you to your signature truths? Who has loved you very, very well?
Burn After Reading, | By | John P. Morgan "Light Coach" (Beautiful San Dimas, CA) - See all my reviews
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I respect all of my fellow reviewers here on amazon - even if some of their views may be a little skewed - but I had "challenges" with David Hooper's review of this particular journal. To me, it really isn't the "most powerful book on gratitude". And even though he explains why it is, I just can't help but think that the most powerful book on gratitude that you will ever own is the one you create yourself.
No doubt about it. This book is beautiful. It's filled with quotes from the book, the Secret, and it's small enough to take with you anywhere you go...but I prefer the little leather bound journal I bought at Costco for $12.95. In it I not only include quotes from the book, The Secret, I also include quotes from others that I resonate with whether it be Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Tyler - the man who delivers my bottled water - because I believe at our very core, each one of us is a fount of wisdom, inspiration, and beauty and Truth is so much with us, that we often forget that it is often disguised as "unlikely sources".
In short, I try and make this particular journal MY journal from start to finish. I will even include pictures from magazines that I find particularly inspiring. Most of all, I write in my own language about the Law of Attraction and the "future me" I am even now evolving into. I create "scripts" that I rehearse and practice and attempt to act out. I figure that I am acting anyway, so I might as well act what I want to be.
I have nothing against Rhonda Byrne or The Secret. I loved her movie and created a workshop around it and I formed two study groups based on her book. The challenge I have with this particular item is that in a way, it still belongs to Rhonda Byrne. She has included quotes that resonated with her. Everything is geared toward her and what she feels are "key points" in remembering and they may very well be but do you resonate...do you gravitate...do your vibrations align with the content she has included or do you vibrate with something other?
Am I making sense here?
Do you understand what I am trying to get at?
I have hundreds upon hundreds of books with various parts of the book underscored and highlighted and encircled with arrows and stars but until I put those words into my own language and make them my own, they do not belong to me. I must embody them, experiment with them, apply them, speak of them...I MUST BECOME THEM...and when I do, I will remember a part of me that always was. I am no longer attempting to make something happen, I am letting what ALREADY is, be.
That's the challenge with the Secret. People are trying to be wealthy, healthy, and successful instead of remembering that they already are WEALTH, they already are HEALTH, they already are SUCCESS and FUlFILLMENT and BEAUTY and TRUTH. But I guarantee if you start creating your own journal and embodying that which you truly desire, those desires will come forth for the simple and wonderful reason, you already are that which you desire.
Again, I'm not knocking the product. I'm not knocking the reviewers who found this useful. I'm not knocking you if you decide you're going to make this purchase. I'm just giving you a few suggestions of things you just might be remembering as true.
After reading this review, burn it from your mind...burn it from your sight...and from those ashes, just BE the information you wish to convey. Do that now with all the things that seem to give you inspiration, hope, and joy because in a very real way, the only reason why you gravitated toward this review and those books is because YOU gave them life in the first place.
Whatever you decide to do, just know that Love, Light, and Laughter are ALWAYS on your side.
Peace & Blessings,
john, 'the Light Coach'
So I get to work and find an interoffice envelope sitting on my desk with my name written on it. It’s bulging, so I’m curious to see what’s inside. I unwrap the yellow tissue paper and find a paperback book and a pendant necklace of a flask of fairy dust, to go with the theme of the book. "Madame Moonstone held up a hand. "We fairies have a most difficult and delicate work to do," she explained. "Young human girls pass through a period when they are no longer children, but are not yet grownups. It is a very dangerous time, when everything they know about themselves is changing, and they don't know where to turn for confidence and guidance. That's where we come in."
It's only during this time that we Fairy Dust fairies can be seen, and when the power of Fairy Dust is at its strongest. Children see elves, pixies, gnomes--all that sort of thing. But fairies become visible as you truly begin to grow up, and no longer are a child. Sometimes Fairy Magic is the only way..."
The feeling that swept over me was such delight at being gifted with this story–and I felt so known by whoever it was that gave it to me, although I couldn’t imagine who it might have been. There’s only one person at work who has a clue to what I’ve about, and it wasn’t her–I verified just to make sure, and she got a kick out of it too.
So I started feeling around for clues. Inside the book was an inscription that mentioned the color green. Then there was a name on the outside of the envelope to tell me which department it had been used in last. And then it clicked–I knew who it was. This woman probably can’t articulate any metaphysical concepts that are so blatantly described in this book, but she embodies them to her core.
What I loved just as much is where she told me she found these treasures--in a hardware store, because "something told me to go there." 'Nuff said.
I found this passage on a blog that captured my attention:
"During the slave period in the U.S., it was considered a mental illness to want to escape. Today, 150 years later, there are diseases to describe school children who wish they weren't required by the government to be in school, and it's a disease not to want to leave your house to go out and mingle with the culture at large."
Drapetomania. Hikikomori. It's so fascinating how we create behavior that is so antithetically in opposition to who we really are as human beings to explain the universe to ourselves, and while that behavior gets projected onto others, labels get created that marginalize and define so that one group "benefits".
But the ironic thing is, there is no benefit to this power-grabbing. The perception of control comes at such a price to one's soul. Once steeped in a beaker of illusion, it's difficult to see even though the glass is clear.
"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour.
Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.
And there are things to be considered:
Where are you living?
What are you doing?
What are your relationships? Are you in right relation?
Where is your water? Know your garden.
It is time to speak your Truth.
Create your community. Be good to each other.
And do not look outside yourself for the leader.
This could be a good time!
There is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.
They will try to hold on to the shore.
They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.
Know the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river
Keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.
See who is in there with you
And celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally.
Least of all, ourselves.
For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
Banish the word "struggle" from your attitude and your vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
We are the ones we've been waiting for."
The Elders / Oraibi, Arizona / Hopi Nation
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I've seen this a few times recently in different places on the internet, and got reacquainted with it this morning. That line, "Banish the word "struggle" from your attitude and your vocabulary," jumps out at me for this reading. I think it's because I'm approaching that concept from the other side now, from getting that nothing need be a struggle, and even though we humans might say we prefer things to be easy, challenges really are our friends. They provide the opportunity for us to bring our best selves to the table, to practice aligning with what we want no matter what and focusing on that in spite of what transitory discomfort might be in front of us.
And suddenly, one day months or years later, we wake up and find ourselves transformed through, by and because of that work. Diligence and honing our skills and opening the way to what we can become--that is riding the river. Holding to the shore, resisting what is, there is no room for growth in that stance.
We are the one we've been waiting for.
While I didn't appreciate so much the built-in tv screens on the backs of the headrests on one of the airplanes I flew in this weekend, I did so appreciate the art installed all over the airport in Atlanta--everywhere, of all kinds, even in the tunnels between terminals. Thank you so much for the eye candy and feast for the soul, you progressive thinker, you, whoever you are.
I'll be offline for the next week or so, having fun in the sun with some new friends, recharging and seeing what's next.....
So I'm looking at my online bill pay stuff and I notice that I haven't paid my electric bill for a month and a half. Since my electricity hasn't been cut off, I'm curious as to what the heck is going on. After a few passes at my account page on their site, I see a small notice saying that if your balance is less than $20.00, they don't bill you until the total reaches that amount. Who knew? This strikes me as extremely odd behavior, but whatever.
Tonight while I was driving into my apartment complex, I noticed some unusual activity to my left. It was nearly nightfall and hard to see, but I could make out a refrigerator and lots of other belongings all over the lawn in front of one of the buildings. Someone must have been "displaced," or whatever that vague distancing terminology is, after not being able to pay their rent. That might explain the suit jackets laying on the folding table in the laundry room. There but for the grace of god go I. I hope they have a place to stay tonight. It's cold, and dark, and they probably have miles to go before they sleep. God bless us every one.
Well, well, well. Yesterday was indeed historic. And what an immense portal for change gets created through that gesture en mass.
Who's going to walk through that door now that might not have a few weeks or months or years ago?
Watch for tiny baby steps all over the place, and be amazed.
Focus on the core. This has multiple meanings in my life at the moment, but what it means most to me is monitor and adjust to what's going on in my body in response to perceived stress. Like, letting go of things that make my body react with storm surge-like energy, as if to literally encompass something that's lookin' like a threat. Decide what I will do and what I won't do (without emotion if possible, cuz if there's still emotion in it then I'm not really there yet). And then go from there. So much more ease. So much more fun. So much more clean and crisp delineations between what I want and what I don't want.
And then there is the core that's thawing in places that give new meaning to the term ancestral baggage. I can almost literally palpate generations' worth of Danish, Icelandic and Norske female pain, frustration and resentment as it melts away because of some energy work I'm doing. I can think of no greater gift than to process that which has come before so it doesn't get dragged into the future, anymore.
The backlog stops here.
Lots going on in my life in the next week and a half. A great playground in which to practice destressing. Are my shoulders up around my ears? Check. Let 'em go. Is my body munging toward the computer screen as opposed to sitting on my exercise ball chair? Check. Take a deep breath and let it go. Am I thinking about four things at once? Check. Choose one, and let the rest go. Cuz my experience of the next week and a half depends on how I choose to respond, right now.
I'm going to get me some lemon ginger tea.
Da boyz, munching on their popcorn just before the premiere of the film they helped create at a summer workshop. That pointed index finger scarily reminds me of myself. Genetics.
