Remain optimistic, and yet balance requires acknowledgement of all that is and attention to all details, so do not shirk from your duties nor neglect your responsibilities. In order for order to reign chaos must be averted. In order for chaos to be averted all that approaches must be dealt with in a proper manner, with a strong and loving heart, with compassion and kindness but also with ruthlessness when necessary. Practice optimism while simultaneously preparing for all contingencies. In this manner, be prepared for anything while remaining hopeful that good, light, and love will prevail. Be part of the solution; it’s the right thing to do for the greater good of all.
Watch your energy. Protect it and keep it safe from harmful outside influences. Endeavor to keep it pure from contamination of both negative thoughts and ideas as well as negative influences that will harm the physical self. Your energy is both spiritual and physical and if kept in tiptop shape should keep going in good balance for a long time. When out of balance, strive to reassert equilibrium so that body and spirit are in alignment. Get to know what it feels like and strive always to maintain good balance of energy, spiritual and physical, within and without. This is good for you.
The unrenovated shadow self… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
I spent last night in dreams of renovation. I awoke several times in the night, my body feeling the physical download of great effort. The house is an older home, with good bones, purchased from people of positive intent, who never got to the renovation of the back half of the house. Under their care it remained a potentiality, dark and unexplored.
The project is huge, the materials are modest and the effort is great. There is no sense of inflated expansion, but the expansion is solid and will serve the needs of all who will inhabit it.
Awakening to the headlines of today, legitimacy is being granted, despite reservation. The momentum of change is fully apparent. The country has spoken and chosen a new dream. The dream we have been living challenged us to take responsibility for our future dream. It truly became necessary to consent to the reality we would live in.
Consciousness, as expressed through the collective ego, has risen beyond the stage of pure narcissism to address the true needs of the whole. This has been a developmental process of necessity.
First, the purely self-serving ego needed to be lived and given full rein, so that the impact upon world survival could be felt and consciously assessed. All of the ego’s manipulative machinations had to be fully lived and experienced before it could acquiesce to a higher cause, the welfare of the greater whole. Though leaders mirror this ego, they merely reflect the internal process of us all.
We have all encountered the impact of allowing the desire body to rule the ego. The thrill of that ride, the bliss of excess, is a legitimate dream, but it burns out quickly through its unbridled appetite, leaving us all exhausted. We have now chosen continuance and evolution over the fascination of Armageddon. We know now that we can indeed go out in a blaze of glory that we have caused, but we have chosen not to exercise that option.
We have learned, as well, that the repressed in all of us can emerge with a self-destructive vengeance. We’ve all witnessed it acting out. To regain balance, we must responsibly find a life for all that we desire.
The Earth teaches us to move away from exploiting her bounty. We must follow her example. The future of desire is to turn this human spirit of manifest destiny to exploration of the energy body, away from rampant ego desires to the world of spirit and out-of-body travel and all that it offers. At this subtle level of the Soul, thought alone is the fuel. How’s that for clean energy!
As my dream portends, the dark unknown half of the house is ready for discovery and renovation. Despite the labor involved, it promises to solidly house all that we are. We must all begin with the self.
Take up the challenge of the repressed and the desired within the self. Bring light into the darkness. Be conservative yet daring. The time of transition has arrived.
Let not fear rule nor worry usurp your heart centered focus, but use your breath to bring you back to stability and balance, within and without. In balance find your center of knowing, the wisdom within yourself that is connected to the greater wisdom outside of yourself and let this be your guide. Rather than pay attention to the racket inside your head, pay attention to the songs your heart sings of love and kindness and compassion for all. When all else fails, turn to the wisdom of the heart and let it sing its songs of beauty, peace, and love. As within, so without.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness… an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. (Rumi)
Greet each day with equanimity… – Photo by Jan Ketchel
Today will determine the future direction of the world. A polarized electorate officially decides who will govern the country. Clarity may come at once, or take several weeks to determine. The significance of the outcome has taken center stage in the lives of many world citizens.
Equanimity is the ability to remain composed, no matter what fate befalls a person. In Buddhist terms, it means to not attach to an outcome such that one loses composure if one’s preference does not manifest. Full acceptance of what is is the challenge.
In shamanic terms, the challenge is to be impeccable in stating and supporting one’s intent, but equally to have no attachment as to whether or not it manifests. When Jeanne and I took the alternative cancer journey, our sole concern was to impeccably follow the signs that guided us. When it became evident that she would be leaving this world we marveled at the journey we’d taken. Success and failure are an equal set of opposites in the shaman’s world. Regardless of outcome one continues to travel one’s path of heart, without skipping a beat.
Polishing one’s link to equanimity is perhaps the major offering of life in Earth School. Earth is a world that requires attachment to survive, yet insists upon loss of everything at death. To open to love while knowing its temporal limits in human form, is the shadow over every human relationship. To retain one’s love in pure spirit form, as one leaps freely into infinity, is the true graduation from Earth School.
The seeds of reincarnation, or limbo, are one’s non-readiness to allow for what is: the relativity of human form in a physical world. To remain in the illusion that nothing has changed is the consequence of unrelenting attachment to all things physical. Indeed, “what a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties… the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals…” (lyrics from Hair). In one form or another, wherever we are, we will remain bound to this world until we arrive at equanimity, the attitudinal ticket to life beyond the body.
Days like today offer the opportunity to get deeply calm and connected to the transcendent dimension of life. Ego is the part of spirit most attached to control in the physical world. Ego has its wants, needs, and expectations. Ego rises in success and sinks in failure. Ego is frequently alienated from its fuller transcendent self and thus invests fully in measuring its worth by its standing in the outside world.
The transcendent self views all experiences of victimhood as opportunities for ego to be in acceptance of all that is, or has been, another definition of equanimity. An ego that has achieved this level of fluidity experiences the constancy of awe, regardless of experience.
Of course, one will have one’s very human reaction to today’s outcome. But, whether it be joy or sorrow, release it in the next exhalation. With equanimity, remain connected to one’s transcendent self, sharing with it this moment in time but being lifted by it to the fuller multidimensionality of life as well.
Finally, let love, the heart of the transcendent self, deliver one to the fullest acceptance of all that life is, with equanimity.
