Cycles Within Cycles of Healing / A Long and Winding Road

Chartres Cathedral  Labyrinth  Chemin Neuf

©jillkhgeoffrion www.jillgeoffrion.com, www.praywithjillatchartres.com

I’d like to add a postscript to my Sunday post last week about Walking the Labyrinth: A Healing Path. Part of the healing nature of walking a labyrinth, for me, and about invoking the Inner Healer Archetype while walking a labyrinth, is the very physical fact of TURNING, with 180 degree turns, throughout the pathway. You walk a segment of the path, pause, then turn around and go back over an adjacent segment until that comes to a turning point too. An online site I have read says there are some 112 such turnabouts or Turning Points within the Chartres Rose Labyrinth (shown above with gratitude to the photographer cited). This process of walking and turning about is a physical manifestation of the principle of Cycles within Cycles.

Isn’t any PROCESS, certainly including a Healing Process, a sometimes long and winding path with many turns, with many cycles within cycles of the WHOLE process over space-time? I leave it to each of you to ponder or contemplate the significance of this observation with regard to your own PROCESS situations.

A PROCESS brings one from position A to some destination, say X.  The pathway leading from A to X is the process itself, at least outwardly. So, what are the many turns along the way about?

Stepping back two steps to go forward three? That could be one sort of Process. How might that be helpful?

images except otherwise cited are from pixabay.com

For fun, select and click:  to listen to Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s beautiful song: “The Long and Winding Road”. Here are their lyrics:

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to you door

The wild and windy night
That the rain washed away
Has left a pool of tears
Crying for the day
Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way

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 waiting here
A long long time ago
Don’t leave me standing here
Lead me to your door

Songwriters
JOHN LENNON, PAUL MCCARTNEY

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-long-and-winding-road-lyrics-beatles.html

I invite your Comments and Stories!

A Victory Cry

Last time I invited you to compose a Fight Call as a positive affirmation from your internal Warrior  Ally. The other side of the Fight Call or War Song is the VICTORY CRY. And because my own Fight Call (“Remember to Surrender / Always Give UP!”) seems to have worked fortunately for me this past week, I am ready to declare a Victory Cry:

Yes, Gratitude is my Victory Cry; after long patience and persistence, finally my book project (proposal) will begin to be circulated this coming week. I am deeply grateful to my agent for this, and to Spirit for bringing this about. It is a significant step in a long process of unfolding, so I am grateful for the unfolding of PROCESS for its own sake.

What is YOUR Victory Cry? You may print this out and write in the space below:

_____________________________________________________________

Here are some more examples:

Ah-iyaiya-iyaiYA! (Tarzan’s call)

We did it! Yay!

Onward!

images from pixabay.com

Live Your Dream, Now!

This week is the final week of a six month process at Better Endings. Over the past six months this site has presented a series of topics to help you to establish a Vision for your future Life Path; a Life Dream that you CAN manifest fully. This Life Dream is not intended as “just a dream” nor as a product of “magical thinking.” Your Life Dream is to be LIVED, not merely imagined. It represents not the Impossible, but the POSSIBLE and even the PROBABLE, so long as you nurture and cultivate this Reality that is Parallel to the life you are currently enacting.

Between the present life you are living and the Now you are living so far imaginatively with your Life Dream, there are connections that should not be overlooked.  What are they? In other words, I believe you would not even be able to conceive of a Life Dream except that there are key elements of your present life that will give rise to the Reality of your Life Dream Achieved, so long as you nurture and develop these.

Over the past few weeks my own Life Dream has become clearer for me; now I desire to create a Life Dreams Institute (whereas before, I envisioned a Life Paths Institute; now I see a much greater potential emerging.) Elements present in my life now that can allow me to manifest this Dream include this blog and the book manuscript and Life Mapping Handbook it represents, along with retirement savings which I have been talking with professionals about, and the realization of where I want to relocate to in order to establish such a ‘retreat’ locale. Of course there is MUCH yet to transpire, much to nurture and to accommodate as I proceed step by step in the pursuit of my life goals. Much can change in the process, too; it is always wisest to be FLEXIBLE in relation to your Life Dream. The Universe/ Spirit will show you more over time and will lead you to the highest expression of your Dream, if you let It.

What is required of you and of me is faith and persistence; trust and a willingness to stay true to your Dream.

Today then, I invite you to contemplate your current life IN RELATION TO your fully realized Life Dream. What are you doing now or what could you be doing, now or in the near future, that can help to pave the way to the gradual realization of your Life Dream Achieved? Perhaps there is ONE THING you can set into motion which will orient your Life Path toward fulfilling your goals. What IS IT? Engage in an Active Imagination/meditation/contemplation so you can visualize your Next Step, your One Thing you can do to keep you moving in the right direction.

PLease don’t interpret me to ever be saying that I would see your or my own life Now as being deficient in any way! Where we are Now is the fulfillment of where we have oriented ourselves up TO now, isn’t it? To me that is an empowering perspective.  We are the Creators of the life we are living (hopefully in tandem with our divine given talents and potentials).

Live your Dream, NOW! Means that your Life Dream will never magically pop into existence. It requires your creative envisioning and your active participation and contemplation to gradually apply the Law of Manifestation so to bring it INTO existence, in the ever-expanding and transformative NOW. (I am linking to some earlier blog ideas if you’d like to retrace some of the steps we have taken through this process.)

I invite your Comments and Stories.

What is your Next Step, Now?

 

WHAT IS YOUR NEXT STEP?

Action, like a sacrament,
is the visible form
of an invisible spirit,
an outward manifestation
of an inner power.

~ Parker Palmer ~

(The picture and quote above are from Theresa of Soul Gatherings [click to link].)

This week I have been focusing on tools to help you manifest your Life Dream. First you can envision your Future Goal deeply (see Sunday’s post). Then you can contemplate a pathway that leads from where you are Now to the gradual realization of your Goal achieved (see Tuesday’s post). Today I invite you to focus on discovering your NEXT STEP in the direction of manifesting your Goal. The difference between “magical thinking” and effective implementation of the law of Manifestation can be summed up in the concepts of VISION plus ACTION. Clearly envisioning your goal allows you to create a Plan of Action that will deliver you TO your goal, step by step. The ‘trick’ is to establish a practical yet at the same time a creative and idealistic or value based Process.

I invite you to review the Yellow Brick Road life path image from Tuesday’s post (reprinted here above). Here you were invited to fill in the winding path to a meaningful life goal by envisioning stages or phases you can anticipate experiencing en route to realizing your goal, or your Bliss. If you completed that game board design, you can review it now again. If not, I invite you to create one. Choose a Goal that you truly hope to manifest on your own road to fulfillment of your life Purpose or Mission.

Now then, zoom in on what you have included or described on this game board “life path” as your very next phase or stage of the Life Path journey you have envisioned toward your Goal. Focus only on that next phase itself to explore and expose more deeply. Now then, what ACTION STEPS can you take NOW in your life or in the foreseeable/ plannable future in order to accomplish this one next phase of your journey en route to your more distant, Bliss related Goal? Focussing in what you can do NOW helps you to establish MOVEMENT in the direction of your Goal, to overcome any inertia based on how far away your goal might seem.

Explore and more fully develop this one next phase, only. Create a Plan of Action that will manifest this next step. When you focus on “one step at a time,” before you know it you will be well on the Road to YOUR GOAL!

I invite and welcome all of your Comments and Stories!

The Process of Manifestation

There is nothing more satisfying for me in this life than engaging a project—especially one with creative and service aspects—from inception/conception through to implementation, delivery or performance. I find the process or the principle of Manifestation to be exciting, challenging and deeply fulfilling. This might take the form of something as simple as designing a curriculum (as a teacher) and then delivering the course over a semester, or organizing and presenting a workshop series or an individual life coaching program.  Recently–as an example of the law or principle of Manifestation–I engaged a group of ten students in a research project about perspectives relating to Natural Resources and Sustainability that has led to a full panel presentation at a major conference in Vegas two weeks ago and will go forward further to a community and campus workshop in the Fall and potentially four publications.

It all starts with an idea, a focus to place your creative attention upon. The first step in this process or Law of Manifestation is Vision or envisioning a desired goal accomplished. Then comes the process itself, involving ideation and planning and requiring flexibility and adaptability. As the research class was forming our interview survey instruments for this sustainability project, for instance, a 100 year flood occurred in our state of Colorado, with smaller but damaging floods also in our own area. So we added pictures of the flood including a flooded oil well and gas drill derrick and included questions about these on our survey.

Then comes diligence and dedication to do the required work as a labor of love with respect to the mission or goals of the project and its desirable outcomes. The students interviewed some 50 people and I taught them how to code their interview data in a computer software program to study patterns in the responses in relation to the backgrounds of the interview respondents. They discovered some emerging themes, such as that some perspectives were polarized as a chasm between perspectives, while other issues produced shared understandings, a potential Bridge.  This process of arriving at findings and producing results—whether in a study like this or in writing or art or for a performance event—is the heart of the endeavor. It grows from trial, continual editing, receptiveness to insights, expansion or winnowing, and inspiration.

When the research team arrived at meaningful results that they were excited about wanting to share and to apply, I knew they were ready to do a presentation. They worked in smaller teams to refine their findings and write papers for a panel, then we went to Las Vegas for the conference that had invited the panel. While in Vegas, we listened to all of each others’ presentations, refined the powerpoint slides, and conducted further editing and polishing for an oral presentation.

The time came to present the panel. The students were excellent! They shared interesting findings and were able to field a wide range of questions. Next we will present the panel back at our home locality, inviting the interview respondents for a feedback discussion and workshop. We aim to help people come together around these issues rather than remaining in polarized positions. Especially given the urgency of recent wildfires, drought and flooding in our state, we believe our findings indicate that this is a community ready to address difficult issues such as how, for instance, to realistically bridge to alternative energy sources.

So, manifestation or implementation are all about vision, dedication, flexibility, focus, and the intention to deliver useful, meaningful or inspiring insights that can be of benefit to those for whom the presentation is applied or performed. It is important to envision a complete though flexible process, to flow from inception or an IDEA to its full development and useful or meaningful sharing, rather than having a step here or a thought there, but without a fully integrated procedure or body of material.

I share this as an inspiration to anyone who wishes to manifest a concept or to effectively express a ‘big’ idea.  Allow the process to unfold and wend from its point of inspiration to its delivery. Then it becomes its own gift, with a life of its own, both for the audience/receivers as well as for you as the artist or producer. You have something great to release and share; trust the process to show you a Way to let it shine!

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I welcome your insights and stories!