Keep it simple. Stay grounded. Do not stray too far from the stability you have worked so hard to establish. Maintain your awareness, your dignity, your sense of power, that inner knowing of self and what is right, especially what is right for you personally at this time in your life.
Stay focused on what is good for you, for your spirit, for your inner work, even if you must disappoint or decline the expectations of another. Sometimes staying on the inside track is the right choice, though invitations from the outside track may arrive to draw you from your base.
Best advice: Keep it simple. Remain stable. Connect with the truth and stick with it. That doesn’t mean don’t engage and be engaging. It just means don’t go too far from your path with heart.
Watch where you put your attention, what you wish for, where you focus your energy. There is a tendency to be drawn to that which is brassy, violent, absurd or to that which makes the most noise, to get attracted to something that is simply a waste of energy. In reality there is another kind of energy, perhaps far better to attach to, the behind-the-scenes, slowing flowing energy, like water seeping along at a steady pace, drop by drop making lasting inroads in its silent way.
Changing times are indeed here, but not all change is the right kind; not all is worthy of attaching to. Look within for guidance, for what feels right to engage in, for what the heart says is right. Even in the season of autumn, when things are dying and turning inward, there is new life stirring. It’s just happening in a different way.
Change is happening all the time. Have no doubt about that. But there might just be something happening at a different, more subtle level, that you are missing. Question everything.
Innocence, in its purest form, is an affect found in youth. The emotional energy of innocence is expressed as a feeling of excited anticipation and joyful response as a child discovers and befriends a welcoming, magical world.
Innocence, pure and open, receptive… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Adults melt at the glitter in the eye and the spontaneous burst of laughter as the child greets new life for the first time. The innocent child is yet to be fettered with judgment, rejection, fear, cynicism, and shame. The innocent child’s wonder is open, receptive, and trusting that the world is loving and equally receptive to being met and played with.
Most adults collude to uphold a protected magical world for the young child that screens out the reality of disease, old age, and death. Thus a child’s innocence is encouraged to develop and strengthen, as adults know the precious value of a child’s innocence despite their knowing also of its inevitable loss as the deeper truths of life eventually intrude on this early paradise.
The New Testament Bible states: “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:15)
This Biblical passage is abundantly clear: to restore oneself to the innocence of the child is the only key to entering heaven. If heaven is the destination after completion of our journeys in this world then innocence is the gold we must refine in this life to obtain entrance into our infinite journey.
Such a paradox this life! The child is born with the very innocence that life in this world will of necessity contaminate and yet, in order to progress, it must be retrieved and refined to the highest level to achieve the enlightenment to grow beyond this world.
Innocence, by design, is contaminated by the time and space parameters of this world. All whom the innocent child bonds with will eventually change, frustrate, disappoint, and die. This reality must eventuate in a loss of innocence as the child meets the dark side of life and then must submit to the adaptive armor against the pain of lost innocence and the inevitable longing it generates.
Finding balance in light and dark… – Photo by Chuck Ketchel
Herein lies our true mission in this life, to pick up the remnants of our lost innocence and meld them into a highly refined innocence capable of living in the true nature of reality, in both its light and its dark sides.
In our earthly existence, the dark side of reality is that everything changes, everything dies, nothing is forever in an unchanged form. Try as we might to hold back change through grasping onto our attachments, they will be ripped away. And further, grasping onto a refusal to be hurt again is really just another attempt at holding onto an unchanging self.
The longing of lost innocence, sequestered to the shadows of a closed heart, will not be silenced by suppression or repression for very long. Eventually, it will erupt in consciousness, in impulsive acts, or by pulling us downward into its torment via a depression that demands an inner journey of recapitulation to resolve.
That recapitulation journey requires us to relive the experiences of our lives that once jarred and fragmented our innocence, to willingly re-experience the painful encounters that sent our shamed younger selves running for sanctuary.
What is most required during the recapitulation journey is that our adult/ego/parent selves stay fully present as the full emotional torment of those encounters, along with the confusions and misconceptions that shroud the original innocence, are relived.
This process of receiving with open arms and heart the broken pieces of lost innocence by the adult self is the internal alchemical oven of transformation. Full acceptance of the full truth of one’s self releases innocence from judgment but also aids its maturation. The truth is, for innocence to really return to the living personality it must broaden to the dual nature of time space reality and expand its level of tolerance for disappointments, endings, and the unexpected.
For innocence to journey into the unfathomable it must be able to flow with what is. And what is sometimes hurts. Refined innocence is not naive to this possibility and in its wisdom will choose, when it can, what influences to open to and those to avoid.
Nonetheless though, a journeyer is always aware that to remain open to the full adventure of real life necessitates openness to being caught off guard as we enter the unknown. However, rather than fragment in encounters with the unexpected, refined innocence owns the resilience of non-attachment. That is, non-attachment to outcome, to being offended, to things always remaining known and unchanging.
With recapitulation comes the opportunity for mature melding… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
With non-attachment and full engagement, refined innocence leads from the place of awe and unreserved compassion for all engaged in the miracle of being. Yes, refined innocence is indeed the key to the Kingdom.
Ultimately, our stay in this world is really to graduate from the School of Refined Innocence. With this graduate degree we obtain the passport, the necessary readiness, to embark on new and deeper journeys in infinity.
Trust what you know. Sometimes all you need is your own instinct to guide you correctly. Sometimes the ideas of others just cloud your thoughts, influencing you negatively, blocking your own knowing, affecting your decisions adversely. Sometimes you have more than enough knowledge to make a wise decision on your own.
Dare to know yourself on a deepening level, taking to heart each day’s missives from the deeper self who knows all. Learn to trust this knowing, dependable self. It is your own best guide, speaking to you through your body, your heart, and your soul.
In calmness hear it speak. You will be glad you did, especially as you test it again and again and discover that it does indeed know all!
What should you do with the restless energy? Notice how it makes you feel. Notice also what is happening around the world, the unrest, the chaos, the violence. Study it. Ask your spirit to guide you to right action, to empty mind, to pure thought and deed, and to avoid the chaos and confusion now sweeping the world. Do not allow it to sweep through you.
Keep calm and centered, focused on your path of heart. It is the only thing that will bring the change so necessary and the change you so desire. It is your only choice at this moment in time if you are to remain in alignment with nature, for it is the season of retreat and preparation for what is to come. Don’t try to control or manipulate anything; you won’t succeed. Follow nature’s model and fall into alignment, draw inward, and remain calm.
