Sunday, September 29, 2013

No Victim of the Wind



Another cool and early morning up before the sun could greet me.  Many thoughts have I from so many sources taking hold.  Understanding comes in leaps and bounds or not at all for long periods of time, it seems in my little world.  I watched a few leaves let loose from the tree in this morning’s twilight and my being  launched into a stream of feeling.  As the feelings struggled for thoughts to label them, my mind reached back across the span of my life for its recurring themes.  Looking back I realize that at times in my life I have created a thought process in which I was merely a helpless leaf blown in the wind.  While I may at times have identified with the leaf blown helplessly in the wind, the soul in me now knows and begins to truly understand with all the feeling of existence, I am neither now nor have I ever been merely a victim of the wind.  With a lifetime of hard-won lessons I have come to realize that I am not just the leaf but also the wind.  Going deeper within and engaging in further reflection and introspection beyond the realization or identification with being the wind itself,  I realize that I am also the waves of temperatures disruptive…creating the hot or cold convection that generated the impetus behind the wind.

The words upon this page representing the feelings washing over me just now are most difficult to articulate.  These waves of understanding come in the feelings of deep soul knowing that take much time and thought not to understand but to put into words.  Lifetimes of lessons can sometimes download into consciousness in an instant taking one much time to fully taste the sweetness of understanding.  I revel both in the process of tasting understanding but also the process of striving for it.  With my very human mind operating at superficial levels, there can be no understanding at all.  It’s almost as if there is this limited understanding of the mind and this full knowingness of the heart (read soul) that wrestles joyously with much difficulty to “get” what’s trying so hard to come in…or, well, rise to the surface of conscious cognition.  I am momentarily distracted by process as I type these words.  A common construct for me that leaves me hopelessly trapped inside of a box from which nothing can be properly understood.  Exiting procedural thoughts, I go back to the memory that started this string of thoughts and realizations and feel the coolness of the morning swirling around me while my thoughts drift in silent contemplation.

When I watched the leaves as they fell from the tree in the half-light of the morning, I too remembered how many times I have fallen into themes of existence thinking I had no power to soar.  Before the realization of the wind and the source behind its currents, I saw and felt with full measure the experience of falling time and time again, frustrated that I couldn’t hold on to something.  The real problem was that I couldn’t let go of a construct or, rather, a mis-understanding of the framework within which I truly existed.  It’s hard to experience and step back from the experiencing but until you find a way, there is no way to truly understand what is really happening beyond the perceptions environmental psychology has created within the mind.  So, I experienced helplessness at the mercy of the breeze caused by unintentional conditions in my life metaphorically speaking. In so doing, I gave away all of my power to everyone and everything around me never once understanding I was thinking so deeply within the box that I’d be trapped there an eternity if I didn’t do something different.  When repeating the same series of thoughts and actions over and over only ever resulted in more of the same discomfort and disharmony in my life, at some point the thought occurred to me that perhaps certain repeating messages and messengers were placed on my path for a reason.  From there began the realization that I was the one who agreed to take on both messengers and messages.  I learned over much time and through many frustrated and angry tears that I only ever had myself to control and I was never helpless to do that.  But, in my own defense, you can’t know what you don’t know and the only way to know anything is to learn through first-hand experience (or so it seems for me, at least).

At one point in my life in the not-too distant past, I stood alone with all that came before upended in emotional chaos and then came the urge to retreat.   I stepped out of and back from all of my creations, messengers and messages and in mere moments understood the creations were mine even if I did not know how or why.  All of the struggle, the tears, the emotions and pain, disappeared like the ground mist in full morning sunlight.  When I chose to relax and decided to exist neither in the past nor hide out in some worry over the future, the disruptive clash of temperatures (read emotion) stabilized and the winds (read percpetions) no longer blew.   I was thrilled beyond belief and relaxed even further into the stillness of presence.  In the peace created so fully in the absence of my resistance to my own life, I rested upon the land of pure existence and being-ness that  I also created within the whole of my experience.   Just as I would, me being me, I set for myself confirmation and validation in an endless stream of feeling that took years to understand.  And believe me, I endeavor to understand so much more still.  In all of these words and prior experience, I could have saved myself so much time had I learned to align more with a simpler concept/term, a concept/term whose essence hummed humbly and silently in the background of my consciousness patiently awaiting recognition all along.  Stepping fully outside of the box now, understanding much better the whole of my own creations now and trusting implicitly the reasons will be revealed to me by me in perfect time, the words come so clearly now in feeling.  Simply…beautifully…powerfully—I AM.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo copyright also mine) 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Intent, Trust and Manifestation

Rousing gently I saw the first golden rays of morning sunlight as I lay comfortably in bed.  I thought about going back to sleep but there was this feeling inside, this excitement for the sun, for existence and breathing in and out the finally cool morning air.  Fall is my favorite time of year for so many reasons from so far back in my existence.  Even as I sit here typing I gaze up and notice the fresh morning sunlight kissing the beautiful remnants of green leaves in the great big tree outside my living room window.  It's perfectly still and in a strange and wonderful way, I can feel its joy drinking in delicious sunlight to rejuvenate after a cool night's repose.  Projection much?  Yes, I suppose but I don't really care because the feeling is so beautiful I wish to really just become lost within it.

It's quiet here in my little part of the world despite the nearby hum of the freeway.  My consciousness focuses there a moment to feel the motion and quick pace with which travelers scurry quickly to reach some intended destination.  I've stood at the apex of the overpass near me many times of late feeling the rush of the speed of the cars passing below me while watching the setting sun.  In the dusky light after it sets, the head lights and tail lights glow like Christmas lights at night.  Some say city life is not beautiful but I think that beauty and seeing it clearly is always a simple matter of frame of mind.  A little known fact about me is that I see energy.  As cars whiz past me I can see the energy of the occupants too and even more, I can feel it.  Whether it's frenetic or peaceful, joyful or harried, happy or sad...I can feel it.  In such moments I call forth the flame of love within and send it out in such moments with thoughts of only love and peace, healing and compassion.  Why?  Because I like the way it feels.  When you send nothing but love out, guess what comes back?  That's right, the energy of love comes back and becomes evident in a slight upturn of the lips for no apparent reason.

I take great comfort in my surroundings no matter where they may be.  Life is alive.  Outside of the obvious "duh" that might cause to come forth in your thought process on reading this, understand there is much more to the statement.  There is a feeling behind it and knowing it is by far less satisfying than opening up the entirety of your being and feeling the energy of it to the very core of you.  We sometimes walk this Earth so mired in our troubles, lost to the dramas we create, participate or seemingly get sucked into that we forget to tap into that beautiful stream of I AM alive.  I AM period.

Life has been crazy busy for me of late and I realize as it sit here this morning just how much I have needed a quiet cool morning to reflect and contemplate feeling everything.  Over the summer I took on college enrollment and passed my first college class with a B.  If I had tried harder, I'd have gotten an A so when the next class came, I put a tiny bit more effort in and got an A.  My next class starts in just two weeks and I couldn't be more excited.  I thought going back to school would take up so much of my time, I'd be too stressed to even enjoy life. What I'm finding is that it's quite easy to fit college courses into my normal routine and the fulfillment it brings, learning new things, awh, it's just magical to me.  Just like everything else in existence in this moment.  Our state of mind and the thoughts that we think are what bring us the experience of positive or negative from an energetic-emotional state.  I was taught a lesson recently in joyfully setting an intent and letting go of the hows or the ways in which I might achieve it.  I was instantly rewarded just hours later.  I thought again about a much larger intent that I set in a pure state of love and was rewarded just months later in the very same way....trusting my intent to manifest perfectly.  I realize now the way things work and now I see how unlimited we truly are.  Our thoughts limit our ability to fully experience our lives here in this frame work in a beautiful way.  It's good to find quiet moments for contemplation of feeling and really learning to feel the endlessness and infinite nature of your possibilities for manifestation.

All week I thought of nothing else but a quiet cool morning to collect my thoughts and write.  Thus my excitement as my eyes gently opened early this morning in the cool half light of a just rising sun.  Up, up, up, I thought...shower, coffee...computer, now bliss!  Life is truly wonderful if you make it so.  Life can be terribly tragic if you make it so.  The comedies and tragedies of this play of life that we create are so amazing.  We must dig much deeper than the superficiality of the ego to understand its intricacies.  Once you begin to understand and start testing your new knowledge in joyful and bliss-filled ways, smiles for miles will be an incredible experience for you.  I hope that you are planning a wonderful weekend filled with joy...even if in the stillness and silence of no concrete plans at all.  Listen very closely in those moments of silence for it is during such times that the very heart of your soul will whisper sweet words of encouragement and love for you. ~Blessings for a beautiful day beautiful dreamers.  I wish you love.  I wish you joy.  I wish you infinite happiness.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Love Spells: Why Would You?



So, I was on facebook this morning. I was sipping coffee while feeling ever so grateful for a wonderful day yesterday and a glorious night of sleep and one of those annoying ads popped up on my screen.  I clicked on it out of curiosity (I will spare you all by not re-posting the link) and was surprised to see a web-searched screen of nothing but “Trusted Psychics” who will help you with “Love Spells.”  Now, what I’m about to say please understand, is not out of judgment but an observation from the perspective of knowing human nature and karma.  I’m not here to dispute the power of spells as that is not something I care to discuss.  I also have no desire to dispute the trustworthiness of the psychics involved in helping people with love spells (I will say I would never call one of them though).  I’m concerned about the idea that one person would ever even consider usurping the free will of what they think is the object of their loving affection by using a love spell (or even other measures I’ve observed such as bullying and stalking).

I don’t mean to sound judgmental and I realize I may be doing a little bit of that but not for the obvious reasons you might think.  I’m a very strong proponent and advocate for free will and when it comes to the love department, any person who seeks to force someone else’s hand in love is not in a loving state themselves.  Why would anyone in their right minds wish to become involved with such a person and why would a person who truly loves someone seek to force someone else’s hand through a love spell, bullying or stalking?  If there was true love for the object of someone’s misguided affection, there would be no desire to have a spell cast upon the object of your seeming affection.  There would also be no action taken to otherwise force someone to fall in love with you who is not.  For those who would engage in love spell purchasing, stalking, bullying or other tactics to get someone to love them – these are not loving actions and it is NOT love that you feel. This would be an individual who is misunderstanding love, lacking love themselves and completely misunderstanding the karmic consequences of usurping someone else’s free will.

If you hold unrequited “love” for another and as an action in frustration or desperation you are seeking love spells to force another soul to fall in love with you or even worse, bullying, stalking or engaging in other unhealthy activities to get that soul either into or back into your life, I want you to consider something very important.  I’m not here to judge you.  In fact, I wish only to offer up some advice by far more worthy of your time than expending money on a love spell or energy on potentially unhealthy acts to bring someone into your life by unnatural means. Your desire to possess someone in love or if you find yourself obsessed with having someone in or back in your life, I would suggest to you that these feelings are really a message from you to you that you are in need of uncovering your own self-love within.  Here is why, if you lack self-love or feel you need it from someone outside of yourself in order to be happy or feel okay, you are off center and in need of healing in a very big way.  Until you can face the things that block you from feeling your own self-love, self-worth and self-acceptance, it is not possible for you to truly love another.  The best you could hope for is someone who will engage in a co-dependent type relationship which will bring neither of you real love nor healthy fulfillment.

If you really and truly loved someone with all of your heart, you would place their happiness and right to free will above your desire for obsession and possession.  If you cannot put someone’s right to free will or happiness and autonomy without your interference above your desire for that person, it is not love that you feel.  What this represents is your own need to connect with the love inside of you that will set you free.  Every attempt you make at love without addressing this inner message will only result in perpetuating painful circumstances for you concerning love.

Love is not possession, obsession, control, fear, desperation or any of those things we think we feel when we seemingly love someone we cannot have, who does not love us back or who will not stay with us.  Those crazy feelings of loss and heart ache can stem from so many other things that have nothing to do with what you think they do.  Save the money you might spend on love spells and spend it on therapy, self-help books or retreats to help you find what within you blocks your own love.  Sometimes we truly do love others but come to the realization that because of that love, we will let them go to exercise their free will to find their own happiness without our involvement or interference.  Unrequited love sometimes seems so harsh but I fiercely question whether unrequited love has any origins in love at all, or is it just an attempt at control.  Knowing what I know about love, it is hard when we do love someone and for some reason they must leave us.  If we truly love them, we can let them go with love.  If it’s someone we haven’t even been involved with that we think we love – question that love.  Is it real?  Is it just an idea?  Would you really want to have a spell cast on someone or wouldn’t you rather heal within, find your own self love and then attract to you someone who freely loves you using their free will to come forth and join with you in a loving relationship?

The karmic impact of forcing someone’s hand is just not something I would ever contend with.  Some decisions we make without understanding the true nature of our desire can have very far reaching consequences.  Sometimes we just have to wake up and realize that the object of our desire may not be “ours” for a very good reason.  That reason should first be questioned and responded to within.  Never should we take any action to circumvent the free will of others through love and desire.  This, in the end, would create so much pain for you.  Maybe you can’t see it right now but if you think you are in pain now without the object of your seeming affection or desire, imagine how much worse off your soul would be if you engaged in any action, spiritually or physically to force someone to come to you.  Even if you could do that, why would you?  That, to me, would be evidence of self-loathing.  Those who love themselves truly would only want someone who wants to be there with them.  This may be hard for some folks to understand but I hope this article sheds a little more light.  Forget the love spells to make others love you and realize that YOU love you somewhere deep down inside. You ARE worthy of having the right person for you to love using their free will to get there.

I pray that all find the ability to strip away the darkness and pain that prevents them from feeling fully their own love and light from within.  Until all souls can find this space within and all do have the potential, we’ll fall prey to nothing but pain and loss without understanding.  It’s best to step out of these perpetuating cycles of pain and get to the true source – lack of being in touch with our own self-love than to force someone else to love us.  We are worthy of love – no doubt but we must truly feel that within ourselves rather than looking for the outside world to validate this fact.  If we only look to the outside world to validate our loving worth, we will find that the world will only reinforce our fear that we are unworthy of love.  It’s so strange how it works.  Our every fear and painful wound is exposed by the play going on all around us that is life.  It’s like this for a reason.  Exploring our own internal actions, reactions and feelings to understand them is always a better place to start.  Human beings are so complex and human relationships seemingly even more so.  But, if we look within with love, compassion, courage and understanding, we will find our own self-love and it will shine so brightly that others will be attracted by that and the need for love spells, potions, stalking or bullying will become tired and worn negative tactics no one would ever consider engaging in.

I need more coffee and to get better about ignoring ridiculous ads on facebook.  I’m also a bit frustrated by some of them because they give the truly gifted intuitive and psychics such a bad name.  I’m sorry but I also feel a bit protective of those unaware souls who might fall prey to schemes propagated by others, just to make profit from confusion or others in pain.  We need to create a world where we don’t take advantage of our desire for love or our fear of being hurt.  Wouldn’t that be an ad worth responding to? ~Blessings for a beautiful day!


© 2013 Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)
 

Friday, September 13, 2013

Psycho-Social Contortionism




As often I do during my busy work days, I escape for a walk under sunny blue skies.  After having just left a meeting where I observed not only in others but in myself yesterday this grand display of psycho-social contortionism, I really needed a breath of fresh air.  It’s funny to me how we exist within mini frameworks within this larger frame work of life.  By mini frameworks I refer to work, family groups, social groups, spiritual groups, etc.  Within each framework there is an expected level of psycho-social behavior and it’s not all good.  This, at times, can seem to me to be quite inauthentic and wholly unhealthy to contend with.  Especially, when interactions within these various frameworks require contortionism on your part in order to be accepted, respected, appreciated or loved.

The older I get, the less tolerant I become of expectations of psycho-social contortionism.  I don’t want to be somewhere but I must and so I must pretend to be fully engaged in something for the sake of appearances.  Inauthentic is how it makes me feel and I’m reminded how much I don’t like it but sometimes certain sacrifices are necessary particularly if one likes a roof over their head or a welcoming group of some sort we have given importance to.  Psycho-social contortionism appears to be an unwritten or, well, sometimes a demanded aspect of certain one on one human relationships.  A quid-quo-pro approach on one part or another dictates that you may be called upon to psychologically or socially contort yourself to prevent conflict or facilitate someone else’s happiness.  Not only do we all engage in attempting psycho-social contortionism of ourselves but in many ways we expect this of others too.

I don’t like it and I’d really, really like to find a way to avoid the whole thing.  More and more I’m finding myself speaking without even thinking to quickly say “No, I don’t think I can engage in that but thanks for the offer.”  I’m no longer interested in pleasing anyone for affection.  I have finally learned in life that I have enough self-love and self-respect that I have no need to psychologically or socially contort myself into someone else’s version of good enough.  Likewise, I have no need to require psychological or social contortion for people to please me.  It’s beautifully liberating in so many of the mini frameworks within which I exist and experience life in the bigger framework.  I’m even finding in the arena of work, I can prevent much of the expected contortions by simply rising to a higher level of understanding and compassion towards others and being just exactly who I am and doing things as I would prefer to do.  Even when the boss steps in, I just make sure I’m clear on the end result and then I produce or exceed expectations just because I find that a fun challenge to engage in but I’m learning to do that wholly authentically and with much more personal integrity.

I guess as I grow in age I find personal integrity and authenticity has greater meaning to me from the perspective of my own observations of interactions I choose engage in or allow emotions to rise within.  I’m less concerned about what others do and more focused on how I feel as I choose this emotion, that discussion or this interaction.  Observing this world and my own reasons for choosing action, thoughts and emotions teaches me much understanding about all of the souls I come into contact with.  Seeking to understand others helps me stand in a space of greater compassion and much less stress with all of my relations.  I’ve also learned that boundaries are not only a good thing but a very necessary thing in terms of living authentically and avoiding psycho-social contortionism that only leaves you feeling tired and sore in the end.  Sometimes those boundaries must be set with self and thinking and attaching emotions and that is oh so simple to do once you fully understand the choices of thought is yours and that emotions are also yours to contend with.

Enough of my coffee induced ramblings for this morning.  I’m taking the day off and going to a museum with the love of my life and then maybe the Lake Shrine to drink in some beautiful holy ground and pure loving light.  Happy Friday the 13th beautiful dreamers.  I hope you enjoy an amazing and wonderful day.


© 2013 Jaie Hart (Photo from r3dk4pp4.deviantart.com on http://www.deviantart.com)