Here we are, together at this moment, in our walk through the garden. We’re in the experience of the fourth garden site, the 4th day or stage of creation. It includes manifestation and simultaneously, understanding.
It seems time for a ‘pause’ point. It has been called, by mystics, ‘the space between the breaths’, meaning the pause between the in-breath and the out-breath. It is the meeting place in the middle. In Buddhism, they speak of ‘The Middle Way’, the place between emptiness and form, being and non-being. It can also be the middle of the cross, the intersection of the horizontal and vertical poles.
Click on the arrow to listen to the blog:
As we Pause, in the Stillness, It will show us our ‘Center of Gravity’, where we are in the worlds of ‘Time, Space and Beyond’. Our center of gravity will shift as we move through the stages of our lives. With each shift, the world will appear differently.
There are states above and states below this intersection of time and Timelessness. They are part of the vastness, at times conscious, yet more often unconscious. The states are like a background, always there in an impersonal kind of way. Sometimes we access them, consciously or unconsciously. Often we don’t experience them as even being there.
Our own ‘personal’ stages are more foreground. We experience them often because we’ve earned them and are living them! We’ve gotten our ‘ticket punches’. Sometimes they feel ‘well earned’, sometimes ‘hard earned’. It can be experiences like graduating with degrees in education or achieving success with goals in life.
Other times the ‘ticket punches’ may feel more like other kinds of punches’ and come as surprise or shock, unexpectedly demanding changes that may or may not be what we wanted. And learning how to ‘live with’ or ‘walk through’ these is the ‘degree’ that we earn. This could come in experiences like health challenges, or of addiction, lose of a loved one, or even lose of a job. I’m sure you could find more.
Even now, I am aware of the ‘All That Is’, as I sit with a pen in my hand, waiting, listening for the ‘whispers’ that will guide this sometimes strange process that I call scribing. It occurs to me that it is a bit like life…
“To everything there is a season” drops in. Some will remember it as a folk song from the 1960’s, called ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’. I recognize it as ancient scripture that has once again come to guide. The concordance at the back of my Bible takes me to the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon over a thousand years before the time of the New Testament that begins with the birth of the baby Jesus.
I’ve loved the awareness of Lewis and Clark as explorers of the Louisiana Purchase. They came alive in ‘field trips’ when I was a young history teacher in Kansas City, Lewis and Clark’s ‘jumping off-point’, where explorations were launched!
Now King Solomon will be my chosen guide in an exploration of a different kind…
As I often do in ‘translating’ symbols, including words of scripture, into my own form of ‘ordinary language for ordinary and extra-ordinary people’, I look at what came before the verses that have come to ‘speak’ to me and guide me…
In the 1st and 2nd chapters of Ecclesiastes, I find some themes that are very interesting. It includes the folly of life, things that I don’t remember reading, even through I had hi-lighted verses. There are interesting questions that people even now ask, perennial things like: What profit will come from all of this labor? The answer is given immediately in a ‘story’ kind of way.
One generation passes away, and another generation comes… But the earth abides forever… And it speaks of wind, rivers running into the sea, a return. It says That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. It talks about the grief of wisdom and the vanity of pleasure. This is the introduction to the Awareness that everything has Its time.
To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to gain and a time to lose. A time to keep silence and a time to speak.
It seems like a lot of manifesting and dissolving is going on here… More deep dives tell me that these words of wisdom were written by King Solomon near the end of his life. He is sharing a mature wisdom of one who looks back to realize that only a life lived for God is a life fulfilled. I realize that for me, the Field of Love and God are synonyms. They happen in my own Heart and Being. They are happening now.
My guide is talking to me about how to tackle some of life’s tough questions. It’s putting me in touch with a Knowing Within where life’s secrets are revealed.
Then I find a ‘favorite’ Bible verse that I’ve quoted thousands of times…and had forgotten that it was from Ecclesiastes, in the 11th chapter… Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days… Then, there was even more coming to remember. In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand. For you do not know which will prosper.
I’ve Know It for so long… I’ve taught it for three decades of my life. How is it that when I read it now, I am seeing more, with ‘new eyes’? Is it because, I myself am shifting into new Stages where I will embrace realms of consciousness Beyond what I’ve known? Is it still happening…in my 70’s???
I’ve always known there are 12 Stages; all of the Clues are there, especially in the Book of Revelation. It is filled with the number Twelve, including in the 22nd and last chapter, where there is awareness of ‘in the middle’ and a ‘tree of life’ on either side of a river. The tree of life is part of ‘the beginning’, in the 2nd chapter of Genesis, the Creation story where Adam and Eve show up.
Now, here it is again, with the Awareness that the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. After working with these Codes and Symbols for decades, I am aware that there is so much more than my human self can even grasp, remember, or understand.
My left-brain support system has been ‘holding the question’ for weeks, even months and years… How many ‘monumental shifts’ are there? And how do we ‘understand’ them in our now emerging structures of Wisdom? Can I integrate this with maps like Integral, the Spiral or even numbers or colors?
And then it is like “click, click, click, click…” as a ‘glimpse’ of the Vastness simply falls into place. I see the overlay of the Concrete, Subtle and Causal with the Non-Dual realms even beyond. I see the ‘faces’ of the explorers and the travelers who have said, “Here I am…” when they heard the Voice Calling, perhaps in the night, that said, ‘Whom shall I send?’
I realize the Covenant that my soul has somehow made: “Here I am… I will be among them”. I am called to be part of exploring the Unknown territories, drawing the maps, even sometimes re-drawing them many times, realizing the realms in which I am now called to explore…
The ‘clicks’, are giving me an ancient and natural Answer to my question that has spanned the weeks/months/years. There are Four Seasons! I laugh as I write the words. Nature, so simple, ‘Four Seasons’, of course… Then more questions come.
Could my ‘draft map’ span 100 years, with four seasons of 25 years? Could this be my Unique expression of the feeling that there are Four Acts to this Play called life? Could my 4th Act become 3rd Acts and even 2nd Acts for generations to come?
My chosen guide, King Solomon, imprints a ‘God-Given Task’, what I now identify as being “Called By Love”. My translation emerges: Love has made everything beautiful in its time. It has put eternity in my heart and I can know that whatever Love does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it.
The seeds are all there…in that 3rd chapter of Ecclesiastes that just ‘dropped in’. All that I need to do is translate it into my own language, bring it into my own life. When Love does it, I will recognize it…and I will feel the Awe.
Then, it tells me what is required: That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been. And Love requires an account of what is past. It is all spoken and veiled in the language of Mystery.
Oh my God, I didn’t even know the word ‘requires’ was there! This is the Assignment of ‘Your Life as a Sacred Love Story’… This is about seeing through the Eyes of Love. It is about bringing your life into the curriculum…
PRACTICE: BRING YOUR LIFE INTO THE CURRICULUM
In the Stillness, bring into your awareness the stages of manifestation in your life. Can you recognize how the background is there in an impersonal way and how your personal life experiences have come to the forefront at different stages of your life?
Have there been some manifestations that were ‘well earned’ or ‘hard earned’, like degrees in education or success with goals? Have there been ‘degrees of another kind’ that came with shock or surprise, unexpectedly demanding changes?
How has “To everything there is a season” worked in your life? What polarities or opposites do you relate to, like weep/laugh; gain/lose; birth/death; mourn/dance? Do some of the others seen to be yours? Which move most deeply in your heart? Have you seen the same event or experience move into ‘both/and’ in time?
Are there ‘jumping off points’ where explorations were launched in your life?
Did you have guides?
What ‘questions’ have come to the forefront in your life, perhaps over and over, like repeating questions? Has life given you some tough questions?
What does “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days” mean to you? Have you experienced it, lived it?
Are there questions that your ‘left-brain’ support system holds? Have you had answers drop in like ‘click, click, click, click’? And then, all of a sudden, you ‘see’ it…
Do you see Four Seasons in your life? Can you identify Four Acts in your Play?
How are you Called in your life? Have you considered, ever, that it is a God-Given Task? How are you living with it?
Are you beginning, perhaps, to consider recording or scribing Your Life as a Sacred Love Story? There are a lot of possibilities here to choose from… Maybe you’ll just choose two or three at a time. This is not meant to be rushed, unless it comes like a ‘rushing Wind’!
It often starts with ‘pondering these things’… and perhaps a commitment to begin.
[print_link]
If you missed some of the previous blogs and recordings, go to: https://calledbyloveinstitute.com/standard-blog
To sign up for the Called by Love Institute emails updates, incl. the details about our worldwide calls and events, go to: https://calledbyloveinstitute.com/sign-up
