Return to listening to your heart, no matter how long you've been away.
Your heart never leaves you.
The door is open now.
image © Elsah Cort
Forgive yourself first... (morning burnout blip)
Fear is our only impediment.
Add it to a compost pile, turn it with tools of love and forgiveness.
Forgive yourself first.
[image source: Scott's Compost Pile]
Opening for Possibility... (morning burnout blip)
Tune in to your natural rhythm
by not trying to force things to happen,
opening for possibility in each moment, listening.
[image source © Elsah Cort]
Waiting...
Earth shows us how to patiently wait for rain to fall,
so roots can surge forth from the unseen.
Water your soul this way.
| morning burnout blip |
One Step...
Take your directions from your inner voice,
not from what others tell you to do.
Each step leads to your next one. Simple.
| morning burnout blip |
"The Fairy's Tightrope" by Arthur Rackham [image source]
Breathe-In Heart
Thoughts come, thinking they are the only reality,
then breath intercedes quietly intertwined with heartbeat.
Notice this.
| morning burnout blip |
[photo from highresolution-wallpapers.net]
____________________________________________________
:: Re-Membering the Healer's Spirit ::
mountain burnout retreats for everyone
Step one, two, three...
1 :: Sense the authentic vision of your life and work....listen to the inner messages, the ones that you often ignore or bury, and uncover the deeper, core material.
2 :: Water all subtle seeds of your vision...be open to what sprouts that show up and let them all move past the seedling stage into stems, leaves and blossoms.
3 :: Then let it be...don't try to re-work it all or push it into an old pattern of control
:: Live Via Essence ::
original photograph © Elsah Cort
Occupy Metamorphosis
I've been thinking of the metamorphosis of the on-going "occupy" movements that are spreading all over the planet. It could be that this outer (group) expression is a way for the universe to remind us that we need to "occupy" our own body, our true spirit, our time-space positions as whole, conscious beings.
When we each occupy ourselves fully and honestly, then each and every space on this planet changes. This occupy movement is not so much about taking control, but rather about the "being" of a human being. It is not an accident of group-mind that this is the word that came forth at this moment in time and living history.
I am choosing to occupy here and now.
"Source" digital image from original mandala © Elsah Cort
Available as a greeting card at The Other Shore Market.
Through the Looking-Glass...
Is this the day I finally wash some windows? For a while now I have been looking at the mountains through a window that is framed with cobwebs on the outside. And I have been feeling the pressure of not having washed this window, just yet. I need to do it when the sun is not shining on it, I tell myself. Another thought comes, more of a wish, that I could have a better technique or use a better window-washing liquid, to get this window finally clean, as I remember how windows never seem clean enough after I wash them. I take some thinking time to try to visualize myself actually getting the window washed. I add some judgment to the thought-mix, admonishing myself for not washing the window yet, more pressure and inertia. The window remains unwashed.
And the spiders? They seem to have abandoned their webs on this window (that's why I can call them cobwebs now) and they are moving house to another window nearby.
The living metaphor of this window-viewing and spider-teaching is telling me about clarity and vision, and seeing beyond, and in spite of, my distractions and procrastinations. And the spiders, they are keepers of the alphabet and writing, and they spin webs with such ease and not much planning.
All this comes from looking out of the window this morning as I write.
[Spider Web by Julie Falk]
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[Addendum: one week later, windows are washed...October 19, 2011]
Pervasive change is upon us. We can't stop it anymore than we can extend the early morning twilight, to delay the sunrise.
Lately I have been personally experiencing a digging in of my heels (with pain in one of them showing up) and I know that, as much as I welcome and long for change, I also resist it in any way I can. It's futile of course. We are all changing each and every second. The universe can't help itself, it's nature is change and more change.
When one of us brings forth that which is in us, then everyone and everything is changed. A commercial comes on TV just as I am writing this post, from a bank who is saying they can make it easier when it is time for a change. Nothing is really easy about change...but when you jump into the stream, you are supported by every wave.
Today's sunrise by Zoe Nishimuta,
who posts her sunrises every morning on twitter and facebook
The word God packs a punch for most people, but not for the ocean of love and energy that IS God. "Be" is all it says. Be.
God is really just a word we made up in one of the myriad of language systems that have sprung up on this planet over the last 4.5 billion years. And, it will disappear as a word in another 4.5 billion years or so when the planet is consumed by the heat of the sun, as it expands and changes form.
These three small letters have been used by people to judge, segregate, starve to death, ignore, dismiss, objectify, spread fear, lord over, lie, out and out kill, and just plain hate other people. I read about it every day, I hear it on television on the news, and I grieve each and every time. And, I know, that I have done some of these things in this lifetime and in many more lifetimes before this one.
What I know of God, for now, has no English words, or any other language either, but I still can't stop trying to describe it. God never deserts us, no matter how much we are immersed in amnesia about the source from which we have all sprung, each and every time we take a breath for the first time.
I just now asked Rumi (my beloved friend from 800 years ago, alive for us today with the work of Coleman Barks) and he gave me this poem. I asked Rumi, "Tell me of God."
A VOICE THROUGH THE DOOR
Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you,
as fish out of water hear the waves,
or a hunting falcon hears the drum's Come back. Come back.
This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.
Children fill their shirts with rocks and carry them around.
We are not children anymore.
Read the book of your life which has been given you.
A voice comes to your soul saying,
Lift your foot, cross over, move into the emptiness
of question and answer and question.
[from Rumi The Big Red Book, The Great Masterpiece Celebrating Mystical Love and Friendship by Coleman Barks]
collage © Elsah Cort, from the Re-Membering Self Series
one of my original Other Shore cards,
coming soon to theothershoremarket.com
Every problem has a macro and micro solution. Either end of the string tugs on the other. Look at the forest and the tree.
Listen for your inner solutions, but don't think only you have to come up with the answers. Ask for help from others.
Saturate yourself in gratitude and openness for unexpected generosity.
And then, return the favor when you see a need. Engage in reciprocal maintanence.
"Hiding in the City No. 94- In the Woods", photograph by Liu Bolin
[more about this artist who is often called The Invisible Man]
Thinking life is hard makes it so. Be kind to those who think this way, including yourself. But don't succumb to the idea.
The only way to an easy life is to give up planning for it, stop searching for it, and know that it already exists. You don't need money for it, or lots of time, or someone else to make it happen for you.
The easy life has hands who are willing to take up a broom and sweep the dried leaves that have accumulated at the back door...and do this more than once, and maybe even every day, humming or smiling as the broom brushes against the earth.
| photo by David Lloyd |
Call a conclave of each and every cell that depend on your inspiration. Thank them for being you. Exhale deeply and smile.
You are what you cannot see with normal every day vision.
Your physical body, masquerading as you, is a perfect manifestation of each and every moment in the space-time of the universe.
When you do, think, feel anything...
you always have the full potential of past-present-future in your hand.
Life is as big as this.
image by Judith Shaw, prismacolor pencil on paper
Truth is always lighter than the lie. Human misunderstandings are resolved as truth sifts out our weighted misperceptions.
We can build our lives based on opinions which are based on misperception and out right lies. Then how can we live a real and meaningful life?
So much judgment is circulating these days (actually for so many years) and the truth seems to be made up and swallowed whole.
Remember, what you hear...what you think...what you know...what you think you know...may not be true.
Always be open to changing your mind. Ask questions. Don't attach to the answers.
Ask more questions.
(photo source unknown, found via google images via several blogs)
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