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Difficult Times

An especially beautiful sunrise over the mountains: snow, a fog bank, and sunlight in the trees

When you are in difficult situations, ask yourself what your life is trying to show you. Gregge Tiffen, Life in the World Hereafter: The Journey Continues (available from P-Systems - http://www.p-systemsinc.com/publications.htm and on amazon.com)

I wanted to title this post ‘The Most Important Question You Can Ask’, but I resist the temptation to shout what I understand to be mystical truth.  I don’t know about you, but I learn best when something comes to me understated.  I like to be surprised when some new piece of knowledge or an experience exceeds my expectations. My ‘critical eye/I’ kicks in when I experience something as less than I thought was promised.

What is true for me now however is that approaching all of life, especially difficult times, as learning opportunities is the most important shift that I have made in my 66 years of this life.

Sincerely asking the question ‘what does this event in my life want to teach me?’ with an open mind and an open heart is an elixir that helps me move from struggle and suffering to greater ease and peace.  With an attitude of genuine curiosity, I can engage in necessary actions that step-by-step often lead to inspiration and deep insight. Hidden possibilities are revealed in holding the question lightly even in the darkest of situations.

Old habits and patterns stagnated some aspect of my growth can emerge with an invitation to be released to make way for new growth.  Shedding skins and dropping leaves are two of nature’s many reminders that the way must be prepared for the new. Difficult times in our lives are like weather changes that signal the time for growth is nigh.  New growth signals our resilience and our adaptability, and it builds these strengths.

Life’s events are meant to be our teachers. We are not meant to enter them knowing what to or what the outcome will be.

They exist FOR us, for our experimentation and our learning. They are opportunities to call forth our will. Though they may bring pain, sadness, angst, even fear, life’s events –each and every one- are gifts of an omnipotent universe. That universe knows what we need on our path of learning to navigate on this planet, in this life, and beyond.

Wherever you find yourself this week, whether easy or difficult times are upon you, give yourself the gift of tapping into that omnipotence with the question: what can this event teach me?  Then, be willing to listen and to learn.

And equally beautiful in the west, a morning rainbow across the valley

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A Moment in Time

Another beautiful day dawns in the Sangres.

Everything we know about the Universe shows movement and change. No one thing remains the same. Planets move in their orbits never staying in the same place. On the planet, trees change leaves year-by-year, and seasons come and go. However, we work to keep our systems in society from changing, or, at the very least, try to control the change and how it manifests. We suffer the debts that society is suffering because of that very effort.  Gregge Tiffen (Finding Freedom: The Meaning of Independence Day – July, 2007)

There are many things that I could write about how ‘we work to keep our systems from changing’. Indeed, if you read between the lines of many of my posts, you’re likely to discover that theme.  Heck, sometimes it’s right on the line.

But today I simply want to mark a moment in time, a historic moment. Rather two such moments. First was the moment earlier this week when a woman was formally nominated by a major political party to serve as President of the United States of America.  The second will occur tonight when Hillary Clinton accepts that nomination.

In the loud noise of political controversy and probably far too much commentary, the significance of this shift may not be obvious. But on the tree of the emergence of feminine leadership in our world, another leaf is opening. Another glass ceiling has been shattered.

Set aside everything you’ve thought, heard, or think that you know about Hillary Clinton for just a moment. Take time to allow the event to sink in.  As events often are, this event is bigger than the person.

Without over-exaggerating it, I believe this is a big deal in the experiment we call the United States of America. The event itself represents real change despite any of her views or her past decisions aimed at just what Gregge suggests: keeping the systems from changing. 

This change is yet another moment in history that we are privileged to dance in.  What dance we will do, what we will make of it is very much up to each of us.  Will we walk away in disgust because we don’t like the music?  Or will we step up and dance, making the most of the opportunities that this, like all events, presents?

The garden offers a visual feast to match the bounty of our harvests.

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Jungle Rules

Early morning haze ... smoke from a large fire nearby

We believe we can get control, but we do not believe we have control so the jungle rules take over. Gregge Tiffen (To Know Another, Know Thyself – July, 2008)

As I gaze out at the world beyond my door, it seems to me that the jungle rules aren’t serving us very well. I think about the concept that we are in this world, but not of it as it relates to how I experience daily life. The man we know as Jesus taught that we are not of this world and it seems that he lived his life from that belief.

What, I wonder, might life lived from being in but not of the world look like – individually and collectively?  Would we feel the powerlessness that seems rampant in our world? Would the boiling anger we witness daily (and perhaps even feel ourselves) cool down?  Is the angst and anger in our world rooted in our separation from knowing and using the personal power that we have each been given as individual units in a vast, indeed infinite, Universe? 

Perhaps ‘taking back’ our power is not about grabbing it from outside of us, but rather a series of ongoing opportunities that each of us has to individually learn to use the power we’ve been given. Perhaps this is what Gandhi had in mind when he encouraged his followers to be ‘being the change’ they wished to see in the world.

As I bring my idealism down to ground level where my own opportunities to engage in this learning live, I find myself humbled, challenged and inspired. I’m humbled when I catch myself judging others and engaging my thoughts in how to control. I’m humbled by how subtle ‘control over’ appears, sometimes masked as ‘understanding and collaboration with’. I’m challenged to be aware before I step on that path, and I’m inspired to find another way.

Although I don’t need to look much beyond my own nose (there is plenty of opportunity right here!) I see this struggle played out on the world stage. We’ve come to believe that things (money, weapons, water, fuel, relationships, and more) have power and we look beyond ourselves to others and to ‘the systems’ for answers, for protection, and to provide what we need. We are angry when we discover that the price we’ve paid seems to be our freedom.

All around us systems are failing.  Perhaps their crumbling is because we have given them so much of our power. To our peril, we’ve come to believe that they are life. We see the rules of the jungle playing out in an effort to continue the illusion that ‘control over’ is the path to freedom. At the same time many understand that such control is mutable, fleeting and that (s)he who has control today will be the oppressed of tomorrow.

What kind of world will we create when we slay the bounds of the jungle rules and understand that true control is the power within?

Luke says 'Don't forget the power of play!'

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Power Source

Stormy weather ...

Stormy weather ...

The Power of potential is not the power of humans, but rather the spiritual Power invested in us on a Universal level. It is the Power of consciousness being aware of its omnipotent force in the Universal scheme of things.  Gregge Tiffen (Deserve Success and You Will Command It – March, 2008)

The planet is a friendly place. The world is hostile. It has never been otherwise. It is designed for mass subjugation of the populace. The laws of the system are designed to keep you in check. However, every single individual is powerful. Patrece on behalf of P-Systems (Self Enhancement Series for Cindy, April, 2007)

The first several hours of this day found my mood matching the weather: unsettled and stormy.  The day is gray. The wind is howling. Rain and sleet have fallen periodically since before dawn. It’s a snuggle-in sort of day, and I’m grateful that my only need to go beyond the back door is to take the canine pack out to stretch their legs.

As I get quiet to ask for clarity, I find two things tugging at my heart: one personal, one global. Personally, I’m missing home and wanting to be back in my own environment. Four plus weeks is a long time away, and my body is weary from pounding pavement rather than the mountain roads and trails of home. Although he’s adapted to a very different life here, I’m guessing that Luke too longs for the leash-free life of home.

Beyond my own personal desire, as I observe the world, I’m struck by the intensity of the discord. It’s not new of course.  It occurs to me that real change requires not just a political revolution (though perhaps that’s a start!) but an evolution of the spirit where every individual has the awareness and courage to operate from their spiritual power. This power is not from the mundane world, but rather the gift to each and every one of us from the Universe.

We’ve been disconnected from awareness of this true Power, unplugged from Source. This is the way of the world and its systems, made by man to serve man, but not mankind. Humanity suffers.

Despite the world, spring dawns ...

Despite the world, spring dawns ...

So, it’s no wonder that there is so much angst and anger. We’ve been duped into believing that this world is our source and that the pie is not big enough for all to share. Some can have. Others cannot. 

We blame. We fear. We fight.

On this path, we lose.  Momentary victories of one group over another do not sustain any of us over the long term. We need look no further than the vitriol in our national political discourse or that of radicals of all persuasions to see this today.  History is replete with examples of winning and losing. Even the “war to end all wars” didn’t.

We are hungry for leadership that understands and is not afraid to acknowledge the Source of individual power. We need to harness that understanding to build systems that do the same.

Sometimes real change happens only after we’ve hit bottom.  Perhaps that is the good news. As I survey the global political environment and take in the daily news (or so it is called), I wonder “are we there yet?”

... and Spring blooms. Onward!

... and Spring blooms. Onward!

 

 

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March Mantra

Raven graces a final hike to the Ziggurat before our journey west begins.

Raven graces a final hike to the Ziggurat before our journey west begins.

If you are not learning, you are not living.  Gregge Tiffen – The Journey Continues: Near Life Experiences (March, 2010)

I’m living!  And, my mantra for this month where we will welcome spring reflects the curiosity I hold for the learning opportunities available to me moment to moment, day to day.

Since posting last week’s blog suggesting an adventure in my future, Luke and I traveled 1,226 miles across four western states, and we’re settling into a new environment from which I’ll be creating my experience for the next few weeks.  The learning opportunities are vast: adaptability, flexibility, patience, courage, along with some very specific learning about canine care and how to travel cross-country with a dog.  And, those are the ones I’m aware of now. I suspect others to join me on the journey.  

I’ve come to eastern Washington to take care of a family member’s dogs so that she can make a long-planned trip abroad.  She has courage and passion in places where I don’t. She loves the adventure of travel to other cultures, this trip to Nepal. She has the courage to follow her passion despite the chaos in the world and the possibility that she will not see her beloved canines again.  One is elderly. The other was diagnosed with cancer late last year.

With support from her vet, Cousin Marty and I have outlined the possibilities and I’m prepared to both use my judgement and follow her wishes regarding decisions that may present themselves while she is away.

As I write this morning, Luke is at my feet, ever the model of composure and adaptability.  Gilley and Bonner are alertly waiting for their mom to return. She’s out for a last round of pre-trip errands before departing tomorrow.

So often when we step out of our routine life, as I’m doing these next few weeks, we let events define us.  I’m aiming to follow a different path, the road less traveled of awareness in the moment of each event as an opportunity for learning and for using what I’ve learning to this point in choosing each step.

Our home away from home in March.

Our home away from home in March.

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To Infinity And Beyond

Portal to Infinity ... and Beyond!

Portal to Infinity ... and Beyond!

The worst part of this Universal infinity concept is that as we grow up we lose the reality of infinity.  Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Communication With the Living – February, 2010)

To infinity and beyond! Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story)

Shoveling snow this week brought me to reflect on infinity. Although there is a finite number of snowflakes, that number is so huge that it stretches my mind to think about it.  I’m further stretched to consider that, like we humans each with our unique fingerprints and DNA, each snowflake has its own unique design.  

I really wonder how many snowflakes there are ...

I really wonder how many snowflakes there are ...

Consider that, as in all of nature, the life essence of the snowflake is infinite. It has been and will always be. Forever.  The snowflake changes form and loses its identity as a unique snowflake. Then, it is no longer part of a beautiful snow landscape. Perhaps it melted and is flowing into a stream that will carry it the ocean or to an underground aquifer. Or, maybe it evaporated and will return to earth as another form of moisture.  That vastness and the cycles that reflect nature on our planet give me just a little glimpse of what infinity is.

The thing about infinity though is that, by definition, it can’t be defined. To define is to limit. And infinity has no limits.  That’s hard to fathom in a world structured to limit and control.

It may seem unimportant to consider infinity, but in reflecting this week, I found myself drawn to that place within that is Universal infinity, a place of peace and of remembering that I am an infinite being blessed with infinite possibility.  I had no beginning.  I have no end.  Simply, I AM. 

And, so are we all.

Take that in for a moment. Let it land deeply in your cells. They know this truth.  Savor it.

Then, file this recipe away for a time when you are stressed or feel stuck with no choices that seem good or right.  Let it remind you that in this infinite Universe there is always another way. That is the reality of infinity.

Nature's beauty is infinite

Nature's beauty is infinite

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Controlling Your World

A frosty morning at the labyrinth.

A frosty morning at the labyrinth.

Each moment holds the power of promise for you to exert your individuality, to expand in wisdom and to reflect only good. Universal intelligence is always working.  Begin with a promise to yourself that you will co-create with it.  Gregge Tiffen (The Significance of Beginning – January, 2007)

When things are chaotic in life, whether personally or in the bigger world beyond, I sometimes forget that while I do not control the event, I do control me.  As 2016 continues to march along, I’m finding the need to use that knowledge front and center in my life.

I made a decision a few weeks back that isn’t turning out as I hoped it would.   I say ‘hoped’ because the truth is that my gut told me otherwise and my intuition was to make a different decision. I didn’t listen. Ouch! 

And with the ‘ouch’, hallelujah!  The situation is providing rich territory to exercise and, hopefully, strengthen my tolerance muscle. I’m rediscovering just how important my home environment is to me and just how intolerant I am when I allow that be disrupted.

I’m challenged in this situation to ‘reflect only good’.  Just what is ‘good’, I’ve wondered.  I’ve found myself expressing my ‘cranky’ side, rather than feeling and expressing the kindness I need and want to express, the kindness that brings me peace and contributes to a higher vibration on the planet.

I’ve come face to face with just how ill equipped I am to consistently ‘exert my individuality’ in ways that are positive and contribute to creating the world I want to create.  It’s easy to say “be the change you want to see in the world”. It’s not always easy to do what’s required to be that change.

That doing includes controlling my internal chatter.  If I let it have its way, the ‘blah, blah, blah’ in my head does not support me either grace or tolerance.  Au contraire, it fuels intolerance and crankiness.  

Universal Intelligence is definitely at work, pointing the way to where I need to expand my capability.  It does so in all of the events of our lives.  Even those we might call ‘mundane’ are ripe with learning opportunity.  That is just what makes the journey the fabulous ride that it is, and this perspective is key to controlling my world.

The breathtaking visual beauty of Universal Intelligence.

The breathtaking visual beauty of Universal Intelligence.

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Earth's School of Events

For Whom Does Your Bell Toll?

For Whom Does Your Bell Toll?

No event touches our life that does not have a use in our overall development. Gregge Tiffen (LIFE: The Staircase of Many Steps – January, 2008)

More and more I find myself curious about what I’m learning from every event in life. Even when that learning isn’t so clear that I can articulate it, I have this sense of embracing life’s events as a learning lab for my evolution.

We seem to do that easily with life’s so-called ‘challenges’. Part of how many of us navigate those events is to acknowledge that they are part of ‘life’s lessons’. That’s where I found my own awareness this week as I faced a computer challenge. What was the learning of spilling liquid on my keyboard and watching the screen go blank?

The obvious is ‘keep liquids away from keyboards’, a lesson I assumed I knew, but certainly didn’t apply. We often discount this level of learning as not important, but even learning to tie our shoes (something most of now do without much thought) has value beyond the surface in the connections it makes. How is it that we learn to deftly move our fingers to form bows that secure our shoes on our feet? And, what in that learning do we apply to hundreds (maybe thousands) of tasks every day?

Events like this wake me up and pull me out of my tendency to not be present in each moment. It reminded me that although drinking a cup of tea while using the computer isn’t rocket science, I’m better served if I do so with awareness and care.  The event also gave me the opportunity to choose how much to beat myself up (very little, I’m happy to report), to do what I could in the moment (turn the keyboard upside down and lightly blow a hair dryer across it), and then to let it be. 

Letting it be proved to be easier than I thought. Perhaps I’ve learned that I can only do what I can do, and energy exerted after that is wasted. Since the event happened on the weekend, I took time to make a plan for getting critical tasks done on Monday. I shed some cleansing tears. With gratitude and faith, I asked the Universe to assist. Then, I went to bed.  When I woke, I didn’t rush to see if the computer would power up. I didn’t even think about it as I engaged in my morning rituals. In hindsight, I have a sense of personal satisfaction about that.

Then, late morning before heading out for a long walk with Luke, I thought about the computer and decided to discover whether it would turn on. It did. Wowza!

I felt deep gratitude, not only for having my computer, but for the event and the learning that it brought forth. The cleansing tears that followed, those were tears of joy.

Life is learning. Learning is life. We cannot ‘not learn’, but we can choose to not embrace life as the learning lab that it is.

What is your choice?

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Receive the Gift of Solstice

It's Beginning to Look (&Feel) a Lot Like Winter!

It's Beginning to Look (&Feel) a Lot Like Winter!

What I would exhort you to, what I would give as a gift to you, what I would lay down a soul for, would be for your awareness to recognize that this is a personal event for your life. It is the time that has been set up on this planet for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference.

May the reindeers pull your sleigh filled with new awareness across the rooftops and into the fertile green valleys of a truly new season.  Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: Giving To Yourself)

Each year I seem to discover that my sense of the potential for reNEWal in this season deepens.  I savor this time when ‘all of heaven and all of earth coordinate’ for my benefit as a very personal ‘me to me’, ‘me to Thee’ and ‘Thee to me’ experience.

This season, the events leading up to Solstice brought me the gift of looking at my attitudes, up close and personal. Some serve me. Others do not. The later will not be invited to the new me, the one that emerges from the release at Solstice. They are not who I am and do not serve how I want to participate in the world.

I’ve called on last week’s post, Prelude to Solstice, several times this week as I walked through the local controversy, creating responses and proposing a way forward.  ‘Take Heaven.’  ‘Take Peace.’  ‘Look.’  Yesterday a friend reminded me to include grace.  In a flash, I realized that she had been working overtime. I know that ‘the day will break and the shadows flee away.’  Grace brings that knowing.

Early Morning Coziness

Early Morning Coziness

I feel good about how I’m addressing the situation (and great about the team I work with). I’m not so pleased with the energy that’s been required and with those moments when I simply felt overwhelmed. Luke and the beauty of nature brought me back to balance.

I’m comfortable not knowing the outcome and how the public will respond. I totally trust its perfection – whether it’s an outcome I prefer or not.

As I put this experience, as well as business (and busy-ness too!) aside, I invite (really I implore) you to embrace the personal, individual nature of this season.  Take some time just for you.  Take homage at heaven and earth coming together. Feel the presence of nature.

And, let go. Release attitudes, be they good or bad. Release the people in your life, all of them – those that are meant to shall return.  Release hopes, dreams, fears, goals, regrets. Let go of EVERYthing.

It is only the empty goblet that can receive the next sweet taste of the abundance that life will most surely bring.

My Goblet is Ready

My Goblet is Ready

I wish you boundless blessings in this sacred season and in all the days ahead!

I wish you boundless blessings in this sacred season and in all the days ahead!

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Prelude to The Winter Solstice

Early Morning Greeting from the Moon and Venus

Early Morning Greeting from the Moon and Venus

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

This week amidst a community controversy in which the board that I chair is being challenged, I’ve felt out of sync with the season and out of sorts with myself.  I want to stop. I want to stop not just for a few minutes to catch my breath, center myself and move on to the next task or conversation, but I want to STOP and BE the winter. Quiet. Still. Peaceful.

My time for that will come. I feel her on the horizon. Until then, there are ‘miles to go before I sleep’ in these last days of autumn before that moment when heaven and earth synchronize at the Winter Solstice. I know without a doubt that I will be there.

I know too that I alone am responsible for choosing how I walk through the tasks along those miles. I choose calm, confident, clear, kind as my foundation. These are grounded in love.  My choice is simple; implementation, not always easy. Often when I’m challenged, fear interrupts and invites me to its prickly path of tension, harshness, unkind words spoken and not. Too much of the world is on that path. I don’t want to be a part of that crowd.

And, so I pause. Make time for a long morning walk with Luke to visit a favorite spot along the creek. I ignore the ringing phone and resist the temptation to see what new jab is posted on Facebook. I pick up Gregge’s booklet Winter Solstice. I find this message, perfect to remind me of the choices I can make now and moment to moment, before my time of winter solitude, and beyond winter into the spring:

Prelude*

There is nothing I can give you which you have not got; but there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take.

No Heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take Heaven

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take Peace

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see, and to see, we have only to look, I beseech you,

Look!

In the quiet there is tranquility. May your life move and radiate in that unity and your heart sing the hymn of peace to all mankind.

And so, at this time I greet you not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with prayer that for now and forever the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

* Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story)

A Gift of Love from Cottonwood Creek

A Gift of Love from Cottonwood Creek

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