Archive for the ‘Evolving Consciousness’ Category
The Wisdom of Seasonal Cycles - Inner and Outer
By Kevin Murray
- Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
It is fall in New England; the later part of fall when the leaves are almost all down. My dog Zachary likes to take me for long walks in the woods. I comply. I love to watch the seasons come and go. There’s a little bit of winter already in this part of fall, just as there is always some of what’s been and some of what’s coming in the present moment.
During our hike the other day I felt 2 layers of ideas fall together and overlap. It landed in a moment, like a flash. One familiar layer is the 4 seasons. The newer layer is based on a pattern I’m noticing in a spiritual awakening path. The newer pattern is that we go through 4 stages of spiritual growth, and like the seasons, they keep coming back around. It is not linear. It is cyclical. We don’t complete the path. We go through with an increasing level of awareness, and then, just when we think we’re done, it’s time to go through another cycle, another season of spiritual growth.
The 4 Steps I refer to are Curiosity, Inquiry, Practice and Mastery.
At some point along the way of our lives, we have something or things that piqued our curiosity. Something that opened up our eyes and hearts a little. It may have been a book, a movie, a teacher, a moment in nature. We may not have known in that moment that Spirit was knocking on our door, but that’s what it was. Or rather, our soul was trying to get our attention. Curiosity is awakened. So this is the starting point for anyone. For without Curiosity, why bother opening to anything new? And without anything new, what would ever change? So there is a desire inside each of us, and it takes a moment or many moments to come out through an invitation borne of Curiosity. Maybe it takes years before we act on it, but the first step is Curiosity.
What I saw in my walk with Zachary, was that Curiosity is like the Winter and could be represented by the seed. The seed rests quietly in the ground in the Winter, but inside is all the information required for the full nature of the thing to manifest fully as what it is. Just as in us, we have everything we need already to recognize ourselves as creators; to fully manifest our lives in our unique expression of who we are.
The second step is Inquiry. By this I mean a deeper inquiry into the force behind the Curiosity. Which is to say, the forces in our lives; Mind, Spirit, Body and Soul, Creator, Love. Inquiry involves a more active role for us. Curiosity may have us sitting on the sidelines, but at the level of Inquiry, we are simultaneously on the playing field. At some point the seed begins to move in the ground, signaled by warming in the Spring. The wisdom inside is inspired to action and new form. Curiosity is awakened into Inquiry and the journey into Self has begun. Or the journey has begun again with whatever new awareness we gained from our last time around the cycle of seasons.
Curiosity awakens into Inquiry. This type of inquiry is deeper than an idle wondering about the nature of things, God, the universe, etc. This inquiry is into the nature of our minds, our beliefs, our patterns of behavior and language. At this level, we put our attention on witnessing the mind from an observer point-of-view . And of course, there are still many times where Mind is the dominant player, when we are not witnessing how the mind judges, opines, and otherwise pulls us through a day. We can be pulled through the mind’s dominance when we are so completely identified with the Mind that we think it is who we are. The good news is that this Inquiry also brings the grace of moments where we can see the mind operating, and that simple vision confirms the suspicion begun in Curiosity: I am more than my mind. There’s more to life than this!
These moments of grace are like the new leaves, shoots and buds of spring. Something is unfolding, something is happening. We see evidence of shift, but the larger manifestation is not completely apparent. Inquiry models this energy of Spring. There are moments where we can see our mind more clearly, and therefore have a capacity for new choice, sometimes we are back to mind-dominance and we don’t have a choice. Similarly, not every seed will fully emerge. If the sun or the dirt or the water isn’t right, the growth will stop and the plant dies.
Two qualities of the Summer season are discipline and commitment. In our relationship with nature, this is a time for working the fields, long sun-filled days. It’s the time to do what needs to be done so that the harvest will be good in the fall. Without the discipline and commitment to tending the garden, the harvest will be less. The third step of spiritual awakening corresponding to this is Practice. As my prosperity teacher says “We know what to do and we do it.” Our practice is whatever it is: meditation, mindfulness, contemplation, prayer, journalling, anything that supports and deepens our time with our essential selves. We may often still be filled with curiosity. We may still be inquiring into our true nature. These pieces do not follow each other. They are always present. One or another may be getting more of our attention. Just as the seasons overlap, sometimes there is a little reminder of summer even in the winter, with a little warmth and sun, so do these qualities of a spiritual path overlap.
The next step, not the last, is Mastery. Mastery is when we flow with life. There is no suffering. There is light and love and laughter. We manifest easily. We move with grace and ease. We are in service. This relates to the Autumn season. In the fall, there is abundance of the harvest. We reap what we have been busy planting, weeding and nurturing. This is a time to give of what we have received, just as the harvest gives its life to feed us. Just when we are at a place of Mastery, that is the perfect time to let go of whatever it is that we say we have mastered.
When a pumpkin is at it’s fullest expression, just then is it time to disintegrate to allow the seed to go into the ground for the next cycle to begin. So too for the Master. When our mastery is at it’s fullest, the parts of it that we become attached to, the parts of it that have become ’set’ in the mind, those parts we can let go. We let them go knowing that whatever we will need will be provided. Whatever we’ve always needed has always been provided. Mastery is empowered by this type of humility and allows us to plant the seed for the next part of the journey back into the winter of our curiosity and on from there.
T.A.G. You’re It! Thanksgiving, Appreciation and Gratitude
By Kevin Murray
- Thursday, October 16th, 2008
[this post is about a FREE new 7:00 a.m. weekday 20 minute (or less) teleconference]
T.A.G. You’re It!
T hanksgiving
A ppreciation
G ratitude
You are the source of the amount and feeling of gratefulness and appreciation in your life.
In the larger world, there is a lot of lack, anxiety and fear.
Maybe this is merely a reflection of our inner fear, anxiety and feelings of lack?
Maybe billions of people paying attention to this on the inside (feeling it and believing it) create a world with a lot of lack and fear on the outside?
We propose an experiment:
For the 40 day period leading up to Thanksgiving, we will gather in a very short 7:00 a.m. phone call to share our thanks, to look to what we will appreciate today and to extend gratitude from our hearts to the world. We think this will shift your experience of these times.
We ask you to also look for Good News to show up in your life, and then share that good news with us as a way to monitor the results of this experiment.
Please bring to the call:
- What I will appreciate today
- What I am grateful for
- What I give thanks for today
Keep track of your Good News everyday in a journal or send it along as an email to all!
Where I am from, we say “It’s not Good News until you share it!”
This will be a quick booster for the day. There will not be lecture or processing.
We plan on creating easy and fun ways for you to share this call with others in your life,
personally and professionally.
Calls are weekdays Monday through Friday. Beginning Oct 14th (that’s tomorrow)
This call will begin at 7:00 a.m. sharp so please come on to the call 1 or 2 minutes before 7:00 so we are ready to begin at 7:00. Thank you.
Free TeleConference Phone Number: 518.825.1300 (this is not a local call)
Access Code: 750287 (this information may change based on call volume)
Mute = *6, Toggle on and Off
7:00 a.m. East Coast Time
please email to:
kevin@earthandlight.com
to RSVP
if you’d like to support this call and other classes, websites, recordings similar to this,
this first paypal button lets you use Master Card / Visa or a PayPal account for a $5:00 donation for 1 month of Thanksgiving, Appreciation and Gratitude (quite a value)- that works out to about 25 pennies a day.
or to make a donation of any amount, click on the link below:
thank you
kevin
The Sacred Gift of Planet Earth
By Rita Rivera Fox
- Thursday, May 1st, 2008
Many prophecies exist within the native and sacred traditions of the world relating to this time in the evolutionary process of mankind. These prophecies are a call to get our attention and awaken us to the challenge of what we are creating with our dreaming minds. The Ancient Toltec’s and their teaching’s spoke to this transformative time as one when it is possible to awaken to our true spiritual origins, to live from a place of power, reflecting the infinite spirit of Creator and restoring a sacred relationship with all that is living.
We look around at what our species is creating on this planet and witness the consequences of centuries of living without awareness and respect for the living essence of our home planet, but in actuality the manner in which humans treat the earth simply reflects the way we regard our human bodies - the homes of our spirit. The programmed mind, or the old fear based structure of beliefs is being challenged as we become aware of the call to healing. We are beginning to see that we can not proceed in the same way as we have for so long and it is our very way of thinking and interpreting that is in need of transformation. It is clear that our thinking mind has taken the reins and made reason and the realm of the intellect the focus of what is important to us as a species, resulting in a disregard for our feeling nature or what the heart is conveying. We have become dissociated from our bodies, and consequently the body of earth that sustains our lives.
There is an old myth about a kingdom that has fallen under siege of dark forces. The rightful King has been exiled by the illegitimate King, who has claimed the land and the people as his by force and used them to do his corrupt bidding. Under the illegitimate King’s rein, the kingdom has become impoverished and depleted of its wealth. All efforts of the king’s men and all of the money in the coffers have been directed toward warfare, while the health and well-being of the citizens is sacrificed in this drive to conquer. Then a miracle occurs. The true King is freed from his captivity. He returns to his kingdom, overthrows the evil ruler, and begins to restore and regenerate the abused populace and their lands. A new day of revival and celebration arrives and the people rejoice and demonstrate the love and respect they have for this brave and benevolent leader who overcame the tyranny of the wrongful King.
It is easy to first relate this story to what is going on in the world from a political and ecological point of view but I want to draw the parallel much, much closer to home - to the relationship you are experiencing between your intellect and the feeling aspect of you - your heart, residing in your body and being the center of feeling and sensation. For it is really not so different.
The wrongful king in this little story is where you have come from, the tyranny of the mind and all its distorted concepts and values… a dream of an old structure where power is misdirected and the true power of love and integrity have been exiled. And then something happens. An awakening, in which you know for certain, from the core of your being that you were put on this earth for something much greater and you no longer are willing to abide this ache in your heart, or the powerlessness you feel inside, or the hollow feeling that you just can’t endure anymore. Your heart slowly awakens to the call of the possibility of discovering itself and its inherent integrity. You may have noticed there is an increased desire to interact from the core of your being and have that level of authentic connection with others. As the desires are ignited, the search begins. The search within for your own integrity, living exiled in your heart while the old ruler of thought, judgment and opinion directed your life. This questioning of your life and its meaning then may lead you to question the choices you have made in the past. And it is here in this process of questioning and seeking new answers that the road home to your heart and the balance you are seeking makes itself known.
This myth of the two Kings now becomes a metaphor for the impetus to seek within yourself the end of mental tyranny and the opening to seek the balance of what comes from the heart’s desire to live in peace, love and beauty. The desire to create a better world, begins with becoming aware of the quality of relationship you are having with your own physical being. Just as the body is the divine matter that houses your soul, the planet houses the soul of mankind. As you embody self respect, self acceptance, and willingness to allow the expression of feeling sensations in your body without judgment, your relationship first with yourself transforms and then extends to all living things.
The awakening that the prophecies say is possible during this time can be best stated as the awakening to Life. In this process we become aware of what thoughts and beliefs and their consequences have wrought not only upon the earth but also within our own human matter – the physical body. To awaken really means, in action, that we respect all living things as divine emanations made into form and that light is the basic building block of all living things including our bodies. So because all matter is made of light,
we are essentially connected by the same force, makes all living things connected as one.
It is an exciting time to be alive! A time filled with the potential for a renewed sense of responsibility for what we are creating with the collective human mind as we live on this sacred planet. The opportunity to become aware of the power of our thoughts and beliefs in manifesting the quality of our lives and the quality of the health of our beloved home. We have the choice to awaken and create from our true essence, which is love or to continue down the path of living the effects of our dream of fear. We can have an effect on the healing of planet earth. Restoring harmony and balance in the world begins within the heart of each individual.
The Wave of Creation
By Rita Rivera Fox
- Saturday, March 15th, 2008
Perhaps, you have noticed the many opportunities to observe the challenge to humanity’s emerging consciousness. There can be no doubt that we are all being asked to step up, and become more conscious co-creators with Life. It seems the consequences of our actions, as a collective are showing up everywhere and very rapidly, in our health, our relationships, our environment. The call to come awake and take responsibility for our creation has never been more urgent. The evolution of humanity, that means you and me, has geared up in response to the unique opportunity that is presented by this time on our planet.
The evolutionary message that is coded in our DNA is being activated by so many factors now. What we can be assured of is that our preparation for this emergence is unfolding in such perfection that we may fail to see all of what is being offered. Often our experience is one of feeling pushed into a world dream that we may not feel ready for. The speed of the transformation that we are being asked to allow in our lives is just an indication of what is being asked of each us during this dynamic phase of humanity’s development.
Transformation in action means that for something new to be born in us, something must drop away. This dropping away is something that is occurring everyday, as we go about our living of life. We are each being asked to dance with life in this way; releasing, detaching and exercising the power of our awareness to choose how we will respond to what is showing up. Releasing is just part of what each day of living is asking of us. There is not a day that goes by that we are not faced with a choice that either supports the old, limited identity that is the result of outdated beliefs or offers opportunity for a greater part of self to emerge. The opportunity in this act of preparedness is to release what tethers us to old agreements about who we are, who we are not. There is never any accident or randomness to what life brings to us. It all has purpose and it can all be used for learning, in our Earth school, to love all creation even more.
What is dropping away is bigger than any individual story and history; it is an old dream of a divided, powerless, separate self that has kept humans sleeping with their eyes wide open. With each choice we make daily we are either furthering this evolutionary imperative that is flowering now or slowing it down. Drag your feet if you want to but this dynamic evolutionary wave is rolling and we can either surf the crest or get pulled into the undertow. It is all a matter of YOUR choice.
Perhaps, you have come to see the sheer magic in what is showing up in your life everyday. Though it may not be what you consider as “perfect” or how you thought it would look at this particular juncture, it all has grand design and purpose in it. Simply as a doorway of learning to choose another response; one that is born less of a reaction and more of responsibility for what we really are, it exists in perfection. What is showing up in our lives is instructional, teaching us to be a more conscious co -creator of our life. How else do we become truly responsible for our creative powers if they are not exercised and put to the test? A test is only meant to allow the possibility of that which lives at our core, which is really more authentic, to rise to the surface. A conscious creator is not one who always is getting their way with what shows up, but is one who is learning the valuable skill of grace and trust and demonstrating willingness to be aligned with consciousness as it emerges, even if it doesn’t match the picture in our mind.
We can choose to trust that the Source we are co-creating with is imbued with infinite wisdom and insight and is carrying us on this wave of evolutionary energy toward a never previously visited destination. We can not avoid our relationship with the Unknown as the new consciousness of humanity is birthed, we can only choose how graceful we will be in its courtship of us. It is through the allowing of the Unknown to take shape in us that the new consciousness will be birthed into form.
There is only embracing what shows up or complaining and resisting it. If we embrace it we create an energetic that is expansive and less constrictive and then that attracts more of that energy to us. Being afraid of what shows up or thinking there is something wrong with it creates energy in the body that just attracts more of that. We can choose to trust the wisdom of Life and let go and enjoy the ride. Life is just making a better, more flexible co-creator out of us. This is what Life needs to fully manifest the new Consciousness of Humanity that is emerging in our midst. Because we are the ones that are birthing it, we are just undergoing “Mothering/Fathering training to more openly respond and care for our new Creation. We seeded it in our heart’s desire to live a dream of balance,abundance and love on this planet, so now it is up to each of us to grow the seed. We have been called to this level of the creative process together, so extend to your self such gentle gratitude for saying “Yes” to Life and its potential to restore balance and integrity to all living things. Enjoy each day. Maintain an internal balance that you can share with the world. Never lose sight of how valuable each one of us is to creating the dream of the flowering of humanity. And remember you are dreaming.
My love to each of you, in the fullness of our community dream, each of you is held.
Image of Perfection - Part 1
By Kevin Murray
- Thursday, January 17th, 2008
Starting as babies, we look up and out to see how we are doing. We look for the reflection in our parents and caregivers to see “how it is going.” We are completely dependent, so it makes sense that we are looking “out there” to get our needs met. If we see smiling, loving faces, we are good. All is well. At some point along the way, we see or hear something not so pleasant and harmonious. There may be some upset. We look up into the same face, but it is not happy and smiling. Something is not right. This happens throughout our young lives. And it continues today. Along with the unsmiling face we may also receive some words: NO, don’t be that way, you can’t do that, who do you think you are? - and we also receive an emotional download along with these words. The emotional message is “you’re not okay just the way you are.” And we receive that message. And we don’t like the feelings generated inside us that correspond to that message - it simply doesn’t feel good.
So, we adapt. We learn to modify our behavior to keep the happy faces coming, and reduce the frequency of the not-happy faces. Or we go for the not-happy faces if that’s all we can get. This is what we all do. This is not a problem. But there is a big side effect. We learn to become something that we are not, something less than authentic. We try to reach some level of “how we should be.” But this is based on what someone else thinks we should be. More challenging, is that we get conflicted messages of how we should be from Mom, Dad, Teacher, Brother, Sister, Preacher, etc. But we do our best to be enough in light of all these opinions.
From an adult point-of-view we see how silly it would be to try to please all of these different expectations. But as young people, we do create an aggregate of these expectations - the Image of Perfection.
There are two major ways we modify our behavior as children in reaction to these outside influences. One is to do our best to be what we are told. The other is to rebel and go the opposite way. It’s all about hooking the attention on the outside. Both ways will get attention; and any attention is better than no attention. When we are trying to meet the expectations of this aggregate image, we are not being our selves, no matter the result on the outside.
An interesting thing happens along the way however. We no longer need the outside influences to tell us or remind us how to be. We internalize these voices primarily by believing them. If we don’t believe them, they aren’t part of our makeup. But once we believe them, they are hard-wired into our self view and self expression.
If we never have a chance to see that these voices are now operating internally and independently, we are run by them. We find ourselves living by a standard that is based in outside opinions that we have agreed to, whether or not they are actually true. We may be “successful” by outside standards, but we may also feel a creeping feeling of dissatisfaction. Being “good enough” for them and living according to this is really selling ourselves short. We can be so much more and enjoy life so much more by questioning these voices and opinions and then deciding for ourselves how to live into our own values with our own unique expression.
How do we begin this shift to take back our own attention and live life on our terms? That’s Part 2.
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