dive for dreams… (e.e.)

dive for dreams… (e.e.).

Writing Through Rejection

The Opportunity in Rejection.  –PP.

sunday inspiration

 

you are what you are attracting.

what you are attracting, you are being.

 

external is a reflection of internal. 

thoughts are reality.

 

steer them in the direction of what you want,

not what you lack.

 

be fierce in setting your awareness

on what you really are.

 

not what you fear, not what you hopelessly dote on;

 

well, how do I know what i really am?

 

if the thought is peaceful.

 

“i am a coward”  — does that create peace?

“I am a wondrous source of light”  — does that create peace?

“I am incapable” 

“I am capable” 

 

feel the energy in your body lift.  that’s you opening to your true nature, whose foundation is infinite, and therefore, infinitely possible. 

 

explore for yourself.  your doubt, your consciousness. 

 

what are the thoughts that open doors and allow for miracles?

 

what thoughts make you feel stuck? in life, in love, in work, in health.

are the thoughts life-giving, or life-threatening?

 

(there is no true threat, even in limited beliefs) 

 

what would your thoughts look like, if you already had the reality you dreamed of?

think those thoughts now.

 

let your life unfold, without barriers.

barriers are only of the mind.

 

everything you see, you created.

even sickness.

 

which is not so depressing, when you realize that if you created it, you can change it.

starting with your thoughts.  

 

if your sickness could talk, ask why it’s there.

ask yourself why you think you need it.

what does it give you that healthiness does not?

 

whatever it is, free yourself from that attachment

by inviting a new thought:

 

I suspect this is how this sickness is helping me.  But I also realize I don’t need this sickness as much as I thought.  If there’s another way, I am open.  I am open to complete healing, even if I don’t know what that feels like anymore.  Even if I am afraid that I will lose what the sickness is giving me.

 

you can only act from your level of awareness.  when expanded, you invite another action.  when you feel open to a new way of living, ask for direction.  what action am i to take?

 

you are your own teacher.

 

everyone is built with the knowledge they need to heal themselves.  

healing begins by correcting the error in thought.

what happens in and of the body is just a result.   

 

the answer might sound strange.  but if it is peaceful, try it.

 

 

 

“Same Time,” by Octavio Paz, from The Collected Poems 1957-1987

same time by octavio paz

a .pdf of the poem, to save some integrity of line spacing.

From The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957 – 1987, edited by Eliot Weinberger.  Missing accents over some of the Spanish words.  Forgive me.  I did not know how to do that.

XO.

FRESH PRESS

^^^ That’s what I’m calling my new French Press cup of JOY creation.

I bought a French Press last week to encourage bringing the cafe-style atmosphere into my home workspace, rather than going out for it every morning.  It’s part of my Low-Budget Month, where I cut back on some of the unnecessary costs—temporarily—to remain conscious and in charge of my spending habits.**

This means cutting my daily half-caff AMERICANOS.  GAH!  I’ve given coffee up too many times to count and keep wandering back, like it’s home.

The first days with the French Press were icky, too watery and bitter, even slightly sour! I’ll skip the ugly first impressions and jump to how French Press and I became good friends.

RECIPE for a full-bodied cup of JOY.

6 ounces of water per 1.2 tablespoons of coarse grounds.  I use half decaf, half regular.

Add hot water to grounds in French Press, stir with a wooden or plastic spoon (not metal) for 10-15 seconds.  For every 12 ounces of water, add 1/8 cup of Almond Milk to the coffee/water.  Stir.  If you like sugar, add sugar.  Add a dollup of creamer (flavored or unflavored).  Add a healthy pinch of Celtic Sea Salt.  Stir.  Let sit for 4-5 minutes.  Press.

HEAVEN!

I’m not sure if adding the milk and sugar is good for the French Press, but it enhances the flavor, richness and texture dramatically.

Happy taste buds!

Happy 3rd birthday to my blog.  She’s a Cancerian moon princess, like myself!  Probably full of moody resentment due to all her momma’s NEGLECT.  😛

Happy 28th birthday to my real-life Cancerian friend (a moon PRINCE!), Josh Real (wordpress: FantasyRaider).  BLESSINGS TO ALL!

**I totes went to Cenote today for an Americano.  It was a lovely work morning and I accomplished many challenging activities for Confabule! Instead of ordering a second cup, however, I came home to master the ‘Fresh Press.’  It triumphed.  *Applause*

Love Patterns

A beam of love has lit my existence.  I feel it stronger than ever.  What’s outside is inside, and that must mean the immense love I feel from outside is a reflection of the love I am now recognizing within.  What a shift! Love and be loved.  Give and you are given to.

In trying to approximate my feelings of this incredible love, I did what I always do:  consult poetic masters before me and use their words.  Rumi has been a guide in my journey—a symbol of joy and hope, love and limitlessness.  He is wild with light.  (Which is probably the inspiration behind my new Instagram profile name: WildIsTheLight).

Because I am obsessed with learning more about myself and the world that I perceive, I study quite religiously.  Buddhism.  Taoism.  The I Ching.  Japanese Haiku.  Carl Jung.  Yogananda.  Hinduism.  The Upanishads.  A Course in MIracles. Dr. Wayne Dyer.  Jesus.  My healer and business coach, Jaime Kalman.  My mentor Robert Stikmanz.  I pay attention to what speaks to my soul, listening also to my own voice.

Everything comes back to love.

The source of love, the power of love, the unity of love.  Even my name, “Amanda,” holds the word in between its meaning, “Beloved.”

There is no one path to this love.  But I’ve certainly seen patterns in thought.

I’m just going to share a few that I’ve seen congruent from Rumi and A Course in Miracles.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  -Rumi

“The search for love is but the honest searching out of everything that interferes with love.” -ACIM.

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?” -Rumi

“Clean but the mirror and the message shines forth.” -ACIM

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.” -Rumi

“The world is only in the mind of its maker. Do not believe it is outside of yourself.” -ACIM

“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” -Rumi

“When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter. As you see him, you will see yourself … for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself.”  -ACIM

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.” -Rumi

Corrective learning begins with the awakening of spirit, and the turning away from belief in physical sight.”  -ACIM

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” -Rumi

“There is nothing outside you.” -ACIM

Be kind to yourself.

–A.

Dream Softly – ACIM

Paraphrased and quoted (paraquoted?) from A Course in Miracles, with word choices that reflect my understanding.

“Dream softly of your brother. And from this dream, his Truth will be awakened.

Dream of your brother’s kindnesses instead of dwelling in your dreams on his mistakes.  Select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of counting up the hurts he gave.  Forgive him of his illusions, and give thanks to him for his helpfulness.  Just because he does not appear perfect in your dreams, do not brush aside his many gifts. He represents his Source, whom you see as offering both life and death to you.

Brother, Source gives only life.  The gifts you see as your brother’s represent the gifts you dream your Source gives to you.  Let your brother’s gifts be seen in light of charity and kindness offered to you.  Let no pain disturb your dream of deep appreciation for his gifts to you.”

That line, “Dream softly of your brother” originally has the description “sinless brother.”  I liked the flow of the phrase without it, as the word “sin”—even with a “less” on the end—does not bring music to my ears.  It’s important to note the significance of this word, however.  “Sin” is the result of a pretty clever illusion.  In Christianity, “Sin” is what separates us from God.  With the coming of Jesus, it was decided that while “sin” might still separate us from God, we receive salvation from it, because Jesus so selflessly “died for our sins.”

That saying never made sense to me, even while I attended church.

What I’ve come to understand in A Course in Miracles is that we are not separate from our Source.  And if we are not separate, we cannot “sin” against ourselves.  What Jesus did was a beautiful example of recognizing his oneness with Source.  Jesus is a symbol for the oneness that we all are.

Even though I changed some of the heavy-wording of the original text, I do love that A Course in Miracles uses traditionally biblical terms, like Lord of Heaven, or Holy Spirit, even the idea of Forgiveness.  Its purpose is to provide a bridge for people who are traditionally learned—so they can see how the terms have been misinterpreted.  From what I’ve observed in people who follow the Bible, they want to “become like Jesus.”  I see Jesus as a type of self-mastering Yogi.  Yoga means “Unity.”  His “self” means “Source,” or in the Sufi world, “The Beloved.” Jesus would say, “Dearly Beloved, we are no different.”

The second part I did not include in the first line was, “Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence.”  Again, the line interrupted the poetry for me, but it echoes the idea that we are innocent.  We are, as mentioned, “sinless.”

Spotless.  Unmarred.  Without need for redemption. It is our illusions that might lead us to believe otherwise, either that we, or our friends and family (“brothers”), are inherently flawed.  The Course teaches that the people outside of us are projections, or mirrors, of what we perceive about ourselves.  It is a level of awareness, with a specific purpose.  In this illusion that we are separate from our Source, and that others are separate from us, our mirrors act as teachers; they let us see what thoughts in us need to be healed.

Pain does not come from the outside; it comes from a misguided perception within us, and then is projected outward, so we can easily identify it.  This is the precise moment of healing, where the illusion can finally be brought to the Truth.  By seeing the suffering outside of us, we can do one of two things: 1. continue to behave and believe that the suffering is outside of us, that we are not responsible for it, that we are, in fact, victims of someone else’s violence.  This is ego-territory.  The ego is a person’s perceived identity based on its experiences in the world.  The ego defines and redefines itself constantly;  it believes that what you are is unique and separate from Source.  Choosing to see others as separate from you is an illusion that serves the ego’s sense of identity.  In Truth, with a big T, the ego does not even exist.  Only Source exists.  However, while in the illusion, that idea is not always so clear, or even believable.  The idea of “sin” comes from the ego, if “sin” is what separates us from our Source.  “Sin” creates guilt.  A sense of guilt creates the need for redemption or punishment.  We either attack others, as a way to relinquish the perceived guilt, or we allow ourselves to be “attacked,” or punished, because we believe it is deserved.  By choosing to see the world as a force outside of us—even as a good, bad, or indifferent force—it still justifies the illusion of separateness.  And, thus, we will continue to do what we have to to temporarily relieve the effects.

Choice 2 is to identify the suffering appearing to come at us as suffering that comes to us from us.  Why would we consciously allow ourselves to suffer?  We wouldn’t, right?  That’s why we perceive it as an external force, as something happening to us.  It is in this moment of identification—that all perceived suffering seeks expression from within us—that we are able to heal the illusory thoughts.  By recognizing that there is no need for this suffering, that in fact, suffering does not even exist but in our ego minds, we realize another valuable Truth: without suffering, there can be no real harm.

By seeing ourselves in our “brothers,” it means we see who we really are, which is Source, The Beloved.  The gifts perceived to be given to your brother, then, is a reflection of the gifts given to you.  Accepting these gifts is also part of a path to healing.  What is yours is mine, and mine is yours, and since we are both Source, we cannot be anything but Source.  This leads us to make assumptions about what Source is.  Is the “evil” of the world a reflection of Source’s evil?  In my current studies, I do not feel it appropriate to argue that I understand that discourse.  I don’t know that part of the Truth.  The Course says that Source gives only Life.  Evil, in my understanding, tends to “take” life.  Still. The idea of what Source is, and what I am, is still something I am open to hearing clearly.

In the mean time, my peace lies in dreaming softly of my brothers, in being soft to myself.

Love,

Amanda

it’s raining and I don’t know where I’ve been

a guide for the day.

 

“Question” by Deepak Chopra

Even this Mind

This morning I woke up long after my alarm, caught in dreams of boathouses and water. Everything is a symbol, The Disappearance of the Universe, teaches. My body, birds, stars, the world. Just metaphors for a split mind trying to find God, even though it never left home.

Like in these dreams. As I deport from what I believe is the conscious, waking world into a sea of seemingly unconscious wonder, I never physically leave my bed. I am still home, my body cupping warm blankets, breathing.

It is the mind that wanders, the mind that projects.
It is the mind that creates and dreams.

It’s like an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark, where the little girl walks through the mirror and gets stuck there, on the other side, where it looks like this side, but isn’t real, because it’s only an illusion of the original content. Where is she really?

Even this mind is a symbol, acting out a universe.
Even this mind is a mirror.

Where is she always?

Musings on Meditation

I was wondering why every time I meditated, I see a purple, cloud-like light dance and change shapes against a charcoal, black background. Sometimes white specks of light even sprinkle through the black background, like a visual of Space.  I looked it up, and some call it “The Violet Flame.”  It is the highest color of healing, and specifically targets the pituitary gland.

I found out a few months ago that my insane hair loss and lack of energy was due to hypothyroidism. And it was because of the pituitary. Not the thyroid.  Since I’ve been seeing my NaturoPath and taking supplements, my body has improved.  But since I’ve been seeing my NaturoPath, taking supplements, and meditating, my body has accelerated its healing process. When I saw my NaturoPath yesterday, he was amazed by my health.  I got to cut out three of the supplements I was taking, saving me close to $100. His only advice for me was to—get this—keep salting my food.

Purple is associated with the Third Eye chakra.  Some believe that when it’s prominent in meditating that it simply means your Third Eye awareness is opening and swirling around.  Deep into meditation (or, as deep as I have traveled), the purple color gets lighter, almost transparent, and trapezes into different shapes.  Most of the shapes are circular, but sometimes that frame will freeze, like a still shot, and show jagged light, like a broken window. It is then that I see a dot of light deep into the distance of that purple.  It is white—a perfect circle—behind the purple visions.  Physically, all of this seems to take place in front of my eye region.  It is as if another world is pushing at me, and I’m brushing up against its purple electromagnetic field, and the perfect white light is the substance beyond. It’d be like our sky.

Others have said that the purple I see is because I’m an “indigo child,” and that in meditation, I’m vibrating to my natural, “home” color, as one would return to their bed every night to let the body heal from its daily activity.

The other night, I saw a woman float by from the right side of my vision. Surrounded by purple, she appeared in a soft white.  Her dress flowed out from her body, but not too far.  She was faceless, yet had the profile of a face, with straight, glowing hair cut between the ear and neck. Upon seeing her, I jolted for a second.  She was peaceful, though, and paid no attention to my shock.  She slowly roamed across the left side of my vision like I wasn’t even watching her.  And exited just the same.

The Yoga instructor at my apartment complex, a wonderfully blissful man named Demetri, is helping my roommate, Elizabeth, and me dive deeper into meditation.  Elizabeth sees visuals immediately.  In one meditation, we were told to say “shaa  maah.”  The sound evoked a pink and white rose in her mind.  She relayed this to Demetri, and he said, “Pink and white, the colors of Friday.”  Elizabeth said, “but it’s Thursday,” and he said, “No, the sun is down; it’s Friday.”   In another meditation, we were told to say “shriingk.”  She instantly saw the bud of the flower upon hearing it.  Demetri said later that “shaa maah” resonates to an older group of people  (I believe it was 30s?), and “shriingk” resonates to our age group.  It was odd that Elizabeth visualized a full rose the first time and only a bud the next.  When I heard “shriiingk,” it came inspired a different image.  A sound image.  One like a triangle being tapped softly and resonating outward from the left side of my mind down a long, invisible line that headed right.

During Yoga on Thursday, Demetri asked my boyfriend Kumar and I to focus on our navel, with our eyes closed.  To go behind it, and walk into it like it’s a cave.  Mine was warm and squishy.  Womb-like.  A quiet, cushioned place for peace.  He said to focus on our solar plexus. To make a cave, and go inside.  I didn’t know where that was; I imagined the place below my naval, where the ovaries are. (This is not the solar plexus; I was wrong!) Mine was busy.  A workshop of activity.  Cogs, and creative energy.  Orange and industrial.  There were others there, excited and bouncing around.  He then told us to focus on our Third Eye.  To go behind it, in the cave.  This place was purple in the way that a cloudy, moonlit sky turns purple.  I went inside, and it was a room with a small bed.  I lied down on it, and rested.  Demetri said to draw a line from our Third Eye cave down to the others.  The activities and feelings in each were so different.  But this line was connecting them.  They were part of the same operation, just doing different parts, and simultaneously.  I heard an “oomm” sound that expanded the line as wide as a ribcage.  I opened my eyes, peaceful and in tact.