Defending Joseph Campbell

A friend of mine asked me to explain to him why Joseph Campbell is my guru. It was an interesting conversation. My friend has never read Campbell, but he has heard me describe the impact that Campbell’s work has had on my life. My friend was thinking along the lines of self-help authors like Stephen Covey.

I explained that Joseph Campbell wasn’t really setting out to help anyone that way. He was merely a scholar, a man who devoted his life to researching the things that pleased him most to think about. This is what I admire best about Joseph Campbell. That it turns out that he and I found joy in the same topics is just a blessing beyond measure. He is definitely a kindred spirit.

What I ultimately shared with my friend was the story of my life at the time I discovered Campbell’s work. I was very much a church going Bible believer of the most literal sort and I had no real grasp of the concept of metaphor. Sometimes I think it is difficult for any devout Christian to truly grasp and appreciate metaphor.

I was introduced to Joseph Campbell in a college literature course about the Grail Legends. Joseph Campbell is an authority on the Arthurian legends, something I have loved almost my entire life.

It was in listening to Joseph Campbell lectures that I discovered that essentially everything is metaphor. All we have are symbols and stories to give meaning to our existence. Everything, even our lives, is metaphor for the fundamental truths of the universe. We are merely reflections of something much greater than ourselves. I believe that we each incarnate to create a mythology out of the life we have been given. And the great thing about this mythology we create is that we get to be the hero in the story. We don’t have to be the victim in our own life story. We are the ones writing it.

What Joseph Campbell did for me was give me another way of looking at God. It was not long after studying his work that I quit thinking about God as an entity separate from myself. And I will tell you this, that one discovery has brought more joy into my life that any other thing I have figured out.

So, while I understand my friend’s skepticism if he was equating Joseph Campbell with Stephen Covey, in my mind the two are incomparable. Stephen Covey offers people helpful hints to be a more financially successful person, Joseph Campbell offers people the keys that unlock the mysteries of the universe.

It is my opinion that you can’t read Joseph Campbell’s work without becoming a little smarter.

Crossroads

It is interesting having options. I prefer it to not, but making life decisions can be stressful, especially when you feel you’ve made poor ones in the past.

I find myself at a crossroads in more than one area of life right now. There is nothing bad happening; it’s all very positive, all about choices, but I find myself terrified at the thought of making decisions that will disturb the status quo too much. I’ve been through so much the past couple years and things are finally starting to settle down. Do I want to stay settled and risk getting in a rut or do I want to stir things up a little and see what I can make of it?

Recently I have been finding a lot more joy in life. When a certain amount of stress is missing, it makes it a lot easier to appreciate things and be present and not preoccupied. I appreciate that so much. I believe it is out of this sense of joy that some of the options before me have manifested.

That is a very important thing to remember in a situation like the one in which I currently find myself. Nothing that shows up in my life does so apart from my intention to have certain experiences. There is nothing I can experience that I am not open to experiencing. If I were not open, situations would not present themselves. Everything that is going on in my life right now is the result of the thoughts I have been thinking up to now. It’s not all pretty, I’d be lying if I said it was. But some really beautiful people and situations have come into my life and sometimes when I think about what and who I am attracting, it makes me really happy to know that the universe is responding to what I am offering. It’s truly humbling.

I have to make a career decision within the next 24 hours. And there are other, more personal decisions to make right now too. The personal stuff is not pressing, so for the moment, I deal with the issue before me.

It boils down to a cost/benefit analysis. What’s more important, money or happiness? On the grand scale that question is very easy to answer. But on the small-scale, the distinction is a much finer one.

This is one of those situations that is too big for me to figure out on my own. I need to pray and then clear my mind of the thought of it. Once I give the question over, the answer will come.

The more I live, the more I figure out that thinking is such a flawed way of problem solving much of the time. The ability to reason is flawed in the best of analytical thinkers. I’ve reasoned my way through many issues. I’ve been formally trained in logic and analysis. But the answers to the truly important questions always come in the silence. When I get out of the way, things tend to work out just fine.

I put myself in the hands of God. And I have faith that I will find beauty on my journey regardless of which path I take.

Amen.

Adieu 2011

As I look back at 2011, I really want to embrace the lessons of the year and just sort of forgive myself for how things unfolded. It was a hard one. The reason it was hard has a lot to do with my shortcomings and lack of awareness. But the great thing is, whenever we are willing, we are able to grow in awareness by facing the people and situations that are in front of us as with as much present moment awareness as possible.

The thing about awareness is, it is the bright light of heaven shone on something previously dark and scary. No monster that you are willing to look in the eye can even continue to exist. That is how powerful our minds are.

I am dating again and it’s going okay this time. When I look back over the past couple of years of dating, I see improvement in some areas where there were a lot of mistakes. I’m still making them, I just recognize things as mistakes a lot more quickly so I make fewer. It’s progress, I’ll take it.

There is a guy I was seeing for several weeks and we’ve had a bit of an unfortunate misunderstanding. I think he feels justifiably righteous and I feel like it’s good to be human, full of flaws, learning from mistakes, being honest, communicating with sincerity. I think he is on the fence about forgiving me for something I said in an e-mail. It’s okay if he takes his time to decide. But it got me to thinking about how many moments invite us to judge one another and how on the other side of those situations lies the real gift, the opportunity to extend forgiveness and compassion to a fellow human being. How can we not forgive each other for not being perfect? We all know that none of us is, but when we choose not to forgive, we are suggesting otherwise.

To forgive doesn’t mean you have to agree with the person’s actions, but you do not mistake the actions for the person themselves. Nobody does things out of a true desire to hurt others, I’m nearly convinced of it. People are motivated by two things, the desire for happiness and the avoidance of suffering. It’s just the things we do to achieve those ends is different for each of us and sometimes when we are seeking happiness or avoiding suffering we interfere with others’ happiness seeking and suffering avoidance. That’s when misunderstandings happen. But when we back up and see that people are not motivated by a desire to do anything to any of us, that they are simply motivated by the same things that drive us all, it’s a little easier to forgive.

When I think about it, the thing we are always dealing with is the illusion of separation. We seek to reconcile with God because of a failure to recognize our oneness with the Divine and we forgive or not forgive our fellow humans for the same thing, for thinking we are separate when we are not. For failing to recognize each other as ourselves and God. It’s the basis for all misunderstanding and sin.

Ourselves, God, and each other. A trinity. A beautiful mystery.

2011 was hard. I declare 2012 the year of forgiveness and gratitude.

Amen.

Reboot

Once again I find myself needing to post something just to keep my commitment to posting. It’s not that there’s nothing going on, it’s that I haven’t been taking much time to think about things. I’ve been distracting myself instead. Thankfully the holidays create distraction.

I’ve chosen distraction because, in my opinion, it is preferable to dwelling on things I have no control over. If I indulge too much in that activity, I quickly start spinning my wheels. To allow my mind to obsess over something that belongs in the hands of God, is a waste of my energy. There are a lot of other things in my life that deserve my attention more than the things I don’t like, those things I wish to surrender to the universe.

There is a glimmer of hope in my romantic life. Not with regard to one specific person, the whole process just feels better now. I’ve connected with a few nice guys, gone out a few times with a couple of them, and it’s been okay. No disasters, not even in the comic sense. I haven’t found one yet that I’d be interested in having a relationship with, but it’s okay that it’s taking some time. I want it to be right when it happens. I am going out next week with a guy who has so many quirky things in common with me that the prospect of meeting him makes me feel happy. He’s also very good-looking. That makes me happy…for obvious reasons. Hopefully he’s also a good person. I guess we’ll find out.

I’m hoping for small, manageable changes in my life. Just a little forward movement in the dating world, and maybe a bit more than that in the career world. I’m sorta playing life like a very important chess game right now. Slow and deliberate. Ya know?

For the past couple of weeks I have abandoned almost every comforting ritual in my life. I pray, but not nearly as often as I have at times; I haven’t been meditating often enough; I have stopped reading and writing. I’m never sure why I do this when life feels stressful, but that’s what happens. I’ve taken the giant step of forgiving myself for it. I have finally stopped adding guilt to everything I do or fail to do. It makes the difficult times go by more smoothly.

Tonight I will spend some time returning to my best beliefs–blessing all creatures, entertaining lovely thoughts, and restoring that heart connection with all that is good and right.

What a blessing it is for all of us that the Source is always available when we wish to tap into it.

Willing heart

Life is bittersweet sometimes.

Things are still a ways from being perfect, but sometimes when I think about how the universe works, I am humbled and amazed.

On November 2, when I was in the deepest, darkest place of uncertainty, I tweeted this: The universe is bringing everything my family needs to keep going. I believe this and I give thanks in advance. ❤ I had very little tangible evidence to support that statement and I knew, even then, that my belief was in something much bigger than the circumstances in which I found myself.

Faith is like a muscle that is built by accepting what life brings with as much grace and equanimity as can be mustered. I do this to the best of my ability, though I will admit I do not always succeed, and sometimes feel very petty and weak.

Composing that tweet was a conscious and aware decision. I knew what my situation was, I knew something needed to happen, and I knew I had nothing I could point to as an indicator that things would be okay. But I knew that believing that things would not be okay was not an option. If I go around thinking things are going to suck and then they suck, I feel like I contributed to that outcome. But when I am truly able to believe things will work out, they do. It’s beautiful, especially when the connection between the belief and the outcome seems obvious.

A few days after posting the tweet, a friend tipped me off to a potential earning opportunity, which resulted in another friend offering to employ me until my permanent job starts. It’s not a lottery win, but it is a giant step toward things being okay again. I feel the difference the most in my heart. I have been carrying some heavy, heavy burdens with very few people to talk to. But once I finally told someone how scared I was feeling and how hard things have been, it started getting better immediately.

Faith requires a willingness to admit the truth about ourselves and about life. If we can do this with compassion, the universe responds…with loving kindness. God–whatever that means to a person–loves us. It is humanity that is harsh with itself.

The moments of truth that lead up to the tweet declaration were of the Jesus take the wheel variety. I was praying a lot and while talking to God about my life and circumstances, I finally came to the question Whatcha gonna do? And my answer was: I got nothin’, God. That place of ultimate surrender. The place where you have to surrender because there are no other options.

Grace only comes where it is truly needed. It is not welcome when we choose to grapple and struggle with things on our own. It is in giving up, saying fuck it to the cosmos, that we create the space necessary for grace to enter our hearts. When it happens, it is sublime. At the same time, I realize that some moments can’t be experienced if things are always going smoothly. We experience joy in proportion to our capacity to endure hardship without bitterness. In proportion to our willingness to see things as good no matter how they seem on the surface. How do I know my experience is good? Because it is the one I am having.

On November 2, I didn’t know what I was going to do to get my life back on track, but I knew one thing, I was willing…to do whatever it would take…and to be open and unconditionally accepting [of myself] in my darkest moments.

I see the light again.

Because of the difficulties that my life has been blessed with, I have experienced the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding. How can I fail to be grateful for this?

If any of this resonates, please check out Chapter 18, section 5 of A Course in Miracles. I actually looked it up just prior to writing this post, well after my own recent miracle was underway, but it so beautifully completes my thoughts here. And much more eloquently.

The thing at the top of my gratitude list these days? Sleeping soundly.

Amen.

Another year

It will be my birthday in 90 minutes. I haven’t thought about it very much because I had so much other stuff on my mind. Not having a job in this economy will do that to a person. I was actually hired about 3 weeks ago for a job, but haven’t been able to get started because they are waiting for the results of my background check to come back and I do not know what is taking so long.

A friend of mine offered to let me come and work for him for a little while so I could earn enough money to pay my rent. I am so grateful for this I hardly have words.

The past couple of weeks have been amazing. Every time I feel like I don’t have a shred of faith left in me, I ask for help from God, the angels, the saints, and ascended masters, and every time I ask, something happens to give me enough hope to go on. How many guarantees do any of us actually need? It’s great to feel like things will be fine long-term, but don’t we really live day-by-day, moment-by-moment?

Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” –Matthew 6:33-34

A couple of weeks ago, I said a prayer to St. Jude, the patron of desperate causes. I’m not Catholic, but I didn’t care, I was so afraid and so worried that I needed to feel there was someone who cared. As a show of faith, I decided to make a donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. I need to point out that even though my donation was small, I have almost no money right now, so it was a big deal to me. I wanted the universe to know that I trust I will be cared for just as I care for others, as unselfishly as possible. Later that same night, a trusted friend offered to give me a significant amount of money. Enough to relieve some of the pressure I was feeling, and thirty times the amount of my donation. I accepted with the caveat that I be allowed to repay it when things improve for me.

Between the loan and a few days of paid employment, I can see the light at the end of this tunnel I have been in. I am very grateful that in the darkest of times I have the presence of mind and heart to ask for help. And I am grateful that the help always comes. I’m not always brave enough to ask other people for help, but I am brave enough to ask God for help. Then God brings angels, dressed as friends.

It looks like everything is going to be okay. I feel so much genuine gratitude for the abundance of having the basic necessities of life. Everything else is icing.

In one hour it will be my birthday.

Seek first

Today I am praying for God to protect the people of the east coast of the United States. I have friends there and I give thanks for their continued safety during the hurricane.

Melancholy pervades my existence these days. I feel very much alone and adrift. And I’m being what I wish was realistic with myself, but is probably more like harsh and judgmental.

My life looks nothing like I thought it would at this point and there are times when I cannot help but feel a profound sense of disappointment in myself. I have accomplished more than I ever dreamed of in some areas, but there are things that I thought would fall into place that haven’t and most of the major areas of my life have been affected.

All of this started about 5 years ago, but things really fell apart a couple of years ago. And while I feel like I have made important progress, it feels like there is still so much left to do to clean up the aftermath of the hurricane of events that blew through my life, leveling everything I had been building for years. Everything I thought was important was lost. My relationship with my family, my best friend, the job I loved, and any sense of financial security I may have had. All gone, all about the same time, early 2009.

Every once in a while I look at my life and can’t see the sense in it. Those are the moments it is most painful to be me. I have been experiencing many of those the past few days.

Much of what I have been going through this week likely results from being tired. I’ve been staying up way too late and going to work on very few hours of sleep. When I try to function in this way, every area of my life suffers, most notably my perspective.

When I look at my life, I am not at the top of my professional success. I do not believe it is impossible for me to be again, but I still have to figure out exactly what that means to me.

What has all the pain and struggle gotten me? A heart of pure compassionate gold. What some consider life’s greatest treasure. Sometimes it is hard to appreciate the gifts of the spirit when I am busy using them.

I may not have achieved perfect professional or financial success, but how much does that really define who I am or why I am here?

What do I have that I can share with people? Goodness. My heart.

I am one of those people who spends a good deal of time praying for other people. I pray constantly, all day every day. I use the majority of my time and energy blessing people and making divine requests on behalf of those in need of grace. I wish for all beings to have peace and wellness.

People who know me ask me to pray for them when they are facing challenges. Many of my friends have expressed a high level of confidence in the effectiveness of my thoughts and prayers. It seems as if I am regarded as one who is close to God. And in my truest and best moments I am. I have been close to God my entire life though I have understood the concept many different ways over the years. When I put together all of the ideas I have had about God in my entire life, it forms a beautiful mosaic of thought. The very few conclusions I have come to have produced a kind and gentle nature that I will never live to regret.

I have worked at this relationship and it has produced great things.

³² For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. ³³ But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.³⁴ “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. –Matthew 6:32-34 (New American Standard Bible)

If this passage from the Bible is true, all I have to do is stay focused on everything that is good, right, just and loving. Everything else will fall into place on its own. There are moments when I know this as surely as I know anything. Other times I have to remind myself, hence blog posts such as this one.

Wishing for angel protection for those in the path of the hurricane, literally or symbolically.

Found

Doreen Virtue is one of my favorite spiritual gurus. Her books are filled with light and hope and sweet intentions. In one of the first of her books that I read, she relayed a story about her mother teaching her the metaphysical concept of the power of making declarations. In Doreen’s story, she had lost something she loved, I can’t remember what it was, but it may have been a purse. She was upset and her mother taught her to declare Nothing is ever lost in the mind of God. Shortly after making the declaration and believing it, her possession was returned to her.

It might not seem like a huge thing because people lose and find things all the time, but consider the energy of a calm mind that does not believe in the concept of lost compared to a frantic mind that is reinforcing the same concept.

Which one seems like it might have more positive power of attraction?

Good things come to those who wait. I do not think that saying is referring to time when it speaks of waiting. I believe it’s talking about the nature of waiting and being patient. The way to true patience is through belief in a positive outcome. Without that belief patience, and the equanimity that comes with it, cannot happen.

The recent news I received about my job ending sooner than expected caused me a bit of emotional turmoil. I’m doing the best I can to stay positive, but I have been fighting my tendency to worry. When I have the luxury of time for contemplation, these things and their solutions become clear very quickly, but sometimes during the work week, I do not have that luxury. At least I haven’t made the time. As a result, I suffer a certain amount before I am able to put things in perspective. Something that happened recently has helped me see the power of believing that nothing is ever truly lost and that the concept can apply on a bigger scale than just possessions.

A couple of weeks ago on my lunch hour, I stopped at a hair salon nearby my office and had my hair cut. I had never been there before, but passed it while I was taking a walk. While she was cutting my hair, the stylist pulled out one of my earrings with the comb. She handed it to me and I put it in my purse so I could put it on after I was finished. I forgot about it for a few days and ended up putting on a different pair, but later remembered and searched my purse for my earring. It was gone. I looked in every corner of my purse and could not find my earring. I wasn’t distraught because I let go of material possessions pretty easily, but I was disappointed.

A few more days passed and I thought about my earring again and felt myself wishing I could find it. Then I remembered Doreen Virtue’s affirmation: Nothing is ever lost in the mind of God.

This affirmation makes sense to me on so many levels. You don’t even have to have any one particular belief as to who or what God is for this to work.

This affirmation also makes sense to me because I have used it successfully before. I make the declaration, sit quietly for a few moments and then go to whatever location pops into my mind and find the thing I was looking for. It’s pretty exciting when that happens.

So I decided to use the declaration again. I told myself over and over Nothing is ever lost in the mind of God, but this time I didn’t wait for an answer or do anything else. Mainly because I was tired and not feeling well much of the week. The important part of making the declaration was that I believed it. My earring was not gone, it was somewhere, and I was summoning it back to me.

The day after I made the declaration, I went to work and found my earring sitting on my desk in front of my computer keyboard. Immediately I thought it must have fallen from my purse and been retrieved by the office cleaning crew.

That’s not what happened.

Later that morning I saw the operations manager for our office and commented on her hair. She asked me if I had found my earring. Nobody knew about my missing earring, so I was caught off guard by the question. She told me that when she was having her hair cut the night before, the stylist told her that someone from her office left an earring there. While chatting during my hair cut the week before, I mentioned where I was working for the summer. Turns out she has been cutting this manager’s hair for the past 10 years.

My earring found its way back to me serendipitously.  Was it due to the declaration? I believe it was. There was no progress in its return until I focused my intent on the belief that my earring was not lost.

Because I have so successfully used this declaration, this morning I was thinking that it must work on a grander scale.

As above, so below. As below, so above.

Earlier I was feeling quite a bit of angst about my life. I was feeling like a loser and looking around me seeing a crappy, meaningless life. And yet I know that thoughts and feelings are fleeting unless we cling to them. When I couldn’t shake the feeling, which had actually been with me since the previous day, I knew that I was fighting rather than accepting it. So I felt crappy…so what? Does it make any of the things I was thinking true? Only if I decide they are.

The way I got out of that place of low energy was to embrace it as part of the process I go through to get to the next level. Uncertainty and surprises make me uncomfortable. Some of this is due to my childhood being unpredictably violent. When I can’t immediately see how things are going to be okay, sometimes I start to think they will not be. I do not need to be angry or disappointed with myself when these thoughts happen, I just need to recognize it for what it is, let it go, and find the way back to a place that feels peaceful.

Nothing is ever lost in the mind of God. Not earrings, not jobs and certainly not love. So everything I can think of to worry about is only a source of worry for as long as I affirm its existence.

The world needs as many positive affirmations as we can think of right now. Darkness threatens to overwhelm us, but we do not have to give in to it. In God’s mind we are a perfect idea. It’s just that sometimes that knowledge is obscured by other thoughts, much the same way the blue sky can be obscured by clouds. It’s still there, we just can’t see it.

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings)

Money…the root of all evil?

Recently I read something that caused me to think about money. Not in the same ways I was there for a while, not with worry and fear, just wondering about poverty and wealth and whether one is more noble than the other. As much as I understand that money is a means to an end and of itself is neutral, I can’t help wondering why then is money such a hot topic for most people. Money is more emotionally charged than sex. It can sometimes break up a marriage faster than issues about sex, for sure.

I learn best by applying the rules of the universe to my situations. It’s also how I learned to think in law school. Apply the rules to the facts to figure out what is going on and what to do about it. The thing I like best about the rules of the universe is they are not arbitrary. Unlike man-made law, which often makes no sense at all, the laws of the universe are…well, universal. Cause and effect.

The book that started me thinking about all of this was addressing ambition and the ego, equating worth with material possessions. There seems to be a lot of this going on in America right now, so maybe that’s why it struck me.

“Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” –Matthew 19:24

What did Jesus mean when he made that statement?

There is another passage in Matthew that comes to mind:

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” –Matthew 6:24

Both of these passages suggest that wealth, the accumulation of material possessions, is at best a slippery spiritual slope and at worst, the path to hell.

Just for the record, I do not believe in hell in the classical Christian sense as a place where souls are sent to spend eternity in torment as punishment for mistakes made while in the body. I recognize hell as more of a metaphor for the torment we inflict on ourselves by living ego-driven lives.

Since wealth is a relative concept, I wonder how I would respond if Jesus (in whatever form he would take) asked me to give everything I have to the truly poor and join him in spreading the gospel, the message of unconditional love. Would I do it? Would any of the people I admire do it? Louise Hay, Marianne Williamson, Oprah, Wayne Dyer. What do you think? These people have a lot more money than I do and I’m not even sure what my answer would be. And it’s not because I am financially comfortable. I’m still way too close to the edge for my liking.

Even the concept of being on the edge financially is relative. I know there are millions of people on this earth worse off than I am. And when one considers all the various levels of materialism, poverty itself is more of a concept or a state of mind than a reality for anyone. Who hasn’t known someone who complains about being poor when they have much more than most people? We all do it to some degree.

There is one more passage from the Bible that comes to mind:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” –Matthew 5:3

The notation for this passage interpreted poor in spirit as: Those who are not spiritually arrogant.

I have had to think hard to understand the passage about being poor in spirit. I don’t think it’s talking about people of weak faith. I think–and I could be wrong–that the passage suggests that we should have the heart of a poor person. Poverty is humbling. Poor people have to depend on others for even their most basic needs sometimes. It is equivalent to being an infant or having a crippling disability. In those cases there is total dependence. I think to be poor in spirit is to rely totally on God as the Source of everything good and to accept humbly and graciously the blessings we are given. Think of how it feels to be truly grateful for what you have. For me, those moments are as close to the kingdom of heaven as I have ever experienced.

At the end of the day it’s not money that is evil, it is what people are willing to do to accumulate and keep it that defines a person. There are a lot of rich people whose goodness is not diminished by what they have. I would like to believe that, like me, they wouldn’t necessarily be eager to give up everything and live a life of material poverty, but if they were called to do so, would do it with as much grace as possible.

Maybe it’s because I have so few possessions now, but there is a part of me that understands the reason monks and nuns take vows of poverty. Not having things is very liberating on many levels. The energy we expend caring for our stuff can be used for the good of the world.

Here’s what I’m thinking about for myself–getting rid of all my debt as quickly as possible and maybe working at a simple job that doesn’t require much from me and earning just enough to comfortably meet my expenses with a little left over to put in a savings account. If more than that comes I will deal with it as it happens, but I am not interested in chasing a lifestyle to the point where that is all I’m doing, trying to earn the money to acquire and maintain things.

Money lessons come the hard way for many people. That has certainly been true for me. The way I have simplified it is to recognize that money is nothing more than a representation of the energy from which it comes. It’s great to welcome it coming from the light, but not to go to the dark side in pursuit of it.

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” ~Rumi

“To know you have enough is to be rich.” ~Tao te ching

Love

This is my 100th post on this blog. It’s been an incredible experience from which I have benefited greatly.

For this 100th post I thought it would be good to revisit the entire reason for the existence of this blog: To spread the message that unconditional love is the greatest force in the universe and creates a direct connection to the Divine.

This morning I read and shared some mystical love quotes and poetry. Mostly by Hafiz and Rumi, two of my favorite thinkers. It led me to think about love and how when we love truly from that holy place in our hearts, the veil between this world and spirit world becomes very thin. Seeing the interconnectedness of all things is beautiful.

Romantic love is a big part of life. Whatever it is that strongly attracts two people, from my experience it’s like looking into the face of God when I find a person who is a perfect mirror. The experiences I’ve had being in love and even having crushes, have been the most joyous experiences of my life. It’s a total celebration of the beauty of a person. The feeling is intoxicating.

The way to have a steady stream of the good feelings love produces is to bless everyone you see or encounter in your daily life. Walking down the street, smile at every person you pass. Nearly without exception, people will smile back. See what you started with one little smile?

Cultivating a happy, carefree attitude that recognizes the truth of impermanence helps one understand the power of the present moment. Now is when we can make a difference in someone’s life. Every moment is an opportunity to bless. I would love to see all people, myself included, seize those opportunities as often as possible and fill the universe with love.

As my awareness increases, I have the power to choose more of the time. Choosing love more often gives others permission to do likewise. In freeing ourselves we open the prison doors for everyone we meet. Doesn’t mean everyone will choose freedom right away, it can be hard for people to leave the comfort of the hell they have created for themselves. But those with the courage to see things from a different perspective will have a big impact on the world.

Take a chance, let the love inside you spill out onto the world.

“Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.” ~Goethe

Truly.