healing images for the waters

Gulf Oil Spill

The deeper question is: What am I spewing into the world through my judgments, anger, jealousy, fear?

This is from "Son":

The war and hate and injustice -- and ecological disasters -- and anger we witness on the planet is very simply the outermost manifestation of the war and hate and injustice still alive within the human heart.

Let me offer a painful example: Somewhere around the planet a school shooting takes place. We read the paper on the other side of the planet and wonder how such a thing could happen. Like-energy attracts like-energy. Our daily, angry, hateful, hurtful thoughts gather together in an etheric ocean surrounding the globe. Those thoughts magnetize to similar thoughts hundred, perhaps thousands, of miles away, similar thoughts from people all over the world whom you have never met and probably never will. And a dark storm cloud of anger flows about the planet. And when that cloud passes too-near one person, or many persons, in a weakened state of mental, emotional or spiritual consciousness, that cloud is sucked into their energy field and those persons may be pushed over the edge and into acts of violence.

Of course, this same example is also true for gathering clouds of light and love and compassion, which result in unexpected acts of kindness and forgiveness and charity.

One of the great truths written on this planet is the Hebrew saying,‘To save one person is to save the world.’

Heal the heart.

Love ourselves, and by that very act, we send out a greater wave of love than we can comprehend which instantaneously reaches everyone and every place on Earth.

It even radiates out to the very end of the Universe.

That is how powerful your love is.

Eckhart Tolle Quotes

• All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.
• Enlightenment means choosing to dwell in the state of presence rather than in time. It means saying yes to what is.
• Thinking, or more precisely identification with thinking, gives rise to and maintains the ego, which, in our Western society in particular, is out of control. It believes it is real and tries hard to maintain its supremacy. Negative states of mind, such as anger, resentment, fear, envy, and jealousy, are products of the ego.
• Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world.
• You must have failed deeply on some level or experienced some deep loss or pain to be drawn to the spiritual dimension. Or perhaps your very success became empty and meaningless and so turned out to be a failure.
• Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry.. all forms of fear.. are cause by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence.
• Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.
• The insanity of the collective egoic mind, amplified by science and technology, is rapidly taking our species to the brink of disaster. Evolve or die: that is our only choice now.

Before you speak...

Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence? -- Sai Baba

law of abundance

When we take more than our fair share of something and leave less for others - it's we who will experience the lack that we have created for others. Abundance is created through open hearts, through generosity and through never stopping the energy flow or the material flow.

To always be attentive to where the need is greatest at the moment, without thinking in limiting terms of ownership, regulations and musts, but rather naturally following the flow of energies that all of cosmos consists of and that all life consists of.

To follow the flow and go where you are most needed, and to give where the biggest need is. In that way you create new possibilities, new development and new abundance, since abundance is an ongoing process which never ends. When you are in this process, when you become a part of the divine flow and let the flow take you, like a wave; when you share the abundance and make it bigger so that it includes all - you will always have exactly what you need. You will always have more to give to others, and others will have more to give to you. In this way abundance is created, new abundance, and everyone's needs are met.

It's not until the principle of abundance is broken that lack is created. When you stop helping others, when you stop living with an open heart, trusting that whatever you need will come to you right when you need it and that you can always share your abundance with others.

When you instead let fear and lack of trust control you, and you begin to hoard, fabricating conditions and demanding compensation, that you strangle the principle of abundance and you strangle the divine flow, and thereby create lack. The present economic system on Earth, where you buy and sell, is a direct violation of the law of abundance.

As long as you continue to live by this system, you will have lack on Earth. All giving must happen without the expectation of repayment. When you demand compensation, it's not giving anymore; it's a business agreement, and all business agreements create lack. When you live your life in accordance with the divine flow and live with an open heart, you are in trust and feel safe in the conviction that you will always have what you need and that everything presently missing will come to you.

You don't use your energy to worry about how the future will look or exactly how you will get your needs met. Instead you trust that it will happen one way or the other. You know that what humanity today calls "miracles" - are possible.

Dibarak channeled by Manne & Maria, Mother-Earth Network

Seven Social Shadows

1. Politics without principles
2. Wealth without work
3. Pleasure without conscience
4. Knowledge without character
5. Commerce without morality
6. Science without humanity
7. Worship without sacrifice.
-- Gandhi

The Vengeful God That Destroyed Haiti

(photo courtesy marc sandrow)

With the tragedy of Haiti, like those before of Katrina and 9-11 and Madrid and the Congo and Rwanda and Holocausts before and on and on, once again people ask (who have these beliefs): How can God allow such things to happen? (Spoiler Alert to Pat Robertson) God doesn't allow these things to happen. We do.

Then why does God stand by and 'watch' such pain and suffering? My guess is a part of S/He/God grieves deeply that humanity uses the greatest gift it has -- freewill -- to choose to constantly look the other way.

Perhaps God would prefer that His/Her children would one day grow up and quit asking for Divine Intervention, finally understanding that WE are the hands and feet and voice and hearts of God. WE are the tools of the Divine.

Perhaps a loving God loves everything and everyone unconditionally, so much so that He/She/God must sometimes allow -- not create -- great and terrible events in order to wake us up to our birthright as beings capable of extraordinary love and compassion -- before it's too late.

Though my guess is that a part of God is growing weary of our seemingly unending adolescence.

We -- rightly so -- express our shock and horror at an event such as that which devastated Haiti. Our collective hearts go out to the victims, as does our charity. Thank God.

But the fact is that Haiti was devastated long before this earthquake, by poverty and lack of education and AIDS and all forms of corruption. And we turned a blind eye. As we have with genocide in Africa and poverty in Central and South America, as we have with a million other horrors around the globe and in our own backyards. It's all business as usual, even when that business-as-usual is devastating our own neighborhoods through lost jobs and foreclosures, while corporate America robs the bank -- and us.

As I was watching an online video of the agonizing rescue attempts in Haiti, I was interrupted by commercials for a sleep drug and a TV comedy show. As human beings (and I include network and corporate executives in this category), can we not take a single breath from buying and selling, long enough to try and make a genuine connection with our human neighbors? To heal our wounds? (And credit card companies just HAVE to take 3 per cent of every dollar we give to crisis relief.)

Have our lives and the tragedy of most of the world -- including the destroyed environment -- really become just another diversion between commercials and Amazon.com?

Perhaps the financial collapse was 'God' warning us: Pay attention to where your wealth goes. Perhaps Katrina was 'God' saying: Pay attention to your communities. Perhaps 9-11 was 'God' saying the world is a small place and the old way of settling differences will no longer work. Perhaps global warming is 'God' saying you can't keep turning your only home into sludge pond. Perhaps Haiti is 'God's' way of saying: this land -- your brothers and sisters -- needed help long ago.

And perhaps we are God and a part of us has just about had enough of the other part of us that doesn't yet understand the Survival Truth that we are our sisters and our brother's keepers. That what happens to the least of us will eventually happen to all of us.

When will we quit waiting for the next disaster to happen in order to open our hearts to act -- and simply ACT?

Now.

new horizons

(photo courtesy ben britten)


"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -- Mark Twain

never doubt.....

(photo courtesy tauntingpanda)

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." ~ Margaret Mead

The Power To Transform

by Sheila Ivy Traister

Have you looked in the mirror lately only to see worry and uncertainty staring back at you? That's been the face most Americans have seen as we try to make sense of the mess we find ourselves in as a country and a nation among nations, all of whom are struggling to make sense of our current state of affairs.

When the world is crashing in around you how do you as an artist find meaning in what you do... in who you are... in what matters?

As an actor, I reflect on the fact that as a character in a story whether it is a film, a television show, a play or any one of dozens of performance vehicles; I have the power to transform the moment to uplift and enliven the human spirit.

Through the exchange of ideas, dreams and fantasies we have the power to create understanding where there has only been detachment... to usher in laughter where there have only been tears... to allow for healing where there has only been anger, pain and depression.

Throughout history, artists of all walks by way of music, poetry, plays, films, books, dance, the fine arts and more have challenged us to examine who we are and how it is we walk this life. Like the court jester who has an audience with the King, the artist has the ability through the realm of entertainment to cause us to question our behavior and the world we are creating. They can make us forget or remember... to want to try harder... to examine why... to not settle for and to challenge existing paradigms and established modalities in order to usher in much needed change; be it our own or the world around us.

Often it is simply the gift of making us smile for an hour or two so that we can forget the problems of the day in order to face tomorrow with greater agility for the challenges it will surely bring.

There is much beauty to celebrate in a world that appears to be crumbling around us. If we can find that in the gifts given us as performers perhaps we can help others through the magic of our collaborations to do the same.

Let's look for the places within that unite us in our common cause to celebrate life and one another... let's take up the challenge to be our best selves in the most difficult of times; even when our own work opportunities have dwindled under the weight of economic and political strife.

I do believe as artists we have an innate ability akin to alchemists to transform the mundane into magic. How will you as an artist, this very day, use your gifts to transform worry and uncertainty into a celebration of possibility and new dreams... creating a new landscape for the year ahead.

Talent is a responsibility not to be taken lightly... honor it and embrace the gift you are to this world and share it unselfishly; then rejoice as you reap the rewards that will certainly come your way. ~Sheila