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Feb 9, 2007

Love and life are funny things that often bewilder us, creating feelings within our body that are not really caused by any physical injury. Take heartbreak for example. Heartbreak is not a pain caused by a physical injury to the heart. The pain we feel is an emotionally generated pain, triggered in part by our mind based upon an experience. And what about that chemistry that jazzed the both of you when you met? Then wonder, “what more?”

Just as suddenly as the juices got jazzed you find yourself running, laughing, playing, and enjoying a budding relationship. You can’t believe you could be so lucky! You think about this miracle that came into your life throughout each day. You feel the energy in your body inspiring your life. You feel so alive! You know all of this though and realize you have to get through each day, keeping balance and perspective so you don’t neglect other areas of your life. Too bad about that really, it would be great to just walk off into the sunset and not have to worry about the realities of life for awhile. “Give us some time” I’d say, knowing that in time we’ll both come back to the planet looking to explore other avenues of our lives. Let’s get back to reality though.

Now, I can only speak for myself and others like me. I don’t fall in love to just walk away. Yet, too often, that is what we are required to do. As compatible as a relationship might feel or seem, timing could be everything. Someone’s distortion could have their values out of whack. Knowing the inner-qualities of each other, you could have even been certain that you’d never be dropped for material reasons. This love, this woman, or this man, is deeper than that. It’s there, in all the journals, in every conversation, in the eyes, and the vision for the future. Then life shows up and serves some humble pie.

Bad things happen to good people all the time. Someone is struck ill with a serious illness and before long the retirement savings are gone. The recovery can take months or even years, if at all – for some. The physical toll can be too great for some people to handle. The emotional stamina required to endure the trials may be to costly to another. The financial strain may threaten a required sense of security for others. For the person it is all happening to, it can have profound and life-changing impact.

Deep loss is experienced as an old identity passes away and a new identity comes into being. Death and birth, experiences equally bound in both pleasure and pain. Not just a physical death, a psychological death. Not just a physical birth, a metaphysical birth. Some people end up lost in the bottom of a bottle while others stab out the misery with a needle; both scenarios leading to more misery and death. These are just examples, the scenarios are limitless. Some recover, some don’t. Death isn’t the only thing that can kill you.

In spite of what we see on the streets and played out in the drama of each others’ lives, miracles still happen all the time. These miracles happen even through the loss and in spite of loss. Someone may truly be gone forever and yet, someone else is saved as a result. An illness could miraculously disappear, leaving no trace of ever having been there. Financial ruin could bring two closer together, empowering and strengthening beyond what each could do individually. Important changes in society could come about as lives are radically changed through tribulation.

Too often judgment is heard spilling from lips of those who don’t know or are arrogant. If you’ve ever fallen, why would you laugh at another who has fallen? You remember what it was like. You understand the pain and even the embarrassment you felt. You remember the judgment others threw in your face. Everybody hurts, sometimes. Judgment, ridicule, laughter, and self-righteousness are uncomfortable disguises of your own frailty. Bad things happen to good people all the time. It could happen to you. This is uncomfortable to admit. It recognizes your powerlessness to control every aspect of living your physical life on earth. You only control your response, reaction, your attitude.

As for the hurt that comes with the human experience, the shift in perspective can view the emotional pain as a good thing. The ache in the heart chakra is a blessing of your aliveness. It affirms your divine capacity to love another being. The ache that comes with the turmoil of disappointments affirms your love of self. The ache that comes with betrayal in society affirms your connection and love to your fellow beings. You are a divine creature living in a physical world. Lifting the veil, seeing your own inner-spirit, you will experience and observe and learn to be with the aching emotions. Make that your challenge – to ‘be with’ the pain and witness it as a good experience. Shift your perspective to see that your spiritual being is embracing each experience and will rise above each experience.

This brings me full-circle, right back to heartbreak. Don’t run away from love. Don’t run away from loving another. Run away from fear. Run away from doubt. There is power in love and it is the only thing that you have in life that cannot be taken away. Health: Who knows when, if, what, or why, but you could be hit. Money: That balance sheet is all over the place and depends a lot on other circumstances that may be beyond your control. And what will you give up for that? Too many look for the bling without really seeing the stars. If you’re wondering where to look, try deep into the eyes of the other.

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Posted: Feb 9, 2007 6:17pm
Sep 27, 2006
An Artist has a gift for seeing the common everyday normal events, places, and people as something far more revealing in its' complexity and simple beauty. For some it is in the drawing and painting, for others it is in the molding and shaping, and so on. The landscape that fascinates me and comes to life on a page is the human experience, society, and our behaviors. What I see never ceases to amaze me.


While there are a good many stories that inspire us about the human spirit, I am also morbidly fascinated with the tragic beauty of our shortcomings and human frailties. At times, this very human experience has been a burden in my own life that I would not wish to bear. Who is to say whether my life would have been better had things turned out differently? Who is to say if I would be a better or worse person?


Instead, here I am having survived each ordeal that has been thrown at me. I feel the places of hurt almost as though the wounds were still there. The oddest problem with all of this is that in a perfect world we would cause no emotional harm towards one another. Many of life's hurts are because of behavior patterns unconsciously and consciously adopted throughout the experience of life and the games people play; in families, in schoolyards, in classrooms, in government, and even in business.


Instead, we guard our hearts, censor the truth, and project our insecurities. Is it any wonder mental illness has risen so dramatically these past number of years? With all the hurt in a person's past, it takes tremendous trust and courage to step boldly out of the safety of a comfort zone. With so many people craving intimacy and a sense of community, it is apparent that our behaviors can close us off from one another. Our love can be courageous and can bring us closer together. We can build stronger communities. We can solve more problems, find more solutions, and make the world a better place.


Rather than write further, here are some questions for reflection:

  • If every conversation were a safe place, how much more truth could you share?
  • How does the word vulnerable make you feel when you consider the implications?
  • If fear was no longer a reality, what more would you risk?
  • How much does your everyday -- news, co-workers, media, etc. -- influence what you believe to be true?
  • Do you believe in love?
  • What is love?
  • Can you be love?
  • Life is always going to hand us hard stuff to deal with; do we have to make it harder on each other?
  • What will you do to be supportive with others?
Be Love. Love is.

Jun 12, 2006
An interesting event occured yesterday that revealed anger to be an opportunity.

I was walking back home after an appointment downtown in the morning and had an encounter with a rude motorist. I gestured a "what gives" posture as I tried to cross at the intersection, on the pedestrian Go signal, only to recieve a tirade of emotions. Equal to the opportunity, I responded with equal stupidity and responded in kind. This is where it begins to get very interesting.

We're all familiar with road-rage and I can recognize that something bigger is happening than the event at hand that triggered the road-rage. Knowing this, after he drove off I continued on my way, along the same route he had disappeared. A couple of blocks away, seeing his vehicle parked I placed my business card in his window. Less than 30 minutes later I received a phone call full of venom and arrogance at my action.

With some perseverance, I stayed present and invoked the Divine into the conversation, knowing that my audience came from a rich background of religious culture. This calmed the situation remarkably, although his passionate response still attempted to re-escalate the situation. At one point, holding the phone away from my ear, I spoke into the phone and said, "If you keep interrupting me, I'm not going to be able to have this conversation." This welcomed an apology and he made room to allow me to speak as well.

The truth is, he made assumptions based upon his current beliefs, his current and past experiences, prejudices, and anger relating to all of these influences. And I asked, "Did it ever occur to you that I was placed in that situation with you this morning to teach you something that you needed to learn?" I know that I did feel that way for myself and I had seized the opportunity to learn and to build a bridge rather than allow the initial encounter to burn that bridge.

Now we're talking about having a coffee, about getting to know one another versus making assumptions and accusations, and I invited him to discover the hurt that causes his anger and how better to counter these influences that continue to cause him pain. This came about after asking him if he knew what was underneath, what was causing his anger. He acknowledged that a lot of painful things have occured in his life, causing him to become more and more reactive as a self-defense strategy. Fight or Flight.

The coming days we will see how this plays out. In the meantime, I learned a great deal about responding to someone else's venom and the opportunity to recognize that so much more is happening. This encounter is an opportunity to extend a hand and heart to have us learn and grow. It allowed the seed of peace.

As for how I turned this around: After he drove off, I invited the divine (in this case I asked the angel presiding over the situation) to take charge and allowed the higher power to speak into my heart. This simple act, be it real or a mind trick, simply parks the ego and allows communication and insight from the higher self or source. This provided courage and humility to see an opportunity and lo and behold, I see his car, placed my card,he called and I reached out to listen and seek peace.

It was a powerful experience and learning opportunity.
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Posted: Jun 12, 2006 5:57pm
Apr 15, 2006
What you are about to read may resonate with you or it might not. If not, it may be that your experience and understanding to-date is contrary. I warmly invite you to open your mind to possibilities and to explore the concepts I am introducing. One important distinction is that in spirituality, there is freedom.

In the research I have undertaken over the years, the most fascinating and helpful in satisfying my intellectual understanding of world-religion and other spiritual teachings has been found in the field of quantum physics. We live in a universe that has 11 spacetime dimensions - so the math goes so far - and it is entirely possible we exist on multiple dimensions as well.

In truth, you are spirit already. The spirit is that aspect of ourselves that quite simply inspires us. In it's purest origin, spirit is completely connected to the source of the universe, which is why in its' purity of force and energy is such an inspiring force / entity. Many people have lost touch with this entity and are left uninspired by the lives they lead.

Our soul is not the spirit, it is another dimension that embodies the "feelings" of our memories. These memories reside in the body, the mind, and the emotions. You can understand how the integration of the experiences between these three human facets are required to capture the fullest expression of a memory. You may also recognize how a memory in your own life can completely overwhelm the body's feelings, your emotional response, and your thinking.

A Conceptual Breakdown:


During a meditation a few years ago, a visualization exercise was being conducted as a group. The discussion about the human experience, the mind, the emotions, the soul, etc. were at the foundation although not the focus of the discussion. Entering into the meditation, extraordinary activity began communicating thought messages that provided the following framework to help segment and understand more about the human experience. It's important to note that while these messages prove useful and valid, it is also wise to stay open to further expansion of thought, understanding, and most importantly experience.

The Body


The body is the feeling machine and action machine. Emotions are felt and expressed through the body. Emotions are a force of energy that speak to us, although often-times we're not always aware of what we need to know about the emotion. This forceful energy is experienced physically in the body and also affects thought in the mind. Our body, the physical cells and chemical construct also retains the memory of emotion. The more emotion built up and stored, the more toxicity retained by the body. Your body can function in cooperation with the power of the mind or the spirit - whichever we give more control. Also, remember that all matter is energy. This means the physical body is energy and thereby has the ability to act as a radar dish, picking up on the energy of others around us, also affecting our moods and emotions.

The Mind


The mind has been referred to as a computer, a biological computer. I would say that is a fairly workable assessment, although its complexity is much greater. Nonetheless, it is a tool by which we learn, interpret, analyze, and retain data. This data can be in the form of book knowledge but it certainly doesn't stop there. It also retains memories (data) from our human experience and life experience. This is quite an encompassing repository of data as we take all facets of life, living, relationship, feeling, thinking, exploring, and so on, and so on.

However, the mind also connects us to spirit as we exercise that muscle. This means taking the time to nurture the relationship with spirit and being available for whatever messages and inspiration it has to share with us. Most often, it is likely that we suppress and deny spiritual promptings within ourselves due to a lot of social and educational conditioning received throughout life. Not honoring and nurturing this communication wtih spirit, our mind utilizes more of the soul memory - combining the mind's memories and the body's memories (emotions) - and allowing that to dictate life experience. This is where we see many cynics, for example, that always see the truth they choose. Our experience dictates life because that is where our focus remains imprisoned. Breaking free is the challenge that comes with embracing a spiritual journey.

The Soul

Soul and spirit have often been thought of as synonymous, the same thing. During my studies over the years however, I often found distinctions that contradicted this thinking. But who really knows the answer to these questions? Scientists have tried to find these mysterious entities inside the human mind for ages and haven't been able to spot anything that they can clearly put their finger on. Nonetheless, it is widely agreed that there is more to the human-being than just the physical body. This is substantiated even further as quantum physics dug deeper into the realms of the invisible and came up with M-Theory, previously known as String Theory. I suggest two excellent videos that educate and challenge simultaneously:
What the Bleep Do We Know? and The Elegant Universe.

The Elegant Universe brings the quantum studies into the layman's world and a couple of very relevant and interesting facts present themselves that support the concept of soul, spirit, the body, the mind, and so on. I won't go too deep just yet and will only stick with the soul and spirit distinction. First, all matter is derived from energy, little bands of energy or strings; where the name string-theory originated. Later named M-theory, it also discovered that there are 11 spacetime dimensions. This validated earlier teachings about the energetic body that resides on a separate dimension than the physical body. Now this energetic body could also symbolize the existence of soul on another dimension as well. This validated the impressions of thought I received during the group meditation. It clearly distinguished the various entities of the human experience and described them much as I've done here.

What the soul does is combines the experienced memories of the mind, the body, and the emotions. As I like to say, it retains the melancholy of life and other physical world memories. Its function and purpose is the storage of information that the spirit world, or universal consciousness if you prefer, can access after we leave the physical world.

T
he Spirit

My favorite, the spirit, is the universal part of ourselves that comes from and is connected to the source. The source of what? The source of all that exists, the source of all creation, quite possibly the creator, and if not, the consciousness of the creator. Remember, the best we can do from this place on earth is to enter into the dance with the mystery and reach our own conclusions with the best information available. This is what I'm bringing to you and inviting you to explore on your own as well.

Spirit, so closely connected with source, which by the way, is the energy that makes up the 11 spacetime dimensions as well, can be thought of as the energy of pure love. I will get into this more elsewhere. This spirit is loving, encouraging, inspiring, forgiving, and all else that is good. It manifested itself here in your physical body to experience and to create. Now the question is, to create what? What did your spiritual self come here to accomplish in this physical world. For more insight into the Source, it's energy, intent, and power, I recommend
The Power of Intention book or viewable frequently on PBS in North America.

With the social, cultural, politcal, educational and familial pressures, teaching, violence, and more, we have been conditioned and most people have lost the connection with their spirit and spiritual purpose. Programmed throughout life by the systems of this world we are challenged to break out of the molds put around us to fully explore who we are spiritually. Case in point: An abused child takes much time, patience, love, and gentleness in order to see the defense mechanisms dropped and trust confidence, and openness to grow.

I have studied myself and others for a long time around this subject and another deciding force is the fact that so many people are suffering depression, anxiety, etc. Many people are stressed beyond belief trying to live lives that are not their own. They need to access those Spirit values that are unique to them and to live them out fully in order to be optimally healthy: emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

When you're so far out of tune with your spiritual self, you're out of integrity. When you're out of integrity and none of your spiritual values are being honored, discomfort sets in. This discomfort, this dis-ease grows over time and the less able you are to turn it around, the higher the likelihood that you become ill, physically ill. I've seen it with a number of people who have suffered enormously as a result of trauma and abuse that has robbed them of their courage and strength.

Inside there is an unchanging force calling for attention. This power of spirit is a tangible part of our everyday whether we participate or not. Now are you curious and courageous enough to look at how you can integrate your spiritual perceptions, beliefs, and experiences into the reality of day-to-day living. Whether you are looking for a single conversation or month-to-month support, you will find it here.

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Lee Down
male, age 45, single
Vancouver, BC, Canada
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I found this at another network and thought it worthwhile to share here also.I have only skimmed through the pdf file and not yet listened to the mp3.....but must say I am fascinated with what I have quickly read.....EnjoyLove Elizabethx___________...
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