Dear God/ess, The other day, I walked Ulysses to a popular downtown spot where there is always a water dish for the dogs who pass by. A woman was there, obviously a Lover Of Dogs. I told the Story Of Ulysses, as I do often, because I am gratified that he chose to spend a few more seasons in my adoring company. Our friend Jo-an recently passed due to a ravaging cancer, and for some reason, Ulysses did not die from his own ravaging cancer this past winter. So I tell Ulysses’ story, in order to give hope to people who love their animals.
This woman told me a story about her own dog who passed after 8 short years. She could not figure out why because she fed him only organic foods which she cooked herself every day.
The she realized the sad fact: She “treated” her lawn with chemicals to kill all the weeds, mainly the Beautiful Dandelion.
These chemicals could be killing her, as well. And her grandchildren.
This is not the first time I thought about this problem of chemical lawn treatment. It feels idiotic to me to decry the dangers in our environment when if every single person stopped treating their lawn, we would be much further along in saving Mother Earth than we currently are.
When we bought our beautiful farm 21 years ago, we were told that absolutely no chemicals had been used on the land for at least 10 years. So for at least 30 years, our land is rich in its own natural life force, undeterred by the stranglehold of “better living through chemicals.”
I would love to start a movement to stop the abusive practice of so-called Lawn Care. Dandelions are a powerful spring tonic and the flowers are rich in natural anti-oxidants. Even though I don’t drink alcohol, Dandelion wine is really an all around natural cure for whatever ails you, except, of course, for alcoholism.
Lawn care, after all, is an all out war waged against the beautiful Dandelion.
How crazy is that?
Let us pray for some Common Sense to the way we care for the animals, our children and ourselves as we live out the rest of our lives here on the Mother we call Earth.
Dear God/ess, Today we met an old friend of Tomaso’s and we had a refreshingly honest talk about our lives, especially the lives of this person and Tomaso and what they went through together over the years, especially 35 odd years ago.
The conversation reminded me of the old conscious raising days of the 1970′s: No idle gossip, just an honest assessment of where we used to be and how far we have come, as well as how far we still have to go, in a process of never arriving, simply enjoying wherever we happen to be.
I am also noticing more and more people around me being 60 something and older, sitting face to face with one another, trying to figure out their lives in relationship with each other and all the other relationships in their lives.
You don’t have to die in order to be reborn. We are always in a process of being and doing, of relaxing and producing, of ebbing and flowing.
There is no end in sight.
The day begins, and then it ends.
The dark night of the soul need not last forevermore. We need not hold on to the doubts we have always had about our lives.
Yes, we look back over a long life well lived. And yes we can learn to love all of it no matter what we’ve done or not done. We can change from a miser to a person who experiences new birth and a Life Of Love.
We can learn to lift up the sadness of the world through the eyes of compassion.
Dear God/ess, Our dear friend Reverend Jo-an died early this morning at 0406. Ever since hearing the news, I’ve given up trying to function in the normal way people go about their days.
It has been a growth process for all of us who love her. And there are truly a great number of us who do.
Jo-an loved this Prayer Blog. She had her partner Sheila, Astrology’s Astrologer, read the prayers to her every day, after she got sick. Before that, she’d mull over them and discuss them with me, and I knew she appreciated them.
Jo-an was my mother’s best friend, and I kept feeling Mom’s presence around these last few weeks. This was my sign that Jo-an was readying herself for the passageway in uncharted territory.
This is the passageway that all of us will make.
Jo-an is a mystical soul. She felt and knew a great deal more than she wanted to tell. Her bottomless brown eyes told the rest of the story.
I went with Jo-an when she gave one of her last weddings, in the spring of this year. She managed to perform the wedding with much bravado, befitting the Leo Performer that she was. In fact, she just turned 87 years on July 23.
Jo-an was a feminist in life and now too, as I feel her magnificent presence. She loves her daughters and her female friends. She also loved Tomaso, whose male/ female qualities are well integrated into the Renaissance Human whom he is.
A feeling of emptiness widens in our hearts at times such as these. We fill the emptiness with nothing but love. Jo-an was saying the last few weeks of her life that the Love she was feeling was Huge and Uncontainable.
So we allow the emptiness we feel to be exactly as it is, and we allow it to expand into the Universal Void. As we do so, it transforms into something else. It joins with the wind and the rain and the aurora, the Owl and the Oak as the leaves prepare to make their seasonal change.
We rest awhile in our joy and we remember the grief which really is joy’s shadow side. We cry real tears.
We know that life is short, and we will not be far behind.
Dear God/ess, What is the process of Letting Go/Letting God physically, mentally and emotionally?
Complete surrender is our greatest teacher if we allow it to be. Surrender is a state of inner alertness to what is happening now, not imposing expectations or assumptions based on past experience.
Complete surrender is Faith that the power of Love can accomplish anything, even when you cannot see the outcome of the situation.
Letting go is a process. You have to know when to apply it, what to let go of, and how to let go. Neither your mind nor your ego is going to show you any of these things. Your ego believes you must hold on in order to survive. Spirit is the only ally we have in letting go to the Higher Power in our lives.
The secret to surrender is to foster Awareness whenever you feel a reaction to any given difficult situation. Any time you are tempted to react in the same old tired way, ask yourself: Do I want to be a prisoner of the past, or a Being who is anchored in the present moment without any thought of past or future?
Spirit has a good outcome for every situation if we open ourselves to it, even in the face of certain death.
Physical Letting Go: Remember to breathe, relax and allow Spirit into your heart.
Mentally Letting Go: Find a mental formula to chant inwardly whenever faced with he reaction to resist, like: “My fears may come true, but outcome will turn out to be go(o)d. I will wait and observe.” Or: “This is just another experience and I am here on Earth (School) to have experiences. Nothing is wrong.”
Emotionally Letting Go: Simply enter any powerful emotion and embrace it, and see it through until the resistance changes to Spiritual Insight.
Learning to surrender is an art form requiring great patience.
The willingness to surrender is often all you need to begin.
Dear God/ess, Julia Rogers Hammrick is on our radio show this week, 11/23/2010 at 6 PM/EST. Joan and I have had her on the show before and she is an absolute delight!
Her book, “Choosing Easy World” was published this year and we will be discussing and experiencing the concepts in her book. Julia will teach us how to consciously choose Easy World over the mindset of resistance, struggle and strife. I think Julia would agree that we aspire to Easy World right here on the Pray To Heal Blog, and everyday, we manage to sustain it.
In the process of fixing up this Pray To Heal Blog, which is an exercise in reflection, contemplation and naturally, prayer, I came to the realization that taken as a whole, what is contained here is a stand alone spiritual practice. Each entry is a jewel placed in the heart of all human kind, as well as the trees, beasts and stones.
Yet isn’t that what our kindred souls here on the Internet and elsewhere are all successfully achieving? We reach out to all souls everywhere and encourage a letting go of all that has gone before.
That leaves all of us right here in the Present Moment, the only true reality and preferred place to be.
We are exactly where we are supposed to be. This is exactly what the word and celebration of “Thanksgiving” is all about. We gather together with family and friends and experience the true meaning of communing: communing with Self, with spirit, and the preciousness of those who are with us today.
We cherish the moment and surrender as we move on to the next breath, the next step, the next Holy Peace of the season.
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.
I spent the last several hours with Ulysses, and just returned from a romp in the park. I asked him to be “good” around the dogs we were without a doubt going to encounter.
He gave me a side long look which told me to shove it.
Ulysses does not like other dogs, except for a select few small dogs. And Mukunda. He adored Mukunda and still does.
Ulysses has a quiet, constant awareness about him. He is awake and tuned in. He is honest about who he is.
If he chooses not to like other dogs, he has a reason. Before I’d say he was just stubborn. But he has a natural wisdom which I trust and surrender to.
We may never understand how Divine Intelligence works, yet when we come to realize that nothing else can be trusted, we find real freedom and peace of mind.
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.
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