Points of Focus

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The smell of freshly brewing coffee mixes well with the caw of the crows and a gentle summer sea breeze on this dark and early morning.  Although I intended a little more sleep for a Sunday, that just wasn’t to be.  Instead I thought I’d get up and write a little bit about my thoughts of late.  If we look at life from just one perspective, there is plenty of evidence of the impermanence of things.  Seasons change, life ebbs and flows and the world always seems abuzz with some new-fangled this or that replacing the tried and true or improving the old into new.  The wise ones tell stories of how it was in their day and the young ones with potential for wisdom will sit and raptly listen.

There is another perspective from which we can view things.  I may speak in levels but it’s just metaphor so don’t get too hung up on the idea.  If we reach for moral higher ground in the complete absence of understanding, we may find ourselves mired in the thick toxicity of judgmental emotions or lost in a sea of confusion as to how an Omnipotent and Omniscient “being” in the form of an anthropomorphized God could allow certain things to be.  If we reach out with the-devil may care attitude towards this or that, we are considered callus and unfeeling.  But what if there is a good and solid or healthy state of in between?  What if we cared so much that we found a place of acceptance for things and people just as they are and put seeking true understanding from the irresponsible claim of knowledge ahead of all else?  I will tell you such actions put you  in closer proximity to the real Source of our origins.

Randomly turning to things that change, aside from being assisted involuntarily, why does the body die?  You’ll have those that step out mid-stride in a vibrant life and those who slowly withdraw over time.  The skin and hair and eyes will change as they begin to separate their focus from this third-dimensional world returning if even unconsciously to their origins.  I’m not sure I believe in a Heaven or Hell any more.  That must sound funny coming from a Reverend.  But, stick with me just a moment and I’ll attempt to explain.

Heaven and Hell have their prescribed meanings as we have been taught from the Holy Bible but what if both were here in this now moment and were simply states of mind we choose to view the whole of this world from?  What if those states of mind exist whether here in the body or elsewhere beyond?  That would make both views a creation of a perspective held by an individuated aspect of a conscious entity would they not?  I cannot help but wonder if all we experience here is a matter of an agreed upon focus viewed through the filters of individuated experience.  We remain always a vibrant living extension of Source embodied in a framework that allows us a specific kind of experience.  As we get used to the framework, our vibrancy grows and we live out the lives we intended as we create them to be whether conscious of the plan for those creations or not.  We continue that point of focus until we choose to focus no longer and then we begin to disengage.  Little by little we slowly fade.  It is not just that limbs forget their flexibility or that eyes forget to see.  It is that we shift our focus at a designated point within the dream and begin to fade away from this frame with our souls packed with the memories of precious lessons learned and hopefully our hearts filled to overflowing with love.

The thing we forget or never take the time to properly remember is that we are consciousness.  That consciousness or spark of life lives on always but perhaps maybe in a different frame of focus than what we here living may term life on Earth.  Consciousness is what connects us one to another and from one another to our origins.  We don’t leave our Origin to be here to begin with.  Imagine gently waking up from a dream or suddenly sitting straight up in bed with traces of a memory of a dream still running through your mind.  We are consciousness unconsciously aware of ourselves.  Over time and with effort, each individual will become ever more aware if that is what they so choose to do in this frame.

The crows have quieted now and the little birds have taken to trilling a beautiful tune eagerly awaiting the sun’s light.  And I see before me the darkness receding into the pale light of that twilight moment in between the night and the day.  As I continue writing and sipping my coffee, my thoughts shift a bit closer to home.  In my mind’s eye I see a little girl with silver blue eyes.  Those same eyes I saw when I first met her father and saw yet again when I first met his father.  Today the family will say goodbye to my youngest daughter’s grandfather.  Although my heart goes out sincerely to the entirety of his family for their loss, I take comfort in the fact that I know a little secret. Life as consciousness lives on; it just changes its focus.  J.J. will always be with his family in spirit through the love that they shared.  I know I’ll see him every day in my little girl's beautiful eyes and am so very thankful to him for his life and his time here.  I owe him much just for his existence and what it meant at least to me.  Thank you J.J. and may God Bless your soul always and forever.  Thank you again for everything.  My heartfelt prayers go out to the entire family that they may find comfort in coming together today in celebrating the life of their patriarch.  He was proud of his boys and loved his grandchildren.  I pray they find the peace of love and then healing.   

For the rest of you focused here in this frame work, be grateful for all of those other individuals incarnate here with you.  They bring you gifts unexpected, experiences unique and life lessons worth learning.  Enjoy your time here in this point of focus fully so that when it is your time to return, you will do so filled with so much love.  ~Blessings of infinite love and light to all this day and every day.  And, so it is!

--> © 2014 photo and words, Rev. J.L. Harter

Spaces Between

How many stories can one life hold?  As I consider the stories that make up my own, I cannot help but wonder.  There is still life in me to live in this realm and so it goes that there must be even more stories yet to come.  I think some how perhaps, those to come shall be different than those that came before.  Those that trail behind me like the wake on a river as a boat moves forward have shaped the reality of my presence in ways indescribable.  It wasn’t the events so much or even the people but the spaces in between.  I come back to the sky again and see the similarities.  Perhaps it is the darkness itself that holds up those stars where they hang so beautifully in the sky.  The space between, the space between…my thoughts trail off and stop.

The space between may seem empty but it isn’t, not by any stretch of the imagination.  It seems that it is only those sleeping unaware of their slumber that do not realize the importance of the space between.  The intangible knowings and etheric nature of the all of everything knits together understanding and the seeing of themes as if one were connecting a constellation or two or three.  All of life has meaning in terms of what it is you secretly wish to learn.  I say secretly because there is an unconscious part of our very being directing and attracting those things the deepest core of us most wishes to learn.  In that space between where feeling becomes thought and thought becomes charged with emotion to magnetic energy and then directed through perception, assumption…

The stories and events, the people involved are intrinsic aspects of our own nature and being and we just do not have the where-with-all to understand precisely how.  It matters not at that level alone.  What matters is learning to understand the clues to our own life purpose while standing in the truth of one’s own light.  But you’ll not find that light reflected precisely in the gaze or interactions of others here in a three-dimensional Earthly focus.  You must become aware of your own lack of awareness and begin to choose, begin to live consciously from the feeling parts of you beneath what we consider consciousness to the true all-encompassing Cosmic Consciousness of existence.  Then the entirety of the universe opens up and reflects right back into your own heart.  Shutting down the perceptions and senses of the physical world doesn’t close you off but opens you up to the unknown changing belief into the truth through experience turned to knowledge.

So, how many stories can one life hold?  I’d say surely there must be as many as there are stars in a clear summer night’s sky.  And for what purpose can they truly hold but to teach us the meaning of life in the form of the less tangible lessons learned.  It isn’t just the things we see but the things we haven’t yet learned to fathom.  The truth isn’t out there or just in here but some place in between.

 

© 2014, Jaie Hart (photo, random fortunate internet find.  Inspiration – A conversation with LJL).

Breaking the Veil of Illusion

Interesting it is how labels and accusations are so carelessly strewn about by some against others without understanding the truth.  You see, your observations can only ever be filtered through your own biases, experience and other psychological filters. These observations form a perception of a thing or a person, and your perception, no matter how much you think is the definitive truth, is nothing but what you want to believe projected outward from within.  This is done commonly and frequently with little understanding in the absence of understanding these projections upon others in the form of labels and names. The labels created are not really representative of "the other" that is the object of your observation but is rather more descriptive of something much more familiar to you.  Namely, what things lay hidden deep within you that you unknowingly project outward onto "the other."  The question those labelled often think in desperation is, "Why"?  Why would this person or that person label me in such a hurtful way? Conversely, people can label you in what you think is a helpful way and still they are no closer to the truth of you.  No person outside of you can truthfully determine your greatness or inadequacies properly without understanding the paradigm of The Whole.  And I'll tell you, there are few who truly understand the paradigm of The Whole.

Imagine, if you will, the internet of all things.  There are those who study it as if it is an organism in and of itself.  It may be a confusing concept, but come along with me a moment as it might help you better understand one of the many metaphors of our existence here in this frame in the way we project ourselves.  So, across the entirety of the globe (well in most places it seems these days), there are computer servers that are connected one to another through a vast physical network that creates the world wide web.  The world wide web is a mass connectivity vehicle for our ability to "tune in" to others in the physical world.  Now, each individual with a lap top, computer or smart phone taps into that source to connect and most definitely, individually project themselves into the whole of the world wide web.  We are not the world wide web but the computers we use are a part of it by virtue of an internet connection.  Does that make sense at least at a high-level?  Okay, so stick with me another moment and I'll take you down a curve in the road to a much broader application of this concept which is not new at all but very old and understood by the Ancients, the Mystery Schools and even some great religious/spiritual teachers dating much further back than our history documents.  There is a cosmic consciousness, a single Source that was the impetus for creation.  We each are like a tiny thought emanating outward from that Source but always and ever connected to that Source.  Through acknowledging connectivity with that Source we realize the connectivity we all hold similarly with each other.  In this way, we are all one in that we are all the same thing in a way, thoughts projected from a Source.  Now, this Source is infinitely powerful and creative and as you know from your own mind, your thoughts come from within you and once you create them, you send them "out there" and they become a thing unto themselves...energy, magnetic, emotion producing things we don't understand deeply enough.  We are very much like those individual computers that plug into the world wide web.  The thing is, we are never not connected to our Source and need nothing physical to connect to it other than understanding.  As we connect to Source, we too are connected to each other.

Coming back to labels now for a moment, as well as observations. If you observe with your thoughts another part of the connected Whole and ascribe labels to other parts of the Whole, in a way you are labeling yourself.  What you perceive is not necessarily the truth and doesn't necessarily stand up to the rigor of testing because your perception can be skewed by assumption taken as fact or truth when there is not a single thing underpinning solidly the formation of your assumption or perception.  But, because it seems to come from inside of your own head and maybe those thoughts generate some emotion or conviction behind it, it seems real enough and true enough. Given the limited set of facts within which most live and consciously operate, there is no reason to question the validity of your own assumptions, observations or perceptions.  Truth, however, cannot be readily understood without facts and understanding.  For ages people believed the world was flat and you could sail right off of the edge into oblivion.  That was the common perception and agreement at a certain point in our history.  That is, until some brave souls sought the truth beyond belief and sailed to the edge of the horizon and learned that the Earth was not limited in nature by being a flat 2 dimensional organism but in fact, it went on and on and around.  These souls came back and shared their truth in the form of findings and then it became readily acceptable that the world was, in fact, round.  Then there was the idea that the sun and the planets revolved around the Earth.  This was held as the only truth in the absence of facts.  Even when the facts began to surface, they were outright rejected and labelled blasphemous in fear due to many factors but primarily a complete lack in understanding.  But then, times progressed, scientific study progressed and new understanding dawned.  We learned that the Earth revolves around the sun, and the sun is just the center of one universe and that there were more universes with suns spiraling through space by some impetus and force (Source, if you ask me).  We then learned to go deeper within and study matter, energy and force and the things we took for granted or falsely held as belief were disproved by science. New windows and doors to the mind were flung open wide with new data and new horizons to explore and discover.

Now, considering all of this, what if I were to tell you that what we perceive as real here, is still just an observation based on the limited or incomplete "facts" we hold as our beliefs about reality and what reality is?  There is so much more than what meets the eye.  There is a world of consciousness we are not yet conscious of and the energy in the universe is connected and connected by the same Source that created all of it.  That means we are all an integral and important part of the Source, a collective of existence with individualized points of focus in an agreed upon reality.  The illusion of reality (life) as we perceive it is called Maya by the Hindus. (Check out the Rigveda for more understanding of the meaning of Maya).  Life as we know it is a grand illusion and to a great extent we are all delusional in our thoughts that what we see is real or that what we see, assume and perceive is representative of the truth of a thing or a person, is the truth.  If you look back at all the explorations into the various aspects of life, existence and conscious understanding, you will see that the truth is not easy to discern by relying on our projected senses, our projected ideals, our projected morals and representations of belief we hold as truth.  Our beliefs dissolve in the light of understanding.  Why?  Because we are growing and beginning to leave behind us the time of small-minded thinking.  Some of the Whole is aware of its delusion and thus seeks the freedom from it through understanding.  Some of the Whole is unaware of its delusions and strive all the harder for the security of making their worlds more than real without understanding how that undermines their own limited perceptions of and about existence.

Coming full circle, realize that to perceive or label a thing does not define its truth.  There is only one truth upon which we can rely and that truth cannot be defined by me for you.  You must learn to understand the truth for yourselves.  However, you will not find the truth of you in labeling your brothers and sisters who walk this Earth with you.  In either positive or negative labeling, by raising others up higher than you or lowering them beneath you, you actually cage yourself in a prison of your own mind.  The All is Mind, the Universe is Mental (Hermetic principal from the Kybalion).  This "physical life" is a construct of our making, collectively creating as we have been created.  Sometimes trying to wrap your physical and limited mind around this concept makes you feel "mental" in a whole different way. 

However, through patience, perseverance, allowing resonance, congruence, love, forgiveness, gratitude and an intent to understand, you can free your mind, body and soul from limited thoughts and embrace the whole of existence in a more liberating manner. The truth then is much better understood and the lesser acts of limited labeling or trapping yourselves in the veil of the ego would seem entirely insane.  Our assumptions and the need to label to begin with comes from illusion. The illusion of whatever it is the ego wants only seems real but it isn't.  The ego cannot tell the difference between a fact or an assumption and will line up emotions with either.  But, there is a deeper knowing part of your being whether you are in touch with it or not (your spirit) and it is the only thing that can guide you to the truth.  The truth is more intuitively felt than understood with limited human words.  We are by far above the limits of labeling even if we sometimes refuse to act like it.  Attempting to become greater at the expense of another (which is a colossal illusion with quite fleeting benefits for the greedy ego) is meaningless and doesn't support you or secure your stature in a meaningful way that is everlasting. 

If you tire of the victim-villain struggle for power, the only way to freedom is to understand you can't know what you don't know, so go and seek to understand the truth.  Learn that what you give out to this world becomes you.  Question the beliefs you assume or hold as truth.  Offer this world forgiveness and love, offer this world peace and understanding and refuse to play into old programs that don't seem to get you anywhere. You end up chasing your tail for an ego feed that will never truly fulfill your deepest needs.  Your deepest need is understanding, to belong (and you belong to a very big Oneness in Source alone) and for love.  You are love.  Let that come to your mind first before labels, before negative self or other judgments.  Seek understanding and it will come and if you embrace it, you will be free.

© 2014, Jaie Hart (photo and words)

Archived Thoughts

I finished my last meeting for the day at 3:26 p.m., fell into the zone on some matter my mind was trying to work out all of the pieces to, looked up and realized I had lost 3 hours.  I apparently wasn’t too lost because I had worked out, mostly, the problem I was trying to solve.   I quickly sent out some draft communications and realized I was really done for this very long day.  I caught up with a wonderful co-worker for a few minutes as I closed up shop and then headed out the door. I nebulous sort of feeling dawned on my consciousness as I began the three flight descent down the stairs to the door of my office building. As soon as I was outside, I caught the last gentle remnants of day light and the nebulous feeling crystalized...and intense sense of equilibrium.  I was pleasantly surprised to feel it considering a very long day but just smiled and decided to embrace it.  I made my way to my car not recalling exactly how I achieved a walk across the parking lot in what felt like 3 seconds, climbed in and just stared at the sky a few moments.  There were angel-wing clouds everywhere.  I thought to myself, “perfect, this is just perfect” as I started up my ride.

Somewhat absentmindedly I made my way home thinking only a little.  As I made the turn west for the last stretch of road for home, I caught an unimaginably amazing fiery glimpse of the setting sun behind some beautiful heavily color irradiated clouds.  The design in the sky was perfect and my mind wasn’t done yet.  It carefully traversed the concepts of the energy that created all I could see and not just this moment, in every moment I have lived.  Still not done yet I arrived at the thought of the Creator behind the play before me and I pondered in awe at the sheer magnificence of it.  Every detail in life is truly perfect if you ever take the time to really notice absent the ego.  More thoughts pulled at my very tired mind.  There is no thing in this universe that is not perfect.  When we see imperfection, I cannot help but wonder if it is not really that things are imperfect but that we fail, miserably, to perceive things the way they are and they way they are is amazing.  To imagine there is a vast and beyond description impetus for mass creation all at once…the sky exists, the stars exist, the ever-expanding light exists defined perfectly by shades of gray and then even darkness…people exist, plants and trees exist, space gasses are created from various combinations of elements and conditions not really so haphazardly as we’d think.  Well, at least I think.

The dazzling display before me caught my eye again at the next stop light.  I could feel this energetic and yet even more enchanting swirl of creation…of existence…of motion...time passing only casually noticed.  I sat there, nerdy, humble me, contemplating space, physics, science, love, nature and just the wonder of it all.  My thoughts, so pleasant, were spinning at lightning speed and then that thought singled itself out as I observed and then compared itself to a long ago archived thought that I struggled at first to understand how and why my mind had made that connection in that moment.  I’ll share because, well, I do that sometimes.  I had a very troubling moment one night at age 19.  A very troublesome set of thoughts plagued, worried me and made me so darned fearful I was immobile.  When I could shake some thoughts free, I wrote down on my note pad, “God, please give me a sign that I can fix this.”  No sooner had I set the pen down than a huge flash of lightning right outside my bedroom window at the same time as a deep and intense reverberating clap of thunder. It shattered the darkness and all fear all at once leaving the slate of my mind empty for a fragment of a second.  The lights in the neighborhood were extinguished on impact.  I sat there in the dark and could not stop the tears from making any remote attempt at clear vision impossible.  No, these were not tears of fear or worry but tears of joy.  I got what I asked for and with the force that it was most definitely delivered, I realized the path was entirely up to me.  I seized the opportunity by changing my head immediately and actions soon followed.   I never looked back at that troubling series of thoughts again that lead up to that moment.  Well, until this moment, that is.

Becoming consciously aware now again in the present, taking in the view and feeling that same Source behind the intense display of colorful beauty before me I realize life is more amazing than one could ever consider in one sitting.  Part of my mind remains elsewhere uplifted by the light of the stars lingering in some far off galaxy.  I can see it as if I’m there and I’m speechless.  So, my smile grows bigger as I turn into my drive way.  The mundane tasks of coming home now completed. The feeling has not left me yet.  I’m still grateful in this moment.  I pray I will always feel this feeling because I find it better than all of the rest. ~Blessings for the blissful joy of pure gratitude.

(c) 2013 Jaie Hart (photo and words)

General Gratitude

I left the windows open a bit too long.  Late winter days in California can be quite temperate but the moment the sun slips below the horizon, it’s very chilly.  I could get up and close the windows but for some reason, I like the chill in this moment.  Days on end of work, problem solving and then peace.  Life seems a bit, at the moment like the old shampoo commercials stuck on repeat – you know, rinse, wash and repeat.  It’s so quiet in my little neck of the world in this moment.  My sanctuary alive with evidence of happy children, sigh.  The birds are settling in for the night as my dishwasher hums and the washing machine spins.  I’m having quite a frenetically peaceful moment.  In fact, it feels as if I am about to burst out in laughter.  I recall a time earlier in life, sitting on the floor of my room in my dad’s house, staring out the window, begging for God to scroll the clock forward so summer would get here.  Unfortunately, some prayers are best not thought of.  I look back and see near 30 years have gone by since that moment.  I don’t have much of the things I think I wanted all of those years ago as a very young woman.  I can’t say I ever had them.  But I’ve got something else.  I have love and it does not come from anyone or anything.  I found it deep inside the core of me when all the rest of my cares were figuratively washed away.

 Now, for a fraction of a moment, my mind opens up to the pathways ahead of me.  I don’t know what the next part of life might bring me.  Will it be my dreams?  Will it be some more of the same?  Will it be more than I had ever hoped for?  I don’t know, I think as I sit here silently willing my fingers to keep tapping out these thoughts.  I do know that I will be content whether or not silly wishes and dreams have come true.  I can smile for all I’ve been permitted to accomplish – I say it that way because I know I’ve been helped along my path with every breath and step.  I own nothing of my own merits other than the love I have inside.  Hmmm, but even that was given to me before I arrived.  A precious gift, a spark of divine inspired love I shall carry with me until my time of departure, whenever that is.  Would I ever come back?  If given the choice, and knowing what I know now, I’m not sure.  Additional “knowing” may change my mind at some point in man’s time or even beyond it.  For now, I’m feeling so completely content.  Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention as I snap back to be present.  Peacefully, I’m gazing at soon to bloom Iris stems bending in a breeze as the last of the sun’s fiery rays etch them in flaming gold light.  I smile realizing what a beautiful place this is and for however long my stay shall be, I will remember this moment and all of those like it.  Those spacey distant feeling moments where nothing and everything seems thought of at once and no thought singled out can take hold in any feelings.  Well, other than general gratitude anyway.

I ramble tonight.  I do that sometimes.  ~Blessings for your journey.

(c) Jaie Hart (photo, random internet find)

Pushing the Boundaries

What do you do when there is so much to say and yet all of the feeling that exists within you rises to the surface all at once fighting for conscious cognition? You do nothing but breathe, be silent and still.  And so tonight I write out underneath my beloved stars.  Apparently some words I can still chain together semi-coherently.  Its an amazing thing to be human and even more so to have a heart...senses...sight.  A very welcome cool sea breeze blows and the stars are there but not quite yet visible.  Any moment now they'll flick on all at once as they do every night at about this time.  This is truly a beautiful world.  Oh if only I could tell you of all of the things I have seen.  You may not believe me even if you heard the words and saw my lips moving in person.  You might think me quite insane unless you could feel the sensations in your own body of a soul speaking the truth from their heart.  Sometimes there is nothing more beautiful nor tragic in life than the truth.

I've been on an interesting journey that shifted its focus in January of 2011.  Things I thought impossible have expanded before me and become reality and illusions, well, many of those had to be traded for the truth and I don't regret a single moment of that exploration.  If you are very lucky or at least aware in life, you will come to know all of the ways in which we each are guided as we place our feet in sequence on the Earth and we dream this dream.  We can reach straight through the vision of reality that we hold and grab onto what's real but we touch it and have no way in which to measure what we hold...no words to define...no pictures...just feeling.  Its beautiful if even very difficult to understand.  So, at such times a soul may grow very quiet trying to wonder if what they see is real or what they feel is real and which is more real any way.  And eventually you come to a place where you realize it doesn't matter...the journey doesn't matter, the questing for truth doesn't matter and the only thing these things ever really bring you is right back to the threshold of your own door.  Standing in disbelief you open the door to your soul and you're home...a place you never left and only seemed to.  Without the fabric of understanding to realize what you have done, it feels a little as if you've lost your mind but the truth is, you've finally found it.

This life holds not one ounce of separation from Source.  We were never cast out of the kingdom from sin.  We closed our eyes and went to sleep is all we did and in a dream we forgot our starting point and what we are always surrounded by...pure, sweet and beautiful love and enough power and energy to keep creating any way we wanted to in the dreams we dream.  We forget the dream is a dream even and we get lost along the way it seems but the reality is its only a mind trick we play on ourselves just for fun.  And it is fun when you begin to understand there isn't much to understand other than what and who you really are...where you came from, what you've done and not in any sort of judgmental way.  This life is meant to be lived for as long as you should choose to live it.  There is no turning back once the journey begins, you must see it through or suffer your own admonishment somewhere down the line.  The Kingdom has always been within you and never once has your connection to it and its Source ever been severed.  Its a beautiful realization.

I'm off to appreciate the stars in this beautiful sky I have dreamed and I shall relish it, feel the pure joy of it, breathe in the blessed bliss of it and then I shall embark on another dream and who knows what else then.  Tomorrow the Earth will still be turning and we'll see the sun in the sky and we'll do what we do every day over again and again until we're ready to go home.  There is so much to do in between and so much to create and understand.  Please don't misunderstand my words or their seemingly obscure meaning.  There is a purpose to my rambling meandering thoughts and that is to show you that our linear progression of thoughts think things are just so but life gets infinitely more rewarding when you push the accepted boundaries of what reality is and do some exploring on your own.  Immeasurable beauty will you find and come to know.  Infinite wells of love and light will be there at your finger tips.  You will come to know who and what you are.  And for the first time in as long as you can remember, you will be more than satisfied. ~Blessings.

(c) 2012 Jaie Hart (photo, random but quite fortunate internet find)