“When you realize it's a dream you can afford to play. The same thing happens when you realize that ordinary life is a dream, just a movie, just a play. You don't become more cautious, more timid, more reserved. You start jumping up and down and doing flips, precisely because it's all a dream, it's all pure Emptiness. You don't feel less, you feel more - because you can afford to. You are no longer afraid of dying, and therefore you are not afraid of living. You become radical and wild, intense and vivid, shocking and silly. You let it all come pouring through, because it's all your dream. Life then assumes its true intensity, its vivid luminosity, its radical effervescence." — Ken Wilber
I have watched this amazing video several times. Please enjoy. 'I AM YOU' Artist: Katherine Treffinger You are Love. I am Love. I am you. Your ‘I am’ and my ‘I am’ is the same I AM. I AM is Love. I AM is consciousness. All is consciousness. Consciousness is a presence that is Love beyond love. Love is All in all. Perfect, sparkling Love. This is not a riddle. It is Absolute Truth. When I was hit over my so called head by my God experience it was a submersion in Love. I was blissed out in an infinite ocean of Love. Everything sparkled with this Love. It was laughable to think that we don’t feel safe. For many reasons this was a pivotal experience and is my point of reference as I navigate this dream. Somehow I would like to make this your reference point also. “There is absolutely nothing in this world, or anywhere else, to worry about. No matter how things may appear in your life, all is well. You are Divinity Itself, just the way you are. Now when you start to think about just the way you are, you spoil it, for you say to yourself, "How can I be Divinity? I'm this and I'm that." Who told you to think? Your thoughts will do it to you all the time. You simply remain in that moment. In that moment all is well. In that moment you are free. In that moment you are filled with joy.” The Collected Works of Robert Adams. “Just the way you are.” That is love. Nothing to do, nothing to change, no where to go, nothing to have. Just the way you are you are, perfect Divinity. Now. The Divine is Love. This Love is Omnipotent. All powerful. What that means is nothing has power over Love. Nothing. Love is Omnipresent. This means there is nowhere that Love is not. Love is Omniscient. All knowing. Love is Awareness. Love is Consciousness. Love is All. There is nothing else. You are God. You are Love. There is nowhere to go to find Divine Love. You are already that for which you may seek. You are absolutely safe. You can sit quietly and ask that Love show itself to your experience. In any given situation you can ask it to be revealed. Ask with your whole heart. No matter what anything looks like Divine Love will show you the back door. Nothing is impossible with Omniscience and the answer is never something your mind can figure out. It will just come to you. Love will answer if you surrender to it in any now. The embodiment of any impending threat is Divine Love also. It is only your task to see that God as you and God as the threat are the same. It’s a dream. In Truth there is only Love. Practice this and Love will take over your experience. Then it will become your reference point. Art by Cindy Bilotti and Katherine Treffinger in collaboration
Dream interpretation is a powerful doorway into the otherwise hidden reaches of the psyche. At some point, before discovering Non Dualism, I started perceiving life as a dream, realizing that interpretation of life circumstances was in fact, as powerful as sleeping dream interpretation. It only makes sense, for I have come to see that we are in fact living a dream, or rather Divine Consciousness is dreaming a life. In thinking about writing this, a memory came to me of a young man from Alaska that spent the night at my house on the way to his destination. I did not know him. A friend in Alaska had asked if one of the leaders of the environmental movement up there could stay with me at my home in Northern California. Of course I said yes. I was out in my backyard with him, at one point, and he was ranting about the clearcutting that was going on in Alaska. It was very disturbing but I had a more immediate concern. He was pacing back and forth in my garden with his big boots, stepping on my precious plants. I had to tell him to pace elsewhere. Now, one would ordinarily think he was just preoccupied by the atrocities that are going on. I knew better. This young man had a wound that needed addressing and it was revealing itself in his desire to fight clearcutting and his, albeit, unconscious, attempt at clearcutting my garden plants. I hate to say it, but his need to heal was helping create that which he was fighting. He needed the dream symbolism. When I say ‘helping’ create, I mean just that because there are many in the collective walking around with similar wounds. Collective wounding is big energy and it creates big mirrors. Now I am not saying this to kick anyone’s guilt into action, far from it. We are headed in the other direction. Each one of us is only one contributor to the collective energy field. However, having said that, let me add what a minister, of a church I attended long ago, would often say “you only have one consciousness that you are responsible for and that is your own, and that is a big job!” The Universe is very generous. The Universe, being Love wants a return to Love. We are all expressions of Divine Love. Most of us have forgotten. When Love is lacking in some area of one’s being the Universe gives us opportunities to heal, to make this return to Love. This is one of the beauties of this dream life; it is so filled with mirrors that are begging for us to pay attention to them. They are gifts. But until we pay attention in the correct way, they are problems, big, insurmountable problems. There are so many lovely people out there with such beautiful, heartfelt intentions creating what they see to be solutions. However, we may take care of the problem one place, but until the need for the mirror is addressed, it is the nature of the dream for it to pop up elsewhere. I'm referring to energy and energy must be expressed. I am not saying don’t help in your way to correct situations through taking action. Please continue to do so if you feel the inclination. What I am saying is look at where your finger is pointing. What is disturbing you the most? Then look inside where the other three fingers are pointing back and deal with healing that. In the long run, this is vastly more important. Stop adding to the pollution of the field. With so much going on that appears wrong we are all witnessing displays of anger, indignation, despair, fear, righteousness, etc. This is understandable but all of these feelings are at their best motivators, and at their worst contributors. Let these feelings motivate us to heal our relation to loving ourselves, as well as heal the situations. We cannot heal the situation with unhealed wounding or negative feelings. Not going to happen. The gift must be discovered before the mirror can dissolve. The mirror is most often ignored so it is getting very loud. I, therefore, suggest addressing this. The time is now. It is not going to take everybody to create a shift, but it will take a critical mass. We are all meant to be heading toward the Truth of that which we are, Love. That which is not Love is luggage we cannot carry on our journey. My way has been to ask for guidance and healing in meditation. Surrender this quest to Divine Awareness, the mind is not the point. It can't figure out what it has worked so hard to hide. Surrender and listen. Rest in the knowing that the freeing power of Love is present and wants to show us the way to Love. The mirroring is often not a direct equation. Sometimes the path to the wound is a bit circuitous but when you arrive there it is a beautiful ‘aha’ moment that can be extremely freeing/healing in itself. Once you have that moment, the grip on the negative feelings can loosen up and there is more space for forgiveness and sending positivity and love in a direction that needs it desperately. I know what I am suggesting is going to meet with resistance. Trump is an excellent example. Everything he does is a very convoluted, creepy way of calling for love. Yet here he is in this archetypal role of president that is currently the target of so much negativity/anger/hatred. Does his behavior warrant it? Yes. Does the negativity remedy anything? No. At one point, Ram Dass had a photo of George Bush on his night stand. He wanted to remember every morning and every evening that George was God being George. Ram Dass clearly did not like all that George was up to but this was his remedy. I pray every day for “my enemies”, for those who are the most powerful perpetrators of suffering. Consciously living this dream life is a paradox. We embrace and experience that which is given us, while following the call to awaken to our True nature. The apparent world is at a critical juncture. I hear the alarm ringing. Don’t you? Time to wake up. The time is Now. The window is small but it is open. Let’s lay down all that keeps us from fitting through that window. Move toward Love, move toward True Home, step into Awareness. Should you desire guidance with this please contact me for an appointment Ever since we were old enough to stand in front of a mirror the same witnessing presence has been staring into the mirror. As the years roll by the image changes and the experiences build history and the mind accrues information. The looker has remained the same. The 'I' that has experienced all of these myriad of experiences has remained the same. The 'I' that has witnessed all of the mind’s thoughts has not changed one iota from all of these thoughts. Thoughts come and go, experiences come and go, physicality comes and goes but 'I', the experiencer, the looker remains the same. Culturally we are taught to identify with the thoughts, feelings, the body, i.e. the experience, when in reality we are the experiencer, the 'I', awareness, consciousness, that which always is. A shift in focus from what is being experienced to the experiencer that is witnessing the experiences creates a paradigm shift. I was walking down the street being aware of being aware when ‘my world’ exploded into pure Love and Absolute safety. Rather than being aware of the 'things' around me I was aware of the aliveness and light that all apparent substance is made up of. That only lasted for 3 weeks but it is now my reference point. Being aware of being aware, if practiced regularly, aligns one with the Truth of one's Being, one's Divinity and takes one into a realm of silence/ peace/stillness. Life is lived intuitively, guided by the intelligence that emerges from the Silence. Living from this place naturally places one right in the present moment. In fact time drops away. Becoming identified with this 'I Am' is freedom. The world can be experiencing all kinds of tribulations but one who is practicing being Awareness is not of this world. Living in Awareness is Grace.
As some of you know a couple of years ago I had what I will call a mystical experience, a spiritual awakening of sorts. It was a huge event for me. Afterwords my life, as I knew it, slowly disintegrated, friends and clients fell away and eventually I stopped painting. My guidance told me to stop, completely, and rest and integrate. Little did I know it would last years. I can now see the benefits of this stopping. I was meditating the other day and was so absolutely still inside I was amazed. My thought was that this must be a major benefit for the health of the body. This process has had a vast effect on me. I am silent/peaceful inside, time has dropped away and I have very little relationship to my past. My past seems like a story to me now. My Awakening experience was blissful, a total experience of Love. The blissful stage lasted about 3 weeks. The process that followed was a falling away of that which did not reflect Love/self love in my life. It was tough. From what I understand it is a common experience. I am telling you all of this to give you a sense of the foundation of my offering. Today, after meditating, I realized it is time for me to begin anew.
How could I know that at the end of my period of stopping the rest of the world would be moving into their stopping? I certainly don't feel quite so alone and weird now. Haha! Anyhow, I am now available for transformational/ spiritual counseling, distance and hands on healing (when we can be near each other again. I miss hugging, don't you?!?!) and mentoring. I am sorry the hands on work is not available right now because it definitely has a new power to it. If you can think of anyone that could use my offerings please send them to my site www.ourlivingdream.com. This may sound strange, but I am made for these times. There are testimonials on the site (http://www.ourlivingdream.com/testimonials.html). These were given before the shift took place in me. My work is much clearer and stronger now and it was clear and strong before. Because I live in a remote area I was already working primarily by phone. Thank you, thank you, so very much for any assistance you can give in relaunching my work. The Great Archetype of Surrender has arrived and she is not fooling around this time. She is wielding big power. She is saying surrender or else. However, when any Archetype arrives on the scene they come bearing the truest of gifts of all, the ones that could not be delivered any other way. Surrender is a power animal of sorts. One of her gifts is to bring you back into your power and your heart. True power. True Love.
Surrender is asking us to stay in place. We fight the isolation, we want out, we want our lives back, of course. Surrender says sorry, but for the true healing and good of all we all must stop. Surrender says come with me, enter the cave of your inner Self, become friendly with you. You just might get excited by what you discover. Rest there in your cave. Resting is a luxury. We are a culture of doers. Surrender says just be. We think accomplishment, in the world, is power. Surrender laughs, she knows the strength it takes and the resulting power the act of surrender brings. Surrender asks of us to develop a new relationship to our feelings. For many of us having anxiety and fear means one of a couple of responses, fix the feelings, push them away or drown in their murky pool. Surrender wants us to be present with our feelings. Stop. Be different with them. Be with them in a way no one has ever been present with them. Ask them where they are in your body. What do they feel like there and then just be present for them. Feelings can rule our lives because we don’t stop and observe. Be present for what is going on in our collective lives and the Earth. I know it is scary because it is just too big. Look where not being present has gotten us. Listen to the Earth. Listen to your inner Being. The highest Spiritual practice is surrender. Surrender to Love, to Omniscience. Surrender to Grace. If you really deeply explore yourself through surrender you will find at the core of you is Silence and in that silence is Grace, Love and your Truest Self. Grace can handle what is taking place. We just need to surrender. Can you imagine if many of us let Surrender take us by the hand what a shift could occur? It’s already happening. Awakening is happening and Surrender rejoices.
I was taking a walk this afternoon listening to this You Tube Video. I listened to it over and over as I took in the beautiful vista that is my neighborhood. If you listen to it be prepared for the possibility of knowing yourself as you truly are.
'SONATA', oil on canvas, 48"x36" by Katherine Treffinger 2009 (sold)
Let's pretend for a moment that before we are born to this manifest reality we have to stand in a very long line to get the chance to incarnate here on the playground called Planet Earth. I mean, after all the Divine is infinite so there are most likely a lot of souls, if not an infinite amount, wanting to get here. As we are standing in line we are so excited and we are talking about what we want. Some of us are saying they want love, peace and of course money. However, others who have been around the Earth block a time or two laugh at the naivete' of this. How the heck are you going to experience the infinite diversity of experience incarnation has to offer if you live in a safe little bubble? Everybody gets excited then, they want it ALL!! So here we are, we have it all. What are we doing with it? What can we do with it? Lately in my work with others there has been a few times where my 'clients' have been addressing the 'problem' of being too busy, too distracted or too upset by all that is going on to be present. The truth is there is no such thing. This life we are leading is made up of an infinite number of Nows. Those Nows are what make up our life. If being present for this very moment is put off it is another in a long line of postponed moments that eventually make up a life. Believe me, before we know it we can have postponed being present for our entire life and we find death stalking us (and there you go, back to the end of the line!). Everything that is messed up that is happening right now is caused by reactions, greed, fear and negativity. What if we all became present with our feelings, our reactions, our greed and our tendency to point the finger? What the heck am I talking about anyhow? Be present? Being present entails calling ourselves back into the present moment. Many of our thoughts and feelings are oriented toward the future or the past. Get back to Now. Be aware of what is extremely current. Go there through the door of awareness, become aware of textures, smells, sounds, sights, emotions, busyness and, yes, thoughts. When being present with emotions, I find it helpful to ask where it is in my body and to become aware of what the emotions feel like, aware of the energy of the emotion. This is important. Feelings rule us and they are simply sensations. I know, fear has been a big issue in my life, certain feelings can be quite overwhelming, but being present with whatever feeling comes up one eventually discovers that it is quite freeing to hang out with the very sensations that want to rule us.(Remember there are souls standing in line wondering what a moment of sadness, laughter, anger, beauty, depression, joy, and yes, fear, feels like). Just be a witnessing presence, because that, in fact, is what you are. In doing this we embrace the richness and diversity of this human experience. All of it. Experience it all! Now, once you practice this for a while and get the drift of it and you want to get really yummy with life, step one more step back and become the awareness that is aware of this human who is aware. This takes one to a sense of Oneness, Peace, Stillness, Love and Happiness. You see, we have been going about it all wrong. We think our happiness is around the corner, up ahead, when in fact it is in dropping back into ourselves as we abide the present moment that we attain the very things that drive us. |
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