Lovers of Life, Live Your Dream!

 

October’s universal Archetype figure is that of the LOVER, which we will pair all this glorious month with the life metaphor Life Is… Living Your Dream, Now! What a coniunctio mysterium or sacred marriage, as Jung might observe (e.g. https://retiredeagle.wordpress.com/tag/coniunctio/), with Lovers as an image of coniunctio itself, resulting in Living Your Dream!

There are so many ways Love can manifest in our lives; what matters is that our capacity to give and to receive love grows as we do, finding greater and greater forms of experience, expression and sharing.

“My love is deep; the more I give to thee,

The more I have, both are infinite.”

~William Shakespeare

This will be fun! As we explore the LOVER archetype Ally this month to reveal its purpose in helping us to manifest a life of fulfillment and passion, let us not hold back.  Open your heart to receive and to give Love—personal or impersonal, romantic or divine. There is nothing more completing of our intentions and desires than to give and receive love freely for the better interests of all concerned. Now, guided by the principle of Live Your Dream, Now, this love that we wish to expose and expand can find a greater vehicle and channel.

I welcome your Insights and Stories!

The Serenity Prayer

Sing Hu, a Healing Song of Divine Love

This past two weeks I have been sharing well-known prayer poems as words from the HEALER archetype energy…whether you think of that as your own inner archetypal Healer part of Self, or Spirit Itself, or the centering Order of the Universe, or God as the Creator and Healer, or a spiritual Teacher or Master who brings Healing to your Heart.  Spirituality in any form brings healing energies and allows us also to be a Vehicle of divine or impersonal, detached love which can be a healing balm for others who are open to receive that love.

I will share two more prayer poems today and Sunday (or Tuesday) to wind up this month of alchemical pairings of the HEALER Archetype with the Life Metaphor Life Is (or, can be!)…Better Endings.

Eckankar Worship Service

Sunday, Jul 8, 2012, 11:00 AM

Marin Eckankar Center
840 B Street San Rafael, CA

1 Members Went

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Sing Hu, an ancient, sacred Name for the Creator

For myself, I take quite seriously Ghandi’s words shared in Tuesday’s post about the value of ALL religions or spirituality and including secular philosophical systems of belief or faith that are each of unfathomable significance and truth to the practicing Believer. My own spiritual practice for over forty years (would you have asked) is that of Eckankar, a modern-day religion with ancient roots, sometimes known as the Religion of the Light and Sound of God.

In Eckankar, we recognize and sing religiously as a love song to God an age-old prayer poem; it is a mantra that we may practice daily, even 24/7 in the background of our thoughts or consciousness. This ancient Word, sung simply on the outgoing breath as the one syllable HU (or, Huuuuuuuuuuuu), is found in many faith traditions. It is found in Allah+HU+Jah(weh) (Allelujah!) in declaration of names of the Divine, and it meant God or the Breath of God in ancient Egypt. It is in the Hawaiian Kahuna (a healing energy or Healer persona), and Hututu is the leader of all of the pantheon of Hopi Spirit-bearing kachinas.

The most popular poet of our modern age is Jalal-ad-DIN-Rumi, whose spiritual Teacher/ Master was Shams, or Shamus-i-Tabriz. Rumi (1207-1273 AD) wrote his “ecstatic” (from Gk. ekstasis: ‘standing apart from the body’) poetry in the mid 13^th Century in a region of what is now northwestern Turkey. Below allow me to share some of Rumi’s poems that include reference to this love song to God or Name of God or the Breath of the Creator: HU.

The HU in Rumi’s Poetry

In sufi circles they say, “There’s prayer, and a step up from that is meditation, and a step up from that is sohbet, or conversation.”
Who is talking to HU! (The pronoun for divine presence.) Lover to beloved, teacher to disciple. The Friendship of Rumi and Shams
became a continuous conversation, in silence and words, presence talking to absence, existence to non-existence, periphery to center.
Rumi’s poetry may be heard as eavesdropping on that exchange.”

Coleman Barks, May 2, 1994
Say I am You – RUMI

Mathnawi, Book VI, 4038-4044http://www.sourcetext.com/hupage/Rumi/rumi0.html

 

[Open Secret – Versions of Rumi
by John Moyne and Coleman Barks]

This is what the Friend can do
when one is in such love. Sensual people use the holy names
often, but they don’t work for them.
The miracle Jesus did by being the name of God,
Zuleika felt in the name of Joseph.

When one is united to the core of another, to speak of that
is to breathe the name HU, empty of self and filled
with love. As the saying goes, The pot drips what is in it.
The saffron spice of connecting, laughter.
The onion-smell of separation, crying.
Others have many things and people they love.
This is not the way of Friend and friend.

 

[One-Handed Basket Weaving – RUMI
by Coleman Barks]

Muhammed is said to have said,
“Whoever belongs to God, God belongs to.”

Our weak, uneven breathings,
these dissolving personalities,
were breathed out by the eternal
Huuuuuuuu, that never changes! 
A drop of water constantly fears
that it may evaporate into the air,
or be absorbed by the ground.

It doesn’t want to be used up
in those ways, but when it lets go
and falls into the ocean it came from,
it finds protection from the other deaths.

Its droplet form is gone,
but its watery essence has become
vast and inviolable.

Listen to me, friends, because you
are a drop, and you can honor yourselves
in this way. What could be luckier

than to have the ocean come
to court the drop?

For God’s sake, don’t postpone your yes!
Give up and become the giver.

******   ******

Anyone can sing HU, either aloud or silently. It does not belong to any one religion or spiritual Way. Simply open your heart to love and allow this ancient, creative and healing current, this primal Word, to flow gently through you. It can help to lift your consciousness to link with your highest nature or with the quiet voice of Life—or love—Itself!

Healing Words of Ghandi on Interfaith Unity

 

 (From  http://www.adathjeshurun.org/interfaith-families-negotiating-the-winter-holidays/)

Mahatma Ghandi famously once replied when asked if he was a Hindu:

“Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.” 
(http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Hinduism/2009/07/Gandhi-Quotes.aspx#MI4RfZYYqfbkyX3B.99)

Here are some more of M. Ghandi’s statements about the inherent unity of religion qua spirituality, from (http://www.mkgandhi.org/religionmk.htm) :

I believe in the fundamental Truth of all great religions of the world. And I believe that if only we could, all of us, read the scriptures of the different Faiths from the stand-point of the followers of those faiths, we should find that they were at the bottom, all one and were all helpful to one another.

Belief in one God is the cornerstone of all religions. But I do not foresee a time when there would be only one religion on earth in practice. In theory, since there is one God, there can be only one religion.

The one religion is beyond all speech. Imperfect men put it into such language as they can command, and their words are interpreted by other men equally imperfect. Hence the necessity for tolerance, which does not mean indifference towards one’s own Faith, but a more intelligent and pure love for it.

Living faith in his God means acceptance of the brotherhood of mankind. It also means equal respect for all religions. It would be height of intolerance…to believe that your religion is superior to other religions and that you would be justified in wanting others to change over to your faith.

All worship the same Spirit but as all forms do not agree with all, all names do not appeal to all. Each chooses the name according to his associations and He being the Indweller, All-powerful and Omniscient, knows our innermost feelings and responds to us according to our hearts.

Faith in any form can bring healings of the Heart and Better Endings to those who believe.  

Celebrating St. Francis, A Mystic Healer

 

Prayer is in practice a means of seeking Better Endings. Whether in the form of a petition or surrender, asking for Divine intervention or giving love, or receptively by listening to or connecting with attributes of the Divine in meditative or active contemplation, we pray to focus our human consciousness on Higher Wisdom, to give and or to receive Divine (impersonal, detached) love. And this may indeed foster Better Endings for all concerned, even in the mindful experience of an illuminated consciousness itself.  Singing a mantra, practicing true contemplation, outer prayer, or even prayerful artistic engagement such as creating a mandala or Sufi whirling dervish dancing all can create conditions conducive to healing and Higher Awareness and hence may enhance positive health effects such as lower blood pressure, more serenity and lower stress.

 

We may not all agree as to the best form of prayer based on our individual preferences and religious traditions, but tuning in to Higher Wisdom, love, protection and awareness is in itself a positive action of the human will and Soul that can bring benefits beyond the seeking of assistance or intervention.

The prayer-poem famously attributed to Saint Francis is a prayer of exquisite quality that anyone can use as a template or matrix around which to ground and Center their consciousness.  This is a poem that fosters Healing and Better Endings in all respects:

St. Francis’s Prayer

Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace

This week I invite you to bring St. Francis’s prayer with you in your heart as you go about your day to day affairs. You may wish to print and cut out the prayer poem and place it in visible locations at your office, car or home. At night as you prepare for sleep, you might wish to read the prayer aloud and gently contemplate its relevance to your current life conditions and attitudes.

 

Better Endings to You!

I invite your insights and stories.

Desiderata

I have contemplated an important truth this past week, for myself at least, about archetypal psychology—my own. The goal is always balance and integration, working collaboratively with pairings or with broader clusters or constellations (as I like to think of them) of persona archetype Allies. When I find myself out of balance, it may be that one of these personae is being too dominant, “sticking out like a sore thumb.” That is not who I am…For example, I am not “Elder Leader” or “Warrior” standing alone.  My Nourisher, Mystic, Idealist and even my Descender Ally facets can bring balance to my approach to an endeavor with which Elder Leader or Warrior might be tasked.

Whew!  I cannot be that which I am not; I am not within my holistic, integrated Self an overly rigid, “intransigent” person. Even in a situation that calls for me to exercise a disciplinary action I must find repose and come from a center of balance. Still, I must at the same time own and exercise authority in its rightful scope… :

 After writing all but the last sentence above, I dreamed a type of dream I thought I had transcended: a dream in which, once again, I run from a magnificently graceful, powerful Anima image: I run from owning my own Power and Grace. This time it is Mountain Lion. I am in a city scape with a same-aged, female friend. We approach and pass a female mountain lion, laying in repose along the sidewalk. I urge my friend to run once we pass Her, sensing she will pursue us, as that is Her nature.  Mountain Lioness leaps and knocks me to the pavement softly in one bound. I wait for further action but She hovers over me as if waiting for me to act. AWAKEN.

Two weeks ago while I was already laden with this ongoing test of consciousness, I took a walk with Sophia to a St. Francis retreat center, where in a Garden of Peace I walked right up to the poem-prayer Desiderata, which I recognized immediately was a Healing form of waking dream or golden-tongued wisdom for me at this trying time.

 

So, I/we all move on, always seeking Balance which must be won and re-won with every unfolding adventure. There is always another layer of life lessons to explore and integrate, as best we can in the Moment.

 

Better Endings to YOU!

I  welcome your insights and stories!

 

 

Healing Paws

My heart has been aching this past few weeks as I feel caught between a rock and a hard place in one situation. Fortunately I have my pet companions: my golden Shorkie, Sophie and my two cat friends Emily and Loki . They are together and each one of them a refuge of the heart who engulf me in their own Healer ways as I do them. So today I will post about my animal Soul companions because it lifts my heart to do so.

Emily, Sweetheart

Tomorrow my Emily has to go to the vet to have her teeth cleaned and possibly to have a tooth extracted. Last year she lost her brother Arthur, who apparently had heart failure or a blood clot when he had dental extractions. These current vets I am taking Emily to specialize in cats and give me many reassurances, but until she is well recovered after tomorrow I will worry. She seems to sense this and is staying closer than usual, as if to reassure me herself that all will be well. {PS Tuesday: All is well!}

I always tell my pet companions that I love them for always: “24/7 times eternity!” I know they feel the same about me. They are for me a well in the Desert, sometimes.

Loki, my Lifesaver

(But that’s another story!)

The Healer nature of animal companions reminds me that humans are not the only Soul-embodied beings with archetypal consciousness formations.  Some animals are trained as Warriors or as Nourishers, others are naturally inclined to develop as Healers or even Elder Leaders, and they express their Lover qualities unconditionally–so often better than humans –so long as they are treated with love in turn.

Sophia

(Her name so fits her Wisdom and boundless Joy!)

So lap it up! Enjoy the special healing purrs and comforting paw taps of your sacred animal Friends. They will be there for you Always, no matter your relations with much more (too!) complicated humans.

Be the Healing You Seek

As you—all of us—embody the HEALER Archetype Ally within you, you also may be a healing influence for others.

Allow your Healer to be available not only to you but also through you!

This sort of healing influence that you might naturally bring to a relationship or situation is more often than not indirect and non-directed.  I am not endorsing “laying on of hands” or anything of that nature, as these forms of “healing” can actually be quite invasive or controlling, and I do not support that. Yet being a vehicle of unconditional love or impartial positivity is natural and often may be a helpful agency in itself, even if it is only to lend a shoulder to cry on or in your caring to provide a helpful hand.

Being a calm, centered, patient and positive presence in any situation or circumstance can lead to healing effects on yourself as well as bringing peace or balance to conditions around you. Non-directive prayers of surrendering a situation to Higher Wisdom or the use of centering and uplifting mantra chanting or mindfulness meditations can help you to achieve and maintain the balance you wish to achieve.

I remember a prayer I learned when I was exploring the Baha’i faith many decades ago. I am not sure if this may be from Rumi originally (though it is perhaps more likely from Bahau’allah as it is a Baha’i prayer); its reference to a hollow reed instrument has always reminded me of Rumi’s Song of the Reed. Recently I have found this prayer coming back to my heart awareness, and I am finding there is a reason for that within my life.

I provide a version here from my memory which is very near to a version you can read at www.bahaiquotes.com  :

Oh Lord, make of me a Hollow Reed

Through which the pith of Self hath been blown,

That I may become a clear channel,

Through which Thy Love may flow to others.

Heal Thy SELF

This month I am encouraging you to connect with and to explore your own HEALER Archetype Ally. You know you have one! It is a part of your Self that serves the Whole as a Healer will, watching over your health and prompting choices that result in wellness and growth rather than any self-destructive behaviors or attitudes.

Your HEALER is internal, not external.

Listen to your inner HEALER. He or she is your Ally who is whispering sweet somethings into your ear. What might some of these inner promptings be?

Take that vacation; you have well deserved it!

Let’s watch this program or read this book about brain health, heart health (etc.).

Act on what you are hearing about Co-Q10, magnesium, (etc.)

Here’s a personal example I can share. About a year ago I changed two behaviors relating to my health. I had recently turned 60. First, I woke one morning with just the words “9 years” planted in my awareness. I knew instinctively this meant I could potentially save nine years of my life if I would stop drinking soda. I stopped that day.

A few months later, after having heard several weeks  earlier that the second of two aunts on my mother’s side had been dealing with brain tumors, as I went to sleep I heard “brain tumor,” which was a bit of a shock. All night I seem to have been dreaming about that. Then as I awoke, again in that fertile awareness between sleeping and waking, I heard and saw printed in my ‘mind’s eye’: LYSINE – L. I had never even heard consciously about this amino acid before. I did some research to  find only that it is helpful as a supplement to help with collagen. I have taken it ever since. Most interesting is that this past summer while I was able to visit with my Aunt Karis, who had a tumor affecting her optical nerve successfully removed by surgery, she told me her and my other aunt’s tumors were not cancerous but benign.  Lysine then made sense more than before!

I am always grateful for the inner guidance I  receive, and I thank my inner Healer for helping me remain open and receptive to information from the Higher dimensions and unconscious domains that help me to accept higher wisdom.

What’s Around the Bend?

Here’s a fun game you can use to contemplate your own Better Endings. Think of a situation in your life that could have multiple outcomes. Draw a circle that fits just within an 8 ½ x 11” page.  List several possible outcomes (without judging them) and then create as many pie slices—PLUS ONE—as you have listed possible outcomes. Write an outcome onto each pie slice, saving the extra slice for OTHER.

Next, get a piece of any-colored, medium thick construction paper.  Cut out the circle on the pie slices page and then use that circle as a guide to cut out the same sized circle from the construction paper. Also draw and then cut out a hole on the construction paper radiating from the center and exactly the same size as ONE pie slice. Please leave yourself some space between the very center and where this cut-out on the construction paper occurs.

 

Now then, punch one hole to insert a brass push-clasp through the very center, the kind where you can open the two brass wings to secure your two pages together at the middle, so that your pie slice alternate outcome descriptions face toward the back of your construction page circle. If you like you can write the situation whose multiple endings you are contemplating outside on the top construction page circle.

Now you are free to swerve the construction paper circle on its axis, exposing one pie slice option at a time. Which option feels most desirable to you? You can journal, write about or talk with a friend about the option you like most and how you might best be able to bring about that outcome.

What is ONE THING you can do now or in the foreseeable future to move you definitely in the direction of realizing your favorite outcome? This action is a SEED for your Better Ending.

Write out a PLAN for realizing this Better Ending, and in your life start taking all of the ACTIONS you have envisioned according to your design.

When you focus your pie slice on a less desirable option, you can also think or write or talk about how to prevent that outcome from occurring.

Have Fun! I welcome your insights and stories.

Walking the Labyrinth Path

Last weekend a friend came to visit. We reconnected by visiting an area where we once shared a home, and near there we walked an outdoor labyrinth on monastery grounds near our old home. While we sat on a bench waiting for another pair to complete their walk, first my friend found a beautiful red and white spotted feather from a bird (flicker?) that flew overhead; the bird then joined several others in the nearby trees. Then I looked to  the North and watched an amazing, unusual being walk stealthily past: what appeared to me to be a coyote/wolf mix  (or perhaps a stray Russian wolfhound or hybrid)! He turned his head to watch us as he continued along with his own quest.

In Native American “power animal” symbology, sometimes a flicker (woodpecker) can mean a move/ relocation; a coyote/wolf hybrid could mean something that “helps you see your own mistake” (coyote) and “being a Pathfinder” (wolf).

So then we walked the Labyrinth (a Chartres modelled rose path). The slow winding pathway is so liberating to the mind and heart; with every turn your contemplation deepens. At times when you seem very close to the Center you are actually far away, and when you feel most far away you are but around the bend to Home, the Center that represents Self-Realization or God-Awareness.

At the Center of this labyrinth someone had created a heart shape made of small reddish rocks, and both my friend and I deposited something meaningful into the heart. Then we walked back out, for myself I would say feeling less encumbered than on the way in.

As if this labyrinth walk were not enough, the very next day my friend took her son and his girlfriend back to that same labyrinth, and I took my dog Sophie on a walk at a Franciscan Retreat Center where—guess what?—I fairly stumbled upon yet another Chartres style outdoor Labyrinth!

(I found this on Zillow today while surfing online for homes for sale near where I will retire in 3 years.  I actually do intend to have a labyrinth there, so this was such a strong sign of confirmation!)

So again I was able to walk the Labyrinthine path. This is a great way to “center”; to examine and release your thoughts about any situation and symbolically to reconnect with your own inner divinity. At a time in my life when I am facing a difficult ordeal at the workplace, the Labyrinth helps me to “unwind” the  complex weave.

In the Labyrinth nothing external seems too heavy or important.

The Labyrinth Path leads Home!

 

 

Time Heals All Wounds

Is Time really a Healer? What wisdom does this age-old adage impart?  Time heals by allowing you to readjust or to establish a new set of conditions that have changed in some manner after an event that might have felt wounding: harmful or grievous or disastrous even, “back then” when the change first occurred.

Time brings us around some major bend in our Life Path that ultimately can result in “better endings.”

But, how? I am reminded of Garth Brooks’ song lyrics to “Unanswered Prayers” :
“Unanswered Prayers”

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/garthbrooks/

unansweredprayers.html

Just the other night at a hometown football game

My wife and I ran into my old high school flame

And as I introduced them the past came back to me

And I couldn’t help but think of the way things used to be

She was the one that I’d wanted for all times

And each night I’d spend prayin’ that God would make her mine

And if he’d only grant me this wish I wished back then

I’d never ask for anything again

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

She wasn’t quite the angel that I remembered in my dreams

And I could tell that time had changed me

In her eyes too it seemed

We tried to talk about the old days

There wasn’t much we could recall

I guess the Lord knows what he’s doin’ after all

And as she walked away and I looked at my wife

And then and there I thanked the good Lord

For the gifts in my life

Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs

That just because he may not answer doesn’t mean he don’t care

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered

Some of God’s greatest gifts are all too often unanswered…

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers

So… thank heaven for some of our unanswered prayers, or for any condition in our life that changes unexpectedly, often undesirably.  Change can lead us down unanticipated pathways that can produce surprising benefits ‘down the road,’ and so often we cannot tell from here and now where that unexpected change could lead to!

For example, we might lose a job we have been feeling stuck in for some time but would not have sought to change but for being laid off or “moved along.” Yet this sudden change might prompt us to move to a new location where eventually we might meet the love of our life or develop talents we had been neglecting.

Spirit or the “universe” may ‘know’ better than we do with our minds what path is our true destination. So listen closely to your heart when change comes calling; perhaps it is calling you Home!

Life is Better Endings with the Healer as Your Ally

What, to you, is a “better ending”? Whether we apply this notion to a preferred fictional ending in novels or films or to outcomes in our own life conditions, a better ending is in some fashion more satisfying or ultimately more fulfilling for all concerned, even if it is not necessarily happier than some other conclusion or set of conditions.

This month we will focus around the metaphor of life as better endings, pairing this with the collective and personal archetype of the HEALER.

Certainly a Healer might facilitate or impart a better ending, whether by effecting a cure or healing of an illness or in some other manner improving upon a set of deleterious or less than ideal circumstances. I like the notion of my personal archetypal HEALER Ally–a part of my greater Self–having the capacity, the agency, to bring about better endings in my life. I can look to this part of mySelf–and you to yours–for healing a broken heart or to seek a solution that improves upon an out of balance situation.

So I invite you this month to get more in touch with your own inner HEALER and to contemplate the meaning of potential Better Endings in your life. Always feel free to share your insights or stories (which I would publish here).