Village Square III
In our AcimVillage, we have the plane tree that stands in the central village square. Its enormous branches spread out to cover an area wide enough to provide shade on a warm day for many a traveller or tradesman. Water bubbles and trickles from a stone fountain on the eastern side. It is under the plane tree and by the fountain that wandering sages have traditionally lead conversation with the local people, before setting off again on their way; it is here that the townspeople come to exchange views and thoughts on their beloved spiritual philosophy, learning from each other in kindness and wisdom.
Rules to ponder…
Study of A Course In Miracles benefits greatly from sharing our experiences in its practice. Here you can talk about what works, or doesn’t, for you, taking obvious care not to be ‘preachy’, please. We all learn best when someone talks from their own experience, rather than tries to tell us what we should be doing differently. Let’s take the position that none of us are teachers, we are all at the same point returning on the path Homeward. All of us will still be making mistakes for a while yet, so let’s be particularly humble and caring in how we deal with each other. Please keep in mind that this is a site dedicated to the approach Kenneth Wapnick takes to teaching ACIM. I shall certainly do my best to bring everyone back to the core principles as taught by him.
I would also like to point out that AcimVillage is the place to come to explore our judgments, but not to express them as judgments. If you feel you need to gripe, criticize and vent, even subtly, then contact me privately (at bernard@pauloandthemagician.com) where I will receive you with kindness and understanding. Please do not do so in the forums where I will inevitably moderate out this kind of post. Remember, you will feel better only when you are able to move past the investment in your judgments, not simply by unloading them for everyone to see. This means taking responsibility for your perceptions and acknowledging that ultimately no one has prevented you from feeling completely peaceful and safe, despite what might appear to be the unfortunate conditions of your life at this time. (I know, this is hard. Contact me if you’re struggling.)
So, two basic rules here. One, we avoid mention of other approaches to the study of ACIM (non-Wapnickian) as well as to other philosophies we might be studying. This is purely to achieve a stable, comfortable learning forum where we are all aiming at the same goal, using the same symbols and language to get there. This is not to cast any judgment on any other approaches or philosophies. ACIM is a sufficiently difficult path to undertake without bringing more confusion into our study than our minds already contain! If you have benefited from other paths and would like to share your thoughts, by all means do so. Just please do this in the privacy of your personal emails. It’s also my personal opinion (take it or leave it) that at some point a student of ACIM is much better off sticking with one set of symbols and one teacher, and working with these thoroughly, instead of getting too dispersed. Rule two, we try not to play ‘teacher’ with each other here, reminding ourselves to be humble and always equal with our brother.
Enjoy the discussion!
I LOVE YOU TEX
oh Tex…I wanted to help – my remark about the shoes was meant to encourage and support you.
I will let Peggy’s and Anil’s kind words envelope you now and behind them is the entire Village. This undoing will bring us to our knees but it can’t touch the eternal.
Carry on is the right attitude and we must.
Lesson 85
#69 My grievances hide the light of the world in me.
#70 My salvation comes from me.
From TJTTW Ken expands: “That darkness is what we unfortunately want. In the light of God’s truth there is no individual or special existence. We need to realize there is a purpose behind holding on to grievances: to keep our special self intact by using the darkness of guilt and attack to hide the light of love…This is the bottom line: Do I want to see or not? If I do, Jesus must be my eyes which means I can not judge. I will know which choice I made by its outcome. Finding myself angry, depressed, guilty, fearful, or anxious is what tells me I do not want to see. With the ego, my individuality and separation are all I know and my self is safe, though miserable.
Jesus “directs our sight inward and away from the world; the shift in purpose-from guilt to salvation-reflects our decision to remember our Source and our Self.
If they looked like rubies, they were most certainly bloody. And if they had twinkles of diamonds, there were tears already glistening on them, promising to welcome some of yours. That’s what it is like here in ego-land.
When we work these lessons we are strapped into a roller coaster. We may read that Love created me like itself. And we could get all filled with grace and grin down the hall till we meet the first growling creep who brings back the life we are living. Then, back out of the driveway and pick up a nail in our tire. Go the rest of the day solving catastrophies, and get home and remember to read, Love holds no grievances. HAH! The tire guy ripped me off, too!
Then we throw open our arms, eyes to the sky, and demand explanation, declaring defeat and (aargh) defeat But I do have grievances, Lordie dear, how can you be near?
Where is the frigging miracle in my life?! What am I doing tipping these keys with all these happy fulfilled miracle experiencing people here at the village? I must be the cockroach under the fallen plane leaf — just staying to eat crumbles of cheese that have fallen off their plates.
Yep, that’s the way the lessons go, particularly the first time thru. And the ego is wily enough to give you some of these black shroud days even on the 4th and 5th walkthroughs. But the first time thru, the dark force is powerfully strong, me little Glenda. It has much to gain – all of your heart. It is telling you that this is pointless, terror is the only truth. Stop this stairway to heaven now. Look, it isn’t working. Jump off! It will catch you (like Lucy will hold the football, hah hah).
As our beloved Ken said so many times, if we were already there, we wouldn’t be here doing this. In so many of the lessons, Jesus says this doesn’t make sense to you now, but this is what the truth is, it is supposed to sound beyond our belief and understanding as we read it. So, Tex, my lovely littermate, you are so very right to proclaim your non-comprendo. Never try to cloak your honest perceptions, Big J and his Holy whispering Spirit are quietly emptying out your grab bag of the horrors of this world, this ugly thing, then that ugly thing. You can feel like a curator of the ugly thing museum.
When Helen complained that this course didn’t work, Jesus said, well, why don’t you try working it. Haha, always a smart ass, Big J. And that was far far far from her beginning it. Truth is, nobody works it until somewhere way down up the ladder it starts to work you. And that takes along time in our time keeping methods. All we can do, is pick up the book and do one more lesson, and LET IT do its background lesson in the depths of your soul, while we live our frustrations and regular bombshell lives.
NOBODY does these lessons right. They are built to amuse us with our forgetfulness, until we forgive it. Later on, up on the upper ladder, maybe, we think of God and Grace constantly, and every 5 minutes sing our lesson. Great, let it be. Meanwhile back here at the ranch, on our lower rungs, we let the Holy Spirit go about His Business and we just barrel thru the incantations, merely entertaining the possibilities. We just try one thing, as Ken taught us, to be as kind as we can.
Boy, is this long! So sorry. Think of the lessons as climbing out of the Grand Canyon, listening to descriptions of the glorious views. But we are still at the bottom. Here with you in love, Katrina
The math problem I’m getting is the classic! 2 + 2 is definitely 5, but I gotta answer what the world expects = 4
Great stuff, Katrina. Whoa. Had to hang on while I read that. Tex, I see you sitting right there playing with your wooly bear in Heaven with the angels, already there. It just doesn’t seem like it. We’re all busy insisting we’re not there in that wonderful place, because we actually want to be here and try to make these bodies work. We don’t want the life He gave us, but this puny, funny, awfully silly little life we’ve invented for ourselves. But actually we do want the Life he gave us, and that’s why we’re on the fence now, tentatively teetering towards Heaven, then quickly retreating to hell, then back a little toward Heaven. It’s all a sublime joke. But maybe sublime is not quite the right word.
Hugs to everyone.
Yeah, “sublime” doesn’t quite work for me either (=
Ps. Nice post, Katrina. Perhaps its true (= like you said, at one level, I don’t even care anymore. Am going to recite the lessons now (=
Hang on to your seat belts. it’s going to be a bumpy night. Holy Kamole what a perfect popurri of revealing what is in our seeming separated self state we can’t skip steps or gloss over, along with the right mind devotion and gratitude for this path we found and cling knowing it’s the one for us
Katrina…just really loved what you wrote in 203…you are such a great writer I eat what you write and it’s like an IV transfusion.
Tex we all get you and love you and our sage amongst us Peggy delights in you.
After all these years of having you with us Peggy I appreciate the diamond sutra ness of the way you express yourself and embrace us all. Having recently learned how long you’ve been with the course and traveled the world with an open mind and heart…lit’s so clear in your expressions in this village. Loved the wake up call and the true listening clues of Awakenness
Wow.. I just did something on my laptop that made my writing much easier for me to read.
Nina….your beautiful thoughts are lights in the twinkling harbor Bernard made for us where we are all safely anchored.
Hedda loved your post…where is my frigging miracle
Annie your play by play to Anil and happy day greetings
Bernard loved you past post I never commented on and this one above
Anil….as long as I’ve know you, you’ve really always had a personal J in your pocket relationship.
Scottish Richard hope you pass this way again, but regardless you are firmly cemented into my heart.
Hi Papa Lawrence.
I’m having a good adventure tomorrow I’l write about later.
Bye for now friends. Love Michele
Beautiful, Michele. A real gift. And Nina’s thoughts, “lights in the twinkling harbor where we are all safely anchored” That’s so lovely and true.
Annie, I just saw your post on ‘automatic’ and ‘stick shift’ – that’s brilliant! It’s mine now, all mine, to use as I want and need!
This weekend Patricia and I are up in Brittany to give a two-day workshop to 30 people on ‘The Healing of Relationships’. I’m a bit sneaky because in order to talk about healing, we have to define the sickness. So I’m wondering what’s going to happen when we spend the first day talking all about the ugliness of the ego and our decision for separation… Will post next week. It’s all still a little mysterious to me, this process of learning to talk the Ken-talk.
Post #203 needs to be framed at the Fireside Lounge!!!
At the end of the day when we get off the roller coaster and our knees are wobbly its comforting to join at the Fireside to raise our glasses with our comrades.
So here we are and its a new day (:
Let’s give it another whirl.
I came across this article – an interview with Ken.
While filming Ken Wapnick for A Course in Miracles The Movie, filmmaker iKE ALLEN asked him several wonderful questions, including the story that Helen said The Course was only for a few people. Below is the response Ken offered iKE:
One of the things Helen (Schucman) used to say about the Course, is that it’s only for about five or six people. There was a period of time when she actually counted who she thought the five or six people were. I’m not going to give you the names. At some point, I think it was in a weak moment, she expanded it to nine or ten. But the point of that is not to take it as literally true, but as a symbol for the fact that this Course, in its pure form, in what it’s really teaching, is for relatively few, because it’s so frightening. It threatens the very fabric of our existence. It threatens the greatest value of all, which is the value of our personal self. So while I quote Helen’s line rather often, about the five or six people, and sometimes we even say, half jokingly, that I try to dissuade people from the Course, it’s really a way of saying that this is much more serious than you think. This is a much more serious thought system than you think. This has a depth far greater than you believe. And that in a sense, I’m kind of warning them that if you continue with this, you’re going to lose everything, at least everything that you hold dear.
There’s a wonderful line saying that when you cross over to the real world, which is the Course’s symbol for the end of the journey, you will realize “in glad astonishment that for all this, you gave up nothing.” But on this side of the bridge, we’re giving up everything. We’re giving up not only what we cherish and what we love, but we’re giving up our very self. So that’s why the process is really a very gentle one in which we don’t transcend the Ego until the very end, but we transform our self. We transform ourselves from an angry, judgmental, guilty, fearful, anxious person to someone who is now more loving, more gentle, more kind and more peaceful. So there’s a gentle kind of transition, but at the very end, the whole thing dissolves into its own nothingness. So I like to caution people, at least alert people, to take this Course much more seriously than they may otherwise do; and to really have enough humility and enough respect for the Course to see oneself as spending a lifetime growing into it, rather than being tempted to scale it down to our size, but to see our lives as growing into it. Because this is a thought system that literally reaches to Heaven, even though it meets us in this world, in the illusion – but its ultimate goal is to awaken us from the dream and return us home.
Yes, that is exactly what i meant to say, hee hee. That sweet Kenneth was such a gift, so perfectly eloquent and with such a loving smile.
I really do apologize for my rant-on. I seem to channel an entity i call ‘the crazy old lady’.
Call me crazy, Katrina, but I found your #203 more eloquent by far ! (=
Ken’s answer to Ike’s question is very helpful too, of course !
G’nighht folks..
I just realized, in the midst of it all – that I don’t believe a word of all this – It was just amazing to see my reactions go “all over the map” like this.
Five minutes later, I am begging and sobbing, and then I wake up all calm and knowing.
So this is the Journey through the Workbook? This must be my ego shrieking raucously. And I hate how it shows up “out there”… this is not for the faint of heart!
Thanks for everyone’s kind words. This undoing is like debridement.
*wah!*
I agree, it is debridement of the body. One funny thing i’ve noticed is that when I see something i think is awful, it takes 2 days of denying it is what i think it is, and on the 3rd day something ‘miraculous’ arrives.
I love this 2nd part of today’s lesson, Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation. Just my act of denying the lie i think i am seeing (my grievance) opens the possibility of not being unhappy, and then i get at least a day of the Light. And sometimes more . . .
Lesson 86
#71 Only God’s plan for salvation will work.
#72 Holding grievances is an attack on God’s plan for salvation.
Sheesh, notice how easy it is to skip a lesson? I’m slipping it in just in the nick of time (11:24 pdt)
Thank you for writing out yesterdays Lesson plan in the nick of time (:
I am really enjoying us doing these lessons collectively. We’ve come a long way from when we all met on our first Bus Ride together. I find it empowering that every now and then I get to drive the Bus and write out the lesson plan for the day. ( learning how to drive a stick shift )
And dear Tex – whose heart is as big as Texas – it was you who arranged this cross country tour of journeying through the workbook- and we are all on board Sister!
And yes, we make regular stops for debridement.
What do they say about the month of March, in like a lion out like a lamb.
Maybe I shouldn’t use that line as it is one created by observing the external world of weather patterns..
I shall quote instead Ken’s words at the end of the review lesson #88:
“I can see God’s laws reflected by seeing the opportunity to learn how separate interests lead to hell, while shared purpose leads to the Heaven I never truly left-
the Home of God’s laws of love and life.”
Bernard – are you really talking the Ken-talk – or are you talking the Holy Spirit talk? I have a feeling that you are a perfect inner-listener to Him – and that that would remove some anxiety or stress maybe of trying to be faithful to Ken – oh please hear this the right way 🙂
Nina, whether or not Bernard hears your comment above, I wanted to take this opportunity to say that your most recent posting on your blog was very helpful to me. I saw a glimmer that perhaps what Your deepest relationship with your daughter is what I have “done” with my dependence on Shobha.
It was quite startlingly similar, even your references to past lives, etc.
For 16 years now, I have felt that I should do a past life regression, but never had any clear locus for what I hoped to uncover. Now this year I know,.,,I want to understand, if one could use that word in this context, what past live experiences Shobha and I have shared, there are some “secrets” waiting for me to unlock there. It’s been three months since I have had this thought, repeatedly, well before Feb 5th, but I still haven’t arranged a session yet ! (=
Classic procrastinator that I am. But perhaps. Better not call myself names. Yesterday’s lesson was there is no Will but Gods. A lesson that can be experienced at many levels. I will take your leave now and head to the next Review Lesson…wow, this 10 day stretch has already been very, very looooong ! (=
Lesson 87
#73 I will there be light.
#74 There is no will but God’s.
I guess I get asked to make some effort. Today I will let light have this day, and just watch it.
PS. Am I behind a day?
Nope, Katrina, just that in Songapore I am on March 30th, you are still in the waning hours of the 29th in lovely California, so you’re very much on time (=
Oops that should read march 29th and march 28th respectively (in my comment above)
Anil – I have used past life regressions a lot in my therapy/healing practice. You are welcome to do one with me over Skype, if it feels right:)if so, my Skype address is
danceyourtruth
Oopsie I skipped a lesson yesterday…today’s review isLesson #88.
#75 The light has come.
#76 I am under no laws but God’s.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I conveniently skipped making “the effort” as you noted was asked of us yesterday Katrina.
Ken wrote: “This lesson, then is a direct appeal to look at things differently, to exercise the power of my mind to make another choice.”
I have an aversion to the word exercise.
Looks like the only way out of egoland is doing our daily exercises.
A little willingness…it doesn’t feel like a little.
Joining Texanne *wah*
Just popping in to say a couple of things:
Anil you have a strong intuition so I say go for it.
I have a new, well not new as it’s based on two things separated by a long distance of time
a remembrance of something Jamie said either on the phone, or in one of his classes about having done something like a past life regression.
and having read recently in Carol Howe’s book about Bill Thetford, recounting he and Helen had been to various kinds of physic readers and gotten value out of it.
I’d been kind of a strict “purist” about all that stuff saying The Course is al I need and now I say “Whatever floats your boat” and might be truly helpful that arises for one to consider and pay attention to. The distinct warning sound of a larger wave about to hit it’s all a tuning in.
Oh speaking of tuning in and Sages’ here in the Village as it is a moniker befitting for unlimited expressiveness in these hallowed halls…I have to chime in again Katrina on post 203 and agree with Annie saying it should be framed. I’m going to copy and paste it and send it to my Monday night group. I attributed part of your post to Hedda …and I did love your post Hedda.
We’re having a rainy Saturday and I’ve spent several hours reading the tributes on Ken at the Foundation site. I haven’t read them all yet and they are really wonderful, and a great way to connect with all the love he emitted and learn more personal stories which I love.
I found a very beautiful book on the book shelf section of my wee bedside stand that used to belong to my Grandmother. I must have found at a used book store called
Accept This Gift ……Selections from A Course in Miracles, edited by old friends of Bill Thetford’s Frances Vaughn and Roger Walsh.
I found it looking for one of my small Course books to send it to my friend who visited on Thursday and want to look it up first as I would like a copy for myself it’s really so beautifully done. It includes black and white photographs by Jane English who has had her work included in Taoist classics.
Lesson wise I’m in some very beautiful ones in the 340’s so not far to go till I join y’all.
Thinking Bernard and Pat’s weekend will be just the ticket for those attending.
I love the way you write Michele.
Grandmothers bedside stand holding all your beloved reading materials, sooooo sweet…
love the image you are extending.
What I most like is the great synopsis of previous readings as seen thru your eyes.
Often I will go back and reread something because you loved it so much.
Do let us know how Katrina’s post was received in your Monday night group.
If they don’t agree that its frame worthy I must suggest you leave the group instantly (:
So what was the great adventure you were going to post about?
I suspect it had something to do with your friend who visited you on Thursday?
Please do share.
I believe we are to get a bit of rain come tomorrow.
Probably whatever is passing thru your neck of the woods.
Do you still have issues with flooding Michele?
I wasn’t up on my news watching and didn’t realize Washington State got
slammed with rain and horrible mudslides.
Quick shout out to Lisa up North…thinking of you!
I better go read my lessons now.
Peace and Love my Village Family.
Thanks everybody for great postings ! I’m suffering from ” post Californian syndrome ” 😉
i.e. trying to slowly accept that my classroom is here and not in Sunny California.
Also I feel stuck on lesson 184 : “The Name of God is my inheritance”. This time even the JTTW isn’t helping me… sigh… I am free to believe in separation…
Lesson 89
#87. I am entitled to miracles.
#88. Let miracles replace all grievances.
Michele, i am humbled by your and Annie’s kind words about my ramblings. I just speak to anyone who seems to feel the workbook is too hard or isn’t working as it seems to say, I am entitled to miracles. Tex is the sage. She is a miracle worker in everything she puts her hands on, but not denying she is stuck in a body enduring the illusion. She knows she is at work pulling us along in our workbook bus! Boy, do I remember how hard it was to keep up with Jamie’s 7 page a day bus ride through the text! I kept begging him to make the daily breaks by neat sections. He seemed to feel I needed to get over that OCD thing.
Annie, you are a sage with your unflagging kindness and consistent sharing of your loving view of life. You are forgiveness in action. The Holy Spirit uses your determination for His own purposes! Lady, you are the glue! (I hope you have only felt some non-alarming rolls this past week as the earth made its adjustments.)
You, Michelle, as Annie said, reach out and touch each person’s effort to care and share their life and cares. I love your sharing of your beloved Course group. They are the meetings I go to now, too.
Our wave-listener, Peggy, you find the peace and miracle in all things. I aspire to your peace. You show me it is gently waiting for me to make that final choice to live in it consistently and constantly.
Anil, you flow around the world applying the miracle in every word and place and life event. You are so young and carry the beauty and flexibility and hope of a full life meant to express the miracle in action. Right now is your greatest challenge, and I thank you for sharing so freely while we can clearly see you place you claim above the battleground.
Nina, you share every nook where you see the healing miracle sooth each defined pain. You offer your attention to every fear and pain, so they can be seen and healed with the Love of that attention.
Hedda, we are welcoming your gentle soul back here with us. We are patiently waiting to hear all the amazing insights Katie bestowed!
Winnie, Winnie, wherefore art thou so silent? You think we don’t sense the layer of pixie dust you keep blowing over us? I was overjoyed to see your letter to Ken. I miss your humor and clarity.
And Bernard, well, i love the way you slice right through the drama and simply see the clear truth which always is the miracle within our perceptions. When Nina asked if you were no longer talking Ken-speak, but were directly hearing the Holy Spirit, I thought – there is no difference. All of this Hol Spirit speak.
And we hold dear all of the past and future sharings from Jean, and Lawrence, and Leni, and Donna, and Lisa, and Richard, and Jamie, and Bonnie, and Pat, and our Pam, and all the Silent Ones who stop by to read how their Course siblings are living the work of facing our ego adventures while running each thing through the funnel of Spirit.
So, I stop my ego’s style of raucous ramblings to show you, Michele and Annie and Peggy, what your lovely kind personal touches have taught me! This is, indeed, a community of long time Course students who have heeded and internalized Ken’s call to kindness, and never deviate far from sitting on the observation couch with our Mentor.
Well, All is correctable. I got those lesson numbers wrong, #77 and #78, as well as a few crazy typos.
Anil, we see your place that you claim above the battleground.
And all of this, from each one who posts, is Holy Spirit speak, yours, too, Nina.
Oh, heavens . . . ? + 5 = 13. That’s high math! I’m going to need my fingers.
How sweet and lovely to check in Sunday morning and find loving expressions of the positive impact we experience from one another. I’ve held a harsh and critical ego judgement about my postings here for years, and I know to question it and see it for exactly for what is it…unreal and holding the hand of the wrong teacher who wants to condemn and see differences. Having said that I’ll identify it…I’ve called myself Michele” Light”, not in radiance of course but as in a light beer, in postings in that I don’t share all that much personal story stuff about my self and what is going on for me.
I’ve been more of a reflector and commented on other’s deep info posts.
Part of it is truly laziness in typing. So two things:
I will respond to your invite to share further Annie as I did post I would later, and then often don’t. It is also truly about being willing to give time to what is valuable, and our relationships here are valuable and I can be very selfish with my Sat and Sunday and weekday eve free time.
So first before last Thursday’s visitor..I’d like to update y’all on my daughter Lasya and granddaughter Kailea latest status and begin with saying something about the extended one on one time my Lasya and I shared last summer here in California, one on one time with Kailea here too, but more recently when I flew back east to DC first , and then to CT to be with them.
I intended Lasya’s 3 weeks of CA time to have all the elements of spaciousness with her getting to share extended visiting time with her different social circles and our time to be about 10 days. My ex husband is Paul who was a stepfather to Lasya when we were married that she adored. He and his wife Gretchen and their daughter Ursula 11, live in Santa Cruz.
When we were married we owned a home together in Mill Valley and Paul had a really inexpensive small rental house down there, it acted as his base for his surfing and biz at the time down there and we enjoyed the spaciousness of not being together 24/7.
Lasya and Kailea are very close to P,G & U ( we’re friends too of course, but don’t spend one on one time with each other, but were together for Lasya’s Master degree “Art of Teaching”ceremony up in OR, and they were great support during Lasya’s breast cancer journey in Oahu and here in CA for her intense 8 hr reconstruction surgery and long recovery that involved two dealing with issues surgeries afterward.
Gretchen has become one of Lasya’s best friends over the last 15 or so +years she and Paul have been together. Kailea super loves them , they’re like family to her with all the added benefits of being like fairy god parents with lots of good times. This last summer Kailea few out first to have some time with me, before she flew to Hawaii at their invitation to be a part of Paul’s week long 60 birthday celebration.
I’ll insert here to refresh your memory of some actual personal story typing I did back in Monastery in the Mists days, that I’ve gone through in Lasya’s post birth of Kailea days two different times, painful times that she cut me out of her life for one maybe 3 month stretch when Kailea was still maybe 6 and then another full year one right after she moved back to CA to live in a town right next to Half Moon Bay that name I can’t bring to mind.
We were in a very close happy time, after all the time I’d spent with her during and post B cancer. She got a job teaching at a walking distance from her home job, Joe her husband, father of Kailea, stayed in Oahu kept his driving Class C trucks jobs and they were in a wait and see mode regarding him getting work in CA and if they were going to stay together. I helped L unpack what had been shipped over and she was so grateful and I loved being a part of it.
L & K went with me to, not to my Mon night study group folk, but a group of course students I knew from having done Saturday mornings for at least a year on Journey Beyond Words book, a group and book I super loved.
We had a couple of round table gathered close to one another at a hotel in San Rafael that served a Thanksgiving Buffet. She got to meet some of the folks I’d told her about who were holding love and light for her during her B cancer times. We came back to my wee place where they both were going to spend the night and Kailea the rest of the weekend with me, with our plan to meet up in SF on the Sunday of that long weekend and do something fun there together. Kailea had neglected to pack some article of comfort for L to sleep on and L decided it’s early enough for her to drive the 45 min max back to G town, be in her super comfy bed and enjoy her leisurely alone time, work on stained glass maybe till we hooked up.
I had turned off K’s cell phone late Sat night after she’d fallen asleep so she could sleep in, but had mine on and was in my JTW and drinking coffee when L called in. We ended up having words over my turning K’s cell phone off, and old unhealed perceptions of each other arose and that whole year, they were for the first time ever only 45 minutes from me since K was born, I was cut off. Joe did finally join them at Christmas and he an I were in touch so I could hear how they were doing. So just this perhaps too detailed insertion of memory refresh on difficult passages.
I also want to insert a Katrina post recollection I have that may be mistakenly associated with you, about a close family relationship, sister or mother involving stepping away that was helpful to me at the time this G town episode was going on.
I was always aware, and Deacon the nickname L’s father goes by, and I would talk about him always having the role as the good guy and I was always the bad guy. L lived with me full time, he was often gone for months out of the country with his gem stone business. We did have one time we both lived in the same town in San Geronimo Valley where she could get off one bus stop to walk to his and another to walk to ours.
We were traveling together in that RV I mentioned being in back in the Mist days and I would read the daily lesson and the JTW commentary every morning. When he came from his home outside Thailand to stay three months with L after my month in Oahu with her, I left either Renard’s DU most likely that, or Journey Beyond Words there for him and he became a Course student after that.
JKL collective as L called them only spent that one year in G town, wonder if I will call to mind that town name at the end of this my longest post and am going to copy and paste before I hit submit.
They packed up to move up to the family home they owned and had rented out in OR. Deacon and I had a life curve incident, I won’t write about in here, while we were traveling in the RV that turned out to be OK and actually ended up leading me to the job I have now, as my friend for a few years before that day and now head and founder of our clinic, had the very same day in July life a very altering life curve, that found us bonding and being helpful to one another and remains to this day.
L, on the day she got she listened to the call she let go to voicemail, not recognizing the number , I’d left her about our circumstance, that day became an extra challenging day, as that afternoon, Joe who’d been visiting with his Dad a few hours away, drove back to announce he wanted a divorce.
Dealing with that circumstance united us once again and we’ve been so for all these years since.
K went through tough times during their separation, won’t go into details about that and just move forward to L’s current husband Mike having found L through Facebook several years past the divorce with J, communicating by email and phone, L visiting in summertime and Christmas holiday one year, while L would be with her dad. Dnding up with L moving first to get the home ready for K to start her first year of high school there in CT.
Their first year was a super hard adjustment, L and M were only in engaged status, L thought for sure she would get a teaching post within her first year there. K had a nice boyfriend right in the neighbor hood they’d moved in so that was helpful, but oh my god the cold L thought she was familiar with and would be OK with having gone to high school in the town Mike is from. L never did get anything beyond sub teaching that pays only $10.00 an hr. She sold her home in OR to help with them buying the house in a residential complex far from everything, so everything is a commute, and that she calls the money pit.
Anyway, now she is doing pre req’s to enter nursing school and just this Friday night we had a great talk about the absolutely amazing medical school she found in South Carolina and the mother daughter trip she and K are going to take very soon to explore it. they will go all three of them later in the summer. L and Mike had been talking about exploring it as a place for him to retire, that Mike was already interested in for a long time, it being a great shushing place and for L near the ocean she cannot be away from anymore, far more warmer.
So back to the comment from L, I was going to talk about as I flew her out on miles I had for this 3 week trip she really needed on so many levels, that also timing wise allowed her to join my Quest Clinical Research family on our annual retreat to Rancho Cicada in the Gold Country where we do “glamping” in tents and cabins and are cooked three meals a day for and swim and relax and have fun parties at night. Say if you want to view our short but really neat website just use the quest clinical and put a dot com after that. One of the clinical trials I work on is described there. Plus if you click on the Contact tab you’ll see part of a stunning Ansel Adams photo that was taken by him as a young man, hired by the National Park Service before the Golden Gate Bridge was built, I am in the photo too. Who knew I would ever end up there with no medical background !
Her comment was along the lines of ” this summer our time was so special and so much fun all wrapped up in so much love and healing”
K was super happy I came for the wedding reception, and wanted me to meet her newer boyfriend of over a year now who is so wonderful, a year older, had a great Mom L is friends with, parents now divorcing, L super loves K’s BF.
K and I got to have a long one on one part of a walk all four, Mike, L, K and I went on the Sunday after the Sat wedding reception ( Mike and L went away the two of them up to a coastal town to get married in Sept just the two of them so this gathering was the family and friends aspect.
Man that talk was so great, as K brought up painful feelings about her Dad and how she is able to share them with her boyfriend, and what a great fit they are, what she values about him and on and on outpouring of happiness she feels and wanted to share with me.
Hmm I think it’s cut and paste time…oh God now I remember the friend visit part of just last Thurs.
Mark was my high school sweetheart and also one during my single motherhood times ( L’s Dad and I separated, by my prompting when L was only 3 months old the weekend my Mom died…I was so young only 20 when L was born and turned 21 two months after her Aug birth…which is same day as Jamies! not not same year I think but not sure.
Anyway he and I had been out of touch for decades and through a male high school friend I do see that lives here in Marin, Mark asked him if he could contact me. We had a long visit and he wanted to impress upon me how much I meant to him in those chapters we spend together, and how he never wants to lose track of me again, as well as his whole story of giving up drinking together with his wife of 22 years and the life of wholeness they have now in sobriety living on a great farm and how in the stillness he came to in doing the work of sobriety and meditating buddhist style i think, how much those who had offered him so much love and a positive picture of himself, before all his challenging years brought him to his knees and then to the light meant to him and I was one.
it was a beautiful time together. I want to honor his and his wife’s relationship in the package I will send with some Course things to look over. In the time we had, I’d told him my richest spiritual gift was the path I’d found going on 12 years ago this month when I read DU. but didn’t mention anything about any ACIM names or DU, but after sensing he was a love of reading person, and then asking him to find he is, told him I’d send him things.
Now I can copy to be safe, and also ask forgiveness for the length of this, but hey, i’m making up for michele light (>;
so funny…I just reread over the post above and found all kinds of errors…South Carolina has good fishing, maybe it has good shushing too.
I too feel Winnie’s fairy dust and will look for her tribute to Ken.
Less story detail and more to the point about what I’m learning or see in a new way ….
really I think that what I’ve worked with is a lot of letting go of people in both romantic, married and unmarried partnerships as well as in familial like my daughter and granddaughter. They are people I’ve loved deeply and those who’ve loved me deeply in return, passing out of my life in different ways at different times and having it be Ok just as it is, all stories aside.
I’ve remained connected with almost all of them moving forward to new chapters being able to express gratitude, respect, love and support for each other in different forms and different ways. My favorite female sweetheart who met her destiny partner going on 5 years ago now, expresses her love and appreciation for me in sweet kind ways.
There are no victims or bad guys, just us all working the best we know how at the time and continuing to love.
Michele, dear friend. Thanks for writing this one, I now feel like I have more of the information cleared up in my mind that I used to puzzle over when we met or spoke on the phone. Maybe I am too enmeshed in the dream, but I like to know the details of the intimate relationships in ones life, so this sharing was lovely….thank you, thank you (=
And also, thanks for the encouragement re: the past life reading. The problem is I always tend to remember on weekend where most the therapists don’t work, then the week starts and I forget all over again,,,which brings me to….
Nina, would be happy to contemplate doing a session with you, but first, re Skype, I don’t even think I have an active account anymore, can we do it over the phone ? If you email me your number, and we can fix up a time through our chats in these pages ? Will that be ok for you ?
I guess Skpye does add the visual element, so am not sure how important that is to the process you have in mind ?
Katrina, thanks for your kind words. You must add me to your Frame your Post Club, not that I am feeling left out (=, but I genuinely felt that too when Annie said it earlier, I just let the thought slip through from, from, laziness ? Not wanting to soak up so much airtime on these pages ? Forgetting ? Not sure….. (=
I was going to write all of you a long Love Letter yesterday. I was in a very expansive mood, as an aside, I finally understood why Oscar speeches are so long (=, not that I won the Oscar, but I was feeling very grateful for my life and then-current condition I found myself in, and I was running through all the people, authors, books, movies and situations I experienced. And everything, just everything I could think of, even the most difficult times of my life seemed just perfect to bring me to where I was. it was quite a lovely and peaceful feeling.
One of my favorite shorter prayers is….
dear God,
for everything that happened, Thank You.
For everything yet to come, Yes.
I don’t pray it often, because Ai don’t feel it often, Maybe once or twice a year, sometimes once in two or three years, but whenever the prayer comes to mind, of its own volition, I am grateful.
And that Feeling of gratitude I share for all your presence too.
Love,
Anil
Anil, I am emailing you my tlfnr.This week I can thurs,fri,sat. It seems you are 6 hours ahead of me – so please suggest a time of your choice. I appreciate if it is after 11 o’clock here = 5pm your time
My turn to throw out a Holy Kamole Michele my Bell (:
It’s 5:45am and I have to leave for work in 15 mins. – I think I need to reread your post and take notes before I respond properly 🙂 But let me say I loved that you took the time to put it all here.
I can feel that sense of no victims here -just everyone showing up doing their best to love and be loved.
And Hedda, does it help to know it may rain here today in Southern California (:
Also I couldn’t help but remember the comment you made once to Ken about not being in touch with your hatred toward God…I think your stuckness might suggest you have tapped into that feeling…so its a good thing …yes???
Katrina, what I know for sure is you have the ability to see both sides of the track (right mind and egoland/wrong mind) and articulate them perfectly. Talk about standing above the battleground my friend that is you! Your inner guidance system is so clear. That kind of clarity comes from a soul whose seen it all too many times and like a loving Mother wants to share and give from the heart freely…if it can prevent one more knee scrape.
{{{Village Hug}}}
Thanks Michele for writing and sharing and yes Annie, my stuckness can most certainly be a disguised form of hate/fear toward God . It is a good thing if I can see the “negative” feeling/state of mind as a “Temple Bell” , reminding me of why I am here.
I also would like to tell you a bit about my Ojai-experience . The biggest similarity between the Course and the Work is in my opinion the “unmasking” of our projections = seeing the outside picture as our inward condition. The four question and the turnarounds are fantastic in exposing the inward condition. We can get far with this method but I still very much need the Course’s explanation about why we are doing this to ourselves and that we have a “Mighty Companion” by our side. Katie also briefly talked about the unreality of our dream state but then she stopped herself in a middle of a sentence. It is almost as if she was thinking ” they are not quite ready yet to hear this”. The most magical moments for me in Ojai was actually when she started to talk about non duality, I could hear with my heart that she knew what she was talking about just the way we can hear it when listening to Ken.
Lesson 90
#79. Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved.
#80. Let me recognize my problems have been solved.
Doing the reviews really has helped me see these lessons working in my life. Like you said, Anil, when they are together, they seem more complete than when taken alone. The lesson is connected. I believe time must elapse before it is solved. I never consider that the solution came at the same time as the problem. After all, I have a particular solution in my mind, and I don’t see that happening, like your list, Tex, from a few days back #196 – at the beginning of this review. Each of those has what you want in them, but you can’t get your way – pushing a carbo noodle up stairs. So, today I am closing my eyes and asking to see what Holy Spirit’s solution is. Maybe it doesn’t look like my solution to make me happy. Hmmmm.
Michele, what a wonderful open hearted story. (Was it El Granada?). (And I have loved Journey Without Words, too. And read it in a Course study group at Alan Dolit’s house.). I also remember the turned off cell phone, but since you were living through the sad cut-off time, we didn’t hear about that so much. Adult kids, with the power to cut you out of their lives and your grandchild’s life, are the harshest of painful relationships. And now that you have had the opportunity to come back into their lives, it really brings home today’s double lesson! But how hard to have believed during that year that it was already healed. And that Lasya would be launching a new chapter of her life with her and Kailea embracing Mom/Grandmother. And how important the work you have become part of, was going to fill that year. (That is a wonderful picture of you in front of the vintage Ansel Adams.)
Also, meeting with Mark this last week – something that might have seemed like a romantic rekindling being more of a true healing and maybe a call to spread the Course teachings. You just never know how we are asked to shine the Light. Love Anil’s prayer in 229 that just fits that.
When we started this review I thought it was of the lessons, but it is more like a review of our lives. Gosh, it makes me not want to ever despair at anything cause it is such a waste of time since it isn’t going to turn out the way I am lamenting anyway. It’s going to be far better than I can imagine! Maybe just sleep in between.
{{{Village Hug with Annie}}}
Temple Bells…
A review of our lives…
Saying Yes…
Lesson 91
Miracles are seen in light.
Vision or judgment is your choice, but never both of these (T-20.V.4:7).
Miracles are seen in light
I don’t know what anything is for
Nothing I mean sees anything.
Wait – oh, poo!
Ok
I am never upset for the reason I think
I hate my babysitter and want to pull his beard and stomp on his sandals and …and… and … I am tired of fish. Fish fish fish! I don’t want any more stinking fish. I want that basket of bread any how.
I am so telling Dad on him. hahaha Don’t tell Dad – the Baby-Sitter’s dead!
This had better be an April Fool’s Day joke.
Am I the ego’s belief in domination, masquerading as strength?
If I’m not a body, what am I?
…A sense of transportation – a sudden unawareness of the body, and a joining of yourself and something else in which your mind enlarges to encompass it . . . There is no violence at all in the escape. The body is not attacked, but simply properly perceived . . . You are not really “lifted out” of it, it cannot contain you. You go where you would be, gaining, not losing, a sense of Self.
(JTW, vol. 3, p.5)
Lesson 92,
Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
Building on the vision last night on swelling up beyond the size of the body, I’m looking out at the view of our valley and out to the hills with the lace of morning fog skirting them, and the big sky filled with the remnant of last night’s storm clouds. Stuck in my head is a Bocelli aria going round and round. My body is like a small tag parked on the chair while my mind swells with the music and open vista.
How easily and daily this light and strength are here for us when we are reminded to open up and rise into it. Why would I want to be trapped in a body now? La de da da, La de da da, Da da da de da da, Someday, somewhere, La de da da, La de da da da. …. ….
Lesson 93.
Light and joy and peace abide in me.
My favorite quotes from Ken’s JTW, at least helpful to me —
“This does not mean you commit to letting go of your ego, but simply to look at what the ego is. Jesus only asks that you look. Do not seek to change, correct, or let it go. Just look, a process that will gradually end your ego identification, for the self that looks is not the self that is looked at. Thus is your identity returned to the decision-making part of your mind and away from the ego.” (JTW,V3,p.17). and
“Forgiveness alone will bring us the happiness we seek and open the gates to Heaven, which allows the memory of our Self to return to our awareness. With the obstacles of the ego’s tiny idols gone, the Love of Christ flows unhindered and unabated through our minds, and we are home.” (JTW,V.3,p.18)
My fave lesson is today’s. Lesson 93. Light and joy and peace abide in me. Over and over it must be repeated. For it is true.
I think I am the home of evil, darkness and sin. I think if anyone could see the truth about me, he would be repelled, recoiling from me as if from a poisonous snake. I think if what is true about me were revealed to me, I would be struck with horror so intense that I would rush to death by my own hand, living on after seeing this being impossible.
These are beliefs so firmly fixed that it is difficult for You to help me see that they are based on nothing. That I have made mistakes is obvious. That I have sought salvation in strange ways; have been deceived, deceiving and afraid of foolish fantasies and savage dreams; and have bowed down to idols made of dust,–all this is true by what I now believe.
Today, J and I question this, not from the point of view of what *I* think, but from a very different reference point, from which such idle thoughts are meaningless. These thoughts are not according to God’s Will. These weird beliefs He does not share with me. This is enough to prove that they are wrong, but I do not perceive that this is so…
Light and joy and peace abide in me. Over and over it must be repeated. For it is true!
Lesson 94. I am as God created me.
So tired last night, I didn’t enter this.
Lesson 95. I am one Self united with my Creator.
I am one Self united with my Creator, at one with every aspect of creation, and limitless in power in peace.
…complete and healed and whole, with power to lift the veil of darkness from the world, and let the light in you come through to teach the world the truth about yourself.
Repeat today’s idea as frequently as possible and understand each time you do so, someone hears the voice of hope, the stirring of the truth within his mind, the gentle rustling of the wings of peace.
… a call to all the world to be at one with you. To everyone you meet today, be sure to give the promise of today’s idea and tell him this:
You are one Self with me, united with our Creator in this Self. I honor you because of What I am, and What He is, Who loves us both as One.
Lesson 97. I am spirit.
Yeah ! Hard to believe when every imaginable cell in your body is screaming its existence. And I feel completely, like completely dense, and solid in every part of my body.
I am spirit ? Really ? Difficult to believe.
Oh well.
Lesson 98. I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.
Didn’t get to do the five minute thing more than once or twice during the day, still I can’t shake the feeling that it did its part in holding me steady through an unsteady morning, and energize me through a long work afternoon, even though I had only 2 hrs sleep the night before.
Perhaps I am imagining a correlation, but it does seem like I want to write that God’s plan provides steadiness during shaky times, and energy during fatigued times.
And 921 pm I still feel energized with just a 40 minute nap. Is this the ego taking me down a path where I am suddenly going to fall into another hole ? (=
Let me get some dinner, and listen more closely to the inner conversation !
Ciao.
wow – I think a thought and it shows up here.
*runs down the street (naked) screaming ‘it’s a miracle!!’*
the pain of thinking I am separate – that pain is just so deep.
I watch little kids being “corrected” by their parents and I think sometimes it is more like a scolding…. sometimes not enough like a scolding!
But now J say that the “correction” is just a mistake. Not a sin.
Wow – really thinking about this one. Like in nursing when a peer corrects us, it is for the patients good- to reveal insight that we were lacking or missing… not to make us look bad or shame us or hurst anyone at all…. wow… just wow….
Better to be in wow wow land, than in lala land, I guess. at least now, J has my full attention!
Love the wow-land, tex!
I am thinking “Spirit” – I think about the marvel of our (The son’s/ability to create whatever we believe is real and put it immediately outside ourselves in order for us to notice what we have believed…and only then can we say wow! did I order that? please help me to forgive myself for forgetting who I am: as You created me…I was just busy demonstrating that You are wrong and I am right, I am a body see –
and then I see the awesomeness of my Spirit – the only Spirit there is – to truly project this image and make it seem so real – my”self” included-
and then it dawns on me that whatever I feel and sense in this body, are there BECAUSE I projected it- no wonder I notice it – but it can’t be real, since God did NOT create it –
and when I started on this thread lately, the pain just disappears shwoop and Spirit I am, healed and whole And innocent
I’ve never really had a “fight” with G*d before. And said or thought the things I did. Wow –
Curse God and die – but only in the dream!
The depths of my despair or resistance or whatever… when you are rolling in the deep of it all, it just sucks. Sucks the life right out of a person.
Now where were we? Oh yes. The Course.
(lol – my capta code is 1 + 1….that is 1, right?)
ha ha …All is One (:
Lesson #101
God’s Will for Me is Perfect Happiness.
Lesson #102
I share God’s Will for happiness for me.
Today I nearly forgot i was doing these lessons. I did one yesterday and then in the afternoon i fell and dislocated my right shoulder. It was a pain #10 and just dangling there by stretched out ligaments. I had to go by ambulance because i couldn’t even stand up. My own dedicated fireman held my arm in a place as near as it could get to where it belonged. I found out that morphine doesn’t relieve pain. Nurses and doctors hovered and pushed and finally put me out, did their magic, and tied me together.
It is 7pm and i just remembered i am doing the lessons. It must be referring to Level 1 happiness. Level 2 happiness is a firmly tied sling. You just never know! Sometimes you just sleep thru a day and are just happy you remember just once.
Ouch ! That sounds terribly painful, Katrina ! 🙁
I will not even offer a hug for fear of hurting your shoulder.
Perhaps a light touch of friendship to your left shoulder.
Take good care, dear friend.
Love
anil