MONTHLY MESSAGE: “Celebrating Lives Well Lived”

Elmer Cole Case, 80
I went to Oregon at the end of February for my Dad's 80th birthday. My sister and brothers and I had arranged for a party with family and close friends at one of his favorite restaurants. We gathered together to celebrate 80 years of life well-lived and looking forward to another decade or two... especially with our family history of longevity.

We had a such great time. Especially memorable was when everyone had a chance to share a favorite memory or two. Then we played "How well do you know Elmer?" (Yes, that is really my Dad's name. He was named after a Scandinavian friend of his father's.) My Dad's answers usually meant a story or two as well as the answer.

As I listened to the stories, I was filled with awe, wonder, pride and joy at the fullness of my Dad's life: growing up during the Great Depression; hiking, camping, hunting as a boy with his family; working in the shipyards after school during the Second World War, then being called to service first in the Navy, then the Army. After that: college, marriage, four children, work career in state government service (retired at 55 after 33 years), military and reserve service for 40 years. Seeing four children grow to adulthood -- one who is developmentally disabled, three others who are all self-employed and own their own businesses; seeing a wife through mental illness and physical illness for 30 years of their 40 years together until her death. Continuing a tradition of the love of the outdoors with his own children to this day and with the second woman he has loved in his life and who he has been with for 14 years. Continuing to grow and change and become wiser with each passing year. Continuing to travel to new places with his partner, Nadine, and living a full life. A life well-lived... thank you, Dad!

Linda Tilton (1950?-2007)
Linda was the director of the New York Open Center's Wellness Department. She was instrumental in getting Reiki into the Open Center in the face of initial resistance of having "flaky Reiki" as one of NYOC's professional certificate programs. She actively supported it with her Sagittarian fire, especially during the first couple of years, until the program (and Reiki) proved itself.

Over the years Linda and I became friends, and my greatest pleasure was listening to her stories: stories about her growing up in upstate NY, and her professional dance career; stories about her career in the cosmetics industry, and her healing school with Elizabeth Stratton. I especially appreciated the stories in which she shared her insights on the chakras and the energy field from her work as a healer. But most of all I loved hearing the stories of her travels with Grandmother Kitty and the wisdom teachings that were passed on to her. For several years I had been trying to sponsor workshops so she could pass on those teachings... but it was not meant to be.

Linda passed on March 13, 2007 after a life well-lived and filled with the fullness of experience. I miss you, Linda: colleague, friend, healer, storyteller, holder of wisdom.

Blessings,
Margaret Ann

QUOTES of NOTE

Now and then it’s good to pause in the pursuit of happiness and just be happy!
~ Guillaume Apollinaire

Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!
~ Auntie Mame

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and affection of children; to learn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a little bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle.
~ Albert Einstein

CONTEMPLATION for Your Heart, Mind and Body: “Celebrating Your 80 Years... and more!”

Close your eyes, take a few purifying breaths, relax into the quiet and stillness of your Essence.

Then ask Spirit to show you your Future Self in the highest vibrational form possible at 80. (If you are already 80, or close to it, go for 100!)

Receive the impressions via thoughts, feelings, images, or knowings.

Is there anything that you need to change right now to create that possible future?

If you were to write your obituary, what would you want it to say?

Co-create that vision now!

MONTHLY MESSAGE: “Trying to be Perfect vs. Perfection”

I’ve been pondering on the differences between the spiritual concept of “Perfection” and our human response of “trying to be perfect.” And what I realize is that we often confuse the one for the other. In our seeking to be more spiritual and attaining a state of perfection, we get caught up in bonds of trying to be perfect.

The trying-to-be-perfect bonds include thoughts like “if I get it right, it will be perfect” (meaning, “I’ll be perfect”). But, of course, we never get it right, because when we are thinking in those terms, we’re in the duality of right and wrong. So, what we’re really saying is “if I get it right, then I won’t be wrong.”

Our motivations for trying to be perfect include wanting approval – “if I do it perfect, my [parents, teachers, friends, etc.] will [like, love] me more.” Sometimes, as a result of abuse, we try to do everything perfectly to avoid punishment and not get hurt; but the abuser will always find something wrong, so we never get it right, no matter how hard we try. We still get hurt physically, or emotionally, or both.

By the time we get to be adults, we’ve so completely internalized the pressure of this struggle that we are constantly under the self-imposed stress to be perfect. We think it’s other people’s expectations, but it’s really the expectations we place on ourselves. After spending so many years trying to be perfect and living up to the images and expectations of friends, family, and authorities in our lives, with layer upon encrusted layer of beliefs, thoughts, and feelings from our culture, education, and religion, we’ve lost the ability to just be ourselves. In fact, we often don’t even know who we are any longer. We’ve forgotten the feeling of joy, spontaneity, playfulness, vulnerability, and ease.

And we’re wound up so tight that we start looking for ways to relax and follow an unnamed urge to discover ourselves. We make an intention to lead a more spiritual life – and find Reiki, meditation, yoga, and other spiritual practices outside of the paradigm we were raised in.

We are introduced to concept of spiritual perfection, and we think we’re on the right track if we get every Reiki hand position right, or every yoga asana right, or follow a certain diet, or meditate everyday. Initially, we think we aren’t getting it right (and sometimes leave the practice we’ve chosen as a result) because we haven’t attained perfection in a week. But what’s really happening is that we think we haven’t got it right and this practice is the wrong one.

Yet the key word in all spiritual traditions is “practice.” And the supposed perfection we think we haven’t attained is there in every moment if we only have eyes to see it.

Perfection is the understanding that whatever is happening in any moment is perfect for that moment. What is this experience telling me about myself and my impatience and lack of compassion for my own being? What are my emotions informing me about my own need for healing? What’s the lesson in this for me that will refine and polish myself so I can more radiantly stand in my diamond soul?

“It is perfect that the sky is gray and the air is cold. It is perfect that I feel alone. It is perfect that I am experiencing such joy of spirit that I am overwhelmed with emotion and cry. It is perfect that my mother had nervous breakdowns. It is perfect that I endured pain and loss of self as a result. It is perfect that the careers I chose were a source of frustration, and led me to realize that I needed to make a change in my life. It is perfect that I am feeling vulnerable and tired. It is perfect that spirit moves through me in ways that words can’t even begin to describe.”

Perfection is all of who we are, have been, and will be. Perfection is what is. Perfection is timeless eternity. Perfection is all things and nothing. Perfection is paradox. Perfection is where duality resides – and where only unity is. Perfection is the mystery that we won’t know until we completely surrender our self to Self.

Blessings,
Margaret Ann

QUOTE of NOTE: From "The Power of Now ~ A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" by Eckhart Tolle

Surrender -- the letting go of mental-emotional resistance to what is -- also becomes a portal into the Unmanifested. The reason for this is simple: inner resistance cuts you off from other people, from the world around you. It strengthens the feeling of separateness on which the ego depends for its survival. The stronger the feeling of separateness, the more you are bound to the manifested, to the world of spearate forms. The more you are bound to the world of form, the harder and more impenetrable your form identity becomes. The portal is closed, and you are cut off from the inner dimension, the dimension of depth. In the state of surrender, you form identity softens and becomes somewhat "transparent," as it were, so the Unmanifested can shine through you.

It's up to you to open a portal in your life that gives you conscious access to the Unmanifested. Get in touch with the energy field of the inner body, be intensely present, disidentify from the mind, surrender to what is.

CONTEMPLATION for Your Heart, Mind and Body: “Awareness of Perfection in Every Moment”

Take a few minutes and look around you. Observe what’s going on. As you observe things, activities, thoughts or feelings, start the sentence with “It is perfect that…” and then fill in the blank.

For example, I’m at Starbuck’s as a write this:

“It is perfect that I am sitting at Starbuck’s. It is perfect that I am here writing my monthly message and contemplation. It is perfect using my laptap and doing my work here. It is perfect that the every time the door opens, I feel a cold blast of winter air on my legs. It is perfect that a child is fussing. It is perfect that I feel irritation at the volume they play their music. It is perfect that I’m not sure what to write next. It is perfect…”

This can be a practice in mindfulness.
This can be a practice of appreciation or gratitude.

I find this practice particularly helpful in my life when I’m feeling challenged by a situation or a person – to find the perfection in that moment.

As you ride the train or bus to work, walk, or sit at your desk – observe your feelings, thoughts, and activities using this practice.

You can also make it a journaling practice at the end of the day. Just start writing… let it be a stream of conscious awareness on the perfection of everything that happened today.

Monthly Message ~ "Living MY Life"

Living MY Life – not someone else’s, or for someone else – this is the theme that’s been showing up in the last month or so – along with the many forms of how often we don’t live our life.

One form is that we keep so busy fixing ourselves, working on ourselves, and otherwise making improvements on or to ourselves that we forget to live our life – to embody life and the life-giving, creative force right now.

Then there’s all that time we spend fixing other people’s lives and figuring out what someone else needs – and once again we aren’t living our life, we’re living through someone else’s life.

Another way is how we live for others – parents, relatives, partners, teachers, friends, co-workers, bosses – then we lose track of who we are and what we want in an attempt to live for others.

We also get lost in our identifications – woman, man, survivor, Christian, American, African-American, soldier, executive, Reiki practitioner, etc, etc, etc – and all the beliefs, thoughts, emotions that are attached to each one. Then we’re living our life based on behaviors and expectations that may not be our own.

For some of us it’s amazing that we’re even alive because so much of our life force has gone to just surviving. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death takes tremendous strength of will and spirit – leaving us with little left over for true living.

No wonder it gets confusing once we start a search for self/Self. Even more profoundly, when we begin coming into contact with our Self. And it takes a tremendous amount of courage to look at ourselves, and start sifting the wheat (Self) from the chaff (self).

My journey in search of Self has had many steps… thus far.

In the beginning I thought of it as a search for myself – the who-I-am as a personality. I know without a doubt now that Self was behind the deep urge to move across the country to New York in my late 20s away – from my family, friends, and all that I knew – to pursue my dream of becoming an opera singer. It was scary, it was necessary, and I needed to do it to develop a fuller sense of myself.

The next step was when I started perceiving the mass consciousness influences upon me, and being able to more clearly discriminate between what I believed, thought, and felt, and what was influenced by the mass consciousness or the personality of the world around me.

All along the way I knew there was a Self beyond my personality self – an Inner Voice ever-present and eternal. However, until I had a clearer perception of who I was as a personality, I remained uncertain about which was which, what was self and what was Self. Until I could distinguish my own thoughts and emotions, and perceive the influences of mass consciousness, that Inner Voice, that Self, remained a something that was without and seemingly beyond my reach, rather than being within.

“The ego shouts, the Higher Self whispers, listen carefully.” I don’t know who originally said this, but my Reiki master, who heard it from his Reiki master, quoted it often. It’s a great reminder of how to differentiate between hearing or sensing Self and the muddle of self.

As the Voice Within comes clearer and clearer, so has my ability to live MY life for self and Self. The Voice of the Higher Self has become more present, while the ego has slowly faded into a whisper.

The next step – to be that Voice Within – is yet to come. And I live in faith of divine grace that one day Self will be the only Voice.

Blessings,

Margaret Ann