Action

Recently, Maria and I have been asked to lead (clerk) the Thursday evening meeting for worship, a role we accept warmly. I do not talk very much and am difficult to understand, so Maria will do that part. At this point, my role is to sit there, be present, be loving and just be, a role I can do. My sense is that the local (graveyard) spirits will partner with me and do the same, in their own swirling way. In the words of Daniel A. Seeger "It [inner silence] is to establish an inner peace, an inner harmony, which will allow us authentically to contribute to the establishment of an outer peace and an outer harmony in the world at large." I tend to spread a feeling of peace and love everywhere I go — just through my presence. I will also take a more active role if and when asked. "It requires even more discernment to discover whether the ministry called for from a particular individual in a particular instance requires prophetic speech, humble and hidden activities, bold and dramatic action, professional service or some, novel and previously unimagined course."

Spirits

Tonight I overheard Maria, my wife, talking on the phone about some of my early experiences with spirits and the sweat lodge and her conversation reminded me. I thought I was a normal "white boy" but maybe not. My first encounter was when a haggard looking native asked if he could talk to me while we were preparing for a lodge. He told me that the spirits had come to him in dreams since they could not approach me directly. He told me that the spirits wanted me to build a lodge and that the Navajo elders approved. I later realized that he was probably a spirit himself since he talked to no-one else and I have never seen him before or since. My second experience was when a handsome young Native spirit came to lodge with bare feet and dressed only in deerskin leggings (middle of winter). I, again, thought he was a normal person. We talked a bit quietly, with reverence and he sat next to me in the lodge. Later in the lodge he had disappeared. After the lodge I asked Dicky, the lodge leader, if someone had left the lodge. He assured me that no-one had and — hesitatingly — told me "you’re different Charlie". The world is a strange place and there is much I do not know. "Reality is only partly our invention; it is also partly our discovery. Our task is to discover how much and in what areas which is which; and then to determine how much new freedom this gives us and what we can do with it".(From Alternate Realities by Lawrence LeShan)

Shadow Work

During meditation I heard and felt, very deeply, "You do not have to prove yourself anymore" in response to the idea that I was still deserving of punishment. I found those feelings especially interesting since I was completely unaware that my subconscious, shadow, felt I was proving myself. I was reminded of a time very early in my recovery when I heard "You do not have to struggle against drugs or alcohol any more" since I had no idea that my subconscious believed that or that the belief was part of me. There has also been a feeling of release and greater clarity. "Doing shadow-work means making a gentleman's agreement with one's self to engage in an internal conversation that can, at some time down the road result in an authentic self-acceptance and a real compassion for others."(Zweig and Abrams)

Mixed Feelings

Today was a day of mixed and dramatically contrasting feelings, from great joy this morning to feelings of pain and deserving to be punished this evening. The joy this morning was due to my mystical connection with my soul or essence, God and eternity, a feeling that lasted most of the day. I then bit myself in an area of scar tissue, causing substantial pain and I also fell and hurt my leg. Falling is something I do about four times a year so I am used to it but I was surprised by a surging feeling of deserving to be punished for past actions in this life and probably before in previous lives. The feeling of deserving to be punished felt like a backlash in response to the joy I felt earlier. Both feelings are very real though deserving to be punished is a throwback to an earlier time and is silly. I need to meditate and feel each, dismissing the need to be punished . I recall that according to the gospel of Thomas Jesus said, "Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds he will become troubled; when he becomes troubled, he will be astonished and will rule over all things." I will ask to be released from the feeling of deserving to be punished.

Joy

In my recovery meeting today someone spoke of watching a caterpillar crawl across the ground as being a waste of time and I disagree. To me, taking the time to observe one of God’s creatures go about day to day living brings great joy. Life is a wondrous process to behold, whether the behavior is exceptional or ordinary. At one point not to many years ago, when I could not move without great difficulty, I spent several hours on my porch watching a predatory beetle capturing and devouring prey. Having my mind be quiet enough to simply observe is a wonderful state to be in. In the poem Dejection, Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls joy "this strong music in the soul’, ‘a light, a glory, a luminous cloud’, ‘a beautiful and beauty-making power.’ Joy is a gift, one we cannot will for ourselves, nor even for others."

Listening

For the last couple of days I have written about my ability to connect with other people, an ability which I value very highly — not just connecting with other people but everyone and everything. One of the main factors determining my ability to connect, is my ability to listen and listen deeply without interference from my clamoring intellect. I attempt to listen not just to the words spoken, but everything the Universe has to tell me. This type of listening requires that I focus, reign in my wandering intellect and become internally and externally quiet. "Listening is a far more difficult process than most people imagine; really to listen in the way that is meant by the masters is to let go utterly of ourselves, to let go of all the information, all of the concepts, all the ideas and all the prejudices that our heads are stuffed with." (Sogyal Rinpoche)

Connection 2

I am a retired mental health therapist so I have had the privilege of connecting, deeply, with a large number of people, a skill I continue to work on. Personally, I have found that in order to connect deeply I need to do a lot of self-care, be spiritually fit, listen intensely and be able to put my own ego aside. I have also found that when the other person is using a SRI., some other anti-depressant or prescribed medication it makes connection more difficult. If they are using alcohol or illegal drugs anything other than a superficial connection is impossible. I stopped using a prescribed medication for hypothyroidism on the 15^th of last month and find, not surprisingly, that my ability to connect has improved.. "For there to be a meeting, it seems as though a third, a something else, is always present. You may call it Love, or the Holy Spirit. Jungians would say that it is the presence of the Self. If this 'Other' is present, there cannot have failed to be a meeting."(Claremont deCastillejo)

Connection

This evening I was reflecting on a time when I was living in Flagstaff, AZ and made my last visit with my father who was living in a facility in Chapel Hill, NC. He had advanced Alzheimer’s so he could not communicate with cogent complete thoughts or sentences and did not know I was his son. During that visit we went for a short walk down one of the hallways in the facility and had an in depth, complex conversation we could not have had. In that conversation he clearly knew who I was in the spirit plane. We had stopped in front of a print of a harbor, the open ocean and several sailing vessels of various sizes and types. Immediately when we stopped I felt a shift in consciousness and a deeper connection with him. I also felt surrounded by love. Our conversation was about the symbolism of that print and what it meant for each of us. As that conversation ended we went back, sat down and I felt a shift back to this reality and a change in our connection. The love was still there. He looked at me and said "It’s stopped" and I replied "Yes it has". He then asked "What do we do now?", to which I replied "You take a nap before dinner and I’ll go back to AZ." It was an amazing experience during which we each shifted to a different reality than our normal one. "You belong to two worlds do not miss the invisible one while you are busy with the visible one. Cultivate your vision, learn to see the realities which your eyes miss.. Look through the world that is seen and discover the realities which it suggests and implies." (Rufus Jones)

Results

I have been a devoted practitioner of various spiritual activities for years, decades in some cases and, as a result, I now feel connected to "all that is" all the time, I have one foot in the eternal and one in the present, I have great joy and I carry out my daily activities from within a "bubble of love". It’s a great way to live which still requires discipline. My joy is surprising from a worldly perspective since I am disabled, in pain much of the tine and approaching my seventieth birthday. I think I’ll keep doing what I am doing! "I will talk about only five sources of spiritual nourishment which I have known as among the chief sustainers of my life: the companionship of other seekers, the pleasures of solitude, the satisfactions of obedience the support of prayer and worship, and the gifts of joy." (Lacey)

Practice

In Nourishing the Spiritual Life, Paul A. Lacey writes "I take the spiritual life to be a life of which aims to discover human wholeness, the integration of all aspects of our humanity - body, soul, mind, emotions - and the connection of the self to all of creation." I spend most of each day in an effort to maintain harmony and balance within and between my "body, soul, mind, [and] emotions including exercising, eating carefully, meditating, connecting with others and connecting with the force I call God. I am also very aware of my connection to all things. It is a very vital and fulfilling way to live.