After those years of blackout alcoholic drinking, I got a GED and went back to school, got nursing degrees, and thought I was keeping my drinking under control, the great alcoholic delusion.
But the truth of it was, I was a binge drinker and suffered from 4-6 drunks every year with maintenance drinking in between for 30 years.
I put the cork back in the bottle for 6-9 months at a time, but always returned to my drinking behaviors, each time a little closer to self-destructive consequences.
I never got a DUI and was never arrested for any other reason because of alcohol, but plenty of my alcoholic friends were.
One day I knew I had enough and found the answers as to how to stay sober, one day at a time.
Finally, I have reached a level of emotional sobriety that Bill W. discusses in his wonderful essay entitled “Emotional Sobriety,” which says quite simply that dependence on people, places or things is not the way of an alcoholic who Truly is in recovery.
This is a very important ingredient of my sobriety today.
Dear God/ess, Today is a good day to practice “Easy World.”
Julia Rogers Hamrick, in her recently published book, “Easy World,” says one of the ways to pinpoint where your mind and heart resides is to recognize the symptoms of “Difficult World.” Julia will be on MoonMooYou: The Collective Wisdom tonight, 11/23/10 at 6 PM/EST!
My guiding star, and you all probably have another one, is the presence of impatience, resulting in judgment, lack of compassion and mindless hurry.
We have 100% control and responsibility over which world we choose to reside in.
Difficult world is wrought with knee jerk reactions and loveless perception, and therefore never brings anyone happiness.
Easy world synchronizes with healing breath and breathing, with radiant peaceful love, and as we consciously choose this reality, and make this way of thinking a habit, the more we see that our entire essence is nothing more or less than Love.
Why do we need constant reminders to stay rooted in Easy World? Why can’t we suddenly arrive and never again slide back to unconscious, linear, left brain reality?
This Pray To Heal Blog is one example of a daily (now sans weekends) gentle reminder to make each moment a quiet adventure of the heart.
Ulysses feels the love that emanates from all of you here on this blog and elsewhere. His tumor is almost gone and this is a miracle of resting in daily prayer and learning to receive–baby step by baby step–the power of Unseen Forces.
Let us remember that Ulysses always lives in Easy World, whether he has a tumor, or not.
Dear God/ess, I will have to ask all of you to continue your prayers for Ulysses.
While doing our Customer Service performance yesterday, Tom took Ulysses to the Vet for a followup appointment. Another biopsy taken from the swelling surrounding the area around the penis revealed cancer cells.
Now that the Customer Service gig is over, I have a few days to commune with Ulysses. When I think about a scientific diagnosis of cancer and the weight of these words, I feel a need to defy the heaviness of the scientific and rational mind that comes up with such a diagnosis to begin with.
Perhaps a blending of an intellectual and creative mind with that of the ability to perceive the Universe through the Eye of the Soul is a way to begin the healing process.
Therefore, the healing of Cancer, or any other life threatening disease, which is impossible in the physical world of reason and logic, becomes completely possible in the world of prayer and Mystical Grace.
In the process of healing self, Ulysses or anyone else, we must transcend the limitations of reason alone and connect with the inner realms of mystical perception and reality.
What a beautiful opportunity to begin again!
I remember the story of Dr. Ella Kilgus, creator of the Mechano, and her retreat on the Atlantic Coast at the turn of the 20th century. She did Mechano Neural Treatments, renamed Mechano Magic by the nurse healers who receive it, fed good food to her patients, who then relaxed on long spreading porches overlooking Old Oak and the sound of the breaking, healing ocean waves.
I think of Dr. Ella as I go about communing with Ulysses and giving Mechano along with prayerful breath in the days and weeks ahead.
I believe it is possible to defy a diagnosis and embrace the possibility of mystical communion with Light and Love.
Dear God/ess, Thank you one and all for your prayers of healing for Ulysses The Dog. I felt a shift in my thinking during morning meditation yesterday, and as the day progressed, I felt so much loving, prayerful thoughts coming our way. Thank you all for that.
Once again, I am astounded by the slowing down of time when presented with the opportunity to send (and receive) healing energy.
The object of my contemplation today and yesterday is the healing of Ulysses, resulting in feelings of self-awareness, peacefulness, compassion and a sense of heightened spiritual perception.
Breathing with Ulysses reminds me of the word “prana,” a sanskrit word meaning vital energy or life force.
In Hindu or Taoist traditions, the breath is a metaphor for spirit and soul. Thus by regulating the breath, your spirituality deepens. Furthermore, Buddhist breathing exercises help the practitioner gain greater control over mental and emotional states.
In Eastern Traditions, developing consciousness and mental control all begins with the breath, leading to greater and ever joyful spiritual awakenings.
So this is my practice in the coming days and weeks: Breathing With Ulysses.
As we come into resonance with one another, the sense of calm and tranquility will transform both of our lives.
In addition to the birthing bed, the sick bed, and the death bed, is the healing bed. Healing flows through all of these, but holds a special place in and of itself.
As we cultivate love and compassion in even the most difficult moments with even the most perceived difficult people, let us remember that Love and Compassion are action verbs and are not weak or sentimental. They demand the highest level of courage and integrity that anyone is capable of.
Acquiring great material gain can appear to offer simple solutions to emotional and spiritual discomforts. But the inner quest of spirit is a subtle one because at the heart of it is the search for purpose, meaning and the sacred beauty and mystery of life.
The most effective way to “Be” there for anyone, whether it be friend, foe, husband, wife, life partner, or patient is to empty your life of drama, crazy making, TV soap operas or the soap operas that people want to involve you in.
We can involve ourselves in compassionate acts without creating any more unnecessary drama, in fact rising above the dramas that swirl around the situations you are beaming love into.
The 360 Day Blogging Challenge continues over on Your Daily Prayer For Healing, at Crabbysbeach. Today is day 304, and counting.
Although I do plan to continue writing prayers after 11/1/2010, the anniversary day, I only plan to do them 5 rather than 7 days a week. The stats aren’t always as high on the weekends, although there are exceptions to this, as always.
Even though I doubt if anyone else is counting, I thought I’d make a big deal out of it. And keep on keeping on, as I continue to revive this cool blog!
I am enjoying rediscovering this blog, again. Of all the links I have on the Internet, Google ranks this blog higher than any of them. And I haven’t posted on it for weeks, until recently.
I am writing a series of posts on aging, and awareness, and grace over on the prayer blog.
James Douglass, author of “JFK And The Unspeakable” was on Moon, Moo & You: The Collective Wisdom twice.
Here is the first interview, done 7/3/2010.
This was not an easy interview, because both Joan and I have different approaches to who killed President Kennedy. But we both agree–it wasn’t who the Warren Commission says it is.
