Prelude To Solstice - 2018

Winter’s Pure Beauty

All of heaven and all of earth coordinate at the Winter Solstice. … Regardless of all the stories and traditions, this is a personal event of your life. It is the time that has been set up for you and Heaven to be with each other without interference. Gregge Tiffen (Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story) 

 It’s all too easy to find ourselves hooked in the hustle and bustle of seasonal activities and ‘wrapping things up for the year’.  We’ve forgotten that which we know deep inside: this is our time to recalibrate from the inside out.  And, to do so we must empty, release, let go and recognize the wisdom that done is done.

 All too often we fear being empty – even for a brief moment in time. Emptiness seems like a strange word to ascribe to the season of winter holidays with their bright lights, joyful sounds, and festivities to match.  And, yet, giving yourself the gift of emptying is an important part of being prepared to receive the new that is sure to come as the sun begins her journey back to the north.  After all, the full glass cannot receive more wine.

 In the Christmas Story, we are told that the inn was full. And, yet a receptive place for the birth was found. So it is for each of us.

 We too need to empty and make ourselves receptive to the new.  Solstice is a time to declare one cycle complete, making way for another to begin. It is a time to embrace the realm of spirit and turn our backs on the material world, if only for a brief time. It is a time to bless and release all who have crossed your path in this cycle, knowing that those who are meant to return will be there in the new one.

 And, perhaps most important of all, it is time to let go of who we were in the cycle that is completing.  The ‘you’ of that cycle is complete as well. And a new you of your design and making awaits.

 As our planet prepares to celebrate her birthday, let us honor her by taking time to reflect this gift of the time when heaven and nature sing as one. May we each sing along in our own unique and harmonious way.

I find this excerpt from Gregge Tiffen’s ‘Winter Solstice: The Christmas Story’ a beautiful reminder of the choices I can make now and moment to moment, before my time of winter solitude, and beyond winter into the spring. May it support you as well to ease into the sacredness of this time.

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)

Winter Blessings from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

Step By Step

On The Road ...

Whatever step you choose will take you closer to where you want to be.   … Creative force is the energy necessary to begin a new experience. … Energy is always in motion.  Gregge Tiffen – Life: The Staircase of Many Steps – January, 2008

Happy New Year! The page has turned, and here we are with the blank canvas of a new year to paint. 361 more days to engage in life - to live, to love, to experiment, to learn, to grow - before we complete the cycle of this calendar year.

Traditionally we set goals, make ‘resolutions’ and plans, to start a new year. And, all too often ‘life’ steps in with other ideas. Or, resistance in some form rears its head.

Overwhelm happens when we forget that all we need to do is take a step. Then another and another, continuing on step by step allowing each step to reveal the next.  When we do this moment by moment, day to day we have the potential to make huge progress on our journey.

The Beauty of Exploration - Hoar Frost on The Palouse - Pullman, Washington

It’s oh so simple, yet from time to time most of us find ourselves stopped, stuck, resisting anything resembling movement.  For me, that’s the time to remember that my body doesn’t give a hoot about love, life or learning. It sees the new, the adventure, and growth as dangerous threats to its sole concern – survival.

Clever in its ways, the body throws out all manner of reasons to not participate in life.  I’m tired. It doesn’t matter. It’s not worth it. I don’t know how. These are the cloaks my body wears to hide what I’m coming to understand is simply resistance. They are clues that I need to step up, challenge, and command my body to MOVE, to take a step, to be in action.

In responding to these clues I’m strengthening my ability to call forth my will.  It helps me to remember that the journey of 1,000 miles begins with turning on the ignition and that the journey is complete mile by mile. The 2656 mile road that I took in December is a fresh reminder as I look ahead to what I want to accomplish in 2018.

I also find that engaging curiosity counters the lethargy of resistance. The simple shift from ‘I don’t know how’ to ‘I wonder how/what I can learn’ is powerful fuel for moving into action.

As I practice these skills, I notice that the creative force needed to engage in new experiences comes forth more naturally and that a gentle flow of life’s events seems to emerge. Step by step through these events I live, I love, I learn, I grow.

Step by step we can accomplish much in this year that is just beginning. May we each step fully into the energy that is always in motion!

Almost Home ... Sangres in the Distance

Nature's Passion

A feast for eyes and ears - the beauty of a mountain stream.

Passion does not know anything but success. Gregge Tiffen (The Journey Continues: Sex, Lies, and Assumptions – June, 2010)

On our walk this morning I was reminded of the passion that comes from the expression, in whatever form, of the individuality within each of us. I hear it in the bubbling of Cottonwood Creek – the sound of a mountain stream is one of my favorite ‘songs’ – as the water makes its way over rocks, branches and around bends following the natural path of the land. As the volume of snow melt increases, the intensity of the stream’s song builds.

While the water doesn’t know ‘passion’ as we humans do, it flows naturally, and I imagine passionately, designed by the Universe. It worries not about what we think. It knows nothing of failing. It simply flows. Success.

I heard that same natural passion from at least a half dozen different song birds singing their individual, distinctive songs in the cool morning air. Each is singing the song they were given as if they are calling forth the perfect order of their day. What could be more successful and passionate than that?

Robin sings its song.

Connection with and gratitude for the beauty of nature has become an important part of my life over these almost nine years in the Rockies. As I listened to nature’s songs this morning, I felt a deep gratitude for the reminder that when I engage in authentically expressing what is within, I experience passion, joy, and no room for anything but success. Not success on the world’s terms, but real success on terms that matter beyond this life.

Sadly, we live in a world that all too often lures us to follow paths that are not true to our unique design. We see the results in angst, anger, conflict, disease to name a few symptoms. Most of us have experienced one or more of them at various times in our lives. From time to time we lose sight of the wonders of the Universe that lie beyond the trap that says ‘survival is all there is’.  We lose our capacity to live with passion.

The gift of such times is that they can nudge (sometimes gently, sometimes NOT) us back to tapping into curiosity for exploring and discovering the path that is uniquely ours to experience and express.

Beyond survival is passion, the passion and courage to discover and live life from the inside out, letting go of the world’s bidding to follow the path of what we each want to do because THAT is what we came here to do. What could be more successful than THAT?

I haven't learned to hear the tree's song of growth, but it's here surely as Spring.

Earth Day: Harmony For The Planet Every Day

Getting Ready for Earth Day at the Dragonfly House!

God is the great mysterious motivator of what we call nature, and it has been said often by philosophers, that nature is the will of God. And, I prefer to say that nature is the only body of God that we shall ever see.  Frank Lloyd Wright (quoted in Life In The World Hereafter: The Journey Continues)

Nature is intimately partnered with us in this physical experience, and that is perhaps the greatest boon of our incarnate existence, as nature is directly connected to and informed by the Universe.  Gregge Tiffen (Life In The World Hereafter: The Journey Continues, 2006)

You can knock me over, but I'll still grow up.

I’m profoundly blessed and deeply grateful to live surrounded by nature’s beauty and bounty. I step outside my door into a veritable feast for my senses. Seeing the flow of Cottonwood Creek bringing the snowmelt from the peaks reminds me of the natural flow of life. The smell of freshness in the pines tells me that experiences in life are always new. The distinctive buzz of the season’s first hummingbird signals the joy of spring awakening. The warm touch of the sun says that coats and hats and gloves can soon be put away. With a bit of awareness and imagination, I can taste the freshness of spring.

'Scout', first hummer of the season, making sure everything is in order before the charm arrives here at their summer home.

Daily I hold the intention to live in greater harmony with nature and to hear and understand her messages more clearly.  I almost never leave home without my little camera and I never know what visual treat the flora or fauna or rocks will provide.  Sometimes I simply enjoy the beauty of what is offered. Other times I wonder and reflect on what message nature is sending. What can I learn from what I see?

Yesterday, feeling a bit of a funk and choosing not to force myself into putting energy into one of several projects on my list, Luke and I set out to wander through the woods out back. No trails to stay on. Luke followed his nose. Mom set out to let visual wonders lead the way. Our paths rarely drifted far from one another despite the denseness of the woods and our different interests.

Two Trees ... growing together, growing apart amidst the curves and tangles of life.

Our wandering reminded me that the Universe is designed in harmony and our dominion over the Earth is to maintain and restore that harmony. With every thought, every word, every deed we are making a contribution of harmony that supports nature on the planet or of disharmony that puts nature in the position of taking action to rebalance.  Our thoughts matter. Our words matter. How we maintain our bodies, our homes and care for our pets and our plants matter.  Even how we sleep matters.  

Accepting death as a part of the natural cycle helps us harmonize with nature and ourselves.

Harmony matters. This earth day, I’m rededicating myself to my own personal harmony, within and without. What about you?

Simple Beauty ... my version of eye candy and found in every direction.

Cheerful Journey Inward

Snowy Trail on the Journey

Let us look to Nature for guidance as our code book for everything we need to know or to understand. Gregge Tiffen (Tax Time: Are You Taxing Yourself? – April, 2007)

I saw my first meadowlark of the season (a Western Meadowlark for those birders among you) on April 1st (no joke!) and heard its song the following morning, a snowy one, on a hike to the Ziggurat. The cheerful song accompanied beautiful views in all directions: the Great Sand Dunes and Blanca Peak to the south, San Juan Mountains to the west, the Collegiate Peaks to the north, and, our home, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east.  The beautiful, vast San Luis Valley floor surrounded us on three sides.  Ah, nature.

The Great Sand Dunes and the vast San Luis Valley

This vastness is in contrast to the woods that surround us here at the Dragonfly House.  Except for a few glimpses of Crestone and Kit Carson Peaks, there’s little indication of the vastness to be seen a short walk away.  Here I see each tree, up close and personal.  I see the unique form each has taken on its journey of life. I see how shape is formed by how much light, space and moisture are available and by storms that have broken or redirected limbs.  I can gaze with contentment on a tree for a very long time, imagining its stories.

Nature speaks deeply and wisely. I wonder how deeply and wisely I’m listening.  Meadowlark reminds me to let the journey inward be a cheerful one (Ted Andrews – Animal Speak).  Much like me, meadowlark lives and stays close to the ground, home, the self.  I’m reminded to not stray too far from that which is my responsibility.

Nature reminds me that in life there is no purpose for complaint, for blame, for competition or comparison. These distractions are created by man. They separate us from our true nature and from nature herself.

I smile knowing that in my humanness I engage in such acts, even though I know that they contribute nothing to my growth or to happiness and joy. They hold no beauty, harmony or love. The smile acknowledges nature’s wisdom so much deeper than my own.  In nature I see acceptance, cooperation, and the unfolding of its blueprint as each seed falls on fertile ground.  Nature has much to teach me.

Again, I wonder how deeply and wisely I’m listening. 

Before my walk this crisp, clear morning, that was the last sentence of this week’s post. But nature held a different plan. She gently reminded me of another attribute: there is no death, no end.  Snow melts or evaporates. That’s a simple change of form. A tree ceases to add new growth and slowly rots, providing housing for many creatures before it crumbles and returns into soil. 

And, so it is with you and with me.  At some point the body ceases to function, and it changes form.  Consciousness, the soul, moves onward as well, just as it has for eons of time, if only we remembered just how long our true journey has been.

Beauty Without End. Amen!

Conspiracy Theories

Beauty in the Broken

You cannot separate yourself from the Universe, period! You just cannot do that and nothing can. That is the Law, and that is how the Law operates. The premise is that you are not different from the Universe from which you are drawn. Gregge Tiffen (The Language of a Mystic: Polarities – February, 2009)

So there. That’s that. You are the Universe. You are all its qualities. I am too, along with 7.125 billion humans scattered over the planet. In Universal terms none is greater or lesser than another. Oh to see one another through the eyes of the Universe, and then live from that perspective. I aspire, but I’m no saint. Yet my aspiration has offered up new insights this week.

The world constantly yaps that we are separate and, thus, should live in fear of one another. Some of those messages are overt and obvious. We hear them and recognize that we have a choice about whether to accept or reject. Others are more subtle and insidious. We may not even be aware that messages suggesting “that’s just the way things are” are swirling about. Hence, we don’t clearly see that we have a choice. We go along to get along. Both are messages of a system that puts power in the mundane, fame, fortune and seeks to control based on fear. And, both are erroneous.

In my quest to discover beauty in every thing last week (http://cindyreinhardt.com/blog/an-atmosphere-of-well-being), I found myself going beyond the five senses to find beauty in those ways of the world that I abhor. Yet, beauty I found.

I discovered beauty in the vast learning opportunities our chaotic world is offering moment to moment, day by day, 24/7. Perhaps the greatest learning of all is to remember that we are at the very core of our being all of the qualities of the Universe from which we can and of which we are a vital part.

•         We are beauty. Learn to BE that beauty.
•         We are harmony. Learn to BE that harmony.
•         We are abundance. Learn to BE that abundance.
•         We are peace. Learn to BE that peace.
•         We are power. Learn to BE that power.
•         We are joy. Learn to BE that joy.
•         We are light. Learn to BE that intelligence.
•         We are life. Learn to BE that life.
•         We are love. Learn to be that love.

I found beauty in unexpected places because I was making the choice to see beauty in those places. I was reminded to remember my Source and to choose THAT as my expression in the world.

Love on the Road!

And, I discovered that the qualities of Source (or the Universe, if you prefer) are inseparable from one another. Where I found beauty I found each of the others.  No matter which is the focus or the lead, when I found beauty, love, peace, joy and the others easily followed. Then, just beyond I found the gift of gratitude.

So, while some conspire to conquer and control others, the loving Universe seems to have a conspiracy of its own: granting us the opportunity and privilege to learn along with the power to make that choice.

While our individual choices may separate us from the pack, choosing to learn offers something the pack can never offer: strengthening awareness of our connection to the Source from which we came and of which we are forever a part. That learning becomes wisdom to carry with us into the great beyond. 

Last week I conspired with beauty to take the lead. This week, I’m choosing joy. What about you?

Elephant in the Woods (can you find it?)

An Atmosphere of Well-Being

It may still be winter, but the spring flow has begun!

I am what I am what I am, and I cannot do any better than that. (Gregge Tiffen – The Journey Continues: Communication with the Living – February, 2010)

We are what we are and we’re creating what we are going to be. (Patrece – undated personal communication)*

In this world where well-being seems pushed aside in favor of an agenda founded on divisiveness, fear, and use of force, I’m noticing that maintaining an attitude of well-being requires consistent awareness and adjustment.  While we are at choice about how and how much of the world we allow into our space and awareness, we are still IN this world.

As I noticed myself leaning toward overwhelm and despair (not atmospheres of well-being and not ones I would pick from the shelf at the atmosphere store), I went in search of knowledge and wisdom from others to apply in these times.

A personal communication from Patrece (www.p-systemsinc.com) from some years back (likely when I was in some other of life’s funks) reminded me that I only need “a speck of inspiration” which I can then expand upon. Of course the corollary is also true, and today there seems to be much negative that I definitely don’t want to expand upon. Indeed, I want to maintain a personal atmosphere to counter that.

Let me find positive specks of yeast to braid with the dough of life. Let THAT rise. Tapping into Universal wisdom with awareness and intention is a place to start, and Gregge Tiffen’s enumeration of the nine characteristics of the Universe provided my next ingredient. Those characteristics are:  Harmony, Peace, Beauty, Joy, Power, Life, Love, Abundance, Light (or Intelligence).

In the booklet quoted above, Gregge writes about these characteristics that “… you can apply any single one of them in totality, and the other eight will automatically be included.” Wow!  What, I wonder, might unfold if a speck of beauty was expanded and applied in its totality? What indeed does ‘in totality’ encompass?

I'm blessed to live surrounded by nature's beauty, a reminder of the beauty in all.

The possibilities seem worthy of experimentation. Aiming to focus on the beauty in everything (and every one!) seems as though it maintain the atmosphere of well-being that I know is so important for me in what seems to be a chaotic and divisive time. Might I even find beauty in the chaos that is so ugly on its surface? 

And so I begin a quest to discover and name the beauty that is in my world every day. My intention is that no thing and no one be excluded on this path.  I neither expect nor put pressure on myself to be perfect in this endeavor. I am, after all, experimenting. Who will join me on this journey?

As I begin, I’m reminded of Ray Stevens’ song Everything is Beautiful which seems a good theme song for the journey (hear it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a45z_HG3WU

*Patrece writes on behalf of P Systems, an independent 501(c-3) non-profit corporation she established in 1983. You can find her work and publications at www.p-systemsinc.com.

Mr. Handsome, beauty of the canine kind