Love, Trust and Passion for Being Alive

A contribution that I recently made: My speaking into the Circle:

There is a current of existence that runs beneath the surface of my experience of the relative world. This current is profoundly alive, a pulsing essence of love and trust. My mind, hanging out on the relative surface, often does not understand or has troubles making sense of the ways things are showing up in the world. My mind… connected to my heart… connected to this always ever-present current of love and trust (faith) gets confused and twisted and scrambles at times in efforts to experience the full, fresh, alive essence of love and trust here on earth, here with all my relations. That part of me that is always connected to this current of knowing is very wise… she/it provides me with the ability to breathe with ease, to smile, to laugh, to play, to dance, to look deeply into another's eyes, to celebrate as fully as possible this divine opportunity I have been granted to be alive… today… right now… in this body I am inhabiting… connecting in the world… sharing love.

There are other parts of me that grasp at the current that is always present. They don't feel the love, they don't feel the trust… and they want to because they know it's there. The mind says, "There is love present, there is trust present"… and yet the body says, "But I can't feel it… I feel pain, I feel mistrust, I feel fear, I feel rejection, I feel contraction." These parts of me share the same heart and so they have hints of knowing what it is like to live an embodied experience that permeates with a sense of love and trust. They yearn to bring forth that experience in the world around them. This is an essential part of my way of being in this world… I am alive for sharing love with the world.

And yet, love is such a big and Powerful word. Its energy is huge. There are so many threads of meaning woven together to fit inside the shape of that small four letter word. Often when I am struck by the immensity and power of something, I become curious, seeking to look more closely at the parts that make the whole. This inspires me to deepen my relationship with whatever I am curious about, inviting greater intimacy. And so with the word love, I often ask such questions of myself (and others when they are open to such a conversation):

* What is love to you?
* How do you experience love?
* How do you express love?
* How do you receive love?
* How do you recognize love?
* What does love feel like?

An answer that I've been living with for myself lately (it's actually a part of a song about my purpose that I sing to myself!): "For me… Love is honesty… Love is to Be… Love is to free you and me." I don't feel like explaining what that means to me right now, but if you have questions feel free to ask.

Peggy asks: What is calling me now?

A passion to share love with the world. A passion to be in Relationship, allowing the always present current of love and trust to be present even when we are working through the challenges of finding ways to manifest that love and trust. I feel deeply called to be with collectives that are learning how to show up authentically as individuals and how to show up authentically as a collective. I feel called to be present with and give voice to the interpersonal space, the relational space. I feel called to celebrate with others the Gracious Beauty of Life, exploring ways to help grace, beauty, respect, love, gratitude, celebration, etc emerge as abundantly as does fear, hatred, war, disrespect, and all those other words. I feel called to smile and laugh and play, diving deep into the juice and splashing around joy!!!

My Style of Embracing Shadow and Light

(Photo by Dee Johnson)
The shadow points to where the sun is... following the shadow's shape and direction on the earth is a guide to finding the source of light. On a cloudy day when the shadows are hidden and hazed over, it's harder to locate exactly where the sun shines. And on crisp clear days when we are fortunate to play with our eyes open, recognizing the beauty of what-is, we can notice the spectrum of light reflecting and shadow casting decorating existence.

And so it is in our internal landscape. My style of embracing what-is includes noticing signs (shapes) within me that point to 'shadow' and embracing them too as I know that following their guidance will lead me to the brighter light. At this moment's reflection, I recognize 2 ways in which I get tuned into the presence of my shadow. The main one is whenever I feel a strong charge around some interaction/engagement -- If I feel triggered, if I feel a real sense of being subject to some deep emotion, a sense of indignation, a feeling of emotional arousal, or something that creeps over me and seems to absorb me. When I notice that I am so strongly in my own experience, absorbed by my own perceptions, charged by this presence, then I know that there is something here for me to 'investigate.' In a state of being absorbed, the light dims. The moment of recognizing the dimmed light grants me an opportunity to expand my vision, open to allowing in more air, more room to move, more perspective, more than just little old me attached to my ways of being and doing and afraid to step out into an unknown.

When I recognize this dimming or subjective addiction or attachment and then follow it's pointing to what is beneath it, usually something gogeous and fresh emerges. The darkness has pointed me towards the light. And I feel such a sense of awe, love and apprecaition for the opportunity to discover this hidden place in my being waiting to receive my attention

Cathy (with slight remixing)

when I listen to that voice that calls me from very deep within, I give it an audience, then I have a greater strength and calm and serenity.

The second way that shadow reveals herself to me is through my noticing of patterns in the ways I interact with others. The moment I notice a repetition of types of interactions or ways people are responding or reacting to me, that moment is like seeing the tree's shadow on the grass and looking up to find the sun that's just peeked out from behind the clouds. If there is something in this pattern that does not seem to be serving the greatest good (each of us in our fullest light) then I speculate there is a play of shadow woven in our interaction... and I set out to investigate. This process of light (insight) discovery is often much slower. Usually there are many moments of noticing the pattern before a deeper awareness surfaces.

I strongly believe that our shadows exist because at some point in our lives we needed them. We developed habits in order to survive, in order to effectively exist in the world that was around us... and as we evolve and mature we are less and less in need of those protective layers, we've discovered new ways of being and surviving. For this reason, I feel such an affection for my own and other people's shadows, they represent such a precious time in our lives and are in some ways like a favorite blankey.... all they ask from us is for love and acceptance, to be listened to and heard. And we do them a disservice if we continue to give them power as it is no longer 'real' power only patterns of habit. And so we with loving eyes weave the threads of essence into our new wings. . .

Chris:

By learning to onglingly stand in my shadow and feel it directly, I sense the possibility for holding others before me more as real beings and less as projections of my own unseen being.

I view my shadow as a function of my Being, and a living component of it, full of essence and information I need if I am to trust myself in relating [to myself and] others in a way that is free.

ahhhhh.....

(from a conversation at the wings forum)