For A Kinder, Gentler World

As I conclude this month of pairing the Lover archetype Ally with the postulate to Live Your Dream, Now! I find within some personal reflections and insights from this segment of the journey.

For myself I  realize how sensitive—not fragile but acutely aware of my own and others’ feelings—my Lover persona can be. It is tender and vulnerable and you know what? I like that about me…er, about that aspect of my integrated Self. I protect this tender, heart dwelling Lover nature, and I value her presence and her willingness to ‘hang in there’ with me, even though often she must submerge into the unconscious reservoir to refresh and renew her own nature.

For those not familiar with the understanding of archetypal energies and specifically about unconscious persona archetype energies that influence and can contribute either in Strength or Shadow manner to our conscious constructions and expressions of Self (á la Jung or Hillman or other popular authors or herein), let me reassure you that becoming aware of and connecting willfully with your sometimes ‘buried’ archetypal personae does not make you “multiple” or schizophrenic. In fact, as all these authors would note, it is in aligning with and working to strengthen, illuminate and ally with our archetypal personae—which all of us have at least latently in human consciousness or what Jung called Psyche—the resulting individuation and integration forges a much more balanced, aware, and dynamic Self that is closer to expressing our full Soul potentials in this world.

But back to the Lover seeking to Live my Dream, Now! This month she has shown me through her tender sensibilities how hard this world can sometimes be. Not always, of course (fortunately!). But in our urbane world often people are not led primarily by their own loving natures so much as by the Mind or by the Rule (Elder Leader energies).  My sensitive Lover persona runs for cover when I bump up against someone’s anger or cold indifference, though I realize it is simply the way of the world I live in to throw such energies about, some times. I too have to sometimes muster my own Elder Leader traits to meet such interactions ‘head on’. I try to do so in a balanced way, as far as possible to bring a greater balance to my environment. Sometimes it is necessary to be firm.

So I realize it is in part my Lover persona who seeks a Kinder, Gentler World. That is one reason I am intending to retire to a small rural town soon enough. I look forward to walks along the lake and in the nearby parks and moving gently through lake water in a rowboat or small motorboat or canoe or kayak. I envision walking with my Soul companion Sophie (my Shorkie), and cuddling with her and with my furry cat friends. Well, of course I do that already! To the extent we daydream we create the life of our dreams here and now; we do not have to wait to Live Your Dream, Now!, which is the very point after all, n’est-ce pas?

May You Dream Your Dream and Live It Daily!

I welcome your insights, always.

What Would Love Do Now?

Love is the moving force of Creation for all forms. We might say it is God Itself in motion in our lives. Love is that vital, positive energy that forges connections between any two or more beings who are open to and accepting of one another.

This past weekend in Minneapolis I felt like I was at a love fest of sorts; a global spiritual conference (the 50^th anniversary Eckankar Worldwide Seminar) with over 7,000 souls attending from 59 countries. Amazing to be in that high concentration of positive creative energy for a few days. While there, I came up with today’s topic: What Would Love Do Now?

Any way in which you might feel stymied or held back in your life, you can ask yourself this question. Using your capacity to LOVE, what can you do to go beyond these self-limitations and proceed forward to reach your goal with this or any situation?

I have been asking inwardly why things move so slowly with creative projects.  I opened a spiritual book “anywhere” and found my answer directly: “Release your fear and speak to people about (your project). There will be plenty of opportunities!” Wow! That is indeed what love can help me to do; love is the opposite of fear and it is true I have been holding back in some quarters from speaking about my work, but it is indeed time to step forward.

What about you? What would Love do Now, for you? What action can you take of a loving nature that can overcome obstacles and remove unnecessary barriers or roadblocks?

Put your Lover Archetype Ally in the drivers seat this week, and let It steer your course.

images from pixabay.com

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

HOLD FAST TO YOUR DREAMS

I have never forgotten two poems by Langston Hughes that I first encountered in a high school segment in my English class about the Harlem Renaissance movement in literature. Both these poems are about the importance of having and realizing your Dreams.  Whether you relate these poems to your personal LIFE DREAM or to a more political notion such as in Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream!” speech, the value of holding to your dreams and to your collective Dream is the same.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore, and then run?

Maybe it just stinks, like rotten meat…

Or crusts and sugars over, like a syrupy sweet.

Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load…

Or does it explode?

The importance of having a Dream, of being a Dreamer, is fundamental in all approaches to self-development and to spiritual practices, isn’t it? Our imagination, the ability to creatively envision a ‘better ending’ to any situation you are in or that we face in society, is our greatest strength. To dream is to transcend, to free yourself from undue self-limitations, to soar.

So here’s the second reminder from Langston Hughes  (http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dreams-2/) :

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

images from pixabay.com

 

Do What You Love, Love What You Do

We are all inherently Lovers as we have the LOVER archetype as one of our universal unconscious potentials. Of course this takes different forms for different persons and changes over time.  Perhaps if we think of each of our primary archetypal energies as having their own life cycles within the overall life course of the Self or Psyche, we can observe how these energies shift form as we develop our personalities or identity over time. For me at 61, my LOVER energies are as strong as ever, but they are focused very differently than earlier in my  life.

Nowadays my LOVER is in love with Life in the largest sense, and with my pets, close family, friends, and more impersonally with colleagues and students, and it drives me forward with my writing toward fruition: publishing and sharing. It keeps me moving forward no matter how long it may take, because I love the process as well as the emerging product and I am grateful for the opportunities available along every step of the Way.

Do You Love What You Do? Is that the same for you as Doing What You Love, or, not? 

How can you transition from loving what you do to truly and completely DOING WHAT YOU LOVE? What would that look like for you? How might you enhance even what you presently love doing in order for your life to manifest core values and ideals that you associate with your LIFE DREAM, right NOW?

I encourage you to take some time out to consider this question. Daydream about DOING WHAT YOU LOVE. Journal about it; actively contemplate and envision your Dream Come True. You can ask your LOVER archetype in active imagination to help you visualize and imagine deeply DOING WHAT YOU LOVE, Full Throttle. Then consider, is there anything you can be doing Now to help you merge these two dimensions of loving what you do/ doing what you love, more fully?

I welcome your insights and stories!

The Beatles On LOVE

I’ve been to the Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show in Las Vegas. As a Beatles fan from the beginning here in the states–I was about 12 years old when they made their first visit to the US–, I loved this show!

The Cirque du Soleil Beatles LOVE show tells the story of the Fab Four’s journey in the context of world history and as a phenomenal energy that transformed the world, not just the world of music but their lyrics and BEAT expressed the values and ideals of a transformative generation.

When I was a teenager, I was grounded once by my father for defending the Beatles’ music as being “all about love.” “So, what do YOU know about love?” asked my conservative minded father. Actually that question of his has stuck with me always. What DO I really know about love?

But love is not necessarily something one needs to know about, right? We FEEL our way through life via love. I now believe love to be the very essence and the progressive, healing substance of life Itself. When life goes forward (is not static or in decline) it is love that propels that advancement of purpose, awareness, or of love itself as its own blessing.

So how can you use love, or your current version of archetypal LOVER energies, to “Live Your Dream, Now,” which is this month’s theme here at Better Endings? Let’s turn this over to the Fab Four for insights.

• Love is all you need:

There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy

There’s nothing you can make that can’t be made
No one you can save that can’t be saved
Nothing you can do but you can learn to be you in time

It’s easy

All you need is love
All you need is love
All you need is love, love
Love is all you need
Beatles – All You Need Is Love Lyrics | MetroLyrics http://www.metrolyrics.com/all-you-need-is-love-lyrics-beatles.html

• Let It Be

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be

Read more: Beatles – Let It Be Lyrics | MetroLyrics

• It’s a long and winding road that leads us HOME:

Many times I’ve been alone
And many times I’ve cried
Any way you’ll never know
The many ways I’ve tried

But still they lead me back
To the long winding road
You left me standing here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/beatles/the+long+and+winding+road_10026544.html

   And in the End…

The love you take

Is equal to the love

You make.

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-end-lyrics-beatles.html

All images from pixabay.com

Authenticity

   

Tired of lies

People tell themselves

Of each other, of themselves.

Like a child I cry out

When there is no one there

Who listens,  to reply.

As a child I cry out, “love me”

Yet there is no one who can

reply beyond their lie

To themselves, of each other.

So to the Inner Master I cry out,

He replies as always,

“I love you, too!”

pictures from pixabay.com

To “live your dream, now” means practicing the core values you aim to manifest in your fulfilled life experience NOW, as a way of living INTO manifesting the totality of your Life Dream.  Authenticity is one of my core values. What are yours?

Make One Change, with Love

Is your life absolutely perfect right now, or are there maybe one or more conditions in your life presently that you hope will be improved upon in your future?

Here’s a thought: Make One Change Now, with Love! This banks on the principle that “With love, all things are possible!”  Taken with a grain of salt, we could change that to, “All things can be improved upon through love.”  Not all things can be changed absolutely; some we must simply endure, but even these we can improve our relationship to, improving our growth factor, through a positive attitude and a loving heart.

So take some situation that is problematic for you at the current time. A simple creative visualization technique you can use is to bring a loving focus to that situation inwardly. Turn it over in your mind’s eye gently, exploring the situation from many angles. Focus on the situation with a loving perspective. What one or more aspects of this situation CAN you improve upon? Maybe it involves honest communication, with yourself or someone else. Maybe you can make an improvement by changing the manner in which you have typically approached it. Decide to make a positive change in this one aspect of the troubling situation, then do that!

If you are unsatisfied with any aspect of your life, you have the capacity to make changes—from small to large—that will improve that situation. With LOVE, all things are possible!

A few days ago a friend, Kery, posted the passage below from Corinthians 13 in a Facebook post that she titled: “Love is Indispensable”. I repeat it for you here below:
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but I do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
 
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in parts disappears.”

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as on a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

(Corinthians 13) 

(All pictures in this post are from Pixabay.com)

I welcome your insights and stories!

 

Vinci cum Amor, or, Act on your Dreams!

This week I have had two dreams, the second of which this morning was clearly a blog gift dream for this month’s theme of partnering with your Lover archetype Ally to Live Your Dream, Now!

A little backstory first: I have been waiting for nearly three months on a stipend check from an international university, for service I have given on a Masters committee for one of their students. Lately there has been  some angst on my part because their financial office is telling me I need a “swift code” for my bank in order for them to complete the transaction, and my bank does not use swift codes.

So the first dream, which I had a few days ago after having sent a rather stressed out email to the international university’s  staff who had informed me about the glitch mentioned above, presented me as being too demanding and overbearing, standing at a banker’s window. I was making the clerk there very nervous. He sirred me (I get that sometimes because I have a low voice and might interact in a “masculine” manner just from being a professor): “Excuse, Sir!” (My retort: “I am a woman!”) then the clerk turns the whole matter over to a superior, who does not seem at all inclined to be helpful.

I woke from this dream aware that I had better ease up on this guy by email. So I sent another email, this one thanking him and simply expressing my concern over the situation.

Second dream then, this morning:

Someone who is a student I am working with in the dream is taking fencing lessons from me. (I was a competitive foil fencer in college and for many years after.) An older person says to the student:

“Follow your Teacher’s (my) famous words, “Vinci cum Amor!”

I woke with that fine phrase turning over and over in my mind:

“Victory with Love!” (or, ‘Conquer with Love’)… Vinci Cum Amor. 

When I looked up the Latin word for ‘love’ today to try to be accurate in sharing (Amor? Amore?), online I found this site (click here), about Virgil’s very similar famous line:

“Amor Vincit Omnia,” “love conquers all things.”

And so it does. Victory with love; approach your goal with love. Sometimes we must compete or act assertively, but we can—I can—do so with impersonal, detached Love instead of aggression.

In fencing I found that loving the sport, bouting for the sheer joy of heartful competition–to hone and gracefully engage my abilities–was always more successful than ‘fighting’… because it issued from and expressed a mindful Balance!  Sword-play trumped a ‘battle of wills’—or, blades—any day.

Besides, it was so much more fun!

How can you apply the credo of VINCI CUM AMOR in your own life?

I believe in paying attention to and learning from my dreams; this allows me to work in tandem with Spirit and my Inner Guidance according to my own higher consciousness…with support from my Archetype Allies!  Today while reflecting on this dream theme, I read a signpost along the roadside that said: “WE FLY WITH YOU!” THANKS, inner Guides and Archetype Allies!!! I fly with and for you, too!

I welcome your own stories and insights!

Love Overcomes Fear

I am reblogging two passages about how the Lover archetype in us all can help us attain happiness and be of service to life. These are from a daily message my sister, Rev. Lee Ireland, received and posted in Facebook last week:

There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.
– John Lennon

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
– Dalai Lama

Happily Ever After

 

What do we so love about classic love stories? We call true love of a romantic sort ‘kismet’; two wandering souls find in each other a magical congruence or mysterium coniunctionum that lifts each of them to greater at-One-ment not only with one another but within their unified Selves or however the story defines the enhanced quality of these ‘charmed’ lovers being able to Live Their Dream, Now! (i.e. to “live happily, ever after”).

Mythology and literature, drama and film and poetry—all artistic forms of expression—are replete with the image of predestined lovers finding each other and in the process, finding or completing their Selves.

Many of the great love stories bring major change into the lovers’ lives. They thought they would “settle,” but no, the Universe has another plan for them. They stumble upon each other as a form of serendipity and as if it is unavoidable, they take notice and take the plunge! “Happily Ever After” awaits—so we are told anyway—just around the bend.

Let’s review some modern love stories from cinema:

Casablanca

Here Bogart as Rick Blain sacrifices his own feelings of devotion to Ilsa, an old love, for the better, higher interests of all concerned. His heart changes as a result; he drops remorse for his earlier loss and attains a higher perspective.

An Affair to Remember

Here Deborah Kerr (as Terry McKay) finds her one true if unlikely love while on an ocean cruise, just before each of them is scheduled to marry the fiancees awaiting their return. Both are willing to make sacrifices in order to ultimately be together. Cary Grant (as Nick Ferrante) renounces his inheritance to earn a living through his art—forging a more authentic Self in the process—while Terry almost sacrifices the love affair altogether after suffering an accident that paralyzes her. She wants to be whole and able to carry her own part if she is to deserve to marry Nick. But Kismet has its way, weaving a pathway by which these predestined lovers are able to unite in the End.

Sleepless in Seattle/ You’ve Got Mail

Nora Ephron produced a pair of similar contemporary tales of Kismet, even casting the same two lover-actors with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  Sleepless in Seattle alludes back to An Affair to Remember, having the lovers eventually connect, as based on that film, at the top of the Empire State building, achieving an apex of higher connection. With You’ve Got Mail the star-crossed lovers meet online as well as outwardly, needing to each transcend their Pride (Joe Fox) and Prejudice (Kathleen Kelly)—yes, based on that Jane Austen allusion—before they can earn their own balanced love that will suit them from then forth, “happily ever after.”

In all three of these ‘classic’ films, Love does more than simply triumph by bringing appropriate partners together into longterm romantic relationships. It cancels the inappropriate, immature relations they had been settling for or holding onto in memory while preparing each lover to gain self-realization so that their ultimate, true marriage can ring true and benefit the Whole of their families and worlds.

Do you have a tale of kismet to share? I welcome your insights and stories!

Envision Your Dream, Daily

There’s a principle referred to in many meditative traditions called “Dying Daily.” This means that every day as you practice contemplation or meditation you SURRENDER. In a way you are surrendering your ‘old self’ to be reborn to the ‘new’, daily.

So, here’s a thought. Remember to DREAM daily. By this I mean, envision your Life Dream every day, knowing that your Present exists in relationship with this desired future condition! Then every day you are living INTO your “dream come true.”

Many years ago I made a huge transition when I moved from Buffalo, New York (a lifelong Easterner til then) to Phoenix, Arizona (Out West). Every night for the year preceding this big move, I contemplated and asked questions inwardly  about this momentous turning point.  I work spiritually as many do with an Inner Guide figure, which helps me to focus on gaining higher awareness.  And every night, my question would be answered in a dream. One night, I woke with an actual song jingle and melody:

“I’m leaving, but there are a few doors left to close before I get over there.”

For the rest of the six months or so before my Great Adventure West, I sang this song frequently every day. Meanwhile I also taped pictures from SEDONA LIFE Magazine, a wonderful photojournalist sort of magazine depicting the amazing red rocks and canyons of Sedona, Arizona onto my office wall.

I was PREPARING, both outwardly and inwardly; orienting toward the new life I was about to assume with this trip upon which I was about to embark. The song lyric helped me realize every day that every action I was taking was movng me in the direction of this transformational life experience.

My move from Buffalo to Phoenix was indeed transformational! I became an anthropologist and experienced the Southwest and Native American cultures like I never could even have imagined as an Easterner.

So, what is YOUR DREAM around the horizon of some major departure? IMAGINE it daily; place PICTURES of your destination in your mind … and on your walls.  LIVE your dream now, in your imagination. Contemplate it, meditate about it. Surrender to its amazing potentials.

Now as I approach returning ‘back East’ for transitioning into the next stage of my life in 3 years, on my computer desktop I have a sepia postcard of the lake I will relocate near. Along the right of my screen is the lakeside  shoreline, winding up and around toward a clock tower that represents the very town I will be moving to. So, I have copied and pasted a little rowboat icon onto the base of this shoreline. Now every time I take some action in my daily life that moves me somehow closer to realizing this Big Move, I move the rowboat icon up the shoreline just a bit, closer to my Dream destination.

What are you doing or what might you do to ENVISION your future Dream come true? I welcome your insights and stories!

 

Be a Magnet of Love, for Love to Show the Way

For October we are conjoining the archetype of the Lover with the postulate, Live Your Dream, Now. With love all things are possible. This is especially true of unconditional love, the sort that the Divine or the Creator or Grand Designer–however we relate to that principle in our own lives–has for Its creation.

Here is a favorite passage of mine about love, from Stranger by the River, by Paul Twitchell:

“Speak to me of love, O Master!”

…” Love is not a matter of belief. It is a matter of demonstration. It is not a question of authority, but one of perception and action.

“The requirements of growth demand that you exert the greatest degree of love for what is perfectly in accord with Soul. Our highest happiness will best be attained through our understanding of, and conscious cooperation with, the divine law.

“It is love that imparts vitality to our minds and hearts and enables it to germinate. The law of love will bring to you all necessity for your spiritual growth and maturity.

“Therefore, if you desire love, try to realize that the only way to get love is by giving love. That the more you give, the more you get; and the only way in which you can give is to fill yourself with it, until you become a magnet for love.

“God love has for its goal the creation of the highest form, and you must know that the individual love is likewise forever attempting to express itself in form, and to give Soul the highest architecture of spiritual attainment.”

 

 

 

Live Your Dream, Now!

“Live Your Dream, Now!” is the  credo for the personal development handbook Your Life Path, which I currently am waiting for my agent to begin circulating after she attends to a major “launch” and probably some other projects.  Your Life Path will provide a complete, three stage rites of passage process for which you will be able to use life mapping and other creative self-discovery tools to uncover patterns and archetypal influences in your own Life Story that have been helping or hindering you from actively claiming and fulfilling your Life Mission and, yes, Living Your Dream, Now.

Living your dream NOW means that after you claim or excavate your goals and can identify the Strengths you have developed through overcoming challenges and learning valuable Life Lessons, you can begin Here and Now to conduct your day to day life integrating the values you desire to be expressing with the realization of your highest sense of purpose and adventure.

This month we are exploring the principle Live Your Dream, Now as a positive affirmation and postulate.  Consider first, then, do you presently even ‘have’ a Dream; or, how do you currently conceive of and envision your Life Dream? What would your life look like if you were exactly where you would wish to be living, doing precisely what you would most love to be doing in your IDEAL future scenario?

Or are you already Living Your Dream? Even if the life you are living fulfills you, where is it leading for you? I believe human consciousness or perhaps even all sentient beings strive not just for survival on a daily basis but also for self-transcendence. We want our Tomorrows to be ever more spectacular, even if we are the best we have ever been right Now.

Here is a Future Life Mapping Tool: Create a Game of LIFE game board that includes the sorts of twists and turns you can anticipate passing through along the winding road of your own Life Journey from Now toward some Future life scenario in which you have fulfilled your life goals. You can do this with a friend or family member and talk about each other’s game boards.

I like the Wizard of OZ game of LIFE version because it reminds me very clearly of Life Mapping. Dorothy begins on her Aunt and Uncle’s farm in Kansas, of course, and she and the rest of her archetypal ensemble cast members weave and wend their way through ordeals and tests, making choices along the way and gaining salaries (rewards). Eventually they return HOME, of course, having gained much of value along the Way.

Joseph Campbell, the world famous comparative mythologist who gave us The Hero with 1000 Faces recognized that the Hero’s Adventure that we are naturally all set upon in the journey of a lifetime always leads HOME.

So let’s start there this month. Where truly is your Mythic HOME? Set that as your destination on your game board of LIFE!

I welcome your insights and please share with us your life mapping results!!!