I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the world seemingly most indifferent. For this is still the time God chooses.

Taylor Caldwell

“The woman who takes the time to grow herself in the darkness becomes familiar-perhaps for the first time-with the real source and containment of her psychic strength. No longer is her strength dissipated in obeying an idealized father figure, in pleasing a lover, in trying to satisfy a perpetually unsatisfied mother figure, in accommodating to a patriarchal organization or culture, in appeasing the inner witch who tells her she is worthless. No longer is her strength lost to obeying compulsions, drives, and obsessions that can slip in during the dark night of the soul and substitute for the real thing.

And what is the real thing, the thing for which she longs? The love affair with her own spirit, the inner marriage that commits her to her destiny, the rituals of soul that feed her deepest hunger, and the sense of being pregnant with her Self, her creative essence.”

Jill Mellick, Coming Home To Myself

God is always within you, and you are never separated from that energy that you are calling God. But you can get fixated on something that does not allow that energy to be felt by you. You are the only one who can disallow that energy that you are calling God in your life, and you are the only one who can find a vibration that allows it. There are so many people in this world today, specifically in this nation today, that are using the rhetoric of being in alignment with God who are no where near the vibrational vicinity of the energy of source. And in their despair they are acting out in ways of trying to level the playing field, or trying to regain their power. Religion has almost become completely fear based… when God is the opposite of fear based. God is the anti of fear, God is the presence of well being, and there is only a source of well being.

Abraham-Hicks
Boulder, CO (6-11-05)

Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to life
we have refused
again and again
until now.

-David Whyte

I came across this at Walking The Wall yesterday.

Progress

Let there be many windows to your soul,
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition; let the light
Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself
And high as God.

Why should the spirit peer
Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
The splendor from unfathomed seas of space
Might bathe it with the golden waves of Love?
Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths;
Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
And throw your soul wide open to the light
Of Reason and of Knowledge. Tune your ear
To all the wordless music of the stars
And to the voice of Nature, and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you to their peace-crowned heights,
And all the forces of the firmament
Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

by John O’Donahue

(note: I transcribed this from a radio show, so I have all the phrasing and punctuation are my own interpretation, not necessarily how it’s actually written.)

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
time takes on the strain until it breaks.

Then all of the unattended stress falls in on the mind
like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.

Things you could take in your stride before now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.

Gravity begins falling inside you, dragging down every bone.

The ride you never valued has gone out,
and you are marooned on unsure ground.

Something within you has closed down
and you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.

The desire that drove you has relinquished.

There is nothing else to do now but rest,
and patiently learn to receive the self you have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken,
and sadness take over like listless weather.

The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too far over false ground;
now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses.

Open up to all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain when it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
taking time to open the well of color that fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone until its silence can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit;
learn to linger around someone of ease,
who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
having learned a new respect for your heart,
and the joy that dwells far within slow time.

from my fantastic friend, crse:

“I grew up in the 70s. There was no such thing as t-ball in the 70s. We threw hard little sacks of pain and liked it. Oh yes we did. We loved it.”

The only Zen you find on mountains
is the Zen you bring there.

-Robert M. Pirsig

From the ezine, “Gibbleguts” (March 28th issue)

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in
Spanish, unlike English, nouns are not genderless but
are designated as either masculine or feminine. House
for instance, is feminine: la casa and Pencil, however,
is masculine: el lapiz. A student then asked, What
gender would a computer be?

A. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
B. The native language they use to communicate with other
computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;
C. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term
memory for possible later retrieval; and finally
D. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself
spending half your paycheck on accessories for it!
(THIS GETS BETTER!)

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should
definitely be masculine, ‘el computador, because:
1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the
time they ARE the problem; and 4. As soon as you commit to
one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could
have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Al Giordino: Hey, you know how it is when you see someone that you haven’t seen since high school, and they got some dead-end job, and they’re married to some woman that hates them, they got, like, three kids who think he’s a joke? Wasn’t there some point where he stood back and said, “Bob, don’t take that job! Bob, don’t marry that harpy!” You know?
Dirk Pitt: Your point?
Al Giordino: Well, we’re in the desert, looking for the source of a river pollutant, using as our map a cave drawing of a Civil War gunship, which is also in the desert. So I was just wondering when we’re gonna have to sit down and re-evaluate our decision-making paradigm?

-from the movie “Sahara”