There is something slightly different for this one in the new year, a slight scent, aroma of the new. It feels almost like a nectar, circulating in the body and bring in a sweetness that is indescribable. I feel myself wanted to “figure” it out but know not only is it impossible, also pointless.
One them running through my days is a huge shift that occurred about a month ago. In circling, a key principle is not to come with an intent to fix or change anything or anyone, including self. With 25 years as a psychotherapist, this is not an easy pattern to break with my questions which tend to want to lead toward some specific intent. Even though my professional practice is not to focus on another’s problems, rather always on their relationship with themselves, I still have an agenda. The intent is to support clients in accessing the full awareness of the Truth of who they are, to put them in touch with their True nature. It is to always guide them into full awareness of heir I AM with accompanying joy.
So it has not been easy to let go of even that intent when circling. I applied myself like a bulldog on a pork chop to get this yet would repeatedly fall in to the trap of wanting to guide someone somewhere that would be “healing/ wholing.” rather then simply stay present. Yet about a month ago I had a huge breakthrough in a short circle and I cried and circled with relief to finally truly see through this one to the inherent perfection of each person and situation.
Since then life has carried more ease. Yet there was a slight current of this one still prioritizing external relationships rather then relationship to self. Now I was no longer trying to fix this, simply aware it was there. My very wise friend Raffaella pointed out to me on New Year’s day several areas where I was out of integrity. They were so subtle to me that in two cases it took her awhile until I could see what she meant. One I doubted I had the courage to repair as to do so seemingly at the level of form conflicted with a need for security in the form of money. She showed me a subtle way I was violating my own boundaries desiring to keep a working relationship. I slept on it and the next day burned my bridges by sharing what I saw with the other.
Over the last days life was offering me the choice to choose relationships with others over my own integrity, what this body was telling me would bring me peace. Even a month ago I would have chosen the relationship with all the perceived goodies that came with that package rather then being willing to see the very delicate way those choices were in violation of my own integrity. I had that choice yesterday and to choose my own well being has me in awe. I was able to do so within a very short period of time and not look back once the choice assured I would not get what in the past I would have considered so valuable.
In the past, so many external things were required seemingly for my joy. Now increasingly my own Presence is the only thing required. I am in awe as others can say they perceive me as false as I share this inner peace and certainty and notice their doubt does not impact my peace.
The further I go on my own path, the less companions i find in agreement with me. I have had to leave behind one guide after another as I find key areas where I am not in agreement with their viewpoint. To do so with a fond farewell and not need to try to convince is sweet relief. It feels a little scary to be so alone with my own way of being and witness key figures heading off a slightly different path. A slight aroma of who am I to go where I see no one else going. Yet increasingly I am able to chose to let go of those that have different values, who treat me in a way I do not find to be supportive. I do not even get upset, just notice it is not working and then i can walk on.
I have cried and cried over the last weeks to increasingly find myself in internal states I truly wondered if i would ever reach. The most delicious for me is when separation drops away and regardless of what is unfolding I feel a sense of such profound unity and expansiveness, a vastness without borders. When others act unskillfully it is as though I have a cue card showing me what is triggering them and i feel such compassion. I wonder that others do not see what to me is so obvious, the underlying conditioning that makes the behavior inevitable. To see past others unskillful behavior, including my own and meet it with understanding and kindness is a dream come true.
One of my areas of difficult is to see how many are still driven by fear to choose what for me is a continued state of enslavement. I have not yet made peace with that even though I see the necessity of how on the world stage the love/ fear dynamic simply needs to play out.
The other day I felt so burden by the weight of the fear I felt all around me in the post office, the faces all masked, the eyes darting here and there with either fear or a seeming deadness. Yet yesterday I felt peace even with this. I almost always feel compassion but once I felt anger and that too is perfect even a burning rage that wants to scream wake the hell up people! Our very freedom is at stake and you are sacrificing it for some bullshit safety. And yes I need to spend much of my days in silence, in nature. I get very little “done” in one day, much of my time is simply adapting to the prevailing energy.
Yet to witness the borders of separation drop away again and again, oh mother of all that is holy, I am so grateful.
The other stunning gift is to longer trash the human for the spiritual. Sweet relief to see how I would harm myself with the hopes of spiritual advancement. I would ditch the human savannah in the hopes of being free of the stickiness and angst of the human. No more. Now when the human is crying, scared, lonely, I drop all when i catch it and ask dear savannah what she needs. No more trying to look past the human’s needs to access some spiritual mojo. No surprise, the relationships that rejected that choice are dropping away. I can feel an almost no man’s land where i am crossing from one reality to another. I am leaving behind teachings, books, friends that say ditch the human and I swear I will offer you eternal salvation. My guidance now is we are a package deal and I will never again ditch savannah for some perceived spiritual gain. In the last days I made two choices for me that were RADICAL to not ditch my own experience in hopes of some gain. I sense that the sweet nectar I am experiencing is my own inner trust that I am no longer willing to listen to any voice that says, hey ditch that savannah chick and I will promise you heaven. No thanks.
It is as though the I AM is so charmed and endeared by what the savannah chick is up to. No matter what she say or does, I AM is here with her and will never leave her, of course. And from that radical self acceptance, ah how much easier to make peace with whatever other humans are up to. Sweet relief indeed.
image Ecstacy bu Maxfield Parrish
