Sunday, December 16, 2012

Things to be willing to say

At Holy Spirit Night, we recently started a series of sentences to be willing to say. For some of us, dwelling with these sentences has become a daily discipline. Feel free to add or, within limits, to rewrite. This set is sufficient.  Each sentence has a we version and an I version.  You can say either or both of these versions.


Things to be willing to say

We have everything we need.
I have everything I need to be in heaven at every moment and to make of this life a heaven on earth.

The healing power of will holds all we need.
The healing power of will holds all I need or could need.
I am willing to learn and to master right use of will.

We will heal will.
I AM right use of healing power of will.

We are willing to work.
I am willing to work to make of this life a heaven on earth.  Work is love, freedom and joy.  Nothing else will work.

We are happy to leave hell.
Any moment I stay in hell I am actively using will to stay in hell.  To be in hell is to mis-use the healing power of will. I am happy to see where I have been mis-using the healing power of will.  I am happy to leave hell.  I am happy to live in Heaven.   

We are happy to speak each day.
I am happy each and every day to find new ways to leave hell and live in Heaven.  I am happy to speak these words each day.  I am happy to speak these words as a union of aspects of will that have seemed disjoint and uneasy: Self, Others, World, God.

We ask for and receive help.
Unlimited help is available at this moment now to assist me in mastering right use of will to leave hell and live in Heaven.  I reach out to ask for help from Human, Nature, and Spirit.  I receive help by getting to work to make help real.

Amen.

-----------------------------


Saturday, March 31, 2012

Holy Spirit Night

I love Holy Spirit Night. 

Holy Spirit Night is a time once each week when we gather together to let the spirit speak to us and through as and for us and with us.  These days, it happens on Thursdays in Newton, MA.

It has become a foundation rock for those who are participating. For me, it has become a key time for receiving deep new insight about what is happening in the Research Laboratory of My Life.  It is a time I ask questions and receive answers. And the answers I receive are of highest quality and timeliness. This is a gift.

Be the gift you want to see.

Creating sacred space is what opens the door to Holy Spirit Night. 

The Holy Spirit is always present, in every aspect of every day. The more we can open our ears and our hearts to that Spirit, to the Voice for God in our daily lives, the more our lives will turn towards love, justice, freedom, joy, and peace. The Spirit I speak of is nothing other than the Voice of those Qualities. This voice is always speaking.

Yet we do not always choose to listen.  So Holy Spirit Night begins with our declaration that we are setting aside a time and place for that Voice to be more actively present, to be alive in our midst.

All under the auspices, guidance, direction, and support of the Holy Spirit...

These are the words with which we begin. They are sufficient.

Yet we continue to invoke the presence of Spirit until it is palpable, touchable, here with us. Very often we play music that praises and invokes the presence of Spirit and our trust of that spirit. One of our favorites is a CD called “Come Holy Spirit” that we play at high volume (through the new speakers recently acquired as part of embracing this part of Holy Spirit Night).

Come Holy Spirit great giver of life
Flow through this temple great river of life.

Praise raises our vibration to a level where we can be more fully aware of what is always in our midst. God nor Spirit needs our praise. We need to praise. We need to speak that which speaks us; to uphold that which upholds us; to claim that which claims us; to love that which loves us. As we open our hearts to gratitude and welcome and praise, we also open to truth and trust and pain and joy.

Praise equals safety. We create safe space. Spirit reminds us that nothing real can ever be threatened. Our unshakeable reality is established by our Creator, not by what we see around us. Praise reminds us that there is always much to praise. We are grateful that there is always much to be grateful for.

Besides invocation and praise, there may be other actions or statements to help create the palpable presence of safety and of spirit
  • we have at times lit sage to smudge each other or the room
  • we have at times told stories of some present painful circumstance to bring it enough present that we can let it go and trust spirit to attend to it during the session
  • we have called in other Angelic helpers or invoked the presence of the Archangels
  • we have at times established an official Coning structure to do our work in, though that often comes later once the nature of the night’s questions and responses have been established
  • we often go around the room and let each person say a prayer or a word of celebration or remembrance. (“Holy Hallelujah” is one of my favorites.)
  • we have at times chanted, “Om” or other holy phrases, or taken deep breaths together, or said together a psalm of confidence and thanksgiving
  • or I suppose there may be times when we will need to say together a psalm of lamentation and even despair
  • whatever it takes to be full of spirit, abiding in the spirit, inspired, together.

 Then the three ritual questions.  
  • Who is here for Holy Spirit Night tonight?
  • What garden do you bring to Holy Spirit Night tonight?
  • What specific aspect of this garden do you bring to Holy Spirit Night tonight?
We go around the circle for each question, letting each person present respond.

There is no limit to what counts as a garden for Holy Spirit Night. There is no limit to what aspect of that garden can be brought.

It helps if the “garden” is one you are actively “gardening” at the time you bring it. Hypothetical gardens and the gardens we wish we had but that we do not actively spend time gardening are less tasty and less rewarding than the gardens in which we actually spend our lives. Work. Family. Health. Finances. Self. Your real life.  Sometimes people have a prejudice or belief that Spirit can only consult on “things of the spirit”. Nothing could possibly be less true or less helpful. The “things of the spirit” and the “things of your life” are one.  Bring your real life the way you actually live it.

What you bring could be a question you have that is troubling you; a setback that you would like help troubleshooting; something new you are starting that you would like help preparing the ground for. It can and will have aspects that are physical, but also emotional, mental, and even spiritual. Any good question will include all of these at some level. These are similar to the questions one would bring to a soil-less garden troubleshooting Coning. That is no accident.

The Holy Spirit is not separate from Nature, just as He/ She/ It is not separate from Humanity. The definition, the essence of Holy Spirit is that it is the Voice that speaks for Connection.
All is connected; all is one; all is here; all is now.
All I am is connected; all I am is one; all I am is here; all I am is now.
All I AM is connected; All I AM is one; All I AM is here; All I AM is now.
Remember that “I AM” is the name of God. The Holy Spirit is our name for that which speaks for Human, Nature, Spirit, that which is beyond Spirit, and for the eternal marriage of all.

My own rule of thumb is to bring the questions that are rooted in the day to day but go beyond the day to day. Day to day work issues I can bring to a soil-less garden Coning at work. Day to day health concerns I can bring to a MAP Coning or to a session with the Perelandra Essences.

Every time I just sit still for Holy Spirit Night, there is some topic, some question, some concern that is there, it arises.  There is no right question. There is no wrong question. There is only the question I ask. The wisdom of spirit is abundant and shines on all alike.

During these three ritual questions we occasionally pause to request clarification about the responses.  Do you mean A or B?  C or D?  E or F? As in a Coning, the Human must provide definition, direction, and purpose.  A vague set of responses to the three ritual questions can provide only vague results.   To the other humans present, even the responses to the questions that are “ready to go” might still seem overly abstract or too intensely personal to be helpful.  Yet Nature and Spirit can be our guide. Responses that  “work” for one person might not work for another.  The key is that the Human has declared himself.  She has set a direction.  He is in motion.  Then Nature, the White Brotherhood and whatever wisdom has assembled for Holy Spirit Night (always under the auspices, guidance, direction, and support of the Holy Spirit) has the room to go to work.

Several times recently one of us has participated from a distance, present in Spirit. When we pause to ask who is present for Holy Spirit Night tonight, someone will say, “Our friend V is present for Holy Spirit Night tonight.” And we will tune in and speak what we receive about what garden he is bringing and what aspect of that garden he wants help with. There are no limits in what is possible for spirit to accomplish.

Once sacred space has been established and the questions and responses for the evening have been spoken, the Holy Spirit can go to work. Often there is a Coning at this point, if there has not been one before. Often it is a health based coning such as the “Group MAP shape” where each person’s MAP team is fully present for that person.

“Shaped Conings” are not part of the classic Perelandra approach. For example, the Co-Creative White Brotherhood  Medical Assistance Program (MAP) book would recommend that when you do a MAP session you do it alone without another MAP session going on right next to you. That is true. But part of my research has been to ask spirit for energetic structures that can pool and attune the energy of many people and many tribes working together. And since any such work is likely to stir up health issues, one of the first “shapes” the Research Team suggested I consider is this Group MAP shape. The shared work of the group goes on in the “center” of the structure, while personalized health work is going on simultaneously for each participant.

There is also often a short or long time, in silence or in talking, for energetic rearrangement. The feeling is of giant blocks being moved from one place to another, or of sudden acceleration to a new course heading, or of the falling away into nothingness of giant impediments to what has been requested (the castle walls come crashing down). I have had all of these experiences during normal Conings. During Holy Spirit Night, I often feel it  more. The changes and rearrangements that occur always seem grounded in and inspired by the responses that were given to the three ritual questions.

I guess the most important thing about Holy Spirit Night is that we all are practicing being willing to hear with ears of spirit, to speak with tongue of spirit, to act with hands of spirit, and to walk with feet of Spirit. We do our best to follow what we hear. Every night is different because we listen, and what spirit tells us every night is different.

So far, two of us do most of the outright channeling - speaking the words of spirit that are present to be spoken. Yet all who are present are also practicing.  At any given moment, one person seems to carry the anointing of Spirit.   That person is “it” in the Holy Spirit game.  That person does their best to hear what there is to hear and say what there is to say. Somehow we can all hear or sense when the shift happens so that another person is “it”.

So far, it is rare for the outpouring of spirit to be on all of us at the same time, to have all of us speaking through spirit at the same time.  Speaking in tongues and dancing in the light of God are certainly possible (and even expected, eventually, in gatherings of this kind). I receive that this may be coming as we raise our energy higher.
                                                  

Here is a comment from one of our regular participants:


I feel called to be at Holy Spirit Night. It feels like home. I wake up from the dream, the trance of separation and suffering. I have a sense of relief, release, possibility, connectedness, oneness, partnership. Holy Spirit Night is a reminder of the one true reality that I keep forgetting. One being, one heart, one light, one spacious mind, the evolution of consciousness. It is a communion and union. It is always surprising and yet paradoxically familiar, reassuring. It is a gift to share this with my closest partner in life. It is a gift to be with each of you consciously under the auspices of the Holy Spirit.