Montserrat

Just back from Montserrat (that’s the Caribbean island where the volcano has been active since 1995) such a beautiful and amazing place.

We met loving friendly people who are choosing to stay on their island, in spite of the difficulties, to rebuild their homes and their country. The place is bustling with activity in the north where new houses and even a new town are being constructed to replace the areas destroyed by the volcano.

I have been traveling in the Caribbean for over 20 years and have never been anywhere where the people are so in love with their island. Other places have pride and joy in their culture and their homes but in Montserrat there is a powerful sense of gratitude and a love that surpasses anything I have experienced anywhere else.

So many people left after their homes were destroyed. But the ones who stayed have such a wonderful attitude about the rebuilding and the land itself. They showed us the areas of destruction and photos of the way things were before the time of crisis with an attitude of quiet pride and gratitude that they have survived the destruction and are rebuilding.

It may not be your typical Caribbean vacation but it was one of the best I’ve ever had. Between the ease of finding everything and the friendliness of the people it was the getaway to paradise of my dreams. There are lots of villas available for rent at very reasonable rates, some guest houses and a hotel. The beaches are virtually deserted most weekdays so you feel like you are alone in the world. There are hiking and diving tours available and of course the tours so you will know your way around.

I sat on a rock on the beach where the Belham Valley meets the sea. The valley including a golf course and a number of beautiful homes are buried under 30 feet of mud and ash. I was powerfully moved by the strength of the island formed over hundreds of thousands of years with the sea bathing the shores like a mother soothing a child’s feverish body. Amazingly, it felt so serene and soothing in spite of the chaos and destruction.

As the sea washed in and out moving little pieces of shell and rock I realized how transient everything is in our lives. We mighty humans build and create such wonderful structures but we put way too much importance on the things. We are a part of an amazing whole. We are one with all that is. We are the created and the creator. We have value as living the experiences of life. Our greatest gifts are based in love and gratitude. We are not better or worse, higher or lower, more or less important than anything or anyone else. Each of us is a unique creation, an aspect of the universal God/Love existence. Time and nature moves all physical reality but the spirit remains.

We found our old friend Shaka Black resting at home in Montserrat, getting ready to tour some more. There will be more about that later. Check back and see what else we discovered in our travels.

The Message of Dragonfly

The vision of Esteem²² has been floating in my mind for many years. It has taken many forms and shapes but last summer I had a little help.

In the summer my deck becomes a second living room with lots of plants and quite often dragonflies. As I was meditating on the latest ideas for this site, one of the dragonflies lighted gently on my hand. “OK little friend, I’m paying attention!” Here is the story of dragonflies and why they are such an appropriate symbol for our message.

With thanks to Jamie Sams and David Carson from their wonderful book “Medicine Cards The Discovery of Power Through the Ways of Animals”:

Some legends say that Dragonfly was once Dragon, and that Dragon had scales like Dragonfly’s wings. Dragon was full of wisdom, and flew through the night bringing light with it’s fiery breath. The breath of Dragon brought forth the art of magic and the illusion of changing form. Then Dragon got caught in its own façade. In the illusion of ego, Dragon was tricked into changing form, and the shape of its new body became like the Dragonfly. In the effort to prove its power and magical prowess, Dragon lost it’s power.

Dragonfly’s shifting colors, energy, form and movement leads us to vague memories of a time and place where we knew magic, where we understood the illusionary façade we now accept as physical reality.

The message of Dragonfly is one of wisdom and enlightenment. It teaches us to recognize the illusion of ego and encourages us to recognize our power. Follow Dragonfly to the place inside you. Recognize it is your strength, your love and your power. You are creating it all.

Creator . . . Created . . . Creation

Who am I and what am I doing here?

We are to God as a drop of water or a snowflake is to water.

Water is. It cannot be destroyed. It can be made dirty and polluted. It can be frozen or turned into steam. It is the main component in the fluid that flows through every living creature, be they plant or animal. It is what makes up icebergs and clouds, oceans, lakes and rivers. Without it we would not be able to survive in this human form.

We are what God is!
Just as every flake of ice or snow, every cloud, every drop of ocean or lake, or the water in the bottle we hold in our hand, has all the properties and qualities of water, we have all the qualities of God.

We are made in the image and likeness of God.
What we have done with that statement is to create a God that looks like us instead of exploring the notion that we may have all the qualities of the Almighty Creator.

That would make us creators. What a concept!

God is Love.
We are Love.

God is a vengeful and jealous God.
Well we certainly have been that.
Hmmm . . . looks like we may have created God in our image after all.

Think of it this way. When God became aware of his/her beingness (that must have happened at some point, after all God is all that is, so there had to have been a moment of awareness for the rest of us to have been created ) there was an awareness of the need for separation or duality. How could I know light without darkness, heat without cold?

That's where we come in. We are God experiential. That is why the spirit never dies. When we mess up we get to try again.

Well it's time now for us to recognize our Divinity. We have had all the experiences. We are ready to come together again; not to become one big soup (that's where we came from) but to recognize our oneness while we honor all of the aspects that make us unique individuals.

This is cause for great celebration. Celebrate being all that we are and leave the judgment behind. In our Divinity we are darkness and light.

I choose to shine my light in this moment, recognizing that my dark moments are just as valid and valuable. No more shame, just joyful acceptance. Makes the journey a bit more fun, doesn’t it?

Teachers

I am a teacher and so are all of us. Teachers are simply people who share their thoughts and feelings with others. There is training to refine the process; but we are all teaching and learning all the time. Sometimes we don’t realize how much impact we have on others.

Parents are teachers. Parents out there; you have seen your small children imitate everything you say and do . . . whether you want them to or not. Children have not yet learned to filter what they learn and place value judgments on the information coming in; so we, as parents are responsible to be aware of what we are saying and doing. That’s one sort of teacher.

Certainly, those of us who blog, are teaching. It may not be the conscious intent but it is the reality. Ok, so what are we teaching? We teach what is important to us. We want to share the things that have helped and are helping us. We are people of community who have a need to see our beliefs and feelings reflected through others. So we browse around in others’ sites to see what is out there we can relate to and maybe learn some new aspects and insights.

Most of us don’t really want to get involved in something totally new. And that’s ok. We are really only interested in things we can relate to. That’s natural. The new things are really just things we’ve always wanted to learn more about, interests we had not explored but interests just the same. Sometimes we find something that touches a place deep inside that has held a belief not yet shared, even with ourselves. That is exciting. It helps us in the process of knowing and becoming all that we are.

The most effective teachers teach from passion; we may think it is a passion for teaching but it must be a passion for the subject and its usefulness. When I believe in my heart that what I am sharing is important; then my passion is going to help convey my message.

So share your passions. Explore your inner being. Take a risk to be all that you are.

It is so interesting to find people from all over the world finding each other’s words. When someone reads and relates to my words there is a spirit connection. I’m really quite overwhelmed. I want to reach out and hug you. I want to look at your face and into your eyes. But this is as good as it gets for now.

But maybe . . . in the future some time . . . we can have a gathering . . . or a series of gatherings . . . around the world . . . where we can look at each others’ faces and break bread together, play together and talk together . . . but for now we will keep writing.

Re-creation

It’s time to recreate myself again. It is time for me to begin to see again the beauty that is in all things including myself.

We go along with this vague unease and it conveys itself into everything we do and say and even in the way we look. When we begin to see the beauty in and around us we begin to shine with a new light and everything seems to change. Has everything changed? Absolutely! We create our reality as we perceive it and when we perceive the world around us as beautiful, it becomes beautiful. As we see ourselves beautiful, we become beautiful.

The recreation of me begins with seeing the wonderfulness in me and shining the light of my attention on that instead of the things I’m not happy about. We have all heard people talk about being too fat or too old or too hippy or to flat. Now there are medical solutions to change our faces and our bodies, surgeries and injections to enhance or reduce; a pill for this and a procedure for that. Where will it all end?

Did it begin with the bionic man and the bionic woman? Or did it begin in a more subtle way with a vague dissatisfaction with self. We felt it then we talked about it then some people realized there was a market for selling the changes people were looking for and now here we are, feeling as if we must make those changes to keep up.

Are we really any happier as a result of all these changes? Or are we just seeing the need for more and more pills and procedures to make us “ok”.

I believe the answer lies in being and loving all that I am, not changing all that I am. Just maybe we have put the cart before the horse. Maybe instead of changing the outside of ourselves and hoping that will make us feel ok, we could begin by loving ourselves just as we are and seeing the beauty all around us and feeling grateful for all the wonderfulness in ourselves and in the world around us.

The world sees us as we see ourselves. If I see myself as fat, and old that is the energy or light I give out to the world so that is what the world sees. If on the other hand I feel the love in my heart and see the beauty in me (and, by the way, it is always there) I send out an energy, a light, that is loving and beautiful and that is what other people see and feel.
If there is excess weight on the body it begins to leave. If there are wrinkles, they begin to fade. I will not look as if I’m twenty when I’m sixty but there will be a timeless beauty that shines from me and no one, including me, will think of age or have any sort of judgment when they are in my presence.

My actions and behavior will reflect the love in my heart and I will treat myself and all those around me with love and respect. And, yes, things will change. As I perceive myself and all around with love and respect that is what will be reflected back to me.

Grown Children

We have only one responsibility to our children once they are grown. That is to set an example for them, of living fully and being at peace with ourselves.

Once they are grown they think they know more than we do; so let them. We then go about the business of living our lives based on the wisdom of the things we have learned and are learning now. Remember, when we were their age we thought we knew more than our parents. We may have behaved a little more respectfully. But that was only because it was expected of us. We decided we wouldn’t be as rigid as our parents had been, now look at the result. Oh well, live and learn.

The only way to gain respect from our grown children is to respect ourselves. We may say we do, but we aren’t necessarily behaving as if we do. When we allow our children to take advantage of us and use us as an emotional punching bag we are not showing respect for ourselves. Now remember, I said the only thing we can do for them now is to set an example. Be the person they aspire to be, even if they don’t know it yet.

They will probably become angry at first. Our behavior patterns are changing and they won’t like it. But stick to it! The result is worth it. When we are living rich and full lives and the energy of the love for all that is, radiates from us, they will come looking for the route to such joy. Or maybe they will have to find it some other way. And that’s OK too. They will eventually be drawn back to us because being around us is just too wonderful when we become the loving creative whole persons we are meant to be. We do not need their approval. We do not need their permission. And, if they are conditional in their demands, they do not need our help.

We gave them the best we had when they were growing up. You notice I said “the best we had”. Looking back, we can always say we wish we had done some things differently. At the time, we did the very best we could with the tools at hand.

What are we doing now? We have the time to study and produce. We have the time to do the things we want to do. Think of the time and energy we are spending trying to ‘help the children’. Let them figure out their world on their own, just like we did. Let them make their own mistakes and learn from them. We had to do it for ourselves and so do they.

We can be there to love them, to send out that loving energy that is unconditional. This does not mean show up to bail them out. It means being the love we are meant to be, the universal love energy that connects to all that is. Be all that we are, really be the being we are reading about, the being we know we are, all the time, not just when we have time for ourselves. Don’t tell them what we are doing. Just do it. Don’t explain the changes. Just make them. Have no expectations. Just be!

The love we have for our children radiates out from us when we are at peace. The anxiety and concern and, dare I say guilt, also radiates out and is felt by them. They respond to that with varying degrees of anger and a need to prove themselves capable of making their own decisions and mistakes, which creates a greater need in us to fix things. It is one of those vicious circles that keeps itself going.

So, what do we want for our children . . . and for ourselves? We are all searching for the love that is the God in us and in them. We may not be able to see it in them but it is there. We need to get out of the way so they can get on with it.

There is no greater gift than to show them, by our example, what is possible and to get out of the way so they can find this all out for themselves. It isn’t up to us to save them. Fact is, we can’t, no matter how hard we try or how much we want to, they each (we each) must find our own way.

It’s exciting to think about what that can mean in our lives. Think of the time and energy that is now available to be used in creating, for ourselves, the life we choose. Now we see there is a bit of responsibility there. Are we up for the task? Are we ready to have all that joy in our lives? I think so. How about you?

Recognition

As I was waking this morning I had a vision. There were no words of word thoughts with it so this will be a pale copy of the message but I’ll do the best that I can.

As I was waking to consciousness I became aware of the spirit within me that is God. There was beautiful glowing warmth that spread from the area of my heart throughout my body and out into the world. I was gently aware that this God self in me has the ability to recognize itself in everything and everyone in creation. No matter what anyone else says or does. No matter how angry or fearful my human self may become, my God self has the power to recognize instantly the God in the other human.

This does not mean I am to put myself in harms way or have a responsibility to ‘fix’ something I may see as ‘wrong’; those are human responses. It simply means there is an instant recognition of the kindred Spirit of God in all of us; that my Spirit recognizes in others, the Spirit of love; and in that knowing is the Oneness with All that Is. I am God also and so are You; no matter what actions we take or what feeling we feel or were our human minds take us today, we are all connected and through that connection can recognize ourselves as God again, maybe for the first time.

We are never alone

OK, so Penny McCoy started a blog site called Esteem²² to talk about and promote all thoughts about esteem. So what is really going on?

A blog is the perfect forum for those of us who wish to explore what we may want to be doing.

There are lots of people out there who are exploring what being alive in the world today is all about. This is a forum for exchange of ideas and experiences. It is also a way to connect with like minded people and to suggest various ways we can get together and share our experiences, thoughts and feelings; not to mention the wonderful things we are learning as we continue on our journey.

Soon we will begin to schedule retreats of various lengths at a variety of different locations. This will give us the opportunity to meet each other in person to play, learn, experience and relax in a setting just for us.

In the time leading up to that we will be getting to know each other in this forum so I hope there are lots of comments and comments on comments.

Wherever we are . . . We are never alone!

Esteem

Honor
Respect
Appreciate

In order to be all that I Am
I must have self esteem

That is where we begin
After all, what’s it all about if
I don’t have value

But esteem isn’t just about the self
We are happier, more well adjusted, more productive, individuals when we
Honor, respect, appreciate - Esteem - everything around us

People, places, things, events
Sunlight and rain
Children and old people
A shiny new car or an old rusted wheel barrow
Are you beginning to see the pattern?

When we can recognize that everything has a purpose
Even when it doesn’t feel good or look pretty
When we stop having to judge, put a label of right or wrong on things
We begin to be free to truly BE

Esteem is about shining the light of love on everything
I have choice
To accept or reject, to love or despise
To Esteem or toss aside the wonders in and around me
And so do you

Now . . . turn it all back on your self
Hold yourself up to the light of love
Stop judging yourself as
Not funny or serious
Pretty or handsome
Young, old . . . or
Perfect enough

BE all that you are and you will shine the light of love all around you

The circle of life is alive and well - in you - and me - and all of us