FIRST I MADE PLANS REVISITED

Through out all the months on the road, but especially in recent weeks unexpected choices have come up and i find myself asking ... 'if not now, when?' ... to those situations and choices. With some freqency i follow up with asking myself ... 'isn't this why you disassembled your previous life? ... to be available to just this sort of situation ...Well, ya, but i still expected a different outcome.' ...

For a few weeks the Chaos of the unsettled was near unbearable for this bull. Everything i attempted to pin down spun out and away. It seemed as though i was getting further and further away from my imagined goal of work / career / calling. I was growing depressed. Depression is something i rarely have to deal with. Life was not bending to my will. Life was not following my rules. Crossing my T's and dotting my I's and still i was not moving in the direction i expected to be moving.

Brought to my knees, I prayed. I asked for help to unravel the chaos and confusion. I asked for peace. With prayer ties as focusing tool, i breathed in the life unfolding in me and through me. Again, i re-dedicated self as a conduit to serve life and the people. Hanging the ties from the pine tree in the front yard of the home i am staying in, the depression lifted and peace came into me with the breath. In under 24 hours the chaos began to loosen its hold on me. Situations that were not resolving were now resolving. There were many layers of situations one relying on the other to reach resolution and now one after the other resolution was created and the next puzzle piece and the next clicked into place.

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I have been confusing career with vocation.

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I have been assuming that the career and vocation were one. Perhaps because so often they have been one. I never questioned if it were possible for them to not be one.

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"When you are working within the field of Fortitude ....Some form of humiliation is often part of the picture, so you may face obstacles that will humiliate you while you are trying to ground your vision into everyday reality. The reason for the humiliation is mystical in that you are forced to relinquish your personal vision of how something should be accomplished, allowing for the divine plan to be set in motion."

Taken from DEFY GRAVITY by Caroline Myss

www.Myss.com

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The Pathway of MOTHER

This morning my daughter, Pure Joy, spoke of spiritual practice (called by some sadhana). She voiced concern related to not finding time for prayer, introspection and meditation as her time is so completely taken up with the care of her Little Lightning Boy. She spoke of levels of exhaustion wherein she could not stay awake or focused to pray.

How well i remember those days of holding, rocking, nursing, bathing, touching, touching touching with compassion and peace the little ones given to my care. The extended period of exhaustion was beyond anything i had experienced before or since that time. Yet concurrently there was a joy and peace beyond anything before or since. How i remember breathing in the essence of the little one, the purity, the life force so powerful. It was and continues to be humbling to be chosen to be Mother by Creator, Creation and the Spirit coming in as my child.

We then discussed BEING MOTHER as a pathway to the Center of All Things, my daughter shared her practices now and i shared my practices during that time when i was Mother to little ones. Practices wherein we are for days, months and years continually 'on call' to meet the needs of the little one given into our care.

By necessity related to the commitment to be Mother, there were/are no extended times for going into physically quiet places for long periods of focused melting and melding with spirit. It seems my daughter and i have both come to similiar practices to assist in centering. They are practical and simple and most important they really work to create opening to spirit in a good way.

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Be present in the moment, knowing that BEING MOTHER is The Practice

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Each breath is a prayer. There may not be time to have extended focused prayer/meditation, however a single breath with focus can be the prayer

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Put on Music that is prayer or sing to yourself and your little ones songs that draw us upwards to places of peace

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Read the words of those who love Creator and Creation while you are sitting and nursing your little one

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While preparing food, serving food, eating, feeding the little one put good thoughts/prayers into the food so that this is also a prayer

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Washing self, washing the little one is more than a physical cleansing, it is a cleansing of spirit also

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Washing clothes, washing dishes, folding clothes, drying dishes, this is also a prayer

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All care of the Little One is a prayer

... all is a prayer

... all is a prayer

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All is a prayer

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All is a prayer

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All is a prayer

The Way of the Heart

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The World According to Turtle Island Nomad, which may have nothing to do with your reality

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I am drawn to the Christ. Differentiating Christ from Jesus. Jesus was the man who carried the Christ Medicine / manifested the Christ Spirit. The Christ Spirit is the Spirit of LOVE prevading ALL. I honor the man Jesus and he was a man ... only a man. The difference between this man and others is that he chose to open himself completely to the LOVE. He became a conduit to serve the people. He gave his life as a gift to the people.

The mystics of the Christian pathway speak across the centuries to ALL WAYS. They speak in the language of those who follow the Christ way - and - for those who have ears and heart to hear, THEY SPEAK TO ALL WAYS.

The mystics / those who love Creation and Creator . . . speak the same language. They speak HEART.

There is only ONE WAY to the center of all things. That way is not only 'Christian', it is not only 'Buddhist', it is not only 'hindu', it is not only 'Zoroastrian', it is not only Lakota ....(choose any number of other pathways from across the Mother Earth and add in here)....

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I have a certainty that Jesus who manifested the Christ spirit would have no problem:

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*Practicing Lojong Tonglen with the Buddhists

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*Revere and hold sacred the living world as the Zoroastrians do

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*Use the japa mala/prayer beads with the Hindu practioners

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*Crawl into the Inipi to pray with the Lakota People

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With this in mind, consider reading THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING. It is not an easy read and it shares the 'signs' common along the way to all who choose to follow the way of the heart. Feel free to insert the language of the path you have chosen to follow to help understand the insights offered. This book is a map of the terrain of the awakening heart. This book in it's entirety is on line at Googles book site whose link is at the bottom of this post. Directly below are a few short quotes from this book:

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"Be willing to be blind,

and give up all longing to know the why and how,

for knowing will be more a hinderance than a help."

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"But now you will ask me

'How am i to think of God himself, and what is he?'

and i cannot answer you except to say,

'I do not know' for with this question you have brought me into the same darkness,

the cloud of unknowing where i want you to be."

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"God, unto whom all hearts be open,

and unto whom all will speaketh and unto whom no privy thing is hid.

i beseech thee so for to cleanse the intent of mine heart

with the unspeakable gift of they grace,

that i may perfectly love thee, and worthily praise thee.

Amen"

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http://books.google.com/books?id=8PEJ-rfFj_oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=the+cloud+of+unknowing&hl=en&ei=xajeTOznKI3_nAfzisnXDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q&f=false

PATHS CONVERGE

If i go far enough in any direction on true spiritual path, there is convergence with other true paths. Just as Turtle Island herself is criss-crossed with roadways to meander or move with resolve and intention, just so spiritual practice has 'hook-up' points.

WE ARE ALL CONNECTED.

Today i came across a small connection point. i was at the OSHO web site (www.osho.com) reading an atricle on the Aum sound. (Aum: Universal Panacea). Osho says, "The Aum creates within you the shivalinga, the egg-shaped energy circle. When you become perceptive you can even see it." Later in the same article he states, "The moment this happens to you, languor has disappeared. Now you are high energy." Osho says, "When you become silent with the chanting of Aum, you are sheltered, calm, quiet, collected. In that collectedness you can see which is the real voice which is coming from you, which is authentic." I interpret this "real voice" as wisdom when there is a gaining of insight from inner quidance.

In Lakota tradition (the people of the plains of Turtle Island) there is one who is talked about much, Iktomi the spider trickster. What is not spoken of as often is the origins of Iktomi. Before Iktomi came to be, there was Ksa. Ksa was the child of Inyan and Wakinyan. Ksa is wisdom and as such guided the people to places of being in wisdom. Ksa was later transformed into Iktomi when people stopped listening to wisdom. Some accounts say that Ksa was egg-shapped or odd shapped. Other accounts say he was born from an egg. For further information on Ksa one source to consider is the books by James R. Walker (Lakota Myth, Lakota Belief and Ritual).

The reference to EGG SHAPED is the connection point for me. Both pathways associate this EGG shape with Wisdom, listening and hearing innner guidance.

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When will we return to the Aum vibration that prevades all creation.

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When will we return to the wisdom of Ksa?

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There is much more that can be written about the fall from that place of Wisdom which occured when the people stopped listening ... to the aum ... to Ksa. That however is a topic for another day.