Month: July 2017

Something Shiny

In the empire of Duality, the open door is always a Janus entity: entry & exit. The music is always swelling & falling into itself to silence. The darkness is always a placeholder for light.

In the Land of Freewill, choices are made by us in firm decision & at random whim: a right turn instead of a left can result in a drive into bliss.

Thus each moment must result in that ability of choice. It has to be more than paper or plastic when all the holy texts tell us we are unlimited Masters of the Universe. Now is the time to act like it.

Hereupon the crossroads: forgive & walk on unburdened. Deny forgiveness & you may not be given the choice of which cross you bear. We are always in the center between life & “unlife.” Every choice results in change within. Our core energy spirals up & down, in & out, upon ebb & surge. Our nature is duality, sometimes interpreted as “do-all-ity” … tho we are inclined to only do so much before the next task intervenes.

I’ve had “missed takes” in my life which amounted to classic error. I’ve incurred debt & paid in full. I’m sure there could be bestsellers written on my backlog of wrong decisions. It wasn’t just me who suffered through them; only I called it my learning process; the others suffering through these may have had a differing terminology.

If we are born innocent, are we living a lie when we learn? Perhaps this depends on the choice of learning methods. Now is the time to release all which no longer serves us, even if familiar, even if comfortable. The tide of the unknown gathers at all borders & we are chilled by it, even as we thrill to its salted bosom.

The rainbows we climb are ephemeral, slippery. Once we climb up, we must slide down tho at times we seem to fall through. I have a set of reserve wings which are gravity-proof. I can be stilled by the face of emotion & have been known to put my head down & slog on even when all the indicators say “stop right here.”

It’s all right, alright? I AM a beloved, believed-in child of God at play in the fields of the Lord. I created my life in the face of Divinity from some invisible blueprint. Is Destiny a firm destination?

In the moving away, I have constantly, unerringly moved toward. The future unwraps itself into the present & I am won.

La Iglesia de la Virgen de Guadalupe

My summer project to earn pocket money is cleaning Our Lady of Guadalupe, a tiny church which happens to be next door to my house. (My house is more cheerful, being called “The Ladies with the Spitcurls.”)

It has been quite a trip back in time to handle all the articles of ritual I noticed as a child but was never permitted to touch. The names float up from some interior reliquary of memory: ciborium, chasuble, dalmatic, stole, corporal, chalice. The Liturgical Year floats through my mind as I uncover accessories in purple, green, red, white.

This church is a replacement building constructed in 1973. The original was flooded. Adobe does not do well in flood … the building was lost & rebuilt facing east. These days, a priest comes on first Sundays to say Mass & the street fills with new cars & old people.

I have washed & polished the pews, cleaned the medieval torture-kneelers. I have carried the ceramic statues into the kitchen, placed them in the sink & given them Dawn bubble baths. Stations of the Cross plaques are wiped & carefully rehung.

I am now aware of the total lack of joy the Church brought to my life. The “Laughing Jesus” didn’t exist until fairly recent history, although in my opinion, He must have been an Olympic raconteur to have made such a great impression on so many. I think it is one of Catholocism’s great psyops that He never cracked a smile. But, then, none of the statues look happy. Their expressions are pensive, sorrowful, unhappy, pinched. At the risk of total irreverence, I must say they all look like a dose of stewed prunes might help set up a sunnier outlook.

It’s challenging to clean all the folds & wrinkles in their robes & veils. St. Francis has managed to bop me three times on the head while I was wiping him down – those extended arms are lethal. Baby Jesus (cradled in two out of three statues) was truly divine as not one of His representations is wearing a diaper.

Today I bumped a processional crucifix on a long stick. The plastic figurine slipped feet up, head down. I thought how appropriate this was, given the current state of affairs as the world uncovers overwhelming evidence of paedophilia within the Roman Catholic Church. It put me in mind of flying the flag upside down as a signal of distress.

Everyone in my family was a practicing Catholic until graduation day. Then we all beat feet out of church, shook off any residual holy water & headed for the beach. I was extremely lucky to find the Unity Movement in my life – a joy-filled, affirmative shout of individual power & personal divinity extolling humans as the sources & engineers of grace in motion, living in wellness for the highest good.

The days of a nearby convent of bustling nuns to clean up after the congregation are long gone. It falls upon me, a local cynic offered up for an hourly wage. Only my innate & residual respect calls me to honor these representations of what was once a thriving industry. A time ago, the church was a world to me: an arcane,  mysterious, dark place full of echoing silence, redolent with incense & candle wax.

Once again, the language surfaces from that same deep well: confirmation, communion, intercession, rosary, Eucharist, confession, purgatory, limbo, hell & finally heaven. All for the bargain-basement rate of $12/hour!

It’s Late & I’ve Finished My Book

     This has indeed been a strange summer. It’s been close to roasting some days & we don’t have any a/c or even a cooler tho the fella started to fix it & then drifted off. I will find someone in August if he does not return.

The energies are changing but not changed. Everyone I talk to by email is restless in some way or another. They desire change in the same way that made Vikings leave the north for other explorations…and then be overtaken by the excitement of conquest. That will no longer work; at least not for me. I don’t want to rule or be ruled anymore.

But when the change does not happen, then people try to make it happen by rearranging their lives. I could tell them that none of these changes are the real deal. We are looking to contact God/Goddess once again. We are restless for Home but don’t think we have to die to go there. We are searching for a fulfillment in Spirit to bring comfort in a world seeming to be in a tailspin. I think I sometimes cry for a parent to approve of me & tell me, “good job, kiddo.” The Changes are taking far too long to happen.

People close to death don’t want to die as they cannot tell anymore what’s on the Other Side. We are Muggles in a magical world – seeing it at the fringe of sight without being able to participate except in the most partial manner. I know I am seeking every day with my heart – like a cellphone for the signal tower – but the beeps go unconnected & my heart remains unspoken in the emotions which count for living.

So I chase down the small things. I wish no harm. I keep my own spirits up. I serve, I serve, I serve. In this way I achieve some measure of satisfaction & gather in fulfillment. I wait for the knock at the door & watch the street and the stars equally.

A frog has taken up residence in the rain barrel outside my window. Each night he sings a song too loud for his tiny body. The barrel & the water it contains enlarges the volume. So my heart amplifies my longing. The Messiah is in my mirror & we raise hands to each other to touch only our reflections. I am not sure at all times what is real & what I have imagined. I know of no other thing to do, except that which is mine to do.

I have, in many ways, moved beyond my own life without recognizing the new one; it all seems to have remained the same. One day it will synchronize – the grace & the gross, the dream & the dross, I will move into new space & new love & know it for my own.

Love,

Carol

“Sacredmess”

In writing to another one day, I typed the above instead of the word “Sacredness”.  I thought of how appropos the word turned out to be – since this is what it seems the world has turned into .

I read the many ideas available around the programming of humankind & these make me wonder why we are so suggestible. I believe myself fortunate not to have subscribed to ideas which dim my personal power base. I was not subjected to the standard battery of vaccines or the pharmaceutical cornucopia so readily jammed upon Americans. I had mostly excellent nutrition along the way. I quit the world in my 40’s to learn how to care for myself physically, figuring this to be a salient halfway point.

And tho I joke much about my weight, this overdraft of adipose is, in fact, my only brush with medical mortality & has caused angst which I consciously choose to no longer lend any energy to. I take up as much space as is available for me…joyously now. It has become part of my humor – as though my body is not just a skinsuit, but a source of endless amusement as well.

But sacred mess is the state of most of the world. My donning blinkers to it may work to my advantage in that I lend no energy to the darkness which (many would have it) threatens each of us.

I read very long ago that if I do not put my attention into a situation, the power of such is lessened. This made sense to me & I have attempted to practice it since.

Today I tried to talk to the leasing company which holds the lease on a Clover credit card unit I set up when I started my business at the gym. The customer “service” rep, Gina, continued talking over me even as I tried to present my side of the story. She allowed as how my account is in collections (although I have made ongoing monthly payments after discontinuing the checking account they auto-withdrew from.) She talked over the idea that my three emails & two letters asking that they not tap a closed account for payments, telling me there are late charges galore since I did not pay. Somehow the fact that I did pay & have continued paying counted for far less than their late charges as one of my checks was deposited the day after the due date. I found it interesting talking in concert with her. I’ve never had someone simply talk over me for eight straight minutes as I tried to find out just what happened to the monthly payments made if I was overdue so many months. The phrase “junkyard dogs” comes to mind. What has happened to bring about this total breakdown in the concept of service or the honoring of intent to set up a positive outcome for both involved? Sacred-mess.

So I am browbeaten into making payments I do not owe. I have been unable to determine if they received the unit I returned, even, since no one will answer this either. I think they are salivating over the chance to collect another fee by saying I have not. And every attempt will be made to trash my hard-won credit score in the end. But, see? This phrasing participates in the idea there will not be a happy ending…just what I do not wish to lend energy to. All this brouhaha over $31.58 per month.

Do I jump in these waters & thrash around? Do I pay the late fees just to keep out of “collections”? Probably. Because peace for under $50 seems a bargain. The real question becomes, do I let this scenario suck my energy into their dark hole of greed, dishonesty & unpleasantness? I think I’ll just work it into my little comedy routine of a life. My high opinion of me as honest, hard-working, kind-to-strangers-children-animals must hold in the face of this societal impairment called greed. The oily grins offered when they “cut the deal” back when have slid off their faces, creating slippery grounds for resolution.

Where’s your sacredmess? As ACIM says, “what is stealing your peace today”? I’m here to be a piping voice for balance & understanding, for communication & tolerance in the face of crazed snarling coming over the boundary fence. This is the City Hall we have forfeited the fight to. Their morals will never match mine – but the system is set up to bite first even when the hand of conciliation is offered. None of us can “afford” risking our credit score – our good opinion of what we attempt in righteousness to do – against this kind of rabid idiocy.

Brother, can you spare a dime?