April 2, 2012

First light a candle - http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=TWWTS

(All photos are mine unless otherwise noted.)

                                                    -  The last leaf of Winter -


                            Young Beech trees shed their leaves only after Winter is over.


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                "Work" 


   Why capitalized? The reference here is not to what we do for a living but it is about the growth process we live in and the needed effort that promotes and maintains movement into wholeness and welbeing. God's Work in the ongoing creation of the universe is in actuality our work as well. To move into our true selves we connect to the Universal "Work" and allow change to happen as we become a new creation, over and over again.

   My "Work" for the last 30 plus years has been to a great deal the nurturing of psychological growth which in turn opens the doors of authentic spiritual exploration and allows that process to continue. I have found the truth in the oft repeated statement, "Once you open the doors of the heart, they can never close again."

    Having spent a lot of time in psychotherapy with outstanding professionals in that field, I have come to understand that the many old reactive behavior issues I accumulated throughout the first half of life were simply constructions that blocked the view of my interior existence. This was, and still is the "Work" of the second half of life, as well as the rest of my life. I have learned that the knowledge of the gains to be made is the motivation that releases the passion to grow and change.

   Here is an excerpt from a book by John Welwood titled Toward A Psychology Of Awakening that talks of the need to grow past our constructed self.

   "One set of questions has to do with the psychological ramifications of the spiritual path. For example, what happens to people psychologically when they recognize or turn toward their larger nature? What psychological issues and challenges are likely to come up and need to be addressed? As awareness starts to move beyond the boundaries of the conditioned personality structure, this expansion inevitably challenges that structure, flushing out old, subconscious, reactive patterns that often arrive with a vengeance. Traditional religions used to describe these obstacles and attacks along the path in terms of demons or devils. But from a modern perspective, they can also be understood and worked with psychologically as subconscious aspects of one's conditioned personality structure that often break through into consciousness only when that structure is challenged by the process of awakening to one's larger nature.

   If these psychological issues are not addressed, they often cause distortions in people's spiritual development. So it is not enough to have spiritual realizations. It is also essential to deconstruct the subconscious emotional and mental patterns that are held in the body and the mind, and that prevent people from fully embodying a larger way of being in their lives."

                                                                   (From the introduction.)

   God is calling us to wholeness and to live an authentic life, and will put in our path those people who have traveled this way before we set foot on the journey. To awake and be aware of what is happening internally is the beginning of becoming what our Creator intended for us all along. What a Gift!
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       Like the many acorns on a pine tree waiting to drop and allow their seeds to be planted,
       we also will have many insights arise from the fertile ground that is our interior life.


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                         - Co-creators With Our Creator -


Creativity is experiencing in this moment
All that is visibly inherent simplicity, without attachments -
Observing now, the process of change and transformation,
Moment by moment, as we learn to express The Seen.

God says, "I was a treasure, and I wanted to be seen."
The tree says, "I am a tree, and I want to be seen."
We learn to say,
     "I want to know the treasure that I am,
     Here in this moment, and in this time of my life.
     I want to see myself."

Following the Voice from deep within we hear,
     "I am here, never there.
     You will once again know me, here -
     And you will understand that I am only here, and now.
     My next moment, is always this moment."

Ordinary experience
Is God's Gift to us -
The material for creative expression
As the Artist in us releases the heart's desires.

Life can be enjoyed well in the details of the ordinary.
As we become ordinary we will be able to stand in awe of the Extraordinary -
Love's Gift, known and accepted in another "This Moment."
Stand on Holy Ground in front of your Creator and know yourself.

                                                               Bill Lagerstrom,  April  2012

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Audio Offering:


   Mark Nepo, a short thought on operating from our center -

      Click here: http://www.box.com/s/44577c8515891277e659

Video: What landing in our hearts center may look like to the uninitiated -

      Click here: http://www.flixxy.com/landing-at-the-worlds-most-dangerous-airport-lukla-nepal.htm
   


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And to end a bit of humor - What actually happens once we enter the depths of ourselves -

   Peace,  Bill Lagerstrom

March 26, 2012

First, light a candle. Go to: http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=TWWTS

Water: This week it is water and Water. Whenever I capitalize a word in a sentence it is usually as a way to describe God and the Nature of God.

  Wherever there is water there is life.

This is God's Intention -

when encountering Living Water, water alive.

stand in awe of God's Creations. 

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    There is a story of a group of fish in the Ocean talking to a turtle who tells the fish that she is going to the land to see what is going on there. 

   "Let us know what is happening in the water called land" they asked. And the turtle went on her way.

   Several weeks later she returned to where the fish lived. "Well tell us about the land!" they asked.

   "Well, the land is dry and I walked on it." replied the turtle.

   "What is walking? What do you mean by dry? The world is only water!" the fish exclaimed.

   After much arguing and attempts at explanation the turtle had enough of the fish and said,    

  "Enough! You are perfectly welcome to your perceptions about the world, here and there. I am going back to the land." And she disappeared.

   The story can easily be reversed to indicate where we may be with others after we have been called to the Ocean, swam and breathed there. In our spiritual development we will be brought places by God that seem beyond belief to those we are surrounded with, friends, family, etc. 

   What God has done for me I can relate to some, but not to everyone, as it seems to unthinkable to most that experiences given by Grace can exist in their perceptions of how things are. All that is important is what I have experienced and thereby know to be real and from God. These Gifts are indelible and are as real today as some were 25-30 years ago. That is all the proof of their validity I need. 

   Water, the Ocean, years spent moving closer to the Water past the shores leave me in awe of the power of the Living god who created the universe, and yet has come into my life with force and gentleness in ways that leave me with no illusions as to where and who my life belong to. It all started with water, the breaking of my mother's water, the water of baptism, the waters of many renewal of baptismal vows over the years, the Call of the Water of the Ocean, and my many responses to get to the shoreline and immerse my self in God's Love for me and the direction my life has taken.

   Baptism has been the going to the small stream at the top of the mountain, being carried on its small currents to larger streams which eventually lead to the sea - the Ocean. What a journey my life has been on these past 30 plus years!

   Walking with Lee, my wife, down the Jordan Stream in Acadia National Park earlier today I talked again that if I were to die before Lee she was to scatter my ashes from a beautiful bridge there and let the current carry my remains the final mile to its terminus - the ocean. A symbol of returning to God to give thanks for this life in all its aspects - a symbol of returning Home, the place where I started out from years ago. 

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At many places along the journey to the Sea, if we stop to be mindful and aware, we will find tranquil spots that will offer serenity and the promised Peace that is ever offered to hands that reach out to embrace these marvelous Gifts. 

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   While going with the flow of the stream or river we are traveling on, there is, as so much of life requires, a need to hold on to paradox, wherever it finds us. When riding the currents of Water we often find on one hand something of the raucous nature of being, and on the other hand something of the exquisite beauty of the present moment.
   In the following song hold on to the paradox above and see if in your quiet you can hold both the discordant and the divine.

     Click on: http://www.box.com/s/7l9147tcovkmr2jd2oxy  It is named "A Drop Of Water"


   And for further meditation with music, "Returning Home" which is the journey we are on as the river we flow with on our journey finally meets the Ocean, God's Self.


    Click on: http://www.box.com/s/e44b032ab4c2ab7f4d03

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What can we do if life seems to throw tidal waves of grief at us?

Stay the path. Keep walking.

God will not allow us to drown no matter what may happen.

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   Teresa Of Avila, the great Catholic Mystic, spoke of four methods of watering the garden of our heart and soul. The following is taken directly from her writings and may seem a little convoluted to some. She is speaking in the language of the 1400's in Spain during the Inquisition and a stilted verbiage was necessary to get past the censors. Although, many scholars believe that this is what she believed. The more important thing is the four stages of watering she outlines.

   Teresa depicts different stages of the life of prayer in metaphorical terms taken from the manner of securing water to irrigate a garden. The "first water" is laboriously obtained from a well and carried in a bucket to the garden; this is in reference to beginners who, liberated from the more flagrant mortal sins, apply themselves to discursive prayer of meditation, although they experience fatigue and aridity from time to time. After speaking at length of meditation in its stricter meaning, Teresa made a brief reference to "acquired" contemplation before beginning her discussion of the "second water." In this second stage, the gardener secures water through use of a windlass and bucket; here Teresa refers to the "prayer of quiet, a gift of God through which the individual begins to have a passive experience of prayer. The third method of irrigation is the employment of water from a stream or river; the application made by Teresa is to the "sleep of the faculties." Although Teresa considered this an important stage in the evolution of prayer when she wrote her autobiography, she later relegated it to a simple intensification of the "prayer of quiet" in the Interior Castle. The fourth method of irrigation is God given: the rain; Teresa employs this metaphor to describe a state of union in prayer in which the soul is apparently passive.

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   Until next Week,  Peace,  Bill lagerstrom

March 19, 2012

   Light A Candle - Go to http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=TWWTS

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   This past week I have been pondering the following image as I try to see what the message from my heart is trying to tell me. For the a good part of this life I have been building bridges, spans to reach the other shore, to give to those in need, to escape the places I did not want to be in .... all the while not looking at what was underneath all these constructions, what has always been there in seeming darkness, the Light of Grace, the gold that we were all forged from in our beginnings.

   The God-instance, there are no coincidences, is this, in the building behind me as I took this photo my daughter's wedding reception was still in progress - the celebration of new beginnings. Did I step outside or did I step into the view that is the gift of a metaphor for what is real and true in my center? I will go with the later for now as I enjoy the sight of the Gold Of God's Goodness that seems to rise, reflected from not from the bright lights of the world but from what is within.

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"Humans are like mines,

there are mines of silver and gold

and surely full of jewels."

God says

"For awhile I become gold,

in the mine of all hearts"

                                                                                       Rumi

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The Gold within each heart loves the light,

And is mostly seen in the moonless night

Rising to meet the illumined constructions

Of the buildings and cities we surround ourselves with.

The Lovely Golden Radiance of God

Desires to rise from our depths,

To infuse with Sacred Light

All that we believed we were.

Step outside yourself for a moment here and there,

As you travel across the many bridges built to cross life's rivers -

Stand on the shore and see where the Power to light the world

Rises from the center of God's Home, in your heart.

                                                                          Bill Lagerstrom

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"I am the Light within you.

My only desire

is for you,

to allow Me to be seen."

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Take a listen - if you have seen the video now take a few minutes to hear with perhaps eyes closed -

                                  http://www.box.com/s/a7262dad1064ab730005

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    The problem with self-will run riot -

If the script is muddy -

                                We come to the first in an endless series of debates on evolution.

                                                   First up.. man.

                                The dinosaur was great in her day but ours is the way of the future.

                                Therefore it is they who must leave and relinquish the dominion

                                       of the earth to us.

                                Thank you, man. Well said. now in rebuttal is dinosaur.

                                "Urp"  A compelling counterpoint indeed, sir.

   Until next week - Peace,  Bill L.