Copyright Tam Black 2018 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
Your Inner Divine-Love Presence Knows what you need or desire before you do. It is constantly providing you with ideas, material goods, situations, and interactions to fulfill all your needs and desires. Relax! and allow the Presence Within to supply you with everything you need.
Sharing
I’ve really been living in the space of this Guiding Thought.
I open my heart, and feel/think, “You know what I need…I trust You to put me in the right place, at the right time, and supply me with what I need to do Your work”.
The “issues” or “work” that I did on trust/faith/surrender over a period of about 5 years has shifted. In the past, I struggled with surrender; I doubted my faith; I questioned my trust. Now, I am relaxed. I simply open to whatever is going on, and surrender, trusting that it is the right place, the right time, and I am doing what I am supposed to do.
Lots of times, I am not “doing” anything other than what I would “normally” do. I am talking with a colleague, or paying for groceries, or waving a pedestrian across a crosswalk. But I am attuned, and that makes me different. In those mundane interactions, I share Divine attunement, and maybe that’s all I’m supposed to do.
I’m here for nothing more than to serve God, and to serve God by serving people. I don’t know what God needs me to do–how could I? But I know that if I live every moment in the faith and trust that I am doing what he needs me to do, then I have no needs or desires, and all I want is to stay in-tune with God every moment, so that I can be the mightiest, purest channel that I can be.
Copyright Tam Black 2016 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
I choose to expand my consciousness and open my heart to Divine Love’s flow within me. Realizing my own Divine Presence, I know God as the Source and Fulfillment of all my good.
Reflection
Yesterday, day one of “Journey of Abundance”, I was hired for a new project; today, day two of “Journey of Abundance”, I found a gift card in a parking lot worth $12.23. I think I am off to a good start.
I mentioned in the Why that I am working on abundance from a standpoint of artha, which is “ultimately, the pursuit of activities and means necessary for a joyous and pleasurable life” (see the Chopra webpage). According to Deepak, the Vedanta says, ways to bring artha into your life are:
Discover a way so money runs after you and not vice versa.
Do work that is compatible to your nature and capabilities.
Do work that serves society.
Do work you really love.
Trust in the infinite organizing power of the Universe.
It’s that last one which fits for me today, and corresponds with the Guiding Thought, “I know God as the Source and Fulfillment of all my good.”
The more I trust God, the more I am able to know God as the Source and Fulfillment of all my good.
The first step, however is that trust thing.
I’ve been working on that for a long time, also known as surrender, faith, Willing with the Divine…however a person approaches it, the bottom line is that we, small humans who think we know everything, must align ourselves with the Universe/the Divine/All that IS. We do not know anything of ourselves. We just think we do, but because we think we do, we don’t want to listen or surrender to something we can’t even see or define.
But this is why it’s called faith.
Faith is taking a step when you have no idea what supports you, but know that something does.
All it takes is small steps. And when you take that step and don’t fall, faith is strengthened, and the next step can be bigger.
I do not know currently how big my steps of faith are, but I do know that with every step, I am aware of keeping the faith. I’ve been practicing this for a while. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs; I still feel sometimes like God has forgotten me. But I’ve taken enough steps without falling, and with real evidence that I am supported by something (because things work out so much better than I would ever be able to make them work out, if I were doing it on my own), that I am happy to keep my faith.
Plus, I was hired for a project yesterday, and I found a gift card today. What is that if not evidence that God is looking out for me, giving little breadcrumbs of assurance on this Journey of Abundance.
Love to you, beautiful person. Peace and prosperity on this Journey.
Copyright Tam Black 2018 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
I go deep within my inner stillness, and feel Divine Mind’s presence within me. I hold out my empty hands, symbolic of leaving preconceptions behind, symbolic of seeking True answers, and I ask, “What is the essence of healing?” These words resonate within me, as though in a vast cavern. The word essence reverberates with these thoughts, “For what do I care most deeply?”; “What is my own essence?”; “What is my Truth?”; “Where is my deepest hurt, my pain, my sorrow, that all may be healed?”
Reflection
Round four is here; the Journey is coming together! If you’ve been following along, you may see it. But hopefully you are paying more attention to your own Journey, your own connections, and your own progress than you are to my process.
Let me lay it out for you, so you can get back to thinking about how the Journey is coming together for you.
I would say that day 22 began the coalescence. It was that day that I went into my heart (Dicrysahe), and asked questions from a deeper, more focused place. Asking questions with the heart is like laser-beam energy going right to the “heart of the matter”. The insights come with the same kind of focused energy; all of a sudden, there is an answer that just makes sense.
After that, there were six days of being in this “healing fog”: unassociated stuff coming up, going out, clearing up, moving through. The fog is not what I would call fun, but it also was not deeply dramatic or intense. It was more like watching a bad movie–I just kind of sat through it, being aware of not really enjoying myself, but getting through it. And at least I had the Journey, as well as some signposts to clue me in to what was going on, so that I could have some understanding sprinkled in.
Then just three days ago, the fog lifted. Apparently enough stuff had cleared out and it was time for the next step (or layer or something).
Two days ago I wrote about being broken, rebuilding, and the strength that comes from that process.
Yesterday, I associated being broken with letting go of all the stuff that inhibits a person from following Divine Will–and that when we allow ourselves to be rebuilt in such a way that we align with Divine Will, we step into the Truth of our Selves, which is Whole, Holy, Healthy.
Yesterday, I wrote this, “But, each time I arrive at the feet of my Father, I give up more of my lower-self”
And we arrive at today…
This morning, as I was waking up, I found myself at the feet of my Father–there’s this place I “go to” in my mind, where I meet with Him; usually I have to think about it, and imagine it; this time, I was just there, without thinking, in Dicrysahe. I was laying everything at his feet, and I realized for the first time (one of those, “how did I miss this?” moments) that I have more “worldly cares” than I realized. It was like one of those magic tricks, where the magician just keeps pulling things out of a bag: “oh, and there’s this” and “oh, and here is that”…I pulled out everything–health stuff, financial stuff, job stuff, projects stuff, family stuff, worries and cares, worries and cares. And I just said, “I don’t know what to do with all this, so I am giving it to you (and literally laid it at His feet). Please take it, and use it however you need to, to benefit All. Only You can do this; only You can orchestrate how this will be used for a Loving purpose”.
Several hours later, as I was doing the dishes, I felt (again Dicrysahe) this: “Know everything is what it is supposed to be; all is going as intended; have faith“.
Did I get a True answer? Maybe.
At least for me, now, the answer to “What is the essence of healing?” is: have faith.
And I can say that I have current answers for the next questions as well (following from the past 10 days):
“For what do I care most deeply?” Truth, my relationship with God, Divine Will
“What is my own essence?” Peace, stillness
“What is my Truth?” My heart, my relationship with God.
“Where is my deepest hurt, my pain, my sorrow, that all may be healed?” Find it, lay it at the feet of the Father, be free!
Copyright Tam Black 2016 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
Of ourselves we are nothing, yet in union with Inner Divine Mind, through our Own Loving Presence, we are everything and have everything. As we infuse our consciousness with Knowledge of our Inner Divine Mind, our activity expresses this Union and we experience life. We breathe in this life. We smile with Joy and Gratitude, and affirm: “We LIVE.”
Sharing
I have something stewing. I can feel it. My inner mind is really chewing on something. I am a little reluctant to share it, though, because it’s vague and incoherent in my own head–what sense will you make of it? Of course, I have to share it now, right? Good luck with this, let me know if you can help with the sense-making.
Here are my pieces (ingredients, if you will) at this point:
Faith: my crisis, as I’ve mentioned, was about faith. How do I know if I have faith? What is faith? How does faith show itself in my life? How do I know if what I am doing is doing anything? How do I know what matters? Do you ever ask yourself questions like this? I feel faithless. I feel faithless because I don’t know what faith is, how to identify it, or how it behaves in my life. My crisis had a lot to do with, “I do so much! Where is it getting me?” It feels a bit paradoxical, because of the whole, we are everything and have everything. How do I lack faith and accept that I am and have everything?
Furthermore, at the time of my crisis, my dear one at home reminded me of the verse from Luke 17:“And the Lord said, ‘if ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.’”
So, this means, of course, that I have faith less than a mustard seed, but I’m working on it.
Then another Bible verse came up, this from time Matthew 21:
18 In the morning, as Jesus was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the roadside, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. He told it, “May fruit never come from you again!” And immediately the fig tree dried up. 20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. “How did the fig tree dry up so quickly?” they asked. 21 Jesus answered them, “I tell all of you[n] with certainty, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you be able to do what has been done to the fig tree, but you will also say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. 22 You will receive whatever you ask for in prayer, if you believe.”
Jesus was hungry, and when the fig tree didn’t have any fruit, He shriveled the fig tree, then told his disciples, “You can do this, too, and you can throw mountains into the sea, if you want. Just have faith.”
Then I got confused. What is Jesus doing using the power of faith to shrivel a fig tree because he’s hungry? Isn’t that “bad” to kill the tree because it didn’t have what he wanted, when he wanted it? How is that loving and kind? Isn’t this misuse of “power”, of faith??
Then the line from A Course in Miracles popped in my head, “Christ-control can take over everything that does not matter, and Christ-guidance can direct everything that does, if you so choose”. This reminded me that there are things that do not matter. There is a strain of teaching within A Course in Miracles that shows us how the mind mis-creates. In this (relative) reality, we experience these mis-creations through fear, stress, or doubt (which is all simply showing us that these experiences are not real, i.e. that they are mis-creations). The thing (form/circumstance/experience) that you have mis-created does not matter: Who you ARE is not affected by the mis-creation, you are still LOVE. Period. But the fact that you have mis-created indicates that you are not creating with your Christ-mind–and that is what God/Jesus wants us to learn. And too, vice versa: when you create with your Christ-mind, in Union with It, then the outer-effects also do not matter, because their Source is ultimately the Christ-mind.
So, then I had to decide that Jesus shriveling the fig tree did not matter, because clearly, he used his Christ-mind. Right?
This brought up a whole bunch of letting go, of not worrying about mis-creating. I do that a lot, you know. I “don’t want to create, because what if I do it wrong”. That’s one of my hang-ups. The example of Jesus and the fig tree tells me don’t worry about the outcome of mis-creations. Worry about using and working in union with my Christ-mind.
Finally, I am not sure where/how this fits, but one morning, recently, I was doing something (I don’t even remember what it was, but it had to do with healing), and I got one of those, message/voices in my head. It was kind of chuckling at me, and it said, “you still think you’re doing something”. And there was a little bit of an “smh” with the chuckle. It was good-natured and humorous. I think it was Rafael, because from what I understand, he’s the “most sociable” Archangel. And he likes people and will interact. The message felt playful and light, and like he was just pointing it out to me… nope, not you, only God heals. Get over yourself. Get this. Learn.
And so…I learn. And, honestly, I can feel it–I am learning. I am getting it. It’s not together, the stew’s not done; it has a way to go. But…really…we are so amazing. We are everything and have everything. Get THAT in faith, and feel your Self.
Copyright Tam Black 2016 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
Our Inner Divine Mind is always expressing itself in all ways through our Own Loving Presence. This is its True Nature, thus this is our True Nature. We turn to our Inner Divine Mind as the Source of our happiness, purpose, and fulfillment. We allow it to flow through our Own Loving Presence and appear as all our activity, as every visible form and experience we could desire.
Sharing
This is one of those Journeys in which I can feel myself really figuring something out. It feels a lot like when I was writing my dissertation. There is always a part of my brain that is chewing on the problem, the question, the argument, or just how to say what I know I want to say. I call it “stewing”, which is like putting a bunch of stuff into a pot (or into the brain), and letting it all cook together for hours; eventually it’s just done, and all of the different flavors merge into a new, complete dish. I have a friend who’s a writer, who calls this process “brooding”, but it’s the same basic process: sitting with something and letting those subconscious or super-conscious parts of you work on/through it. When I am stewing, I can be mowing the lawn, doing the dishes, cleaning the bathtub, walking the dog…any activity, and I can feel the stewing; I can feel something within me working. Sometimes stewing is more productive than sitting at a keyboard with writer’s block.
I know this is about faith and belief…but I got a new piece of the picture last night: intention. I am not saying I know how it fits, I’m just saying it’s part of what I am learning.
Intention seems to be the conscious expression of faith and belief. Conscious in this matter is very important. Why do I do what I do? Why do I do these Journeys? Why do I pray? Why do I do mantra, or sit with fire, or take baths, or bless water, or do any of the things that I LOVE to do, and that I do NATURALLY?
I do these things because I don’t feel “right” if I am not doing them.
But more than that!
When I do these things, I feel loving and kind, caring and compassionate, giving and sharing–I want to make the world a better place; I want to be the kind of person I want to interact with. Even when I am alone when I do my practices I feel these things.
I do them because (and here I surprised myself when I “heard” this answer) I believe they help not just me but that they help other people. My feelings of loving kindness, caring compassion, and giving-sharing are a gift to the world…simply feeling them.
The answer to the question about why I do these things is also the answer to what my intention is. My intention is to be kind and loving, caring and compassionate; my intention is to be the best person I can be.
Somehow intention is the bridge between action and faith or belief. Intention is the conscious use of an action toward a desired end. As I act intentionally and I consciously connect my actions with the desired outcome, my faith in using my intention toward the desired outcome increases.
Copyright Tam Black 2016 Designed for susanwithpearls.com
Guiding Thought
We are now fully conscious of our Own Loving Presence which seeks expression through us. Our Own Loving Presence Knows our hearts and Knows our happiness. It Knows how to fulfill our hearts and bring us joy by placing us in right situations, with right people, at right times where we may fully express our purpose. We submit our minds and hearts, all our thoughts, words, and actions to our Own Loving Presence to be lifted to our highest vision and plan for our lives.
Sharing
The undercurrent of this Journey is definitely faith (in a similar way that surrender has been an undercurrent). How do I trust that my Own Loving Presence Knows my heart, and Knows my happiness? How do I have faith in that? What do I do to feel faith? How do I experience faith? What is “supposed” to happen if I have faith? If nothing “happens” does that mean I don’t have faith?
Maybe undercurrent isn’t quite the right word, although there is an undercurrent of working out issues of faith in this Journey. What else could I call it, instead of “undercurrent”?
Influencing factor?
Underpinning?
The thing behind the thing?
Even if I don’t know the right name, I can describe it: For this Journey, faith is the uncertainty (funny juxtaposition there!) I am working through in order to have a better understanding of my purpose. Or: I am working on understanding my own faith, in order to believe in my purpose (or to believe that I have a purpose). It’s what I need to understand, to get through, to figure out in my own head and heart, in order to fully embrace my Divine purpose.
Then, behind understanding faith I need to understand my own belief, and behind that I need to understand patience, and behind that I need to come to terms with trust…then I need to take all of that and put it back into Divine Truth. Here’s how it looks; you know how much I like my schematic representations:
Copyright Susan Billmaier 2016 Created for susanwithpearls.com
Who’s in charge? Divine Truth!
How do we show it? Faith and Belief!
>That’s about all the cheerleader I can muster today<
But seriously…The gold triangle represents the funnel of the Divine into us through our Loving Presence. It Knows. It Knows our hearts; it Knows our happiness. The blue boxes represent our “submission” to It; they represent our responsibility to It, so that It can bring us our highest plan for our lives.
The blue boxes are levels/layers of how I understand. Consciousness is composed of awareness, understanding, and Knowing. I am learning to understand my own faith, belief, patience, and trust in the context of my Divine Purpose. Do you see? The context brings out different elements, different facets, of how I have learned about faith, patience, belief, and trust–how I currently understand. I could also learn about faith, belief, patience, and trust in the context of my healing or acceptance or forgiveness or worthiness, and I would understand differently. Where there are stumbling blocks (or freak-outs) are the places that need to be coaxed into a higher understanding.
Once elevated to be truly One with Divine Mind, with Divine Truth, all those “behind the” concepts would become One:
Copyright Susan Billmaier 2016 Created for susanwithpearls.com
Journey of the Heart – Day 37 Susan Billmaier for susanwithpearls
Guiding Thought
I focus my heart-love in the service of others.
As I serve others through my deepest heart-love, my own love expands and becomes amplified.
There is always more love to share, to give, to experience!
Such joy and gratitude fill me, when I open to my heart’s love!
-Play the Guiding Thought here (loops automatically). Journey of the Heart audio created by Brad Vanlandingham for Susanwithpearls-
Sharing
I guess “crazy-eyes” is what happens when I trace a bunch of infinity signs and add spirals around them. I wasn’t trying to do another crazy eyes; I just like infinity signs and spirals. The purple in the middle is infinity signs, symbolizing my heart-love focused in the service of others, infinitely. The blue infinity signs represent my own love expanding and becoming amplified. My love expands out from the action of being in service to others. The greenish, gold, and pink represents the energy that is generated from the expansion of my love. Then, when it expands far enough, it explodes in flares, spewing love out to everything!
What’s interesting, of course is that if the middle represents infinite love and service, infinitely, and the explosion represents the love going out infinitely, then love is coming out from infinity and going back to infinity.
I love infinity.
I should say that I love concepts that can make my head feel like it might explode if I think about them too long (like infinity).
The other day, I thought to myself, “What are God’s thoughts…what are the thoughts of God?” and I just sat there and thought about God’s thoughts. This is what I came up with, before I felt too much like my head was going to explode:
ING image release,13 December, 2013 Planetary Nebula Sh2-71 Photo courtesy of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma
I think God probably does not think in words…they are too limiting. The image I had in my head was not static, however, it moved; it was dynamic, there was swirling and shifting and waves and billows. It only lasted a couple of seconds, but it was a great thought-experiment; it felt expansive, like I really was somehow “getting” an answer to my question.
Sometimes I ask myself what Jesus thought, or what Jesus prayed. This feels a little more accessible than asking what God’s thoughts are. We know Jesus prayed. And we know Jesus taught us the Lord’s prayer. But is the Lord’s prayer what Jesus himself used to pray? Or is it the prayer he gave to the masses, because so few have eyes to see or ears to hear? I am inclined to think he prayed differently than the way he taught us. I mean, if he actually prayed in the way he taught us, and his prayers were answered, and we are using the same prayers as him, then why can so few of us multiply loaves and fishes, heal the sick, walk on water, or raise the dead? So what did Jesus pray? Or, what are we missing? And, even more…how do we figure it out? After all, He said, “All of this and more than this shall you also do…”
I ask the questions so I can figure it out. I believe Jesus; I really think he was telling the truth about what we are capable of. If we’re not doing it, there’s just something we’re not getting. But we can.
Journey of the Heart – Day 17 Susan Billmaier for susanwithpearls
Guiding Thought
Focus your heart-love in the service of others.
As you serve others through your deepest heart-love, your own love expands and becomes amplified.
There is always more love to share, to give, to experience!
Joy and gratitude fill you, when you open to your heart’s love!
-Play the Guiding Thought here (loops automatically). Journey of the Heart audio created by Brad Vanlandingham for Susanwithpearls-
Sharing
What do you get when you cross Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic with Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire?
Grapes Afire!
[smh] Sorry for the corniness.
Sometimes meditating on these Guiding Thoughts and pictures is like dream interpretation. There are symbols, pictures that seem to have no relevance or context, but it just feels like there’s something there. It feels like a communication, a message, some part of yourself saying something…if you can just figure it out.
That’s how this felt to me today…so I started trying to figure it out. You ready for this?
The Battle Hymn of the Republic:
“He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored…His truth is marching on.”
Ring of fire:
“Love is a burnin’ thing, and it makes a fiery ring.”
The two themes: 1) The victory of the Lord: a call to action. 2) Love: a call to endurance.
[quick disclaimer: remember this is intuitive interpretation, i.e. how it feels to me. I know my interpretation does not take social/cultural interpretations into account, nor does it consider further lyrics in the songs. It’s really only about how it is speaking to me, subjectively (as your pictures do to you, for you)].
The message for me in these two themes: Persevere!
The path of Love and service to the Lord is not always easy. For me, personally, it’s a constant internal vigilance, questioning, constant assessment, continuous probing, making sure I am doing what God wants me to be doing.
There is a sentence from A Course in Miracles that goes something like this (from memory), “Can you imagine God creating a plan for your salvation that could fail?” In other words, God has it all worked out. You can’t fail. Everything is done and is unfolding as it should.
And yet, most of the time, I feel like I am feeling my way in the dark.
Am I doing it right? >feel around in the dark<
What am I supposed to be doing? >feel around in the dark<
Which way am I supposed to go? Should I just wait here? >feel around in the dark<
What do I do??? >feel around in the dark<
This is how most of my internal seeking goes: Literally posing questions to God, which feels like a void, then feeling my way, trying to feel the response through my own blindness.
Here, I think, is where most of my personal faith is placed: that despite feeling deaf-mute-blind in my unknowing, the answers always come and I go the right way. I have faith that I go the right way. I have faith I make right decisions. But I have only come to faith through practicing feeling around in the dark. I ask. I listen. I try. I am sincere. I do my best. I can always do better, but I do my best just now.
I think it’s enough.
Today, I persevere in patience, in diligence, in sincerity, feeling my way in the dark.
SusanWithPearls 