2006-12-13 and 14

These last two days, my chief work has been inner rather than outer. I was sufficiently uncomfortable to find thinking close to impossible throughout both mornings and most of both afternoons. I believe there is nothing wrong with me except for the problems I have had for the last months. However there do seem to be good and bad spells to this condition, and this last bit has been a bad spell, so labeled by my ego, which is fond of assigning values of the shallowest kind to life’s circumstances.

However my life is dedicated to the Creator, not just part of my life but the whole of it, 24/7, from this present moment – whenever that is – until I pass into larger life and find my options opening up in ways I cannot now imagine. Meanwhile, my response to this “light, momentary affliction” as St. Paul called either his homosexuality or his epilepsy - bible scholars are still debating that one - is of interest to the Creator.

So I spent my hours of intense discomfort playing in the fields of the Lord, a lily of those fields, toiling not, nor spinning, but just being a flowering of life. I had a most enjoyable time in my mind as I rested in the formless essence of myself which I reach when I focus my attention beyond doing and enter the sacred precincts of being.

What a joy it is to rest in consciousness! Sometimes I watched my breath, in and out, so clever a body to know to do that. Sometimes I looked out my window at the beautiful, Indian Summer days. And sometimes I fell asleep in my chair and rested even more deeply. If I do not respond to feeling ill by shrinking from it but instead embrace it and cooperate with it, the joy in me bubbles forth in its merry spring, its waters chuckling down the stream bed of my body and out into the world.

There were just a few things which I did in the outer world. On Wednesday, yesterday, I wrote the UPI column for this week, a piece on prejudice. I had been rudely awakened to it in Nebraska as I heard my Mom-in-law and her friends talking about how they feel Mexicans who work in their little town are disrespectful simply because they are speaking Spanish as they walk down the street. The whole concept of living in English or living in Spanish escaped her completely, even after a substantial conversation. Languages are more than words. They are crude exemplars of the culture of a people. In every language there are words and sayings for which there is no direct translation. How I love those nuances! Yet to Mom, the pretty flow of Spanish is “jabbering”.

I wrote to Ian concerning details of our current project, A Book of Days, and also concerning the few pages of a manuscript Jim and I found after Don died in 1984. The Elk had taken a few pages of notebook paper and started a book designed to do what The Choice books intend now: a simple introduction to the principles of the Law of One. What little Don wrote is excellent. We had it up on the internet for a while thanks to Bruce P’s loving care, and then it seemed to be lost. I asked Gary to hunt for the biographical introduction I wrote for that text of Don’s.

I hunted up some information for Brother Tommy on nice places to stay near here. Our house is not big enough to sleep all thirteen of our gathering clan, so he volunteered to get accommodations at a nearby B&B. The sweetest place around here is called Fox Hollow. It’s an old farm mansion which has been restored and is now a B&B.

Then I spent some time with the “sick list”, catching up with friends of mine who are ill, Dana R and Rafael, Ann B’s husband.

Pupie and Peter, whose wedding I was honored to be a part of last year, wrote to ask me about my prayers at Morning Offering. We shared that Offering for the three weeks I spent with them and they were asking me for some ideas on how to pray at their own daily Morning Offerings. Pu said that they were, all too often, saying the same thing, focusing on the day ahead and what it would bring. So I wrote suggesting that such petitions are only part of a prayer for the day. I suggested starting with praise, thanksgiving, worship and blessing, connecting with the Creator with no thought but to glory in that Mystery. That is the main part they were missing, I think.

It was an interesting exercise for me to examine my own praying style and analyze the various parts of it. I found there were four parts: the above connecting to the Creator, the request for focus on the Creator in the day ahead so I do not get lost in details, the various petitions for peace, for all who suffer, for the planet itself, for the guidance and protection of the Creator and finally those items that pertain just to today.

My last outer work on Wednesday was to work with Gary on the self-publishing information for which Ian is asking. I am happy to say that Gary feels he is coping with it all well. In my present state, the amount which I did not know concerning this area of the publishing project was overwhelming to me. Fortunately, to Gary it is an opportunity to learn and he is enjoying the ride. Go Gary! And thank God for Gary!

Today I did not surface at all until late afternoon, in terms of outer work. I did some e-mail towards evening and am happy to report that, thanks to Don C Sr., who reads this blog, the missing introduction to Elkins’ unfinished book was located. Not only that, but Don found another piece of writing which had gone missing from our archives, Melissa’s entries in the Avalon Journal. Melissa T was the very first person of our little community of 2003 – 2005 to live on Avalon. She lived in Sugar Shack before it was at all improved and toughed out pioneer circumstances in order to bring order and cleanliness to the place. We had lost those entries. Thank you, Don C!!! You are wonderfully clever to have located them. And now the way is clear for us to put the Avalon Journal up on site. Eventually, when Jim, Gary and I move to Avalon, this journal will become the Avalon Journal.

My last task for the day was to thank Steve M not only for his generous donation to our matching funds campaign – we are nearing the $3,000 mark! – but also for his comments on Chapter Two of The Choice 101. I look forward to reading that and working with his comments tomorrow.

My husband, whom I sometimes call St. James, was his saintly self, incredibly supportive and encouraging. He decided that if I were well enough, he would take me to a new restaurant which is hosting a jazz combo led by an old friend, Jerry Tolson, a local sax player whose abilities shine in so many ways. I was determined to go! And we did. We had a table very close to the music and also very close to the restrooms – tailor-made for me! It was just grand to be out and part of Louisville’s night life. it was so normalizing. And the music was blissfully good, the old standards interspersed with new riffs not heard by me before, but all so tasty! I do love the sound of an old bull bass, the acoustic arpeggios of the bass line filling in the texture of the music with great style.

The food was delicious, also! I enjoyed lobster pasta with black olives while Jim had shrimp.

Both days, we were faithful with our Morning Offerings and our Gaia Meditations and both nights, we sought our beds early. My condition you know, and Jim was stiff and sore because he has been doing storm debris control, including picking up thousands of sticks and cutting up many limbs, and the hard labor made him truly weary. So we snuggled with the cats and each other and said good-night early both nights.