Days of Radiance - Neal's Blog

7/10 - FRIDAY

Clarity, balance, integration and contemplation were keynotes of the day.

The following serves as a backdrop to the conversations with family and friends, time in the gardens, doing bills, and reading that occupied my day.
One of the things I’ve struggled with is compartmentalization which separates aspects as life in limiting boxes, suggesting a hierarchy of importance, reward and punishment. Compartmentalization allowed me to believe that daily life and a spiritual life were different. They aren’t, but that understanding was grown through a willingness to challenge what I believed to be true.

I understand compartmentalization as a reflection of hierarchical beliefs, linear thinking which sit at the core of the belief in separation and limitation. None of those things, aspects of human thinking, are exactly reminders of the Unity of Life.

Compartmentalization allowed me to believe that the occasional meditation, workshop or evening lecture was being spiritual. Come to find out, its viewed from the non-physical as being lukewarm spiritually.

So, understanding evolved. Instead of a journey of disjointed starts and stops, and one time undertakings seeking an event that would change everything, to a more consistent application of current spiritual understandings and beliefs. I started with what I believed to be true and applied it. Deeper understanding and expansion followed these efforts and it takes time so I had to nurture patience within myself.

For instance, instead of meditating for an hour, my intention is to take the energy of meditation with me as I go about my day. Instead of attending a week-end workshop and thinking that the information would magically be active in my life, I applied the information offered rigorously the first few days after the workshop and consistently afterwards.

All of which brings me to integration. At times there has been an overwhelm with regards to insights and new insights or information. A response that has successfully worked for me is to contemplate, meditate and pray that the information be integrated into my understanding and life. I still have to act on it, engage it, express it through thought word and deed but spending time integrating whatever I’ve received has proven priceless in my experience. I don’t attempt to determine how or where integration occurs, I allow it to be like water seeking its own level and then repeat the process at regular intervals.
Posted on: 2009-07-13 12:49:13. Comments

7/9 - THURSDAY

The flower and vegetable gardens got some much needed attention in the form of weeding, feeding and cleaning up. I continued to link my efforts in the gardens with an intention to create, this time Beauty.

What also continued was the need to surrender in the middle of this process. I was surprised at this recognition, but fortunately not blind to it. What was surrendered included frustration, expectation of outcome, control.

It requires time to differentiate illusion and the eternal. It takes rigorous examination, consistent effort and practice as I interrupt automatic behaviors, to stop before I react. To heal to the point that I could recognize harmful emotions and limiting beliefs, such as the ones mentioned. To seek to know soul, live spiritual understandings, integrate the eternal into the dailiness of life, walk the path, however it is understood, is a rigorous, challenging undertaking. A misunderstanding for many in western society.

Thankfully, I’ve learned the how-to’s.
Posted on: 2009-07-13 12:48:10. Comments

7/8 - WEDNESDAY

In conversations today I was reminded of my struggles around guidance, intuition, examination and action. Taken individually, examination is not always a part of this process, though it is foundational in deepening and broadening the experience of guidance as a resource always available.

Guidance offers a broader view, a different way of looking at situations, options. Intuition is our understanding, the interpretation. Acting on our current understanding of guidance; speaking, doing or thinking differently grounds the eternal in our daily lives. It’s not a one time thing, though it begins that way. The potential is living that way.

At one point guidance was not even a concept, not a consideration. Once the possibility of guidance had been introduced, I saw others as having guidance, having guides and angels, as being able to talk with their guides and angels and get answers; but not me. A ball of beliefs, which included separation, limitation, unworthiness, doubt, fear and anger kept me from allowing an understanding of the guidance available. You can’t interpret what you don’t acknowledge.

I should also add that I used to believe guidance was a conversation, it’s not.
So today a friend received guidance and did not know what to do with it, thus the role of examination. The question had to do with a physical distress. The question was along the lines of what does this mean, what am I supposed to learn? The guidance or impressions received were like keywords, something like: Life - Emotions.

We went through a process of examining the relationship between life and the physical distress, and various harmful emotions in different arenas of life and the physical distress. This gave us a map for healing and clearing. It included beliefs, expectations, harmful emotions, missed opportunities and assorted sundries. All maps like this are similar, though unique.

Acceptance, forgiveness and compassion are foundational for healing in the way I understand it.
Posted on: 2009-07-13 12:47:24. Comments

7/7 - TUESDAY

A day of reminders about walking a spiritual path in the physical world. It is so easy to value events over the simplicity of daily application. Something as easy as a smile, as simple as an encouraging word, as humble as listening or taking on someone’s wrath without responding angrily, are all spiritual acts. They might not be valued or understood as such, but they are. Each is an example of compassion in action.

It is not only taking or offering a program or workshop or having clients. It’s about daily practice and application. Basic human kindness is spiritual. Each application adds a layer, understanding is built layer by layer.

Thinking can be so linear, its frustrating. The simple question of ” how did you get from ‘there’ to ‘here’ (in reference to years of struggle) caused me some discomfort. It was challenging not to be caught again in echos of old, familiar, ingrained habits. The answer: I asked, show me. The reality is that was a struggle that took a long time for me with rigorous, consistent effort. It was not an event. It was more an ebb and flow, each step requiring surrender. The surrender of doubt, the arrival of faith; the surrender of nots, the arrival of hope

The additional ” I knew it would come, just not how” realization came a few minutes afterwards but that knowing did not happen overnight. Knowing, which is still an uneven state of consciousness, was the result of years of clearing, healing and application. One step at a time. My realization and subsequent choice to act differently followed at some point later.

Surrender needs more attention. Truth be told I’m no different than any other man, surrenderas a spiritual concept was difficult to wrap my head around. Yet healing, transformation and growth is impossible without it. Willingness to change is surrender, hopelessness is surrendered to move into hope, doubt is surrendered to move into Faith. My personal beliefs about surrender have been examined and challenged and it not like I’m done. Surrender is not giving up, it is not weakness, it does not make you “less” and another “more.”

Surrender is humility.
Posted on: 2009-07-13 12:45:17. Comments

7/6 - MONDAY

A very full day. I remembered to have gratitude as bills were paid. The focus continued on this web site and other ways of expanding service. Overall a chop wood, carry water, pull weeds, be present, flowing day.
Posted on: 2009-07-13 12:44:16. Comments

7/5 - Sunday

As relaxing a holiday week-end as I’ve had in quite some time. It was actually quiet around here. We still had the usual individual fireworks displays around the neighborhood, but the parties that can last until 2am, broke up around 11pm. Sweet!

Last Thursday evening, as my son Jesse was heading out for the week-end, he woke me from a dream as I was having a brief nap. With creative energies flowing like torrents through my life, I’ve had nothing like a normal sleep schedule, nothing approaching 5 hours of sleep a night for the last few weeks, so I adapted.

My intention with sleep rotates between allowing healing, connection or understanding. Whatever was being resolved in that dream, got stuck. An undefined, unresolved disquiet stayed with me just under the surface, giving my daily routine an edge that has not been present for years. It was just as sleep was coming that the resolution came. You are dealing with old crap, you are forgetting you are eternal. *zing*

Never really slept that night. Though exhausted as I lay down, the statement that I’d forgotten I was eternal reverberated through me. I asked to remember. The immediate response woke me up to the point that after an hour I just got up, channeled that energy into this offering of information, meditated for a bit and was then able to go back to bed for a few hours.
Posted on: 2009-07-13 12:43:40. Comments

7/4 - SATURDAY

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Posted on: 2009-07-07 00:57:54. Comments

7/3 - FRIDAY

Sun showed up with the holiday week-end, which means traffic will be high, especially around here.

During a phone conversation a friend mentioned working with Gratitude, another eternal quality. My friend used past experiences and employed techniques previously discussed in detail, re-creating those experiences and infusing them Gratitude. Gratitude is a quality the Universe recognizes and expressing it guarantees more, of that which we are grateful for. It’s a key ingredient in Abundance, whatever form that takes.

The day continued on that high note.
Posted on: 2009-07-07 00:54:08. Comments

7/2 - THURSDAY

I really struggled with yesterdays post. Understanding is built layer by layer. Suffice to say there is more to any concept shared in this blog than time or space allows for examination. If you have any questions please leave them as comments or send them in an email. I’ll address them as best I can, given the limitations inherent in this type of communication.

The rain continued today. It was on and off again just enough, that a walk through the gardens showed that the weeds have flourished! I’ll have plenty of opportunities to continue this form of clearing consciousness began last week.
Posted on: 2009-07-07 00:53:29. Comments

7/1 - WEDNESDAY

After posting yesterday’s entry I had to step back and decide just what I wanted to do with it. I could delete it, substitute something else, or share how I use/understand those concepts. After some discussion with Denise, I decided to share. Which led to contemplating on and off, throughout the day, just how I could squeeze the layered understandings of the last ten years of my life into a few paragraphs. Well, I can’t.

"...nothing that happens in our life is random."

Random is defined as having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

The beauty is I don’t have to understand purpose, pattern or objective. I pay attention to synchronicities. One example previously offered is where I planted the cucumbers. I didn’t listen and now we have three plantings, instead of six.

Another previous example is a discussion with a friend who had decided to examine the belief in death. Here is how that showed up in their life. Deeper understandings are not readily apparent. It requires a willingness to move beyond what we believe to be true and what we feel we “know.”

A generalized example might be when deciding between two things, like cell phones. I’ll research each one, come up with pros and cons. If I then “randomly” see or hear advertisements for one of the phones I’ve got my validation.

The advice I got when I began to work with these concepts was to begin with issues that held the least amount of emotional attachment to outcome. I’ve found that’s a good way to start. It builds confidence and trust.

"…we create…"

This statement also deserves some examination and examples. Creation is different than manifestation. We create all the time, consciously and unconsciously. Creation is most easily understood as qualities, eternal qualities. Love, Beauty, Compassion, Freedom, Clarity, Truth, Wholeness, Understanding, Wisdom are some examples. We aren’t the Source of these qualities, but they lie within everyone. It is best to begin cultivating these qualities within self.

The time I spent at the shopping complex is a great example of how to collaboratively allow creation.

Creation and the mundane mind do not go hand in hand. There is no control, expectation of outcome, it’s an offering which can be accepted or not.

There is more. There is always more.
Posted on: 2009-07-07 00:52:41. Comments