Seasons of the Soul

Food For Thought

What a thing it is to sit absolutely alone,
in the forest, at night, cherished by this
wonderful, unintelligible,
perfectly innocent speech,
the most comforting speech in the world,
the talk that rain makes by itself all over the ridges,
and the talk of the watercourses everywhere in the hollows!
Nobody started it, nobody is going to stop it.
It will talk as long as it wants, this rain.
As long as it talks I am going to listen

~Thomas Merton

Listen to the air
You can hear it, feel it,
smell it, taste it.
Woniya wakan, the holy air,
which renews all by its breath
Woniya wakan, spirit, life, breath, renewal,
it means all that.
We sit together, don’t touch,
but something is there,
we feel it between us,
as a presence.
A good way to start thinking about nature,
talk about it.
Rather talk to it,
talk to the rivers, to the lakes,
to the winds,
as to our relatives.

~John Lame Deer

A Message From Maureen Moss

Happy May everyone,

I pray you are well as the veils of illusion keep getting thinner and thinner, timelines collapse, new matrixes are anchored into the grid, die-offs of lower human nature and archaic belief systems dissolve and what many are calling voids are made more evident inside of our lives.

All of Humanity is in a new phase of human life and it is called The Seedtime of the New World Consciousness. Consider the void you may be experiencing as a womb where new and glorious birth will take place when properly seeded and nurtured. It is you dearest hearts who will seed the void inside of yourselves carefully, clearly, intentionally and
consciously.

Every single one of us has been given an opportunity, as a result of the Divine Plan, and the forceful, almost violent energies at times this past month to clear our energetic fields, and our internal landscape, so we are able to plant, in the womb of the void, the garden of reality we have lived and longed for. The energies have settled down so that the seeds that are planted will not be blown away. We are asked to place ourselves in a very high state of consciousness when we cast our seeds into the void and then to be patient and calm as new growth springs forth, and it will. Remember, everything gestates and grows in the dark, be it a seed or an idea, a butterfly or a baby.

I am told that what we plant, God will water.

Please let me say this since I have just fully realized it. The void truly is a place of grace and growth. It is something fresh and new inside of us and it takes our full heart (not our minds) to embrace it and work with it, rather than being frightened by it.

The poet Tagore wrote "Human is immortal; therefore he/she must die endlessly. For life is a creative idea; it can only find itself in changing forms."

Visit World Puja Network and listen to excellent interviews! www.worldpuja.org

The Fence

There was a little boy with a bad temper.  His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his  temper, to hammer a nail in the back fence. The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Then it gradually dwindled down.  He discovered it was easier to hold
his  temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out.  It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one."
Author Unknown

Springing Free

It’s nearing mid Spring, and in California we see the beginning of summer. We’ve watched the buds come into flower and the seeds we’ve planted growing into what they will become. In the next season, we’ll be able to harvest some of the results of our labor.

In Winter, it’s seasonally a time for shutting down and going within—it’s the province of internal review and inward vision. Depression is associated with winter, and there are benefits to allowing ourselves to go into the heart of our angst during that season. But Spring is a season of renewal.
It’s a time for us to find reasons for optimism and to bring the fragrance of our journey forward. That might involve clearing out things that have gotten in our way. Using our insights from Winter, we have an opportunity to do spring cleaning—externally as well as internally. Time to plant and nourish new seeds and  watch them develop. The focus is on ways of allowing the inner sunshine to warm our hearts and minds—making space for illumination to dawn and find welcome.

Nature is a wonderful reminder of how beneficial each season is—and how the gifts of one season reflect and contribute to the success of the next. Nothing is wasted. Nothing is out of order.
Nature has an impeccable scheduling for bringing balance into what would otherwise be a chaotic world. Even during times of “unseasonable” events, nature always re-calibrates and comes back to order. We have the same internal mechanism to bring us back to a balanced state if we will work with ourselves from core level.

Spirit/soul/body are integrally linked, and when we leave one aspect out of the quotient, we lose connection to the natural order—the harmonizing factors that bring us through the journey  matured and intact. The phases we experience are natural adjuncts to our development through the seasons. As humans, our cycles may vary somewhat from the seasonal ordering within nature. But we are subject to the same laws of birth, growth, and decay.

Finding clues within this season and harmonizing our own energy to it can aid us in developing a rhythm and communion. We are not fighting externals—we are flowing with them.

Spring is a time of liberation. We have an opportunity to free our spirits to soar in new ways. Enthusiasm can be re-instilled as we view life re-emerging all around us. What seemed dead is not. It was only waiting for the right time to emerge. So, us.

What hopes, dreams, and aspirations have we been incubating during the winter months? What seeds are calling out for nourishment in order to bring themselves into full bloom and productivity? And what unexpected glimmerings arise unbidden that catch us by surprise?

Spring is a freeing time. We can leap forward, even if only in our minds. It’s time!
KJ

Compromising Truth

Many of us watched American Idol last evening. There was a lot of buildup and hype for it, and it was heartening to see the good that comes from a collective effort. There was another important show on last night, too...but this one got very little pre-PR, and unfortunately, I didn't hear about it until today. This was the important documentary by Bill Moyers on the Iraq war coverup...and how the public was fed one lie after another WITH the complicity of the media...leading us into the terrible travesty in Iraq. It points up once again how impressionable and vulnerable we are to media hype and indoctrination.

David Swanson | Record of Iraq War Lies to Air April 25 on PBS

Two shows last night..both about the power of media...both supporting causes that we need to know about. Yet, one received little publicity because it exposed the sellout of reporting truth and following up on facts. It also shows how easily manipulated a society becomes when the source of information is polluted and compromised by special interest groups, including media moguls who will do anything to increase their bottom lines with the least amount of effort or fact finding.

Walter Cronkite once lamented that real news was no longer being broadcast, and that this was a major threat to our freedom. He was right...but not only our freedom has been compromised, but the rights of other nations who experience the fallout of our false reporting!

KJ

Using Imagination To Turn Negative Into Positive

Would you like to discover another Meditation?

First thing in the morning, imagine yourself tremendously happy. Get out of bed in a very happy mood—radiant, bubbling, expectant - as if something perfect, of infinite value, is going to happen today. Get out of the bed in a very positive and hopeful mood, with the feeling that this day is not going to be an ordinary day - that something exceptional, extraordinary, is waiting for you; something is very close by. Try and remember it again and again for the whole day. Within seven days you will see that your whole pattern, your whole style, your whole vibration, has changed.

When you go to sleep in the night, just imagine that you are falling into divine hands...as if God is supporting you, that you are in His lap, falling asleep. Just visualize it and fall asleep. The one thing to carry is that you should go on imagining and let sleep come, so that the imagination enters into sleep; they are overlapping.

Don’t imagine any negative thing, because if people who have an imaginative capacity imagine negative things, they start happening. If you think that you are going to get ill, you will get ill. If you think that somebody is going to be rude to you, he will be. Your very imagination will create the situation.

So if a negative idea comes, immediately change it to a positive thought. Say no to it. Drop it immediately; throw it away.

Within a week you will start feeling that you are becoming very happy for no reason at all.

~From Osho: The Passion for the Impossible, #3

The light which shines in the eye is really the light of the heart. The light which fills the heart is the light of God.
~Rumi

Nothing Is Wasted

Recently a friend told me about going to thrift shops and asking if there were any old bags of clothes that they couldn’t sell, because she wanted to gather the usable fabric and make patchwork designs for pillows, quilts, wall coverings and window treatments. I thought that was quite a novel idea. She said there were tons of clothes that the thrift shops throw away because they aren’t saleable, and they told her to help herself.

As I read an article by Barbara Sher about our needing to do what we love, I thought of those remnants of material that most people would see as throwaways, but this friend saw as pieces that would create works of art.

Everything we do in our life has purpose. Nothing within our realm of experience has been wasted, and when we recognize that it isn’t always for the obvious reasons that we’ve done many of the things we’ve done, and look at our journey a little differently, we can craft of those scraps of experience new forms and possibilities. Only when we are stuck in limited thinking are we bound by the obvious. When we look to the subtleties within our lives, nothing is wasted. Things only need to be re-worked into different patterns to become a treasure!
KJ

Food For Thought

One day, Gandhi was boarding a train. As he was doing so, one of his sandals slipped from his foot and landed near the track. Suddenly, the train began pulling away, leaving him no time to retrieve his sandal. Immediately, Gandhi removed the other sandal and tossed it back to lie with the other one alongside the track. When an astonished fellow passenger asked him why he did this, Gandhi replied: “Now the poor man who finds it will have a pair he can use.”
          *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.
~Peace Pilgrim

It is right and necessary that we should be individuals. The Divine Spirit never made any two things alike—no two rosebuds, two snowflakes, two grains of sand, or two persons. We are all just a little unique for each wears a different face; but behind each is the One Presence—God.
~Ernest Holmes

Awesome Nature

One evening, I was watching as early storm clouds approached in what was the beginning of a late winter storm coming from Japan. It was an unusually beautiful night…the kind sometimes poised right before a storm. The moon was almost full, and on the hill where I live we have an inexhaustible view of the sky. I went out to the patio around 9:30  to view the advance clouds as they swept in from the sea like giant chess pieces. They were backlit by the moon and a starry sky, and a soft orange purple glow seeped through each of them. They   weren’t all bunched up, so they gave the illusion of individuality and identifiable shapes that looked recognizable.   

   
I was mesmerized, watching what appeared to be an entire army of clouds sweeping their way eastward at a rapid pace, forerunners of a great storm to come. And as imagination fused with shape, I could make out the headdresses of  Japanese warriors, swords lifted, ready for battle, oblivious to what was above or below.

I wished at that moment that I could capture the feeling and visualization with paint, but knew my level of skill would not do them justice. I remained transfixed for about 15 minutes, and after coming into the house, realized how relatively small everything seemed in comparison.

Those gigantic clouds had a purpose, and it was as though they swept over the hills and valleys undaunted by anyone’s opinion of them. They were on their way to complete a mission, and in their viewing, I came once again to immense respect for nature and her incredible power and majesty. What a vast and extraordinary creation we all are!
KJ

One Living Among You Is the Incarnation of God

"When the power of love
overcomes the love of power,
the world will know peace."—Anonymous

There's an old story about a group of monks living with their master in a Tibetan monastery. Their lives were disciplined and dedicated, and the atmosphere in which they lived harmonious and peaceful. People from villages far and wide flocked to the monastery to bask in the warmth of such a loving spiritual environment.

Then one day the master departed his earthly form. At first the monks continued on as they had in the past, but after a time, the discipline and devotion that had been hallmarks of their daily routine slackened. The number of villagers coming through the doors each day began to drop, and little by little, the monastery fell into a state of disrepair.

Soon the monks were bickering among themselves, some pointing fingers of blame, others filled with guilt. The energy within the monastery walls crackled with animosity.

Finally, the senior monk could take it no longer. Hearing that a spiritual master lived as a hermit two days walk away, the monk wasted no time in seeking him out. Finding the master in his forest hermitage, the monk told him of the sad state the monastery had fallen into and asked his advice.

The master smiled. "There is one living among you who is the incarnation of God. Because he is being disrespected by those around him, he will not show himself, and the monastery will remain in disrepair." With those words spoken, the master fell silent and would say no more.

All the way back to the monastery, the monk wondered which of his brothers might be the Incarnated One.

"Perhaps it is Brother Jaspar who does our cooking," the monk said aloud. But then a second later thought, "No, it can't be him. He is sloppy and ill tempered and the food he prepares is tasteless."

"Perhaps our gardener, Brother Timor, is the one," he then thought. This consideration, too, was quickly followed by denial. "Of course not" he said aloud. "God is not lazy and would never let weeds take over a lettuce patch the way Brother Timor has."

Finally, after dismissing each and every one of his brothers for this fault or that, the senior monk realized there were none left. Knowing it had to be one of the monks because the master had said it was, he worried over it a bit before a new thought dawned. "Could it be that the Holy One has chosen to display a fault in order to disguise himself?" he wondered. "Of course it could! That must be it!"

Reaching the monastery, he immediately told his brothers what the master had said and all were just as astonished as he had been to learn the Divine was living among them.

Since each knew it was not himself who was God Incarnate, each began to study his brothers carefully, all trying to determine who among them was the Holy One. But all any of them could see were the faults and failings of the others. If God was in their midst, he was doing a fine job of hiding himself. Finding the Incarnated One among such rubble would be difficult, indeed.

After much discussion, it was finally decided that they would all make an effort to be kind and loving toward each another, treating all with the respect and honor one would naturally give to the Incarnated One. If God insisted on remaining hidden, then they had no recourse but to treat each monk as if he were the Holy One.

Each so concentrated on seeing God in the other that soon their hearts filled with such love for one another the chains of negativity that held them bound fell away. As time passed, they began seeing God not just in each other, but in every one and everything. Days were spent in joyful reverence, rejoicing in His Holy Presence. The monastery radiated this joy like a beacon and soon the villagers returned, streaming through the doors as they had before, seeking to be touched by the love and devotion present there.

It was some time later that the senior monk decided to pay the master another visit to thank him for the secret he had revealed.

"Did you discover the identity of the Incarnated One?" the master asked.

"We did," the senior monk replied. "We found him residing in all of us."

The master smiled.

-----------

For more inspirational stories and reflection, visit: http://www.mayyoubeblessedmovie.com/420.html