More Dark Night Musings

During the Dark Night of the Soul, I had breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough until I realized "it's just another breakthrough and who knows when this will all end". It's a process of mysterious dimensions through which knowledge has no impact or value.

Once we have 'EVERYTHING (we know)' burned off of our existence (a painful reality to feel illusions of love seared from one's spirit nerves), then and only then do we have a chance to release from the Chrysalis organically.

This is a condensed version of what it's like to birth the death of this world and live in the reality of Love. Rumi understood this when he offered to meet you in that Sacred Space beyond duality. Jesus raised from the dead to release the damned from hell (CS Lewis said the gates of hell are only opened from the inside, so Jesus went there and opened the gate). Buddha exited the comfort of his castle and worldly wealth to find himself and found the Flower of Life to which Jesus alluded when he said Solomon in all his glory didn't compare to the simple grandeur of The Lily of the Valley. That is, Buddha, is attributed to saying (falsely, I might add) that 'if a person were to see a single flower clearly, it would change their life.'

In some circles, they say, "KISS," Keep It Simple Stupid. I always considered the "Stupid" part as condescending and irrelevant, so my ego changed it to "Silly" or whatever popped into my head that started with an "S". It takes ego to know ego. The truth seems to be that God talks to us all differently, hoping we'll tell each other.

Beating people with the truth is cruelty, which proves there was/is/will be no truth in force. Forcing solutions can only break the breaker, and out of this wreckage of 'this truth' grows whom we have always been, which is good enough. Therefore, every mistake is useful.

When I died in prison and came back of my own free will, something had shifted in the spiritual life as I experienced it. Things of this world mattered little. But deeper growth and pain was still to be experienced years later, bringing me to a deeper understanding of who we are. In Lakesh.

Forgive Everything

A universal truth. A person is as happy as they make up their minds to be. I forgave my abuser and it freed me. Holding myself hostage in anger was keeping me sick. He was not even paying rent to be in my mind, so I evicted him (even if he paid rent, I'm no prostitute anymore, so nursing the pain is not an option). Taking our power back and hanging up the blamethrower ain't always easy, but it's worth it.

Grief as Praise

I don't believe this statement about being scared about being forgotten or missed us when we're gone. My ex-wife told me that if I died tomorrow, none of my AA friends would know or care. But would I want my friends to forget me or not?

Yesterday, I was watching The Alaskan Bush People. Ami, the Matriarch of the family, was sick and in physical pain. She flew to California for testing, and doctors found growth in her lungs they suspected was cancer. Ami was crying, and her hubby and family were sad yet trying to comfort her. She was crying and couldn't stop. Ami said she didn't know why she couldn't stop, but her hesitation before and after saying it, her looking at her hubby, and my intuition reflected that she knew exactly why she was crying but didn't want to say why. I think she was crying because she didn't want those who loved her to experience the pain she knew of a certainty they would endure. She was not crying for herself, in other words, but for others.

If I died tomorrow and nobody knew it, perhaps that would be a kind and good thing for those who love me. But on the other hand, I wanted to be at the Memorial Celebration of my Sponsor who passed, but I didn’t know she passed until reading a Facebook comment after the fact. I knew ‘in the Spirit’ she was leaving Earth School, for I had a Vision to this end, which ameliorated my grief.

Grief is Praise!

Grief is evidence of love, for we cannot grieve that which we never loved. We also can’t rob someone of their High Opportunities to grieve in life. So I hope you will laugh and cry, both remember and forget in balance, bringing to mind the good and forgive the mistakes we learned at a price. When we forgive ourselves, there is nothing but sweet loving acceptance in all of its brilliant brushstrokes of experience.

Treatment Victim Mentality & Recovery

Treatment is a place where we pay money to find out recovery is free. I worked at Hazelden and other places helping late-stage chronic inebriates, alcoholics/drug addicts, stay alive and maybe even recover (if they have the 'capacity to be honest'). Therefore, I am NOT saying treatment centers are bad. They are good. I've noticed people with negative attitudes blame others for their unhappiness when in reality they are their own problem. A person is as happy as they make up their minds to be. SPIRITUAL IMMATURITY is responsible for most anger in this world and I've noticed Minnesotans are notorious for passive-aggressive perspectives and behaviors. To evolve past these issues, we (yes, we, WE and I included...WE live in this world TOGETHER and need one another to rise to our highest potential). FORGIVE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING. Hanging up the Blamethrower is never easy, but it's worth it.  St. Francis of Assissi had it right.

Before We "Knew" It

Before we could form words through our mouths, we could successfully navigate the freeways of laughter.  If you have forgotten what it means to be alive, the evidence is in the laughter.  If you don't laugh anymore, it might mean you're overthinking everything, that you have quit truly living.  QUIT THINKING!  Surrender every thought, your entire will, and life, to the wordless meaning for laughter that is innate to every living human on Earth School. Forget everything you THINK/KNOW and roll with the flow of surrender, of trust, in the truth that your entire life is governed and created by this innate choice.   

OK, that's annoying.  I worked on this Blog for 30-minutes and lost most of it after publishing it.  Laugh to keep from crying?  Ironic.  LOL!

Candor without Compassion is Cruelty

Nuf Said...say what you mean, mean what you say, but don't say it mean. Anger kills everything worth having.  Repetition is the mother of all learning.

Where Light is Born

Allow everything to cultivate the light of perfection.

Loving Comparisons

My letting others love me as they are is my loving them as they are. It is the first cousin to loving myself as I am. Even people deeply in love, totally committed, never love equally one day to the next. One day I love more than the next or prior, and then the tables turn and I am loved more or less, day to day. It ain't a contest.   Comparisons that don't end in paradox tear people apart. Paradox ends in surrender to the noncontrolling nature.  Making the comfortable uncomfortable and vice-versa, yields to being honest, open and willing to embrace the unknown. No one learns from what they already know. Learning is always on the edge of mystery.  The purest learning occurs in a vacuum free of preconceptions.

Problems Fed by Solutions & the Mistaken Identity

There's no such thing as reality, there's only perception. Einstein believed the mind that created the problem could not free itself. but I believe that in the Surrendered life, if God allows it, then it serves a Higher Purpose. If I pray, for example, for God to remove my defects of character, but they remain, then the defects serve a Higher Purpose.  What I call a defect is, therefore, a mistaken identity.  

Sartre being a lover of paradox, said we are condemned to freedom. The irony of the non-paradoxical Problem/Solution matrix is that a solution requires the presence of a problem to solve. It's akin to forgiveness needing the presence of an offense to forgive. Corrie Ten Boom said we should forgive regardless of the temperature of our hearts.

The Dark Night of the Soul free one of the idea that idea matters. In the controlling mind, I'm in charge of what I say, you're in charge of what you hear; to the Surrendered heart and mind, it's all the same (an echo of divinity both in sender/receiver).

Dark Night Storm:  The cool thing is that after our lives blown up into little convoluted, chaotic pieces, all swirling in the tornado of deconstruction, when the storm passes and the pieces of US all descend in perfect, divine order, we come to believe that Beautiful Mystery can be trusted. Trust rises above the Age of Reason of the Problem/Solution dance.

The convenient thing about Dualistic Thinking is if it continues long enough, it eventually brings one from the bridge of reason to the shore of faith and trust. Perceived truth might set us free, but it also might piss us off first.  Freed Perception arises like the Phoenix.  How many times should we forgive others for their transgressions?  Seven times?  No, 7 X 70, Christ said.  But if we forgive ourselves both before and after the imagined offense, we return to the Garden of Eden and the snake of ego leaves the Vine.  There's more truth in a question than in an answer.

We Are All Criminals

http://www.redesign.weareallcriminals.org/communications-manager/

I Didn't Mean to Hurt Someone

The Alcoholic that was in my life drank herself to death. I had exited the relationship before she passed, as I felt directed to do so by my Higher Power.  

But before I ended the relationship, my Sponsor said she was holding onto the bottle, and it was pulling her down to drown in the abyss, and further said I was holding onto her 'to save her,' but that I too would drown if I did not let go of her.

Let Go and let God. If the person gets sober because of us, they'll never take accountability of their lives. A person cannot realize the meaning of Step One without experiencing Powerlessness. If we throw pillows under the alcoholic to keep them from falling too hard...WE KILL THEM. They have to hit concrete, unfortunately.

Powerlessness leads one to believe beyond the illusions that didn't work. Powerlessness clears denial.

We have to work our program. If a plane is going down, first take your oxygen mask and then pray for the next right thing to occur. If the prayer is answered, then take action. There is One who has ALL power...so ‘keep your prayers on’.  I would rather leave the house with no clothes on than without my prayers on.

This Too Shall Pass. Take care of 'you' so you'll be strong enough to provide service work from a place of wellness, rather than from pure grief or shock.

Euphoric Recall happens when we feel the love for the addict/alcoholic, but guess what? Love itself doesn't go far enough. The number One killer of children, for example, that dies in drunk driving tragedies, die at the hands of the one that loves them most (the parent drunk driver). Love doesn't save the children; loving ACTION does.

If you are healthy, you will not in a way that jeopardizes others.  "I didn't mean to hurt someone" is childish. You have to live ON PURPOSE.  If you love someone, you will not harm them on purpose.  If you love yourself, you will not place yourself in harm's way, either.  You have to mean NOT to harm someone or yourself, and consciousness is the essential condition leading to this end.

Quit walking through life with sharp edges.  File off the sharp edges, Live and Let Live.  For me, Love is my Religion, and Action is my Gospel.

Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

When I was speaking for MADD on Saturday, a group of Veteran Bikers had a shindig at the Crowne Plaza. Someone told me after I spoke that they had "Nazi Paraphernalia" set up on the tables. I was honestly skeptical that a reputable hotel would allow such a thing, so instead of my staying clear from fear or anger based on his statement, I went to see for myself.

Sho'nuf, I carefully inspected each table of displayed items for sale and saw nary a swastika, or anything remotely related to Nazism. These were simply Vet Bikers as far as I could tell. They were respectful in their dialog, and while they looked a bit rough around the edges for the lily-white suburbanite who called them Nazis, these folks actually reminded me of some of us AA folks. Although we AA's don't always present the Norman Rockwell prototype of an American, most of us are pretty committed to making our world a safer place to live in.

The Nameless Poem

God, I notice I write a lot of poems with the word
God
in them.
Why do I do that?
Am I obsessed with unconditional love?
Am a needing the crutch of trust called beautiful surrender?
Am I so vagrant in my own answers, 
that my questions seem rich in Higher Coincidence?
~Maybe~
I get tired about talking of God in poetry,
because...words never say anything, anyway, about God.
How can a human be definitive about genius?
Is not genius comparative?
Is a genius a genius to oneself?
Can an idiot know genius?
That's ego.
EGO...Edging God Out.
Breaking the addiction to judgement...
cease eating from the tree of the knowledge of Good & Evil.
Don't worry, be happy.
That's Godly.
That's why I write about
God.

Fallacious: "That which does not kill us ​​​​​​​makes us stronger.”

Since Friedrich Nietzsche evidently had to wait until death to know if his belief was accurate or not, he can't exactly weigh in on the proposition now. But there have been a lot of people talking about life after death experiences who can weigh in, Dannion Brinkley being one of them.

I suspect it is true that that which kill us, also makes us stronger.

Life on Earth School is one small piece of eternity, one wave in-between many waves of the Great Continuum.  

Earning Trust

I know not everyone is into the God Stuff nor the Steps of Alcoholics’ Anonymous/Al-Anon, but I ask you indulge your patience.  Here you go:  LET GO, LET GOD, TRUST, SURRENDER. 

I don't have to trust people, nor need anyone "earn" my trust.  Taking my power back is to trust my Higher Power.  In other words, we intuitively know things which used to baffle us.  Trust of people, places, and things comes from this choice.  But a person can earn my distrust, not because distrust is right, but because I fall short of the ideal.  While Christ taught that we are to forgive 7 x 70 (490), he also said: "Cast not your pearls before the swine". 

The inconsistency that distrust offers is that the messages God allows through circumstances are missed.  Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is an apt description of what it means to see the Messages in EVERYTHING.  Even in my own shortcomings, am I going to call myself a 'swine' and distrust myself and therefore distrust God?  That is not to say I am The Almighty. 

Consider Step Six, which reads that we were completely ready to let God remove ALL of our defects of character.  If I have asked God to remove my defects and I still have them, then I trust that they serve a Higher Purpose.  Every day, I ask God to direct my thoughts, and then trust that my thoughts, even the mistaken ones, are covered. 

If a weed comes up in the Garden of Surrender, if we are smart, we won’t allow it to take root.  Instead, pull it, and trust the work of bending over at the very least worked a muscle. Or maybe paying attention to the weed/defect made you notice a bug crawling through the soil that had sunlight reflect from its shell in such a way that it caused you to sit still for a moment and bask in the of beauty beyond the idea of wrongness. 

If there is only One God, One Righteous Judge, then even while one might be doing the WHY ME thing (we all do that from time to time, I think), you can also do the, THY will be done THING.  'Why have you forsaken me' is an idea of utter powerlessness that we should celebrate. 

Celebrate every drunk, every relapse, every insult, every transgression, every moment of life, no matter how painful it might be.  Celebrate, forgive, live with your God Filters on, TRUSTING that experiencing powerlessness is the gateway to the rest of the Steps. 

The FULL Serenity Prayer has some dimensions worthy of contemplation, as does the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.   If St. Francis was full of love and light, why would he need to forgive?  If we are already full of serenity, why would we need a Serenity Prayer?  Acceptance of this dualism is not to support it, but to help us let go of the Monkey Mind Syndrome which focuses on the illusion that anything can be wrong in our lives.  If God allows it, it serves a purpose.  If there is a Satan, this fact above all must piss him off the most, that no matter what he does, a miracle grows from a place deeper than the illusion. 

Paul in the Bible asked why he does the thing he would not do, and grieved.  When I wanna do it the least is when I need to do it the most.  Paul let the grief become his personal wall of hell, but had he LOVED his defects, they would have grown weaker.  Hating out shortcomings keeps them strong.  Recognizing a shortcoming and loving it anyway opens the door to spiritual growth.  Celebrate the offense, forgive it.  The forgiveness is more powerful than the offense that required its forgiving.

Strength through vulnerability.  Tears are Holy Water.  Sun shines through the rain.

I Feel, Therefore, I Think I Am (Sentio Cogito Ergo Sum)

Two poems changed my life: The More Loving One, by W.H. Auden, and Since Feeling is First (SFIF), by ee cummings.

SFIF fits 'Sentio Cogito Ergo Sum' perfectly; it feeds & leads my consciousness accordingly.

"Cogito ergo sum, "I think, therefore, I am" penned by René Descartes, doesn't go far enough. Closer to the truth is: 'dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum' ("I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am" - Antoine Léonard Thomas).

Doubt is only 50% closer to the truth at best, because doubt CAN come from intuition, but it can come from fear, too. Fear & Intuition are both feelings, but one is based on illusion and the other, from the Interior Castle of Discernment (for me).

Sentio CogitoErgo Sum exists before physical birth and we take it with us when we go. WE KNOW IN OUR HEARTS which way to go if we learn to listen in surrender. This existence precedes the words, at best an echo of the Divine, that I write at this time. Follow the White Rabbit! There is no spoon.

Continue...ummmmmm? Egopocrisy: I'm Spiritual, Not Anti-religious.

The evolution of words and the wordlessness that create them are not 'at ease, soldier' nor in conflict. The phrase Screw Guilt fell out of favor and the new guilt is Shame. Definitions shift. People get divorced. The party of Lincoln used to be liberal and is now conservative.

The Patriarchy evolved from Matriarchy and vice-versa. Dualism is a not so fun little game that the masculine imposes on the feminine. Outside-in (masculine) rules and inside-out (feminine) rules. There is no outside or inside of God for God is eternal, as is everything Created. Love is therefore without beginning or end, unconditional, as well (God never changes and God is Love).

Change is an illusion and Satan can only point from a thing that does not exist to a thing that does not exist: Dualism. Ritual serves a purpose, yes, but it's still perception as to which way the circle rotates in its scientific or religious (rigid) course of, "This is how we have always done it" Ancient Origins stuff, is spiritual. If after all of our thinking is done, if we have not arrived at paradox, we've not arrived at the balance of truth.

We are the Placebo and the inner observer sees paradoxically from both in/out at the same time. I should probably work harder to explain this, but since impatience is the religion of the American Psyche, why bother? I, too, am cool with not knowing. It's easier than knowing and living in the questions is fun and free. Answers are containers that murder questions before they get out of the box, kind of like mass media keeping the hoards under control of the illusion. But nothing is wasted, so it's all nothing.

There is a field in between rightdoing and wrongdoing, said Rumi. We can't meet where we already are until the head gets smacked and SATORI!

Militant Atheists need a God to not believe in and Religionists needs a Satan to protect Adherents from.  I only hope to confront the false appearance of virtue or goodness, while concealing real character or inclinations in the phrase, "I'm spiritual, not religious" (btw, I've said it, but now see it as folly). Everyday hypocrisy or maybe better stated, Egopocrisy. I'm OK with both words (spiritual/religious=same thing).

Words mean nothing. Who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly love you. I would rather live a poem than write one, but when they merge, it's beyond words. Living the poem is writing it upon the tablet of one's heart. Separation Consciousness is the hell of creationism. Unity is heaven. One person's hell is another's heaven. Higher Power is a Flying Cloud swirling beneath my feet.

Rename Your Pain?

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Rename your pain. Love it. See what happens. We all need love, right? If you're going to feed the Dark Side, feed it Love. See its Beauty. Your life belongs to God, not you, though we have the choice to think otherwise. There's no such thing as reality; there's only perception.

'You can run, but you can't hide' from yourself. Looking on history as I do, I pause to believe that only a few Great Souls knew what they were doing, as they were so connected to Spirit that they could raise up others.  Most of us, maybe none of us, know what the F we are doing, but we still make choices in the midst of mystery. I've come to believe that MYSTERY is a beautiful place because it allows for complete Trust.

Goethe pointed out that the most secure prison is the one we create for ourselves and don't know we are in.  For me, prisons were my Monastery.   I saw miracles both there and in the so-called Free World. I've heard credible reports that miracles occur for both rich and poor, the free and the slave, for every race of human and for animals.  It is written, in the Household of Christ, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female..."  No one gets to be special or degraded; all distinctions are done away, as either helping or hindering.  But freeing one's mind from the addiction to judgment of others or self is tricky.  But I say, SCREW GUILT.  FORGIVE EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING.

Choice never changes. Choices seem limited to the limited mind, only. Emily Dickinson said, "Dwell in possibility." I doubt her life was a bed of roses and if it was, maybe she was allergic to roses.

"I was framed" is a song many prisoners sing after pleading guilty to an offense.  It's not a useless victim mentality, for everything, including our bad choices, is part of our sacred path.  We have all fallen short of what we want to do or be.  Any idea that ends with a question mark reveals the true essence of freedom for growth.  What has happened to us in life matters not so much as what we do with it, right?  

"One Thing We Can All Agree On" Blog Radio Interview

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-v6ykc-6a537c#.WQklF0AN3fw.facebook

I have not listened to this interview yet from "The One Thing We Can Agree On" yet, by Interviewer Anne Carlson, and am nervous to do so. We covered a lot of ground and discussed some events I've never revealed in an interview before.

While I don't personally feel like I was broken by the system (that which does not kill us makes us stronger), living through it was certainly a heartbreaking experience.

To see what humans are capable of doing astounded me in prison, and I remember frequently wondering why God allowed me to learn about the darker traits of humanity, especially of those running the system. I sensed there was some deeper reason for my discoveries. I knew inmates were sick and expected it, but I never guessed the staff was as sick if not sicker than prisoners. In my limited mind, law enforcement and correctional staff were 'supposed to know better.' At the end of the day, we are all just human.  We all need love and compassion to transcend our pain. A lack of forgiveness does nothing but keep us stuck in selfish rage or self-pity.

There's some good in the worst of us and some ‘bad in the best’ of us; paradoxically, many of us "settle" for good. But, the good is often the enemy of the best, the lesser of two evils. Chew on that truth for a while.

Today, I realize that 'in God's Economy, nothing is wasted.' I feel like the Universe surrounded me with protection in those darkest hours.  I was never truly alone, even though I sometimes felt like I was. Now I use these stories to generate forgiveness and bring deeper love to our world. Together we can heal this mess we've created, and it's imperative we get busy in the business of love before it's too late. No excuses..."LOVE ONE ANOTHER".  Remember, the road to hell is paved with Principled Apathy.