An open letter to Barack Obama, by Alice Walker, a great woman of our time (quick bio below).

It is a beautiful piece that invites us all to not just do our automatic non-considering thing of rushing and filling each minute to make a decision, take action, fix a problem, fulfill a promise. Just like a woman, she invites a more reflective, more open and balanced place from which to take on the world’s issues. To be grounded, centered, at peace when meeting the many faces of conflict, anger and fear. To be healthy in mind and body, whole in heart, clear and steady in spirit. To know who you can tap your joy and hope with while walking the perilous journey ahead. How just like a woman. And thank Goodness and Grace for it!

Nov. 5, 2008
Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear.

And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance.

A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate.

One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, “hate the sin, but love the sinner.” There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people’s spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to “work with the enemy” internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies.

And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alice Malsenior Walker (born February 9, 1944) is an American author, self-declared feminist and womanist - the latter a term she herself coined to make special distinction for the experiences of women of color. She has written at length on issues of race and gender, and is most famous for the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

I am sitting in my home office in Half Moon Bay, California right now.  I look over at my ‘Change We Need’ sign, my ‘Obama Pride button’ and my ‘Half Moon Bay Gay Weddings’ postcards that are sitting on my desk.

I came back on a flight from Las Vegas where I had been working tirelessly with thousands of others to deliver the vote for Barack Obama in Nevada. Our last stop after our get-out-the-vote efforts at 6:30 a.m. election day was to check our polling place to make sure every person was able to vote and that there were no problems.  There were no lines and no problems, primarily because nearly half of the voting population in Nevada had voted early.

Earlier that day, when I was canvassing through some apartments in a less resourced part of town, I was greeted at the door by a Vietnam veteran who had lost part of his hand, was deeply scared and used a wheelchair.  I smiled at him in my pink t-shirt that sported a picture of Obama in dark sunglasses and the words “mission possible” across my chest.  I told him we wanted to make sure every Barack supporter is identified and makes it to the polls tonight.

At first he didn’t want to tell me who he was voting for… but I offered him a ride, to the polls, anyway, and his eyes filled up with tears, “This is the first time I am voting since I came back from Vietnam. As a matter of fact it’s the first time I’ve registered.”  At the polls he rolled up his wheel chair to the booth and placed his wounded hand for Barack Obama for president.

This was a highlight of the four days we spent knocking on door after door (sometimes repeatedly, three different times).  We met some hostility but we mostly met kindness and best wishes and even cheers as we walked up and down the streets with our clipboards.  We were blessed to attend a rally with Barack Obama and to stand directly behind Michele Obama when she addressed a college campus on election eve.  We have a beautiful picture of Jane in a warm embrace with Michele after her remarks.

In our hotel room I sat with my beautiful wife Jane, my best friend Julie and our new friend Lisa.  We cried together in joy when the news declared Obama president-elect.  We screamed when we saw that he had won Nevada handily.  We were moved when John McCain, said the words ‘he has prevailed… and the American people have spoken, clearly’ and we sat in awe of seeing the new first family walk onto the stage.  Finally, the dream is in action in the world.  A man has been judged by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin.

We arrived at the party for campaign workers at the Rio, right off the Las Vegas strip.  We were greeted by mobs of Obama supporters yelling, cheering, dancing, and chanting.  Strangers stopped to embrace us, give us high fives, and we smiled with each other from head to toe.  There were thousands of people at this hotel and they filled more than one convention ball room.  A French newspaper reporter asked to take a picture of my friend Julie and I and he said that over 70% of the people in France support Obama.

In the hallway a young man holds a sign that says “No on Proposition 8″ - he starts the cheer defiantly but there is a sadness and a rage as he knows and we all know that for a moment it appears justice and equality have been obstructed.  The people who placed a proposition on the ballot which would make our state constitution a tool of discrimination for homosexual couples believed they were doing good.  The people who said NO to this proposition to amend the constitution believed they were doing good.  Each ‘side’ was seeking their good. One to include and one to exclude.  I was sad that exclusion prevailed in this moment. I was sad that religious beliefs had crept into a document intended to protect citizens from the tyranny of the majority.  I was sad that I had helped elect a president but hadn’t done enough to protect my legal marriage to Jane.

This is where the opportunity for right contemplation comes in. If I focus on what is good, I look for where peace, joy, light, love and truth have demonstrated.  I saw good in all the faces of the people all around the country who believe and are willing to do their part to contribute to a better world, working with an enlightened leader.  I saw people who might never have spoken to each other working together and making calls to oppose amending our state constitution to leave some of us out of its rights and privileges. I saw a lot of love and joy and light and truth and dedication to peace among us.  This is where I will focus.

Does it mean I won’t do something to respond to this constitutional amendment? No, it doesn’t. I will take inspired action and I know it will have a positive demonstration.  There is a human, legal response to what has happened. I will support this response.

There is a spiritual response to what has happened and that is to see the truth.  Freedom is part of who we are; we are free in Spirit because it knows no bounds.  Being made of the same stuff as the moon and the stars, nothing can separate us from God, our good.  No matter what human law says, I am free completely.  This inner freedom is what I contemplate now and I have no doubt that as each of us knows this inner freedom, knows the truth of who and what we are, it must be made manifest in the world.

Barack Obama did his inner work.  Today he is, in effect, the leader of the free world. He knew this about himself before we ever called him forward to take his place.  We must know this about ourselves — that we are perfect, whole, complete and free and the world will be better for this.

Love, Christie

A brief reflection and invitation– pass the content on as you see fit– let’s just start taking down the signs and leaning over the fences!

Friday afternoon (Halloween) I was standing on a street corner with about 15 other Obama supporters on each side of the stop light in Freeland watching the reaction of people driving by. Many smiles, some frowns, the occasional down-thumb. And then a big guy on a big motorcycle came by, very slowly passing right in front of us  shouting obscenities about the “f-king liberals” and the ruination of his America. It was quite a verbal assault, finished by a roar of his bike pipes and off he went.

It made me think, again, we have to stop this raging at each other. It seems to me that those on the right feel a sense of entitlement to rage, to lashing out when threatened–and I am sure there are those on the left who do the same. And all it does is widen the divide and increase fear.

Walking back to my truck a bit later, holding my Obama sign to my chest I could feel my heart swell with hope like I have not allowed myself in a long time. I sat in the truck cab and cried and asked myself, “How will I handle it if McCain snatches victory from the jaws of defeat?” And it gave me great empathy for those walking back to their vehicles clutching McCain signs to their chests.

So the next day, on my way to phone banks and canvassing undecided voters, when I saw the McCain people out at another corner down the highway I determined  to walk up to every person I see who is wearing a McCain button, holding a McCain sign, or has a McCain bumper-sticker, and extending my hand to shake theirs. “Hello, I’m your neighbor, Christina, in Freeland. Deep down, I believe we have similar values and dreams and come Wednesday, you can on me to include you in my vision of America… Can I count on you?”

This is the question. And I invite you to start asking it–for Wednesday morning is just the beginning of an era of citizen involvement that must go on for the rest of our lives. This citizen involvement will have many facets as we learn how to communicate more and more effectively with our elected officials, and our new president. And it will be sustained at the local level. You can count on me… And I know I can count on you.

And for the inspiration part: this song is a must see–just as this vote is a must believe!

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=oVi4rUzf-0Q

Love to you!
Christina

Christina Baldwin
www.peerspirit.com

www.storycatcher.net

“Telling each other our stories is like gesturing with lightning bolts–it’s exciting and electric, and you hope everyone is being a little careful with the power of it all.” — a thought from my new book:

Storycatcher– Making Sense of our Lives Through the Power and Practice of Story 

VISIT THE DYNAMIC/INTERACTIVE WEBSITE: www.storycatcher.net

An insight that I’ve been considering recently is that for thousands of years, women have been “holding the place” for new forms of being as a society to emerge.  It appears that the time is now upon us when ways of living in greater harmony are being born out of the collective. Women are waking up to a greater potential. It seems evident that the world is asking for this uprising of feminine awareness. Feminine intuition whispers that somewhere in the current crisis there is a birthing. It is my belief that we’ve been gestating long enough and our present gift is to birth a world that works for everyone.

One such shining example of a new form of the power of the feminine collective is a group of 80 or so Canadian women who call themselves “Buddy’s Group”. Every Thursday morning at 7:30 am for the last 5 years these wise and wonderful women have been gathering in the back room of a bagel shop in the town of Duncan on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. According to one of their co-founders, Clare Peterson, they do not have a mission statement or a strategic plan. They do not have pre-set agendas.

Their calling is clear: support women going public. Their process simple: they show up, light a candle in their midst, call upon the ancestors for their presence and guidance, and listen with integrity for the projects and positions in government and community that they can and are called to support. This then activates the women into action, each one volunteering to take on whatever they feel is needed that they have the capacity to give.

Among the many projects running on the fuel of this community hub, Buddy’s Group supported Jean Crowder in her first campaign for Parliament, and this October 2008 marks Jean’s third election to office. The joke is that their success in politics and community-organizing has created a perception that they are a huge political operation, instead of more simply a group of women (and a few men) having conversations in a bagel shop. As Laura Finch, the owner of the bagel shop describes it, “we are bringing the feminine to politics, and changing the language.”

I have the privilege of co-hosting a twice-weekly blogtalkradio show called The Conversation Campaign, that focuses on the art of authentic conversation. Our orientation is to speak straight from the heart about what matters most…and to have conversations as if our lives depended on it. In our show last night, we were thrilled to have Clare, Laura and Jean join us to speak about their work and their style.

The description that I like the best about Buddy’s Group is that they are creating “outrageous containment.” Doesn’t that just give you a taste of the levity, trust, courage and sanctity that this group of women is about? When  asked what they were working on these days, they answered: “We have been holding the US and Barack Obama in our collective heart.” This warms my heart!

Listen to the full story of Buddy’s Group in the recorded conversation with them on Blogtalkradio’s segment, The Conversation Campaign, details below.

What role do you see yourself playing in the awakening of women moving onto the public forum? Every little nuance of feminine practice on behalf of universal goodwill helps humans everywhere.  Share your precious offerings with us.

Also, if you have questions for the women of Buddy’s Group, this is where you can ask them. And we hope to hear from them in this space soon.

Bonnie Kelley

Join The Conversation Campaign to have the conversations of your life. I, Bonnie Kelley, and my beloved friends, Jeanie DeRousseau and Teresa Ruelas will be with you Tuesdays and Thursdays at 5:00-6:00pm PT. You can listen in and participate by going to www.blogtalkradio.com/The-Light-Show. If it’s your first time and you want to not only listen, but also participate in our Chat Room, come early to register your user name, password and a display name. (You may need to “refresh” the page after you have signed on to find the Chat Room – usually, in a small box on the right side that will say “Chat available”.)

First, Offerings would like to thank all of those who have taken the time to post or comment here.  The conversations have been enlightening, surprising, heartfelt and true.  We look forward to more, more, more!

And here is a different kind of posting.  A posting without a question to answer, an opinion to express, or a philosophical pondering of any kind.  It’s just an invitation.  Do you have something to say that doesn’t quite fit into any of the posts so far?  Are you running for an office, or considering it?  Are you volunteering for a campaign?  Has this election (or any election) moved you to think, speak, act, dream in a way you never have before?  Want to look at politics from a whole new angle, ask a different question, tell a new story?

Do it here!  We want to hear from you.  Whatever you’re thinking, however you’ve been touched.  Please… share!

A New Possibility Opens

I was on the phone with a circle of 7 women. Into one of our fertile moments of silence, Bonnie shared her story of having just come back from 4 days with 8 women whom she had not been with since her high school graduation 47 years ago. It soon became clear to her that the majority of this group was not only Republican, but actually excited about Sarah Palin as candidate for the VP position. Feeling as different as she did, she told us how hard she had to work to stay connected.

After her story she asked, “What do you all think of Sarah Palin? And how do we women begin to sort out how to think and talk about her?” To which, after some silence, Lynda responded: “I’m open to the possibility that the overall good is being served by her presence at this time.”

It was this comment from Lynda Terry, founder of Vessels of Peace and author of The 11 Intentions: Invoking the Sacred Feminine as a Pathway to Inner Peace, that led to the very enlightening exchange below.

Teresa: Lynda, this is such a powerful and provocative statement. Could you please say a little bit more? For example, what do you mean by the “overall good”? And how do you see Palin serving it?

Lynda: I do not assume, by how something looks - people’s  behavior or words - that that is the whole story. This comes from the spiritual journey I have been on in the past several years. It taught me to drop my judgment of others. Then I had to drop my assumptions that my perceptions were reality, then my belief that there was anyone or anything on the planet that was not divine.  One thing that helps me remember this is my meditation practice, which I started eighteen years ago. My practice transformed me physically and psychologically, and then began to transform me spiritually. In the many paths on my road - a teacher of meditation, working with women - there was one path into which I delved particularly deeply, and that was this idea that God, or divinity, dwells within each of us. So, now I can look at anyone, and I do mean truly anyone, whether it be Osama Bin Laden or a serial killer or a pedophile. I can.  I do. It does not mean that everything they have done is okay. I simply mean that I don’t go to a place of demonizing them, of separating them from me. I am able to accept that there is a reason that that particular behavior or history is playing out in them even though I may not be able to understand it. And I may not condone it.

The other part of it is that I have great trust in, and surrender to, how much I do not know. I am aware that I do not know the greater plan. The miracle of life, the miracle of this planet and this universe is so beyond my human mind’s comprehension…of anything. Sure, I can fall into the trap of duality, but it is not where my system of value is based any longer. I only see good.

So when I look at a situation like this election, and Sarah Palin, I see the possibility that her being chosen for this role will enable us to get to the good, get to the next evolution of our consciousness, the next shift in our societies and belief systems quicker, stronger. If that will get us there quicker or more easily than other possibilities might have, then of course that is what I want, because what I want is for us all to keep moving towards that from which we came and the ultimate playing out of that.

Teresa: Did you see the blog that Deepak Chopra wrote about Obama and the Palin Effect? It basically suggests that the rise of Sarah Palin at this time is not surprising as she represents the shadow to Obama’s light. The more Obama evokes the light of hope, change, positive futures, the more likely he is to trigger or attract the opposite – fear, anger, suspicion of the “other,” etc. I thought it to be an interesting perspective.

Lynda: I also received the Chopra post from someone. It’s an interesting perspective but still partisan in that his word choices indicate his preference and, in my perception, judgments. I find it surprising that some of his word choices are diminishing of others. Surprising, because I make an assumption that Deepak is a certain way, because of his spirituality. But his rhetoric here does not align with my assumption. (Of course, we all know assumptions are slippery slopes! )

Still, it brings me back again to this question: What will it take to uplift and transform the level of public discourse in America? How do we offer an appealing alternative to a communications style/habit that many seem to find entertaining or in some other way satisfying in how it separates, wounds and diminishes the dignity and divinity of others?

I have been contemplating this for more than a year now, and what I keep coming to is: 1) It is women who must lead the way, bringing forth this change, and 2) it requires, in part, a going beyond words, into the power of silence, as part of the healing, the solution, the shift. It’s almost as if we have to get still enough, long enough, to do a countrywide smudging, if you will, of the energy all these words have created. There is a long quote about silence and its role in shifting humanity’s consciousness by a 6th century saint, St. Isaac of Spoleto. It starts with: “Silence is the language of the centuries to come.”

It also helps to get clear and put forth core intentions and blessings to the volatile situation we find ourselves in. Here is mine for our upcoming elections.

Teresa: That is a powerful invocation. I do very much get and appreciate the largeness and wholeness with which you are holding us at this time – not as an us/them, but as an Us All, as one body. What is the relationship between what you are speaking of – this non-bi-partisanship – and making a choice of one candidate and not the other? So, for example, do you vote?

Lynda: Yes, I vote. So I do choose one candidate, ultimately (although sometimes I choose not to choose, in a particular category). I honor the sacred process of contributing my energy to the collective decision – the process may not be perfect, but the intention behind it stems from a value I align with: that humanity does better, as a whole, when we participate collectively, as a community, in decisions about where we are going and what we need as a people. What I try my best not to do is generate energy “against” those I don’t choose. I try to not engage in those kinds of conversations or thoughts or emotions. It’s not easy. But it gets easier over time, with steady intention and practice.

(Part II in next blog post)

Teresa: Did you always see people and circumstances from this point of view? How did you get here?

Lynda: Invariably, everything I believe comes out of my own experience. For example, I was in the middle of working on my book and had just sat down after meditating to write about “Gaia.” It was a warm summer day and my windows were open. As my fingers touched the keyboard a breeze came through that window and…though I didn’t literally hear the words, I heard: “Before you write, come out and walk with me. Be with me”. So I went outside, and walked up to where there were a lot of bigger homes, a lot more space, more woods. I felt so present to all that was around me - noticing the beauty of summer, knowing the smells and hearing the birds eating. I was running my hands along bushes as I walked by them. At the same time, I was keenly aware of lawn mowers, air conditioners and planes up ahead, motorcycles and fancy yards with fancy lawn furniture. I turned a corner; it was trash day the next day so people had put their trash out. One person’s trash had a bunch of styrofoam pieces in it that had been blown into the road. As I saw them, I felt the beginnings of a reaction, a judgment rise within me.  But before the reaction could grow, I once again heard, “Look for the beat of my heart in all of this. There is nothing on earth that I am not a part of; every being, every thing is natural. Nothing on earth changes form without my energy and everything changes form eventually. Accept change and you accept me and receive the blessing of harmony.” And then as I picked up each Styrofoam piece, I totally changed it. I picked it up like I was picking up a flower or a beautiful rock; and I put it back where it came from. As I did that, I heard, “Reject nothing.”

That was the teaching from Gaia that day and it has influenced my life ever since. It reinforced those other teachings but it took them even further in that I cannot look at anything anymore and hold it apart from me as another or see it as unnatural. That can really be a stretch for us because so much of what we look at appears to have no life in it. The teaching showed me, not in an abstract way or intellectual way, but I had the experience of it.

Teresa: How do you sustain this point of view? How is it that you are able to let go of old beliefs and assumptions that have been ingrained in you for so long? What is it about this way of learning that has stuck?

Lynda: I have a very strong Leo personality.  In my young adult years, I was quite self-absorbed, a drama queen, lots of turmoil in my life, lots of emotional back-and-forths. Coming out of that was nothing short of a miracle. The initial catalyst was learning how to meditate, and I made a commitment to learn it everyday for the rest of my life. I have not broken that commitment, and it will be 18 years on Oct. 19.

That is part of it. Another part is that I made a lifetime commitment to everyday get still and turn within. I paved a neuro pathway in my own brain over time, in my own psyche, to choose a different response. But, even into several years of meditating, I can still go into the places that most of us are able to go into pretty easily. I can still yell at my husband, judge people, see things in terms of polarities and dualities. What has accelerated my transformation, or my capacity to hold this more consistently, is making a choice to surrender to a period of being a student of Grace.

There is a story spoken in several traditions. It is about the two wings of the bird; there is the wing of self-effort and there is the wing of Grace. With either wing alone, you will not fly. You need both. Many times we just want to depend on Grace, and we may have a lot of blissful experiences and avoid dealing with life in lots of ways. If you use just one wing, you basically go around in circles. You can make a lot of wind, but you just go around in circles. So self-effort…. I understood that I had a responsibility, that I couldn’t make Grace come, but that my self-effort certainly made it more likely that Grace would show up.

Teresa: That’s beautiful.

Lynda: The final piece in growing my current ability to accept all that is. I learned how to confront resistance. I saw that resistance was always an invitation to grow, an invitation to change; so I learned to be with it. When I see it, I say “Oh goody, resistance. This means something exciting is going to happen.”  If I am willing to be with it, not be caught in it, it makes a big difference.

Teresa: Lynda, thank you very much for the wisdom, presence, compassion, power of your sharing. It does two things for me.  It taps a deep part of me that knows of what you are speaking and longs to live in this spirit as I interact in the world, and it stretches me – my ego, mostly – to let go of my attachments and habitual ways of seeing only what is right or wrong, good or bad. I have a lot of work to do on this front…we all do! Thank you for your offering of a possible way to be true human beings with each other and with this beautiful planet.

Lynda: I want to share with you something that I know relates to all this, somehow …I see it as a gift for all the work I have been doing on myself and perhaps a sign of my service. Last Thursday night I had a dream that I was reunited with a college friend whom I’ve not seen or had contact with for 40 years. In the dream I threw my arms around her and said “I’m SO glad I’ve finally found you!” She and another woman and I were an inseparable trio our freshman year at Kent State University. Then I dropped out to get married to my high school sweetheart - a marine who was going to be sent off to Vietnam – and that world was so different from theirs, we just gradually lost touch. The dream was so powerfully real to me that I went to my computer and googled her name. Now, I’ve done this several times over the years, but never one link or lead.

THIS time though, a link … that led to another link … that led me to a different last name, but a face and smile I very much remembered, framed in white-hair now and living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where she owns a B&B in the Tetons. I emailed her through that site.  She responded with as much joy as I was feeling – for she had been searching for me too! We’ve had two phone calls since Friday. She and I set about to find our other friend and found her today, in New York City – a former actress and now a career counselor for actors, who also works at NYU – and who also has been searching for us. We hope to do a 3-way phone call before the week is out, and then get together in person in the next few months.

Here is what feels related to our circle thread.  The college friend in Wyoming became a born again Christian a decade ago. We have not talked about politics or religion in depth yet, but I know this is part of why we were to find each other now, that this reconnection is a one-on-one opportunity to practice what we are writing about in these emails, to be together in the joy of our finding one another again and from there, celebrate both our common ground and our differences. My heart is SO open to her that there is nothing she can believe or say or do that will close it down. And I know she will teach me something important to my (our?) service …

In love, humility, and joy, joy joy at the reunion,
Lynda

What a delight to read these posts! As the excitement about the presidential debates builds, I think it is important to realize that any “change” promised by either candidate depends on much more than a leader. It is a matter of setting a new direction: I believe that the hope for any real change in our lives lies in the awakening of the human heart and mind. Such an awakening transforms the quality of all our relationships, and as we develop the skills that lead us in that direction, we may come to embody a different kind of Love—one that has long been misunderstood. This kind of Love is not a feeling; it is a great power—an intelligence which has long been present inside us. Accessing it, however, depends on our willingness to proceed. If we have made up our minds—if we believe what we know, and know what we believe—we will not have even begun to address the biased thinking that keeps us all so thoroughly programmed for conflict.

If there is any real hope for us—man and woman, Arab and Jew, East and West—it doesn’t lie in the rising up of a great leader. The Time of the hero is past. No rescuer will come to solve our conflicts for us, or fill the deep crevices of earth with oil again, or season poisoned land with sweetness. But if we are willing to step forward and begin to change our minds—to let go of our own certitude, be it religious or philosophical or scientific—we will have joined the legions who are contributing to a new kind of consciousness, one that sees differently.

This is not the same as thinking differently. It is the conscious emergence of a radical kind of Love that holds both sides of a conflict in its embrace. According to Teilhard de Chardin, the transforming power of Love can alone create a true human community. In his words, “The fire of love may be the only energy capable of extinguishing the threat of another fire, namely that of universal conflagration and destruction.” This kind of Love unifies. Its evolution is already happening in all of us.

Anne
www.AnneHillman.net

Offerings celebrates Anne and her new book, Awakening the Energies of Love: Discovering Fire for the Second Time. This book illuminates the awakening of the human heart and mind to a different kind of Love—one that has long been misunderstood. Anne Hillman suggests that such a love is an intelligence to which we are all heir and have been forever called. Whether you are just beginning to explore this kind of awareness or have been inquiring for many years, you will find Awakening the Energies of Love to be an adventure and a sure guide to the deeper currents within and around you. Visit www.AnneHillman.net to order your - and your loved ones’ - copy.

I have received yet another “great” article in my inbox. Given that we all aspire to some sense of systems thinking - when can we (in dialogue) go out beyond the normal frames and start the deeper research into creating the ground by which we can take on the invisible?  And, while I think this article in Newsweek - could be any article at this point - is interesting, it is the same mechanistic-secular mind doing what it knows best, reducing “people” to the particular in a way that holds contempt as reason, and reason as disconnected from truth - you know what I mean, truth is not found in contempt, right?

What if we go where few go? I am still deeply interested in who the being Sarah Palin is karmically and who she is in relation to world history - who is she in our lives? What are we to make of her presence in understanding human evolution? What frames do we have to find “how” it is she is now present in this crucial time in world history?  I know you may not want to go where we have not the frames of certainty, and still, I want to push - I think we need to recognize that there is this deep possibility that we all have lived before, in fact many times before, and as we enter this life, our being tries to wrestle with the questions of times past and times now that we all wake up to consciously and unconsciously in our daily life; questions out beyond the rote-finite frames of daily thought…  How it is that Sarah Palin made it to this point is a question way out beyond the context of this or any article’s writer so far… as is the question of who is Obama in world history? etc.

It is for us to sit very quietly and see if the invisible world will drop hints, will rock our minds and hearts, will speak from the deeper context of NOW.  Know that certainty is not the stamp of the infinite!  Did I say infinite?

I think-feel these times are asking us more than just-being-deductive, making reason without understanding truth.  I think dialogue more so than the written word can help people pay attention to the deep impulses at work in modernity, and too, build a ground on which we all take on the task that is waiting for us to do. For me my task is finding language with “the other” whereby the invisible is given the ground in the dialectic to lift the mechanistic mind out of repetition and into becoming or better into the evolution of being human…

It is good to be out of the closet…

G

Dear Friends,

When the universe speaks loudly, I try to listen.  Please indulge me, by considering this plan.  It will make more sense to those who  know that I am relentlessly new-agey, but I ask that you try it on for size, regardless of your belief system.

I recently received three emails reminding me to monitor my thoughts regarding the political opposition.

This from my favorite “channel” - Abraham Hicks :
“You can’t take sides against anything. If you would just be one who is for things, you would live happily ever after. If you could just leave the “against” part out.”

And this, from my wise and wonderful friend, Judy (thank you, Judy):
“Oh, yes! Envision Land Slide Victory with me. That’s the vision I am holding for November and the landslide of change emerging.  Obama Landslide….sing with me what is possible, not what we fear might alternatively be.”

Furthermore from Barbara Wolf of Global Meditations Network:
“Remember, when we think the same thought,
we become one consciousness.
One consciousness by many generates great energy.”

And, finally, another chilling statement from “Abraham”:
“You get what you think about, whether you want it or not”

That should be enough to halt fixation on a certain Alaskan……..

SO, my plan is to stop thinking about “them” (as best I can) and instead, to hold the vision of A LANDSLIDE OBAMA VICTORY - whenever I can, when the Palin tales get to me, in my meditation, when I’m going to sleep.  I already have found that this vision makes me feel MUCH better than thinking about the next Dark Lords………

(Sorry - this doesn’t mean that you won’t receive more rabid political emails from me - I’m SURE to backslide - but I’ll attempt to be more aware of the “tone”!)

I hope you’ll join me, and Judy (and Barack) in holding this “Obama Landslide” vision.  There’s no harm in trying - and from my experience - the Universe delivers.

If these thoughts ring true, please send them along.  The more the merrier - and the more victorious!

Obama Landslide Victory

Jane