Yogananda meets his Guru - pure love

okay dudes. heres an excerpt from Paramahamsa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi

its freaking awesome. heres some background - so yogananda is was doing his errands, unhappily situated at some random hermitage...

{Ater ten minutes of walking, I felt a heavy numbness in my feet. As though turned to stone, they were unable to carry me farther. Laboriously I turned around; my feet regained normalcy. I faced the opposite direction; again the curious weight oppressed me.

"The saint is magnetically drawing me to him! (he'd seen him b4 by the way)." With this thought, I heaped my parcels into the arms of Habu. He had been observing my erratic footwork with amazement, and now burst into laughter.

"What ails you? Are you crazy?"

My tumultuous emotion prevented any retort; I sped silently away.

Retracing my steps as though wing-shod, I reached the narrow lane (where he'd seen him b4). My quick glance revealed the quite figure, steadily gazing in my direction. A few eager steps and I was at his feet.

"Gurudeva!" (Divine teacher, Master) The divine face was none other than he of my thousand visions. These halcyon eyes, in leonine head with pointed beard and flowing locks, had oft peered through the gloom of my nocturnal reveries, holding a promise I had not fully understood.

"O my own, you have come to me!" My guru uttered the words again and again in Bengali, his voice tremulous with joy. "How many years I have waited for you!"

We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!

My hand in his, my guru led me to his temporary residence in the Rana mahal section of the city. His athletic figure moved with firm tread. Tall, erect, about fifty five at this time, he was active and vigorous as a young man. His dark eyes were large, beautiful with plumbless wisdom. Slightly curly hair softened a face of striking power. Strength mingled subtly with gentleness.

As we made our way to the stone balcony of a house overlooking the Ganges, he said affectionately: "I will give you my hermitages and all I possess."

"Sir, I come for wisdom and god-contact. Those are your treasure-troves I am after!"

The swift Indian twilight had dropped its half curtains before my master spoke again. His eyes held unfathomable tenderness.

"I give you my unconditional love"

Precious words! A quarter-century elapsed before I had another auricular proof of his love. His lips were strange to ardor; silence became his oceanic heart.

"Will you give me the same unconditional love?" he gazed at me with childlike trust.

"I will love you eternally, Gurudeva!"

"Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love." He added humbly, "If ever you find me falling from a state of God-realization, please promise to put my head on your lap and help to bring me back to the Cosmic Beloved we both worship." }

Satsang links to Nirmala (online video satsang) Gina Lake

Nirmala Satsang

Nirmala offers video Satsang here online. There are several, and he is very clear and understands so much of what I inquire into.

I spoke with him this morning when I called to make an appointment with Gina, he was very generous with his time, and talking with me and I felt a great relief in just speaking with him, personally. He clarified the conscious will it requires to be present, which was confusing me because of different teachings I had heard, mixed with my own naive experience years ago.

And we were just getting to talk of my old, "technique," and he said using an old technique can be like reusing an old Kleenex...and there we had to stop because he had an appointment. I think, that now I do have a clarity, and now just need the conscious will to do this, which would have been my next question, how does one muster the will?

We discussed what to do when it seems a thousand tennis balls are coming at once as I said, and he said it was just to watch the overwhelm. We discussed the mind as I have noticed, telling me how I feel, but when I look for the feeling in my body, often, so often, no such feeling exists.

Nirmala told me of a part in the movie, A beautiful Mind where Russell Crow asks someone if that can see a person he thinks he sees, but is unsure because he hallucinates, and when he was told , "yes." he says to this person, "I can talk to you then." I loved this, because I need a reality check so often, with all the mind stuff that has been hitting me.

We also discussed the fact that there are no mistakes, because we are eternal beings, we have all the time there is to get where we are going. I experienced this many years ago and I know it's true, but it is true for me as a memory, not my current experience. He said that is better than not at all.

I am blessed by talking with Nirmala for 5 minutes, it was not too much, for me, or too little. Short is very sweet, it isn't overwhelming. I can put it to use. Perfect, like a shared slice of flan, to be savored, and blissfully delicious. It has been a wonderful beginning to a day for me. Thank you Nirmala.

Nirmala does one on one Satsang over the phone, as well. His site has free downloads, which are a blessing, and a generosity.

He is going to Victoria this weekend, and I think I may just go there to be in Satsang with him since I didn't attend his Satsangs here the past few years.

I just found this site of Gina's. Gina is Nirmala's wife, and her e-book, Radical Happiness, addresses; happiness, suffering, and life. Gina Lake
Free chapter of her e-book.
These excerpts from Gina's book are very light and clear. You can read an entire chapter for free. Take a look.

She does astrology readings and also channeling Theo, a collective consciousness on the mid-causal plane.

Tulips Sherry M Stewart 2005

The Swan

A swan is said to have a sensitive beak that enables it to distinguish pure milk from a mixture of milk and water. A swan, therefore, symbolizes the power of discrimination, or the ability to discriminate between right and wrong or good and bad. Saraswati uses the swan as Her carrier. This indicates that one must acquire and apply knowledge with discrimination for the good of mankind. Knowledge that is dominated by ego can destroy the world.
The Abbreviated Bhagavad-Gita
International Gita Society
sikh net radio and links to The Adi Granth

Swan Sherry M Stewart 2006

Live more abundantly

This link I found this morning because Lynn posted it on Om.
I had to include it here for others to look into as I myself delve into it.
Live more abundantly
and my thanks to my friends today, and to Louise Hay for her book, You can heal your life.
And for the miracle it showed up in the first place here when I thought it was packed away.
AND that it was recommended to me about a week or so ago by a friend.

Of course, it was something I realized was being pointed out to me.

Washington Pass and Larches
Photo
Sherry M Stewart 2005

First Attempt

There once was a young man named Grover
Who craved to find a four leaf clover.
He searched high and low,
Above and below;
Wised up, gathered sage for his lover.

Here's a second version I also posted on our local political activist blog, Keep Leucadia Funky, at leucadia.blogspot.com. Traditionally limericks are humorous, slightly ribald, so I'm still thinking along those lines. Happy St. Patrick's Day, friends!~~~~~~~~~~~~

There once was a scared man named Grover
Who sought to find a four leaf clover;
He searched high and low,
Above and below;
Wised up, grew sage, will not roll over.

Encapsulated

Taking time this morning to express the welling up of angst in my heart, my bereavement, and the painfulness encapsulated within...using 7 words, 17 syllables, a haiku, got me in touch with what I was experiencing when I was dragging my feet about confronting this, heart break.

Well, ok, my heels were dug firmly in the ground!

I admit it.

How wonderful I Am that I made this point of exploring my feelings. For in that act of embracing, I was freed from all my angst. It has been ongoing and great.

I have tried to be such a good sport.

I rode the wave today, it was intoxicating.

Sadness is real, heart break, disappointment are real, and these so called negatives are part of life to be embraced. When accepted rather than denied the muse sings her appointed song, and in that singing, dissolves into ecstacy of finding and embracing the true self.

There is a tendency for people to view sorrowful expressions as disdainful and unacceptable, as negative.

What is negative is criticism of another, judgment..that is all, and self criticism, and unacceptance.

When you find fault, it is in you, a resistance of your own self projected onto another, a sense that you are not acceptable.

Riding the wave for me today came in writing these few words that clued me in to what I had been doing to myself, and I knew how I had been afraid to express my sorrowful heart, for fear of being set at naught, and now I don't care, for I am completely free. ( as Byron Kathy says, "other's opinions are their business")

I know that all criticisms come from the self criticism we carry inside. I want to be free and have everyone free.

Thom once said that I had been through a katrina and The Tsunami, and more, and not to let anyone try to tell me different, that it changes me, and I would never be the same, yet I was only too willing to suppress my expression that would result in freedom for fear of dismissal by others, for far too many people have been harsh with me. Low and behold it is their own harshness with their own selves, being in a state of non acceptance, where freedom can never be found..

This is the small truth that freed me:

My soft heart speared
Unendurable aching
Encapsulated

With these few words, expressions, I saw my whole self, and then I was free. it was the last word that got me, " Encapsulated."

ShiningDawn proposed we all write a limerick for St. patricks Day!

limerick handbook

I must be able to write a bad limerick...what should the topic be?
Please, everyone, member or no, make a limerick for St. Paddy.

Eclipse

Leto's granddaughters
hide
the moon
dancing darkness
across the sky
binding their breasts
loosening their hair
homage to the Huntress
Soul sister

Laughter lighting the stars.

--Pamela Dawn

Remembering Someone Departed

Sent to Ise, in condolence for the loss of her child.

Beside my feelings
Speech pales
And so
To say how I feel for you
I have no words at all.

omoFu yori
iFu Fa oroka ni
narinureba
tatoFete iFan
koto no Fa zo naki

Taira no Sadafun (d. 923)


Waka for Japan

Friendship - Rebirth - Scarab - Transformation - Inspiration

© 1995-2004, Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved.
http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/virgo.html

Virgo Horoscope for week of March 9, 2006 (Thursday to Thursday)

The ancient Greeks had words for love that transcend our usual notions, writes Lindsay Swope in her review of Richard Idemon's book Through the Looking Glass. Epithemia is the basic need to touch and be touched. Our closest approximation is "horniness," though epithemia is not so much a sexual feeling as a sensual one. Philia is friendship. It includes the need to admire and respect your friends as a reflection of yourself--like in high school, where you want to hang out with the cool kids because that means you're cool too. Eros isn't sexual in the way we usually think, but is more about the emotional gratification that comes from merging souls. Agape is a mature, utterly free expression of love that has no possessiveness. It means wanting the best for another person even if it doesn't advance one's self-interest. The phase you're currently in, Virgo, is providing you with opportunities to explore the frontiers of at least three of these kinds of love.

Aquarius Horoscope for week of March 9, 2006

After taking inventory of the astrological factors coming to bear on you the past eight years, I've decided you're ready to leap to the next octave of your evolution. Therefore, I'll tell you a truth that was articulated by the powerful activist Mahatma Gandhi. It was instrumental in his success at leading millions of Indians to overthrow British oppression. I hope that his demanding, controversial advice will play a central role in shaping your destiny for the next eight years. But beware: It will only work if you're a brave rebel who relentlessly resists the conventional wisdom. Gandhi: "Every moment of your life is infinitely creative and the universe is endlessly bountiful. Just put forth a clear enough request, and everything your heart desires must come to you."

Aries Horoscope for week of March 9, 2006

Dung beetles were considered sacred and lucky by the ancient Egyptians. In fact, the seemingly lowly insect, also known as a scarab, was worshiped as a symbol of transformation and resurrection, in part because it derives its nourishment from the waste matter of other animals. Since it also pushes balls of dung to its nest, it was thought to resemble the god Ra rolling the sun through the heavens. During the coming week, Aries, the scarab will be your power animal. May it inspire you to turn crap into treasure as you're reborn from the deadness of the past.

Pisces Horoscope for week of March 9, 2006

I've been present during the births of two children, Jasmine and Zoe. Both experiences were daunting, explosive, and ecstatic. Nothing else that has ever happened to me has rivaled the role they played in awakening my reverence for life. The gratitude and love that overflowed in me then will always remain a source of inspiration. If you choose to respond to the invitations the cosmos is now making available to you, Pisces, you will soon be visited by events that evoke comparable feelings.

Living Life With Passion

So very sad to learn of Ravi's loss. His friend was so very young to have died and Ravi so very young to experience such a great loss. Your post, Lynn, reminds me of two poems:

To Virgins to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
 Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today,
 To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the Sun,
 The higher he's a-getting;
The sooner will his race be run,
 And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best, which is the first,
 When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
 Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
 And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
 You may for ever tarry.

-------

And just in case we, oldies think that it's all over, listen to the words of Rumi:

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixer that renews:
How can there be weariness
When passion is present?
Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:
Seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

--Rumi, Mathnawi VI, 4302-4304

Heart of Heart

My young friend, mctwists, suffered a loss yesterday, when his fiend and classmate, Stephanie, lost control in the rain, as she was driving to work, and died, instantly. What tragedy when any life is taken; but when one so young departs, it becomes almost incomprehensible. One moment the heart is ticking, the mind is working, the next, that light is gone.

Here's part of what mctwists (Ravi) just sent me:

The Pupil asks: 'At whose wish does the mind sent forth proceed on its errand? At whose command does the first breath go forth? At whose wish do we utter this speech? What god directs the eye, or the ear?'

The Teacher replies: 'It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye. When freed (from the senses) the wise, on departing from this world, become immortal.'

-Kena Upanishad

Ah, Snow!

Cold outside, but the fire inside is warm.
Welcome to my blizzard!

Flower, regarded.

We WILL have tea in the afternoon someday,

and a glass of the sweetest of sherry in the evening

and get groggy because we're talking the way sisters talk

on my velvet green futon

deep, deep into the night,

until it becomes the morning

and you will fall into a peaceful sleep

with your hair matted all around your face

and your mouth slightly open

gurgling soft happy snoring sighs

and I will cover you with the afghan I made

a long time ago

before I ever met you

but I knew you a long time

before then

and stroke your hair back

from your face

and rest my hand there

and place my head

so close to yours

we breathe together

while I drift off

before dawn.

--Shining Dawn

Without judgment

A kept flower, withered, must feel this way
Despondent, and numb, shocked, hoping for that which brings life.

Refreshment far away, a thirst, if only I could drink in the love which you withhold for fear of love itself.

The distant sun, a memory, a root struggles to etch itself through parched soil that has no give… groping like a lover for it’s beloved.

Memories of fertile days, annihilated. Just as well. They had to die.
Freedom in the sun, joy of being, love of life, it’s roots planted in a clay jar captive in a dank basement, it’s soil parched and head now bent.

The hope or dream of a caring eye, to move the flower and wash it’s roots and plant it afresh, too much to hope for...now. Hope had to die.

Yes, I have feet, that move, regardless, there are requirements for the human soul, none the less than that of a flower disregarded..

Blessing Place

My breath, my blood, my spirit blent with One
Whilst daybreak woke to brilliant beck'ning sun
Still left my Home, the place where blessings live.

With haste my reckless intellect far-gone;
Without a backward glance I took my leave
And turned breath, blood, and spirit from the One.

I scorned the Hand that lifted to revive,
Set my cold heart as if it were a stone
Yet longed for Holy ground where blessings live.

I fin'lly lost each war I thought I'd won.
My heart lie broken, weary and bereaved
With breathless pose, blood spent, and spirit gone.

At last I'd fallen ready to receive
That Grace as bright as on the day I'd flown--
And viewed, with hope the place where blessings live.

When mortal men declare this journey done
Consider not that I was deign to give
My breath, my blood, my spirit bent toward One:
Memorial to this place where blessings live.

--Pamela Dawn

Gatherings

Indigenous women spend much of the autumn season—the harvest—gathering, drying and storing seeds—foodstuff for the pending winter weather and planting material for springtime sowing--calculated survival, a skill women have been practicing and perfecting since time on this planet began.

Winter is a time to rest, to lay low, wait. I have been waiting for this waiting season for quite some time now. It seems the gathering season has extended itself out on my calendar for over two years.

At the start of this gathering season, my husband, Dee and I had been married three years (it was the second time for both of us) and we had attempted from our beginnings as a couple at the last chance at conceiving a child together. I had been pregnant three times before, two of those pregnancies viable, blessing me with beautiful daughters. My last pregnancy was over eighteen years past and the idea of conception at 42 was dubious, at best. Also, Dee has diabetes which can cruelly beat the shit out of the male reproductive system. Still, we had hope It just didn’t seem fair that Dee would not have the chance to be a father, in his own right. Damn it! Given the chance, he would be such a good one.

So, full of hope and faith, we set out to beat the odds. We were convinced we could do it—after all we could be counted on in a crowd of congregants to lift our hands in witness of a miracle. Wouldn’t that be enough? Just to increase our chances a bit, we opted to play the reproductive roulette game of artificial insemination.

Four failed attempts later—each time literally flushing precious lifeblood down the toilet, we made the agonizing decision to forego further attempts. I was beginning to relate somewhat to the Holly Hunter character, Edwina in the Cohen brothers’ film, “Raising Arizona.” Upon finally realizing the dream of conception was simply that, a dream, Edwina’s husband Hi reported that “Edwina’s insides were a rocky place where my seed could find no purchase.”

We resigned ourselves to the notion of practicing parenthood in alternative ways; improving our relationship with my already grown children, welcoming neighbor children into our yard and home, volunteering with the youth groups of our city and church, doting on our nieces and nephews, and someday our grandchildren. Those who have played out this routine know it just isn’t the same and it’s performed on the backdrop of heartbreaking disappointment.

But the Universe wasn’t finished strewing seeds across my pathways for the gathering.

About the same time that we had turned in our conceptual letters of resignation, my oldest daughter informed us that she had successfully conceived and that she would be keeping her baby. I was not over-pleased, the sting of my recent failures still inflicting bitter pain and due to the appearance that she would be raising her baby alone. It certainly affected the way I handled the gathering of that seed.

In retrospect, I realize and accept that it was not seed for my gathering. On the other hand the situation was more complicated than dividing and compartmentalizing problems into baskets labeled “mine” and “someone else’s.” This was my daughter, formerly estranged and arriving at my door desperately needing her mother. What could I do? I’m her mother and I’m a gatherer. I collected her across my threshold, sowed seeds of new hope in anticipation of my first grandchild and awaited the pending harvest—every effort exerted to that end.

As an experienced gardener, I ought to have known better—harvest rarely yields exactly what one expects and it is NEVER an end. The “unexpected” was that after a seven month absence from her life, my daughter’s boyfriend reappeared—literally at the delivery room. Within three weeks time my daughter and granddaughter were whisked away amid the shattered hulls of my expectations and dreams.

But, contrary to the “Raising Arizona” line, I discovered that there were seeds sown of which I had forgotten that did find purchase and had grown. One of the sweetest was actually not one of my gathering or planting—it was the fruit of the seed of forgiveness that my ex-husband had sown in his own heart. It came to fruition the moment our granddaughter was born. As we gazed together at the miracle, my ex-husband quietly slipped his arm around my waist offering me his support and approval. No words, but it was a most beautiful gift—a cornucopia of reconciliation that has given me the encouragement to plant seeds of good will toward my granddaughter’s father.

I proudly watch my daughter mother her child but I am vigilantly and often too critically observant of the fathering. The seeds of forgiveness have transcended my failings as an impatient gardener in this area of my life and I am pleased with the growth I see, in spite of my inclination to judge and condemn. Materially, life is hard for that little family, but my granddaughter is happy in the love of both her parents and I am satisfied that the seeds I once doubted have fallen on good (I dare not say fertile) soil.

And I can do nothing else but what I have been doing all along these past two years—gather more seeds.

Recently, I discovered the seeds of creativity gently wrapping little tendrils of their roots around my life—in my renewed attempts at writing and a newly discovered interest in making wire jewelry that goes beyond the simple stringing of beads and which blesses the lives of those I love.

I am in the process of reconfiguring my field of faith and planting fresh new seeds. It is a wild field of wheat and tares which won’t be plucked out or burned. Who knows but that I might use the twine of such as those to weave baskets—containers for future seed gatherings.

I have been blessed with the seeds of new relationships that are peeking their vestiges above the crisp ground promising to blossom like the daffodils and crocuses that greet me on my afternoon walks. And I look to the wonderful man with whom I have shared my plantings these past five years and I can do naught but smile. He is a sturdy perennial ever offering regenerated seeds of the constancy of his love.

These past two weeks, the Universe manifested the vision of my gatherings and literally dropped pods of those Kentucky Coffee Bean trees across my path—confirming the validity of my gatherings (see the “Not Made of Wood” posting earlier this month). And just yesterday, almost immediately after my departure from the Kazeon Center (the zen sangha in Salt Lake City), the auspice of one of many seeds of faith springing in my heart—a single buckeye dropped directly in my path. A sign? I don’t know but I really think I’ve completely skipped over winter, there is no waiting with spring so soon to begin—fields cleared and I’ve got baskets of gathered seeds to sow.

My 2nd loveletter

My 2nd loveletter

I would like to take a few quotations from Karen Armstrong’s book, The Spiral Staircase, to add here to show my appreciation for her journey, offerings, insights, and most of all, for the telling of her story that penetrates my heart more than words can say.

In her story I find my own hopes, struggles, and questions. I find In her story, compassion for; her life, and for my own. This deeper understanding of compassion for my self, deepens my compassion for the world.

Her book is so well written intellectually, and heartfelt. To find a mere passage is difficult. So I will begin with this one that describes ecstasy. For me it has been a struggle, once living in this place of ecstasy, and then at a loss to experience it, and unable to find it once again, knowing somehow it is the way in which I am to live, yet not understanding exactly what it is, or how it happens to be that emptiness occurs, and we are filled with divine movement.

Karen’s research has been more successful than my own. I care to understand and to have the grace to act according to the perfection of the universe, which I believe is our most natural way of living.

Quoting from The Spiral Staircase:

“The Greek, ekstasis, it will be recalled, simply means,” standing outside.” And transcendence means,” climbing above or beyond.”
This does not necessarily imply an exotic state of consciousness. For years I had longed to get to know God, to ascend to a higher plane of being, but I had never considered at length what it was you had to climb from. All the traditions tell us, one way or another, that we have to leave behind our inbuilt selfishness, with it’s greedy fears and cravings. We are, the great spiritual writers insist, most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from that transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahman, or the Tao.

Further she communicates that she had assumed God was an objective fact, and approached God using the same kind of logical reflection that she had employed in her secular life. Rational analysis was useless for approaching God, and as a result of the empirical reasoning of the 16th and 17th centuries, Western people began talking of God as though he were an objective demonstrable fact. (I am paraphrasing). “The more intuitive disciplines of mythology and mysticism were discredited.” She says. This was the cause of many of the religious problems of our day, including my own.”

The research Karen has done is invaluable to the world today. She brings a gift of clarity and understanding in a story that cleaves to your own heart and soul, a story of the necessity of understanding and compassion. The historical depth of this understanding that she clarifies leads to a freedom of heart.

Romeow, aka Puddy, fast asleep, and unaware the rain has stopped at least momentarily. Outside my window, crows are hobbling around in the yard, apple trees are in bloom, and some of my ground covers are blooming, too. It is overcast here,
(ya think?) but the Sound is in sight and Whidbey Island beyond. I think I need a ferry ride across!

Love Letters, First

Love Letters

No explanation at the moment, I just know that at this time, I must write love letters.

Let me explore how life is living me, because in my hasty judging (the root of all discontent), the judgment we make and others make of how our lives are lacks insight and compassion, the breadth of life.

For a long time now I have been doing nothing that the "world" values, and as a result I don’t value what I am doing either.
I should know better than this, but on myself, as most of us are, I am too harsh. How crazy this is, to value what others value, create what others create, avoid what others avoid. (The Tao) This is life living me, I must celebrate, THIS.

How many times have I said that it is not in what we do, that we have our value, but in what we are that gives us value? Yet these words are designed to comfort someone else, and I haven’t applied them to me.

That I admire Karen Armstrong’s life, her writing, (spiral Staircase, others) that I can see the hand of the omnificent God creating her life, through the struggles she imparts in her book, and I have upon my desk Wayne Dyers book, Manifest your Destiny, I can plainly see these are their lives, and we each, are being lived in a different way. No one life is better than another, that is just another judgement that keeps us from the truth.

My words may not be published, I may seem to touch but a few souls, yet isn't that is impossible, to touch a few souls, for we are one and what one does, is progress and experience for all.

Judging is a human thought form, not a divine one, and all lives are expressions of divinity, all lives are as real, as non real, violent lives, easy lives, struggling lives, we all are that life which has validation just in being.
So today let me say how life is living me, for in this very simple act of acknowledging this, I will find my own acceptance, and connection with the divinity that I cannot see that, I am, always.

Last night I made lunch for Mike. I made 2 delicious roast beef sandwiches, with Muenster cheese and mayonnaise. I included a nice small bowl of home cooked pinto beans in one of my pottery bowls that I made with my own hands on my wheel (that I think I waste if I am not doing it all the time). I sealed cottage cheese and sweet pickles into a plastic container and wrapped it with wrap, and added a granny smith apple.

I packed it all in a plastic bag open in the fridge so he would see it first things this morning. I knew if I was not up, he would make a latte with the machine I purchased for simple pleasures, and noticed my mind condemning me for not always being up at 5 to make his breakfast; for not always packing a lunch, for not making more of a life making pots or money, for so many failures.

I am aware that even those who make millions have to distract themselves with buying to escape the mind that is always judging and dictating, and hurting each of us. I have few of these indulgences to escape myself, I live closely to myself each day, and I am not always easy to take.. but, I want to thank my mere, and complete being, for my small contributions, acts, for my being lived in whatever way the universe decides to live me, and forget what minds have to say of this, for minds are just making a mess of the truth of our divinity.


Puddy slept with me and crawled under the covers and curled up next to my heart, where he could hear life beating, and feel the warmth of this life. As if to say,” I missed you and want to know you are really here alive and close by again, your life is important to my own.” Life is living him, my dear fuzzy kitty, my Romeow. He sits close by as I write, beside me on a chair on a cushion, or like now on a cushion near the window, right by my desk. He always seeks me out, whatever room I inhabit, he is there, He comes to the door to greet me when I arrive home, he comes into the house and finds me wherever I am and,” mrow mrow,” he says, “ I am home,” he appreciates me, just for me.

Responsibility, discipline, Hot topics, lol what responsibility do I have? Is it really the way the world looks at being responsible that is truth? Or is that sense of being responsible really what keeps us from manifesting all that is available to us at all times. Coming to grips with my divinity is my responsibility, if I have any. Remember now, responsibility is the ability to respond. I have that!

I sip a home made latte from a large beautiful bowl like cup made by potter I just met, and I appreciate him for this one cup of life he has made, and for the being who shared a few stolen moments with me while working to talk of making pots, and art.

Appreciation, what is more important than that?

What can be more fulfilling than just knowing you’re being lived, and that whatever form it takes is divine, although people misunderstand and ask questions about topics such as cruelty, we all add to that by believing we are separate, when all there is, is love.


When I appreciate my own world, my own,” seeming self, without “doing,” I am realizing the truth of my divinity. Inner judgment ultimately stands in the way of compassion and peace on this level of reality we refer to as; time, space and earth. I appreciate everyone for his or her life, and small contributions, and I am certain everyone, even the most hardened person is being lived and is divine. I am being lived by love, “ I am,” love’s expression in this, “time dream,” we share.

This is my letter for love for today.

Lynn, thank you for your feedback and edits.

Apologies to Tamarika

Her blog, In and out of Confidence, I just had to do this...because I realize I move in and out of consciousness. More later...Love, sherry