Sensitivity

Here is an extraordinary opportunity to feel into our world. We are the most sensitive, accurate instrument that exists for examining and discerning truth in our world. No statistic, no expert can discover that for us. Each individual is gifted with very specific and unique window on reality that is their very own special taste of the divine, here is where miracles occur. Most of us are sensitive the obvious input like the feelings of our loved ones, in fact we are sensitive beyond our typical awareness – we can sense a mood when a loved one enters our room behind us even. This is perfectly normal. What is also perfectly normal are many greater and finer layers of sensitivity that we have forgotten as a culture.

Sensitivity to our world and the creatures we live with is perfectly normal. In England we had a saying, ” A little bird told me” for when someone learned something they perhaps might not have heard about yet. With today’s telecommunication and instant messaging we hear just about everything instantaneously. But not too long ago getting the word across distance was not so easy. In our mythologies of the world there are many legends of great beings who communicated with animals, plants and even the land itself. This too is normal, we just don’t use that skill. It is one of the talents we are born with that rests within our “junk” DNA waiting for revival.

Today I had a most delightful experience. I am reading Penney Pierce’s book, FREQUENCY and enjoying it very much. Her clarity in describing layers of sensitivity and how to use and develop it is inspiring.  It is so inspiring that I found it working spontaneously today. As I lingered in my last moments of sleep this morning I was disturbed by a neighbor’s dog, a German shepherd, barking – woof, woof, woof, woof. Repeated at a specific rhythm again and again. Finally, I popped out of bed, OK the day had begun. As I walked to brush my teeth my mind was stuck in a phrase, much like when you get a song lyric stuck in your head, “What do you do?” “What do you do?” again and again. I noticed that it was the same rhythm as the dog’s bark.  Again it repeated in my head and I thought, “Why the heck am I thinking this?” A quick memory scan identified that it was not part of a song lyric that I’d heard yesterday and it dawned on me that the phrase was what the dog was saying, “What do you do? Then I knew it, that it was most definitely true. There is a knowing with something like that which is irrefutable. What a blessing, a magical insight into the mind of another being, a connection which dissolves the lines of separation between us.

Once many years ago I had a very clear understanding of a thought that popped into my head during a meditation retreat that I knew was not my thought but that of a man across the room. I have written about this in a previous post, I think. This is sensitivity which only comes with clarity, through an uncluttered mind. A  mind that is full of preconceptions, distractions, rules of engagement, cultural and tribal biases and other thoughts irrelevant to our fullest experience of this most precious moment in reality will miss too many opportunities and delights. For me this kind of sensitivity restores the magic and miracles to my world. It is a much more comfortable, exciting, delightful place than it was for me when I thought otherwise.

Sensitivity restores our own autonomy and authority over our own reality. We are bombarded today with millions of bits of data telling us what to do, what to wear, where to go, how to raise our children. As a result most people are numbed and stressed. Numbed to protect themselves from the overwhelming vibrations created to generate fear, our mainstream media mandate seems to be specifically to ramp up the fear factor and drive us to think and do things we would not necessarily do with our clarity of mind and heart fully aware. We are stressed because we buy into the machinery of manipulation and “need” this and that to make our future or past complete while forgetting about this moment which is all we have.

Feeling into the now, letting go of all other ideas, needs, wants, histories and possible futures is the first step into the magical world of sensitivity. It is the most precious gift we can give to ourselves, it is our birthright, it is the attitude that will reveal to us that we have never left that primordial garden, Eden. We live in God’s backyard, this is Heaven.

Love

We cannot solve our problems from the consciousness that created them. Yesterday I received a recommendation from someone I love to watch a vitriolic political youtube rant; you know the kind. Everything the ranter said was of the same quality as the things he ranted against, his recommendations for dealing with his problem with others exactly the same as the actions of others that he decried as evil and  tyrannous. It is surely now the time to step out of the mindset that has separated our world into us and them and to embrace our own longing for belonging and communion.

Each one of us has the power to shift the conscious resonance of our entire world, it is our sole and most important duty as the ones being born into this duality now. Any time we deny the rights of other we shut off a part of ourselves, we make ourselves smaller. Forgiveness is not for anyone other it is only for our own self; for the acknowledgement and blossoming of our own heart.

This is where faith comes in, do we have enough faith in ourselves to know that if we grasp acceptance and forgiveness and if we embrace those we make war with the battle really will dissolve or is our faith such that we will we be swallowed up and destroyed as the myriad voices of doom insist?

It is time to seize the power of our own heart to release its power of love and to embrace all of our world as part of ourself. It is time to require our mind to join with the highest of ourself and deny those who would insist that war is necessary, deny those who insist that “the other side” is wrong, evil, stupid, going to ruin the country or whatever. None of the seeming “terrible” things out there are real, they are projections of our inner duality a tangle between the wise and profound love of the heart and the controlling machinations of the egoic mind. Let go of the constructs, the work to keep hate going is overwhelming us all and must finally be dropped.

Blessings Abound

When we are awake and aware it becomes apparent that the next reminder of our divine origins and our residence in heaven is always in front of us. I have said it before and say it again it’s about focus or attitude. We see what we choose to see in life, the first step on the path is to wake up and recognize this and then to make a slight effort, a loving effort to see more.

Our natural buoyancy is up, around the heart, not the head but the heart. The head is too high and can topple too easily from its own constructions of what the world is. The heart though knows what’s what, it recognizes the blessings and that which we must avoid. The head can rationalize just about anything but the heart knows without a doubt what is right and true and good for all. Here is where blessings are birthed, not from a distant deity, or goddesses on a pedestal but from our own heart. We are equally capable of receiving blessings as of giving them. If we feel we need one then lets just give one, a blessing costs nothing takes no effort, reduces us in no way and only opens us up the flow of grace within us.

You know what is interesting to me about this post right now is the turn that it has just taken. I intended to write about how we can discern blessings out in the world like great teachers, uplifting music and artists, the gift of family and friends and pets and yet in the writing I was immediately directed inward to the very source of blessing; our own divine core. This is where we give thanks and generate grace and forgiveness. This the place where blessing attracts the great teacher, the healing, the blessing to our waking daily consciousness where we can incorporate it into our uplifted life.

We are moving to a time where smallness, victim state, manipulations and general postures of powerlessness will shift. If we want to claim our power and make the blessing that is our Godlike right we are more than welcome to at this time and space. We are not made in the image of God we are made of the same stuff and no-stuffness as God so we are God. With tenderness, humility and love I welcome all to step into power. Blessings to all.

Activating the Dream

For most of my life it has seemed as if we come into a society where we as individuals live our separate lives and try to get the most of it in a Darwinian, “survival of the fittest” kind of a reality however, praise the universe, now it seems that mode of operation is finally changing. No I am not going to talk about the financial crash and the burgeoning of socially conscious entrepreneurship, I have done that already and will do it again. Today I want to explore a fascinating trend shift in entertainment that speaks eloquently about the collective shift in consciousness that we are all participating in.

We have all noticed the overwhelming popularity of ‘reality programming’ but we have spent little time examining why it is so popular. I think there are two kinds of this ‘reality programming’; first is the winner take all competition, the dog eat dog fight for territory game show and second is the talent competition. To me the first kind of show sticks with the old paradigm. Contestants play to win a cash prize and will do almost anything toward that end – eat bugs, get slammed by a wrecking ball, vote each other off the island, put their kids on display and who knows what else they may come up with. This is a kind of desperate grasping for the brass ring without any sense of morals or consciousness. The second kind of game show is of a far higher spiritual value  and as far as I am concerned is far more entertaining. To me this is spiritual entertainment. These are the shows that afford opportunities for people to reach out to grab their dream. They are shows like Project Runway, Top Chef, Dancing With the Stars and America’s Got Talent.

Actually America’s Got Talent is the show that made me see this trend with great clarity and inspired this blog. Let me try to explain my reasoning here. In these shows ordinary people are invited to express their deepest hearts dreams. The competitions are tough, the dreams are real. It’s not about becoming famous for famous sake or rich for rich sake; its about being a great singer or dancer, or chef or designer. It’s about testing oneself to the limit and coming out on top of oneself, not on top of the competition as much as on top of the best that we can be. I applaud all contestants that put themselves in these competitions it takes guts and commitment. And they take their chances in front of all of us, how incredibly brave they all are.

This is a path of no holds barred, no looking back, no excuses and no complaints. We see contestants dive in completely and as far as I have seen for the most part with much grace reach for the highest within themselves. Yes, we see squabbling and theatrical spats for entertainment’s sake but look at the big picture. Here is a phenomenon for our culture that steps beyond the ‘find myself’ consciousness of the 80’s, the ‘victim story’ of the 90’s, the ‘consumer voraciousness’ of the oughts and lands us squarely in the ‘stepping in to the void’ consciousness of the 2012 ascension process.

Where are we going? Wherever we go we are not going to get away from ourselves. Our relationship with ourself is the one thing that has to be dealt with in the here and now. The minute that we realize our magnificence is the minute that we want to express it. We are all magnificent and we all want to be seen. As Rumi says, ” A human being is a star attached to a body” or something like that. I think I’ve said this before in a blog but it bears repeating. As we ascend we recognize this more and more, but we don’t need to ascend to know it, we are what we are: radiant light, extraordinary talent, a new song, a new invention, a magnificent artwork, a complex new social organization. All these things and much more we are and can be.

Here is the path to the ascended future in blazing lights. Shows like America’s Got Talent are beautiful windows for us into the ascended future of our actualized dreams. This is why the world was so moved when Susan Boyle of Britain’s Got Talent came on to the stage. She was a star from that first moment and our recognition of that lit the fire of our own stars and connected us to the dream of our hearts.

Fabrications

Well it takes me a while to get back to the blog because I don’t have a lot to say about the work until I’m in front of it and introducing it to people. Fabrications in Newport, New Hampshire, is a great show, I am so honored to be a part of it. The work is exquisitely exhibited and the pieces representing other artists were so exciting. I was inspired to explore creating some 3D projects and think even more outside the framework of the US flag but I am so far from representing enough of the diversity of people here in the US so I will stick to the current project for a while.
I was particularly inspired at the show by a lovely young lady, Lea, I’m not sure how she spells her name or how old she is, maybe 10 or so, but she was so smart. As we processed from flag to flag, the installation was such that each flag hung by itself yet you could see them together in the distance, brilliant. Anyway back to Lea she nailed every one of them; immediately recognizing the country or at least the continent by the qualities of the materials in the flag. I was impressed. Kids really get this project. I have a vision in the future of a generation that freely embraces cultural difference and celebrates that in life.

Imagine a future workplace, maybe offices will be obsolete, who knows but imagine OK the mall: a man walks by in a colorful dashiki, a woman elegantly flings the palu of her sari over her shoulder, two guys hold a meeting wearing Hawaiian shirts, some girls are running by wearing stacks of beads and batik printed sarong skirts, a boy wearing a tartan kilt flirts with them. Why not?

My sincere thanks go to Cynthia Reeves for inviting me to participate in FABRICATIONS, to Sara Mintz for tracking me down and making that introductory call which is so exciting to get, thanks also to Azariah Aker for his remarkable installation and for showing my work so exquisitely.