"O Night Divine"

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2010

"O Night Divine"

Christmas Eve 2010 - and again Christmas Eve 2013

 It is the night we celebrate the Birth of Christ
"O, Holy Night"

The story is told that he was conceived through Divine inception and was born to a husband and wife who had pledged to be the parents to this “miracle” sent from God.  Said to have been born in lowly circumstances because there were no rooms left in the Inn, he was welcomed into his earth life in a stable.  His arrival, however, had been heralded by amazing astrological signs that many said, were to signal a great Being’s birth.  Wise men had traveled from afar – from Egypt to Bethlehem – to bring gifts to this wonderful Child.  They had come a great distance, following the brilliant Light of a Star that seemed to light up the whole Earth. 

Like us, we reach for the Light that seems to shine down upon us from time to time and marvel that Life contains vivid moments where we feel uplifted and blessed.  When we come back "down to Earth," we feel humble in the face of the marvels we take so for granted: our human body at work, life pulsing through our veins, the life cycle that occurs year round when all of nature moves to a rhythm that is beyond our understanding, and the moments that take our breath away from small unexpected surprises of beauty and grace.

On that evening, too, the shepherds watching their flocks on the hillside not only could see the brilliance of the Light of that Star but swore they were in the company of a host of Angels singing their Joy at the long-awaited coming of this special Child.  Angelic voices resounded in the night and all who were there could feel Their presence among them.  They, too, knew something miraculous was occurring and wanted to move closer to the place where the Light shown most brightly.

Like us, we seem to hear the Inner Voice which guides us forward when we are afraid, assuring us that we will survive and, in fact, that we will thrive if we reach for the Unknown in trust and faith that “all is well.”  As we experience a breakthrough instead of the breakdown that we so feared, we seem to hear the “angels sing” celebrating our perseverance and our triumphs.  Then in those surprising moments we know we are not alone in the world.  We are touched by “The Spirit” – we sense the spiritual dimension that is closer than hands and feet, nearer than breathing.

His family was a normal human family, his father a carpenter and his mother was devoted to raising their several children, with Jesus being one among them.  They lived a simple life, once they had escaped the obsession of King Herod to make sure no one would replace him as “ruler.”  He, as later men after him, misunderstood why this One of Jesus had come.  They, because of their own conditioning thought he would want to be King.

Those of us who were brought up in a Christian church or live in a culture built on many of the Christian values, know Jesus was born and lived a fairly normal life until we read in the New Testament that he began his ministry when he reached 30.   We, who are familiar with the Bible scriptures know of  his  life among the Jews and the ancient prophecies that said a Messiah would come in time and would be sent from God and be the King of Kings!

Reading more widely in ancient manuscripts we find that there are other aspects of Jesus’ life that we hardly hear about in our mainstream churches. Did you know that there are records that Jesus went on a long pilgrimage of many years between childhood and his return to Nazareth in his late 20s? There are records in monasteries in Tibet that tell of one Spiritual Teacher who came and both taught and learned from the Spiritual Masters of other faiths there.   These Masters were as impressed with the first-hand knowledge of the Divine that Jesus had as did the Jewish priests when he visited them in theTemple when he was twelve.

These records, as well as records found among all the world religions with which we are acquainted, speak of spiritual knowledge passed down through thousands of years.  These are the Mysteries that individual men and women have discovered as they sought for Knowledge and Experience of the Divine and the origin and sustenance of both the Universe and the Earth.   Every several thousand year cycles, it seems that MORE knowledge is discovered and MORE becomes known and passed on to the next generation. 

Many of us have heard of Mystery Schools.  We can find that there were always those who had determined to explore the Inner Realms of Spirit and the closer we have gotten to contemporary times, the more these “knowings” have come more into common knowledge.  Even if you simply take the history of the founding of this Country, you find that many of the Founding Fathers had studied sacred writings and gathered together in groups to try to discern the Nature of Reality and the purpose for humans being on the Earth.  They brought with them a commitment to place into our government’s design certain Truths that, if followed, would create a new kind of government – based on freedom, equality, and justice for all.  They believed most assuredly that they were following the Hand of the Divine and could create structures that would encourage men and women to live together in “spiritual ways” – those that spoke of God’s Plan for all of humanity.

Let us return to the events of the One whom was said to be destined to be the “King of Kings.”  His life was an EXAMPLE of what it means to be a Son of God.  He also said that since we each have Souls – each born with a spark of the Divine inside – that we, TOO, are meant to be LIKE HIM.  He spoke of God as his “Father” and said that since we were all “God’s children” that we, too, could approach the Father and that if our intent was to know God directly that we, too, could become “One” with the Father.  Did he not say: “I and the Father are One”?   He said his life, intentioned and given by God to humanity, was meant to show us who we “really are.”  His Coming was not about fulfilling a prophecy that was aimed at one group of people, but to ALL PEOPLE.   And it certainly was not meant to create a Kingdom on Earth where some men would rule over others.  In fact, God’s Message as conveyed by Jesus was that LOVE was the underlying Principle in the Universe!

The Kingdom that Jesus spoke about – the Kingdom of Souls – is a spiritual Kingdom that is meant to be lived HERE on the earth plane.  It is not a faraway place where one goes when one dies.  God is not a faraway vague spirit or a “white man” on a “throne.”  The whole Universe is made of that Divine Essential Presence that IS GOD – and is LOVE - and IS in US. 

Have you been as enlivened as I have when watching  the youtube videos of the Flash Mobs singing the “Hallelujah Chorus”  this year? Have you felt a thrill in your heart when people of every diverse walk of life and race and probably religion sang together?  Have you marveled at the resounding music that booms through places such as Grand Central Station, the food courts, Macy’s in New York and even our own Crown Center?  Have you watched the faces on the children and the elderly – the families together – and those who had come together to declare: “Glory to God in the Highest!  …and He shall reign forever and ever”?

On this night, in a land faraway, over 2,000 years ago, an incredibly important birth took place.  Through his life the one of Jesus grew up and lived in constant attunement with the Divine and by so doing, he grew in knowledge and compassion for humanity, and agreed to “give over” his Life to God.  He agreed to do whatever was called upon him to do, even sacrifice himself.  In his commitment to do the Will of the Divine and serve his fellow humans, he reached the Christ-Consciousness and became the One we call The Christ. 

I close with a quote from a body of Spiritual Teachings called The Aquarius Materials:

“Those of you who have lit your lamps are being pushed along rapidly. For does not one flame quickly fan another?  You must stay this way, for these Energies (incoming 4^th dimensional LIGHT) are going to take you up, and expand you into that of a NEW BEING.  And this New Being is the Christ child within you.  This is the birth of YOU.”

                                            “The Resurrection Fire,” Chapter 11, page 73

Linked in LIGHT and LOVE and SERVICE

May you be touched by the Divine this holy evening...

Marcella Womack

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You Can Get THERE from Here

In my New Year’s Eve post I declared: I AM A BELIEVER.  

I am a believer that THERE IS A "REAL WORLD" THAT HAS YET TO BE EMBRACED BY HUMANITY. 

All of this came after talking about the absolute necessity of having a Vision of the way we want the “Real World” to look before we can chart a path to it.  In making the declaration, I suggested that humanity has yet to consider that there can be “more” than we’ve already experienced and “more” than we have dared to think about.  People over millenia have envisioned better ways to live and many have succeeded in creating new models of living together.  And when those don’t tend to last or change for the worse, we simply dismiss their attempts (and often their success) as flawed or naïve.

Saw a YouTube video recently of a young man’s “Vision for Global Restoration.”  I am confident that many will see the relevance of his ideas and go about creating sustainable communities on the land with like-minded people.  Many people, old and young, who are drawn to the Occupy Movement are feeling a stirring that says: “We’ve got to find a better way…”

Yet more often than not, people still tend to ASSUME that

“This is ALL there is;

why fight it;

just make the best of a messed up world.” 

Because of that, we seem to go round and round in circles, making the same mistakes over and over, fighting "another war" with "another enemy,” and trying to find a secure place to “live our lives without being bothered.”  Most of us try to play by the rules, want what’s coming to us, and try to get through life with as few mishaps and disasters as possible.  We are afraid, though, of the things that can befall us when we’re not looking.  A sudden heart attack, a drunk driver plowing into our car, being caught in a rock slide while on vacation, or having a child born with a birth defect.

When it comes to knotty complex social problems, we want someone else to fix it and if they don’t address it as quickly as we’d like or fail in an honest attempt, we dismiss them and the process and look around us for someone else who will give us a better “quick-fix.”  Many people escape into drugs because they want a “short-relief” from all that they fear and all that may happen to them.  We say, they just want to “escape reality.” 

Interesting phrase when you think about it.  I know very few people who find today’s “reality” to be comforting, comfortable, or conducive to productive and joyful living.  As I keep saying, today, most of us affirm that “things are all messed up.”  And yet, if you go back in history to purported "mythical" advanced civilizations like Lumuria or Atlantis, we are told that even those fell in upon themselves because of HUMAN CHARACTER FLAWS.  The mis-use of the technology of their times and the factions that fought for political rule “did them in” as these things have brought down other civilizations since before our recorded time.  This isn’t new; humanity has just been proven consistent.

Just think about our times, with the fierce weaponry that can obliterate millions, military regimes that routinely practice genocide, and the grid-locked Congress here in America, whose elected officials seem to not know how to deliberate, collaborate, discourse civilly or pass laws that will benefit the U.S. citizenry. 

Everywhere we look we see individuals exposed because of their “breaking the rules” whether it be legislated guidelines, cheating on spouses and indecent exposure, or bilking millions of people through Ponzi schemes.  Can anyone reading this say that humans don’t have “character flaws?”  (or as a relative of mine says: “are all f%*&ed up.”)

Nature or nurture?  These conversations surfaced during the early days of this last wave of the Women’s Movement back in the 1960s.  Are men inherently smarter than women; are women inherently more passive than men?  What we discovered, those of us who were exploring these issues and had plenty of first-hand experience of vast diversities within humans of both genders, was that conditioning  had a huge impact on the personal experience and capacities of individuals.  Societies, in our recorded times, have always seemed to have a sets of rules and cultural mores that determine what is good/bad; better/best; acceptable/unacceptable. 

We shape ourselves around the expectation of others.  We take in and internalize an "idealized image" of how the world wants us to be.  

In 1970 I spent two weeks at Grailville, a spiritual retreat center for lay women in Ohio.  During that time 40+ women from all walks of life, all races, all religions, young and old got together to explore what it meant to be a woman – in the eyes of God, in the eyes of society, and from our own individual life experience.  It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life, where all of us created the agenda, talked and explored, ate together, sang together, danced together, and worshipped the Divine Life in all of Us. 

I saw how it COULD be: all respected, all listened to, all taken seriously.  Gifts and talents recognized and appreciated, all paths honored, and all “cherished” because we knew we were human/divine, even though our individual churches didn’t necessarily proclaim that.  It was this spiritual dimension that drew us together.  We knew we were all “beloveds of Creation” – “beloveds of the Divine” – “beloved Children of That Which is All Sustaining.” 

Much earlier than that, when I was a very young child, I experienced God’s Presence as an Uplifting Energy that expanded me out to the edges of the Universe and held me as tenderly as my own mother did.  I knew I was not alone in the Universe and found myself nestled in a small family where I was loved.  Being an only child, with my father a sign-painter and my mother working at our Methodist Church to save money for me to go to college, we attended church every Sunday and I was active in all of the youth activities up through college.  It was a sheltered life in many ways and I didn’t realize that we were “poor” because we had little money. 

The words I heard in a Christian Church and the words whispered in my heart from that Unseen Presence made me feel whole and dearly loved.  I could sing “In the Garden” and actually feel the Presence of Jesus walking beside me in my life. 

And I didn’t know until much later that not everyone had this experience of Abiding Presence.  Ironically, as I got older and a lot of people my age were questioning the Church and condemning the “character flaws” of the leadership, I can honestly say, I separated out that which I knew was “not of Love” and simply named it that.  I held only several themes in the Center of my Heart and tested everything against those and “forgave” that which was off track or hurtful or destructive.  It was all in the “new covenant” that Jesus said God desired to establish with humanity: “Love God and Love your Neighbor, as you Love yourself.” 

Parable after parable he talked about how humans are meant to act when they live “as the Father” wishes them to live.  Taking care of others, being our “brother’s keeper,” being humble, being generous, sharing, and TRUSTING that God is more like a Parent than a Judge.  Jesus said that "we are all God’s children.”  That we are made in “His image” – that the Spark of Divinity that is placed in our bodies at birth is our own Soul that comes from God, is “of God,” and LINKED WITH GOD at all times. 

Whether we realize it or not, he implied that God was nearer than hands and feet and closer than breathing.  He said we are meant to reach God by going inward and reaching out to this “loving heavenly Father” and we could anchor a connection there.  He said that each one of us is loved by God, so much so that like the father in the wayward Prodigal’s Son parablem, He FORGIVES US and WELCOMES us back into that Abiding Presence from which we originally came.  This is assured every time we turn away from the path of materiality, greed, violence, selfishness, and ego-centered living and back towards the Ground of Being.* (*phrase that theologian Paul Tillich used to represent a much larger Reality than humans had attached to the idea of a heavenly-father-who-is-male-white-old-and-keeps-score.)

And because we have been given Free Will, each human must be the one to determine their own character by the choices they make.  Jesus admonished people for being greedy, for separating themselves from each other through their ethnic heritages, for being judgmental, for all the things – and more – that were outlined in the societal and spiritual commandments of their times. 

He said things like “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  He KNEW that we had the capacity to grow into the most loving, authentic beings possible and he encouraged us to strive for a conduct of living, loving and serving - putting others first and seeing other fellow humans as other “children of God.”

He also said, “I and the Father are One” and “do as I do": “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Many of our Christian theologians have interpreted that to mean “seek-to-go-to-heaven” by obeying the rules and “work your way into heaven.”  He said that the "Kingdom of God is within.” And for the last 2,000+ years we’ve simply not known what to do with that one! 

He was constantly linked to God; he prayed and encouraged us to go within and meet God as he did.  He’s basically pushing us to get by ourselves, to reach inside and into our inner hearts to acknowledge and FIND that Abiding'" Presence that never leaves us.  And it is not easy to reach beyond our acculturated beliefs and our lack of faith to do this in earnest. 

It is my belief that the one of Jesus, who was born into flesh and blood, was destined to be our World Teacher by embodying that which he had been taught inwardly by God and telling all who came to listen to him about God’s Desired Way of Living for humanity.  He said it was what God expected and wished for forHis children.  Jesus lived a life dedicated to God’s Guidance, given to him in his inner Heart, and because he acted in accordance with this Desired Way of Living – of his own Free Will - he actually became the embodiment of God-Consciousness, which many call the Christ-Consciousness. 

So close to the Presence did Jesus live, listening for the guidance of that Divine Presence, and living a LIFE THAT EXEMPLIFIED LOVE AND SERVICE, the Light of His Soul became so expanded that he was joined directly to the Godhead.  Jesus was a human who reached for God and he merged his human identity with his Divine Soul which is ever connected directly to the Abiding Presence.  He said: “Do as I do…”  He became the Christ, a fully-realized God-Conscious human.

“Do as I do…”
translates to me that

you and I and every human being has the same opportunity

to become God-Connected -  

so fully, so completely, so aligned that we will be able to

see the Divine Vision for the Earth.

And if we are able to do this we can behold

what a Glorious Future humanity is meant to have.

Then we are able to know that we have “returned” to the Father’s House and know this is where we belong.  And even as we have joined with God, at-one-with-God, we are still right here, in physical form.  We are not "taken away" - "swept up into heaven, away from this Earth."  (I have no doubt that after our Souls leave our physical bodies that they are amazed to find that Life is even greater beyond the physical plane and nothing like we imagined – or “denied” because we believed that “this is all there was.”) 

Even though we have risen in awareness and realize our True Natures, we are still on the Earth in physical bodies.  Even though we FEEL different inside, we still have to deal with our surroundings.  And yet, we have new eyes with which to see and new yearnings to love that which we behold, no matter how "bad" it looks. 

Earth environment still looks, feels, and manifests as the same kind of place where the prodigal son lost his hope, his money, and his respect for himself.  WE ARE MEANT TO bring the God-Consciousness into this world – this world as it is – and do what we know how to do, if we invite ourselves to be transformed by the Touch of the Abiding Presence. 

I am a Believer and a Knower.

That's why I say, WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN GIVEN A VISION of how the Earth and humanity is meant to be and yet we haven’t been able to grasp the magnificence of it.  If you remember the work of the Catholic priest Father Theilard de Chardin, you know through his prayers and inner communion with God, that he was given to understand that humanity was evolving and that we were nearing the point where humanity could make a giant leap into a New Time.  He said the time would come when we would have evolved into A New Human.  One he called the Omega man. 

The time has come – the time is crucial – for humankind to open to an expanded VISION of what is intended by the Creator and Sustainer of All of Life and begin to conform our lives to the simple Way of Life, when lived fully that has always resulted in joy, companionship, and harmony.  It’s our CHOICE to aspire to see the “more” and become the “more.”

We can decide to move toward that VISION of a more humane, joy-filled, contented world where we can grow into NEW HUMANS who together can bring that VISION to “Life” to uplift us all into a new "REAL WORLD" here on Earth.

I am only one Voice, sharing from my heart.  I invite neither debate nor questions, and for this post, ask for only individual comments spoken by those who choose to do so – from their own heart-inspired VISION for humanity’s future.   (It's free and easy to join google in order to make comments.)

I would also ask that if this resonates with you that you join with me in exploring this VISION and that you pass this invitation on to others whom you think might be interested.  We can be yet another Circle of people who join together at this momentous time in Earth history to move toward a NEW HUMANITY and a NEW WORLD."

In Faithfulness and Trust,

Marcella/Maria
One Voice / Relentless Truth Seeker / Truth Speaker

NAMASTE

The Time Has Come

I’ve been brainstorming for several months now on a title of a new web page for my new semi-retirement business.  Over these last few weeks the title “How to Get There From Here?” keeps coming to mind.  As an organizational/systems consultant and a trainer, I’m always thinking about how to create environments where people can look into the future and identify their Vision of how they want things to be.  Once that becomes clear, I can design a framework to facilitate their working together to see the steps it will take to get there.  Along the way, we always look at the forces at play at a given time: those things that will propel the group forward toward their vision and those things which may block them from making progress.  It’s the same for individuals as well, sort of like, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

In addition to thinking up titles, I’ve found myself having to re-work my “new” business Vision more than once.  At my age, at 74, I have a wealth of experience and some 40+ years of professional work life behind me.  As a consultant, I was able to work in various arenas and sectors learning about myriad and diverse occupations.  Banking, insurance, higher education, health and hospitals, manufacturing, mental health, non-profits, technology, theatre management, communications, and airport maintenance.  I’ll stop there; the list is too long.  With Kansas City being a federal regional headquarters, I was exposed to many federal agencies and at times traveled in the 4 states that make up the region. 

I also loved working with individuals on self-management competencies, personal and professional development, and in three cases worked with colleges/ universities for periods of time on the theme of Women and Leadership.  From working with employees, supervisors, managers, CEOs, Boards of Directors, and small groups of individuals desiring to explore and discover a Vision for their organizations as well as their own lives, I found that a major theme was always – for me the trainer and facilitator – how to HELP THEM get from where they were at any given time, in any given situation, to where they wanted to be.

So why am I having difficulty defining my “new” business Vision?  I was gung-ho at first, thinking of all the things I could “do for systems” and how I could be a catalyst for change in my own Kansas City.  The first volunteer work I did as a young suburban housewife (1966-1972) and the last thing I did while working for the Mayor of Kansas City for 4 years (2004-2007) was to work in neighborhoods. 

Both times, the context was the urban core.  The first time was during the 60s and the Civil Rights Movement in an inner-city church Parish; the second time was related to Public Safety and Neighborhood Livability as citizens worked against enormous odds in a context of violence, drugs, gangs, unemployment, poverty, transient families, abandoned houses, absentee landlords, and cultural enclaves from many nations trying to adapt to their new home with its own “foreign culture.”

Add to this, the economic bottom dropped out in the fall of 2008 and non-profits began to fail, government grants dried up, and cities and states began to handle huge deficits.  And of course, we know what has happened since President Obama was elected and the congressional elections of 2010 happened.  Our nation – and the world – is in the worse shape it’s been in for many years.  Not only has the economy tanked, but as happened in the 20s and 30s, and again in the 60s and early 70s, many American citizens are waking up to what is happening beyond their neighborhoods, their jobs, their family activities and saying “What just happened?”  It’s like waking up from a bad dream and thinking, “Well, I thought someone was supposed to be taking care of that…  (again) What just happened?”

Add to that, citizens in many nations are standing up and doing their best to “throw off the yoke” of those who have held power for many decades and have held power with a heavy and often military oppression of the masses.  Here in America, we thought “we” were the “good guys.”  We would step in, thinking we were the “saviors” because not only were we the good guys, but also because we were the most powerful in money and in weapons.  All of a sudden the world isn’t as stable as we thought it was.  We, here in the U.S., felt secure and protected.  We felt superior in many ways and didn’t pay much attention to the corruption that was going on under our noses.

In other words, more people than ever, around the world, are asking this question: “How do We Get from Here to There?”  How do we disengage from this “mess?”  How did problems get so complex and tangled?  Here in America, everywhere we look, more is going “wrong.”  Systems are failing, jobs are drying up, people are losing their homes, children are going hungry.  And we are scrambling!  We’re trying to climb out of our financial holes, we’re trying to keep our homes, we’re disgusted with candidates who seem to lampoon their way across debates, and we are angry.  Remember the movie where the TV station head leans out of the window and screams: “I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”  (Can’t remember the exact quote; am sure my movie buddies will help me flesh it out.)

Stop a minute and realize that we are speaking from here and now, from our current situation, and we are filled with mixed emotions.  Are you angry?  Worried?  Fed-up?  Cynical?  Blasé?  “What me, worry” attitude?  Or are you confused, back-and-forth, up one moment and down another?  Going in circles?  Feeling sucked under by external events?  Feeling ungrounded?  DEPRESSED AND FEELING HELPLESS?

We used to be able to pin our “hopes” on our idealized image of life, the security of living in America (or not, if you are non-white, poor, homeless), or taking the patient view “the pendulum swings back and forth, just wait, it’ll come back and balance with it.”  All of these are “do-nothing” responses; in effect that conveys it’s not “MY responsibility!”

Many people are just now having their assumptions shattered and are flailing because there seems to be no solid ground on which to stand.  And we’re still left with all of our deep seated problems, not completely solved after all of these years.  Racism, injustice, war, poverty, inequality, destitution, corruption, greed, murder, are not only still with us but glaring from the pages of the newspaper, and TV and internet screens more than ever.  It’s as if everything that has been buried for years is surfacing and we can smell the decay and rot of neglect. 

And we look for things to divert our attention, to give us momentary uplifts of laughter or fun when we forget the mess we’re in.  Then we wake up the next day to the news of more systems failures, we can ignore our escalating panic no longer, and finally admit our helplessness.  We feel devoid of hope or at best a stoic skepticism that things will ever get better. 

You may have not caught it yet, but what I am describing is the opposite of the title that keeps running through my head about “How to Get There from Here.”  How can we if we don’t know where “There” is?  We don’t have a clear Vision of how we want it to be.  We haven’t taken time to think about alternatives-beyond-the-quick-fix.  We just know we want “out” – yet – how can we move TOWARD something if we don’t know what IT IS?  And in too many cases, we are afraid that we already have arrived at all-there-is.  I don’t believe that!

This is my epiphany for today: we have to look beyond our present to WHAT WE WANT.  We have to determine how we want the world to look; how we want our lives to be.  What is worth fighting for?  Not just in the short-term, but in the long-term.   We have to have a VISION of the kind of world we want or we won’t make it “out of Here/Today” in any better shape than we were yesterday.  We’ve dug ourselves a hole and we have a Choice.  I have a choice of what I do next year; you have a choice of what you do next year. 

Actually Humanity has a choice and this is a PRIME MOMENT to make a decision to change the way we relate to each other and everyday life.  We can DO IT BETTER. 

We can’t do it better, until we’ve discovered how we screwed up.  We can’t point fingers at others and neglect looking into our own hearts and see where the “small” greed is, the casual neglect, the small instant of malice, the everyday selfishness, the periodic snit of superiority.  We have to “own up” to our part in the world’s seeming to plummet in a dangerous spiral downward.  We can no longer say: “it’s them.”  “It’s their fault.”  “They made it happen.” 

Like it or not, we are all tied together.  Many a person has been quoted – include Martin Luther King – saying we are all in this together.  When one person falls, we are all affected.  If one person can be jailed without cause, the same could happen to us.  If we lose all our money because the market fails and we become broke, we become “one of the poor.” 

Our illusions of grandeur, success, and safety are just that in our predominately-white-America.  We can become diminished.  We can fail.  We can fall prey and become unsafe.  And here in America, we are surprised that it can happen to us!  When we thought we were better, we thought we were untouchable.  Our education, our affluence, and our blindness to others’ needs kept us separate. 

If we are male, if we are white, if we are privileged to have had an easy life, we are probably much more shocked by what is happening than others who are not and have not had a sheltered life.  What is happening all over the world is a great leveling and those of us who prided ourselves on being “us” not “them” are having a rude awakening. 

And, being the “glass-half-full” kind of person I am, I see this leveling as a good thing.  Painful as it is, it is an opportunity to seek each other out – across boundaries – and say, “uh, hi, how’s it going? what do YOU think is going to happen? is there anything I can do to help? do you suppose we can get together and move that boulder out of the way – the boulder that is blocking both of us?” 

This means we’re all the 100%; we need all of us to make choices that will help EVERYONE.  And we can no longer afford to think of ourselves as separate from the rest of the world.

In the last several months, I have had at least 2 friends, in the middle of a conversation, reach over and pat my arm, and smile while they say: “Oh Marcella, you’re so sweet but you don’t get it; this is the way things are.  We can’t do anything about it.  Don’t waste your energy.”  The underlying message from the words and the body language is: “poor thing, she really things she can change things…she means well, she just needs to wake up to the real world.” 

Today, on New’s Year Eve of 2011, I declare: 

THERE IS A REAL WORLD

THAT HAS YET TO BE EMBRACED BY HUMANITY...

AND I AM A BELIEVER.

Tomorrow, on January 1, 2012, I will write about the REAL WORLD as I know it exists and how that REAL WORLD can become

“the world in which we live

because we can choose to make it so.”

Happy almost 2012!  Marcella

Taking Up Where I Left Off

A little less than a year ago, I was jarred by receiving feedback on the last Blog piece I had written.  It came from a long-time friend in Oregon who said he thought surely I would end the post with a different phrase than I did.  I was quoting Pogo: "We have met the enemy and it is US!" 

He said he thought I would have said: "We have met the savior and it is US!"  His reference was to the years of friendship in which he and his wife and I shared our spiritual journeys and he knew that I believed - I KNEW - with all my heart that his statement WAS true (as well). 

After responding to him that, of course, I agreed, I came back to the Blog and said to myself:  "Now how do I get from here to there in my writing?"  After making several initial attempts at expressing myself, I realized that I needed to take a break.  Not only was I readying myself to re-enter a time where I needed to earn money again, but I kept stumbling over which way to turn and which path to take. 


It has been that kind of a year for me - trying to bridge the chasm of "before" and "now" in many arenas (from 2010 to 2011 and from 1999 to 2011).

Reference: Before   I took a dozen years off from my consulting when I went to work for the Mayor of Kansas City in her first term in 1999.  I served with her through 2007 and expected to continue working with the KC Safe City Initiative after she left office.  The project was funded and since we were setting up a new endeavor - a Public Safety Community Research Center - we were preparing to add staff and set up a GIS Mapping System that would allow neighborhoods to see at a glance what was happening in their immediate environs  (related to crime, city services, housing, etc.) in order to help them set priorities for action.

In October, after waiting 6 months for the City Manager to give us the go-ahead, it was decided that our funding would be cut and used elsewhere.   Talk about a jolt then!  I tried to continue without pay and worked for about a year to try to secure funds for the Center and for a couple of other small projects.  Nothing materialized, so I began to tackle self-publishing a Body of Spiritual Teachings that had been entrusted to me in 1993. 

From 2008-2010 I was able to pull together 8 years of experience from 1985-1993 into 4 books.  Two were filled with Discourses from the Universal Teachers and the Brotherhood of Light that were trance-channeled during 1985-1987.  One was a telling of the Story behind what came to be called (from the very beginning) The Aquarius Materials during those two and the next six years.  And one is a Guide to "Living From the Soul..."  - the title of the book.

The friend, the one who jolted me last January entered my life in 1988.  He is a Sufi minister, writer, publisher, and former New Age bookstore owner and he and his wife were close pilgrams-on-the-Road during that time.  They, too, had experienced a time of listening to channeled messages that were coming through a woman in their town about 40 miles away - at the same time - and they were stunned to see how parallel the messages were that had come through the Aquarius channel.  (no accident, I now know)

Self-publishing was a delightful and diligent process and I was fortunate to feel the "presence" of the Universal Teachers during those years as I tried to work with the archives of that time, the hundreds of photos, and all of the channeled Teachings.  They became my companions and partners.  Linked closely through mind and heart, they helped guide me through the process.  I continue to communicate with them to this day and simply dialogue on the computer with "TT: The Teachers."

Reference: Now  The last book was published in December of last year (2010) and is called "Let LIGHT descend on Earth."  I began this year, 2011, with high hopes and excitement about getting back to consulting.  I've had one six month contract which allowed me to return to "the neighborhoods" (the 'hood': the urban core) and plan on focusing my "social entrepreneur business" attention in the Public Sector dealing with all its complex and persistent urban realities. 

At 74, I know that it is time for me to move straight ahead with what I believe is my Soul's purpose for this lifetime and am still trying to get my arms around how I can "live my Truth" in today's world.  So I'm having to open myself wide to think beyond my "professional experience," beyond my multiple areas of expertise.  Instead of only thinking about what I have to  offer to Public Sector systems as a consultant or to places that will hire me to use my skills, I have to ask myself: What do I have to offer the world? 

This is a pivotal time in American culture.  It is a crisis time for countries all over the world in terms of every facet of human life and the Life of Earth.  It is a Time of Choice of all humanity.  Do we continue on as we have before in brutal wars, slavery of whole peoples, inequities in almost every area of life, and continue to be separated by artificial boundaries that separate us into "us" and "them"?  Or do we examine again the roots of our humanity and the potential of our spiritual natures in order to come up with a New Way to Live together on the planet?  This blog is a step in that direction: to widen my efforts to share what I've learned that relates to our times.

Full circle, don't you think.  Yes, it is possible to see ourselves as both the "enemy" and the savior."  And when we do, we have to recognize the error of thinking in either/or terms and conclude that we are dealing with a both/and experience of life.  We have to make our peace - as I have worked to do so over this past year - to sort it all out and commit to finding our way to heal ourselves, heal our communities, and heal our world.  

That's the AGENDA for this blog in the coming year, so please join with me and let's form a circle that explores this together.  

P.S. As my vison quest name has been "Truth-Seeker," I find that I'm being called to be a "Truth-Speaker" as well.  Sharing my one voice to add to many others who seek to bring in The New Heaven and The New Earth.

Namaste to All
"my god-self recognizes and honors the god-self in you" 

a dream of The Dream

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Journal Entry: 7:27 a.m.

I was in the middle of intrigue involving murder, death, violence, manipulation and was seeking a way to “make it through.”  Could see a way through, if all went well, so that all the destruction would be behind us and we could change course in the future as a group.

They (the investigators/the officials) had discovered the large room where all the bodies were and I was moving among the immediate group members downstairs without either letting them know or being singled out myself.  I knew, however, of all the evil and damage that had been done and yet I continued to think through how ‘i’ could make it alright if we could find a way to leave all that behind…

Once the investigators/officials, however, began looking for someone to blame, I knew they would come right to me as the one who knew all the details.  Once they knew that “I knew” they would be able to get off the hook by finding someone to blame.

I was complicit because I had seen it all, or knew what was happening and didn’t try to get help to stop it.  “They” wouldn’t have done anything but try to fix blame, find a scapegoat on which to divest themselves of responsibility.

It came to me that we couldn’t go forward until all of us came to understand the thrall - the bondage - under which we all lived – the denial of the centrality of our own guilt, involvement and therefore culpability.

We cannot move forward without acknowledging our complicity in all that has occurred.  We have all been irrevocably shaped and tainted by our conditioning and we have tried to ignore the immensity of our responsibility.

Pogo said: “We have met the energy and he is us.”

It’s now 10:48 a.m. and I am re-reading this entry.  As I remember waking and feeling the horror and the trappedness of my situation, the meaning of the dream quickly dawned as I began to write. Yes, I was in the midst of the horror in the dream and am now – this day – existing in the horror of The Dream we call “daily living” as 21^st century inhabitants of this Earth. 

The more I wrote, the more it came to me that I was describing our current human condition and experiencing both the senselessness of it and the hope that drives me as I, like in the dream, keep searching for a “way through.” 

We’ve come through a week of speculating on “who is to blame” for the senseless killing of last week-end.  Everywhere one looks there is an article, a newscast, a pronouncement, an internet bulletin, and even a Presidential eulogy given for the victims in the Tucsan shooting. 

We are looking for both the “root cause” and at the same time “the fix” that will make things right. (And perhaps, relieve us of the responsibility to have to think about it...)   Was it one young man’s delusion only?  Did our political climate stir up so much rancor that it has infected the very air we breathe?  Since there are almost no other countries in the world that contain so many citizens owning lethal weapons – guns – what can we expect?  Could the parents have kept their child from these random killings?  Were the teachers in his school alert to his anguish and distress? 

If we can find one person, one group, one segment of the population, one political party, or one “trigger” to this awful event will we believe we have fixed it?  This, dear friends, is the illusion under which we move day after day after day.  There is no quick fix.  There is no easy solution, when in fact all of us “live” out this same constantly repeating set of actions in every city and every rural community in this country over and over and over again.

Pogo got it right.  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Over the next few days, I will endeavor to continue to write here on this Blog about the “everyday outer experience dream” that we all are dreaming and will try to shed some greater light on this dilemma.  It seems as if humanity is “reaping the whirlwind” at this point in history and life-as-we-have-created-it is crashing in on itself.

I am no doomsday speaker; I am only one who sees beyond this time of wringing of hands and repeating the same scenario again and again.  I seek the Greater Truth that lies behind the happenings of the times and believe I have awakened to a portion of that Truth.  As you may remember when I started this Blog, I told you the Vision Quest name given to me in 1984 was Relentless Truth-Seeker. And so it is that I continue...  marcella

"O Night Divine"

Christmas Eve 2010

 It is the night we celebrate the Birth of Christ
"O, Holy Night"

http://worriersanonymous.org/Share/Christmas/Holynite.htm

The story is told that he was conceived through Divine inception and was born to a husband and wife who had pledged to be the parents to this “miracle” sent from God.  Said to have been born in lowly circumstances because there were no rooms left in the Inn, he was welcomed into his earth life in a stable.  His arrival, however, had been heralded by amazing astrological signs that many said, were to signal a great Being’s birth.  Wise men had traveled from afar – from Egypt to Bethlehem – to bring gifts to this wonderful Child.  They had come a great distance, following the brilliant Light of a Star that seemed to light up the whole Earth. 

Like us, we reach for the Light that seems to shine down upon us from time to time and marvel that Life contains vivid moments where we feel uplifted and blessed.  When we come back "down to Earth," we feel humble in the face of the marvels we take so for granted: our human body at work, life pulsing through our veins, the life cycle that occurs year round when all of nature moves to a rhythm that is beyond our understanding, and the moments that take our breath away from small unexpected surprises of beauty and grace.

On that evening, too, the shepherds watching their flocks on the hillside not only could see the brilliance of the Light of that Star but swore they were in the company of a host of Angels singing their Joy at the long-awaited coming of this special Child.  Angelic voices resounded in the night and all who were there could feel Their presence among them.  They, too, knew something miraculous was occurring and wanted to move closer to the place where the Light shown most brightly.

Like us, we seem to hear the Inner Voice which guides us forward when we are afraid, assuring us that we will survive and, in fact, that we will thrive if we reach for the Unknown in trust and faith that “all is well.”  As we experience a breakthrough instead of the breakdown that we so feared, we seem to hear the “angels sing” celebrating our perseverance and our triumphs.  Then in those surprising moments we know we are not alone in the world.  We are touched by “The Spirit” – we sense the spiritual dimension that is closer than hands and feet, nearer than breathing.

His family was a normal human family, his father a carpenter and his mother was devoted to raising their several children, with Jesus being one among them.  They lived a simple life, once they had escaped the obsession of King Herod to make sure no one would replace him as “ruler.”  He, as later men after him, misunderstood why this One of Jesus had come.  They, because of their own conditioning thought he would want to be King.

Those of us who were brought up in a Christian church or live in a culture built on many of the Christian values, know Jesus was born and lived a fairly normal life until we read in the New Testament that he began his ministry when he reached 30.   We, who are familiar with the Bible scriptures know of  his  life among the Jews and the ancient prophecies that said a Messiah would come in time and would be sent from God and be the King of Kings!

Reading more widely in ancient manuscripts we find that there are other aspects of Jesus’ life that we hardly hear about in our mainstream churches.  Did you know that there are records that Jesus went on a long pilgrimage of many years between childhood and his return to Nazareth in his late 20s?  There are records in monasteries in Tibet that tell of one Spiritual Teacher who came and both taught and learned from the Spiritual Masters of other faiths there.   These Masters were as impressed with the first-hand knowledge of the Divine that Jesus had as did the Jewish priests when he visited them in the Temple when he was twelve.

These records, as well as records found among all the world religions with which we are acquainted, speak of spiritual knowledge passed down through thousands of years.  These are the Mysteries that individual men and women have discovered as they sought for Knowledge and Experience of the Divine and the origin and sustenance of both the Universe and the Earth.   Every several thousand year cycles, it seems that MORE knowledge is discovered and MORE becomes known and passed on to the next generation. 

Many of us have heard of Mystery Schools.  We can find that there were always those who had determined to explore the Inner Realms of Spirit and the closer we have gotten to contemporary times, the more these “knowings” have come more into common knowledge.  Even if you simply take the history of the founding of this Country, you find that many of the Founding Fathers had studied sacred writings and gathered together in groups to try to discern the Nature of Reality and the purpose for humans being on the Earth.  They brought with them a commitment to place into our government’s design certain Truths that, if followed, would create a new kind of government – based on freedom, equality, and justice for all.  They believed most assuredly that they were following the Hand of the Divine and could create structures that would encourage men and women to live together in “spiritual ways” – those that spoke of God’s Plan for all of humanity.

Let us return to the events of the One whom was said to be destined to be the “King of Kings.”  His life was an EXAMPLE of what it means to be a Son of God.  He also said that since we each have Souls – each born with a spark of the Divine inside – that we, TOO, are meant to be LIKE HIM.  He spoke of God as his “Father” and said that since we were all “God’s children” that we, too, could approach the Father and that if our intent was to know God directly that we, too, could become “One” with the Father.  Did he not say: “I and the Father are One”?   He said his life, intentioned and given by God to humanity, was meant to show us who we “really are.”  His Coming was not about fulfilling a prophecy that was aimed at one group of people, but to ALL PEOPLE.   And it certainly was not meant to create a Kingdom on Earth where some men would rule over others.  In fact, God’s Message as conveyed by Jesus was that LOVE was the underlying Principle in the Universe!

The Kingdom that Jesus spoke about – the Kingdom of Souls – is a spiritual Kingdom that is meant to be lived HERE on the earth plane.  It is not a faraway place where one goes when one dies.  God is not a faraway vague spirit or a “white man” on a “throne.”  The whole Universe is made of that Divine Essential Presence that IS GOD – and is LOVE - and IS in US. 

Have you been as enlivened as I have when watching  the youtube videos of the Flash Mobs singing the “Hallelujah Chorus”  this year?  Have you felt a thrill in your heart when people of every diverse walk of life and race and probably religion sang together?  Have you marveled at the resounding music that booms through places such as Grand Central Station, the food courts, Macy’s in New York and even our own Crown Center?  Have you watched the faces on the children and the elderly – the families together – and those who had come together to declare: “Glory to God in the Highest!  …and He shall reign forever and ever”?

On this night, in a land faraway, over 2,000 years ago, an incredibly important birth took place.  Through his life the one of Jesus grew up and lived in constant attunement with the Divine and by so doing, he grew in knowledge and compassion for humanity, and agreed to “give over” his Life to God.  He agreed to do whatever was called upon him to do, even sacrifice himself.  In his commitment to do the Will of the Divine and serve his fellow humans, he reached the Christ-Consciousness and became the One we call The Christ. 

I close with a quote from a body of Spiritual Teachings called The Aquarius Materials:

“Those of you who have lit your lamps are being pushed along rapidly.  For does not one flame quickly fan another?  You must stay this way, for these Energies (incoming 4^th dimensional LIGHT) are going to take you up, and expand you into that of a NEW BEING.  And this New Being is the Christ child within you.  This is the birth of YOU.”

                                            “The Resurrection Fire,” Chapter 11, page 73

Linked in LIGHT and LOVE and SERVICE

May you be touched by the Divine this holy evening...

Marcella Womack