Fear not change for it is but life seeking fulfillment. It is spirit seeking expression. It is you seeking your balance and your true place in the universe. Change is good when it is in alignment with what is right. And how do you know what is right? Let life, your spirit, and you get together and decide. When all is calm your heart will give you the answer, for the heart has all the answers.
Monthly Archives: August 2015
Soulbyte for Thursday August 6, 2015
Pay attention to thoughts today, to what comes into your head unbidden. Notice how intrusive and unremarkable worry really is, how invasive and unimportant words and suggestions can be, coming uninvited as they are, how harmful and demeaning repetitive ideas are. Seek to empty mind of all thoughts, words, and intensities as they appear, for in empty mind comes Golden Mind, the pure essence of your spirit self. The Golden Mind of spirit brings moments of calmness, insight, and the simple pleasure of being present in the moment.
Being fully present in the moment brings a moment of being fully present in spirit, the true essence of your own being, for you are truly golden in spirit. And this may you find to be enough—for the moment! For it is in such empty moments that real truth is revealed and real change can anchor and turn you in a new direction. Take a moment to be in the moment today and see what happens!
Chuck’s Place: Love In Impermanence
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
Someone shared with me, rather uncomfortably, a dream that they’d had where it was revealed that Jan and I were breaking up. My immediate reaction was to smile and say, “We already know that.”
Of course, I clarified that we are deeply in love and compatible partners, with no plans to break up, but we both know that change is the only real constant.
I had the same experience of utter love, fulfillment and compatibility with Jeanne in this world, yet she flew off without me into new energetic form. Beyond the veils of this life she has merged with her fuller self—a being far more comprehensive than the Jeanne Marie I knew in this life.
In the final analysis, all relationships break up because in becoming our complete selves we must surrender our attachments of permanence and acquiesce to the fuller nature of reality: Everything changes form.
I remember, as a young man steeped in the existential encounter movement of the 60s, confronting Jeanne with the reality that our relationship, as we knew it, would end in death. She would cry. I felt it was a necessary encounter, this truth.
Little did I know how relevant that confrontation would be for us a few decades later. Though I must say, when Jeanne did fly away I was steeped in joy, love, and utter calm. I have never wavered from those feelings and my love for her has only deepened over the past 14 years since she left.
Jan and I know that love transcends all change, and in fact can continue to grow if it can ride the waves of impermanence, the ultimate reality.
We are all in Earth School to suffer the illusion of permanence. And the solid Earth reality has offered a pretty predictable source of permanent security! But it does not provide all we truly need or want.
The gift of our time is that the Earth is revealing its own impermanence, as it struggles to survive mankind’s hubris. The challenges faced by our planet force us all to grapple with the true nature of reality all around us, that nothing is permanent. Actions taken from this knowing have the potential to be evolutionary, if we respond to the true needs of our planet, our human species, and all living beings.
The truth is, only Love will save us all. And the true nature of this Love is an ever-expanding love that transcends me and mine and includes everyone and every living thing in our interdependent whole.
– Photo by Jan Ketchel
To graduate from Earth School, we must solve its most challenging question: Can love grow and expand in spite of impermanence? Only through solving this question are we really ready to enter more deeply into the ever-changing nature of infinity.
Until then, we grasp for the security of love in permanence, as we glimpse its many dimensions in this world and seek fulfillment here. But “here” is only part of the story. Earth School isn’t all there is, though it offers us all the necessary courses, preparing us for our final exam: to love in impermanence. And then it’s on to graduate school in infinity!
In ever-expanding Love,
Chuck
Soulbyte for Wednesday August 5, 2015
A spiritual journey does require discipline but also a measure of gentleness. When one meets brick walls of resistance, harsh fighting or abruptly turning away rarely work to get one beyond them. Those brick walls do not budge or simply disappear! Often the only recourse is to gently and calmly dismantle that which appears, taking the time to learn what they mean and why they are there, learning what it means to be kind and compassionate one brick at a time. For how can one become a compassionate being, a universal goal of the spiritual life, if one cannot be compassionate with the self? All lessons begin and end with the self. Practice gentle compassion today, both within and without.
Soulbyte for Tuesday August 4, 2015
There are no excuses. If you have done something wrong, own up to it. If you have lied, fix it. If you have pretended to be other than you truly are, come clean. If you have been in denial, face the truth. If you have been steeped in blame, regret, or resentment stop it. Life has a funny way of making you responsible if you do not become responsible on your own.
Learn from your mistakes. Become fully responsible for yourself and life will give you perfect responsibility in return, responsibilities that will aid you on your journey of change. Taking responsibility for all that you consider wrong in your life is the first step in a new direction. But keep in mind that to take full responsibility means there are no excuses.