• Posts by Celia McBride

    Baraka – Thread of Life

    • October 5, 2009 10:02 am

    I’m now in Vancouver staying at my friends’ condo overlooking the marina beside Granville Island. I can see the gorgeous art decoĀ pillars of the Burrard Street bridge and the shiny glass jungle of high-rise condos across the channel.

    It’s fabulous.
    Last night I watched “Baraka”, a film made in the early nineties that has no dialogue, only images and an accompanying soundtrack. If you haven’t seen it, the summary on the DVD reads:
    “Baraka is a transcendent global tour that explores the sights and sounds of the human condition… in 24 countries on six continents.”
    The word “baraka” is from the Sufi language and it translates to “the thread that weaves life together.”
    One of the most memorable shots in the film is of a Balinese monkey sitting in a hot spring in the middle of a snowy mountain range. The camera lingers on him for some time and the viewer is treated to a meditation on who he is, who we are and how we are indubitably connected.
    One of the things I talk about in a speech I give about having a Higher Purpose and living according to a Higher Plan, is coincidence. (You can watch the speech on You Tube — Search “Let Go of Your ‘But'” and my name.)Ā 
    Coincidence means, “a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.”
    The key word for me in this definition is “apparent”. Apparent means, “clearly visible”.
    So when I experience coincidence, the reason is not clearly visible. I have to go deeper. I have to refer to the other word that stands out in that definition, which is “remarkable.”
    Remarkable means “extraordinary”, which itself means “outside the normal course of events.”
    When I arrived in Kamloops this past Friday I took a shuttle from the airport to the hotel. As we drove through the dark I listened to a man tell the woman beside him all about his trip to Germany where his family lives and where he was born and raised. I got to know something about him on that night bus and was inspired by his story.
    When I arrived at the Kamloops airport on the Sunday to fly to out Vancouver, who do you suppose was the Air Canada agent that checked me in?
    Mr. German Shuttle Bus.
    Baraka! This man and I did not speak and I did not tell him that I knew the name of his hometown and favorite drink. Seeing him again simply confirmedĀ that the thread that weaves life together is always being spun.
    Inspiring Message of the Day: Even the most banal coincidence is remarkable because it confirms that we are a part of something Greater that is guiding us in every single moment of our lives.

    In Kamloops I’ll Eat Your Boots

    • October 3, 2009 8:04 am

    I’m in Kamloops, BC, for a conference and being here reminds me of the Dennis Lee poem “In Kamloops”, which contains the line I’ve chosen as the title for today’s blog.

    I didn’t know where Kamloops was when I was a kid and when that poem was read to me by my parents but I imagined it was somewhere in boot country, where everything was made of boots, or looked like boots.

    From what I can see, most of the city is in a valley surrounded by low-rise mountains, which are brown like the desert and look just as dry. But it’s beautiful. I really like the way it looks. It doesn’t have the lush green of the coastal rain forest nor does it have the rocky magic of the mountains but it’s got Dennis Lee and it’s got my vote.

    Kamloops, visually impressive: check.

    For your Inspiring Message of the Day today I’d like you to visit my friend Leanne Coppen’s blog. It’s her one-year anniversary blogging for Chatelaine about her experience living with breast cancer.

    She’s a witty, honest scribe and I love her dearly. Check it out:

    http://blog.en.chatelaine.com/category/living-with-breast-cancer/

    If for some reason the link doesn’t work, Google “Chatelaine”, click on Blogs and choose “Living with Breast Cancer.”

    Look Back in Anger

    • October 2, 2009 7:35 am

    And what of anger?

    I have heard that anger is really fear in disguise. I have heard that depression is unexpressed anger. I have even heard that cancer is rage unreleased.

    For many years I believed it was not “spiritual” to be angry. The truth is, we cannot really be living the Spirit as long as we are denying our anger.

    I was an angry child. I like to say I was in a bad mood for 27 years. For most of my twenties, when I was trying to be spiritual, I repressed my anger, stuffed it, pretended it wasn’t there.

    Ten years ago, when I finally got on the healing path, I had to learn first to admit that I was angry and then how to express it in a healthy way.

    There is a line from the Gus Van Sant film “Milk” starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, and it keeps coming back to me.

    There is a huge crowd of people in the gay Castro District, where “Milk” is mostly set, and those involved in the protest have just experienced what feels like one more terrible injustice.

    Milk and his compadres fear a riot. He gets on the bull horn and he says, “I know you’re angry…”

    And here we expect him to say, “BUT…”

    “But it’s okay, but don’t worry, but it will be alright.”

    But he doesn’t.

    Harvey Milk says, “I’M ANGRY!”

    And then they walk, together, in anger and in peace, to continue proclaiming their cause.

    It’s an incredibly moving moment.

    I’m writing about anger this morning because I’M ANGRY.

    It was a little thing that made me realize I had some unexpressed anger looking to be extracted from my body, just a little thing that wouldn’t work properly, a thing that was stuck and I was trying to un-stick it, just a small thing.

    The more I tried to make it work, and couldn’t, the more frustrated I got.

    I’M ANGRY.

    Okay, boy, wow. Awareness comes first. Then action: time to do something about that!

    And I will. I will go within, where the answers lie, I will share with someone who has wisdom about such things, and I will find a way to express the anger and get it out of my body.

    Howling in the bush always helps.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: My anger is valid. It needs to be expressed in a healthy way. Identifying it, sharing it and then releasing it will bring me back to peace.

    Courage 101

    • October 1, 2009 6:55 am

    The reason the URL address for this blog is called Cultivate Your Courage and why I lead an Inspiring workshop with the same name is not because I am THE MOST COURAGEOUS WOMAN and I am here to teach all of you how to be courageous.

    It’s because I need to cultivate my own courage everyday to live in this world.

    The CYC workshop was originally called Walk Through Your Fear. (You’d be amazed how many people would rather cultivate their courage than walk through their fear!)

    Name change aside, the idea for the workshop came to me after a prayer/meditation session. I was seeking guidance around how to generate some income outside of my artistic practice using the gifts and the talents that have been given to me.

    What could I do? I could lead a workshop. Okay. What on? What am I a true expert at doing? What do I know well enough that I could teach it?

    There it was: I walk through my fear. Every single day. In every situation. I feel the fear and I do it anyway.

    Despite the fact that I have the spiritual understanding that there is really nothing to fear, my little human form has a harder time grasping that notion.

    Sometimes I wake up in cold, naked fear and I don’t know why. I’ve gone to bed with joy and peace in my heart and when I awaken it’s a whole un-brave new world.

    This morning I woke up with the fear upon me. Lots of things to feed it: traveling tomorrow, taking cat to the kennel today, beginning of a new month, swine flu blah blah blah.

    I did what I always do to cultivate my courage: I prayed.

    I heard somewhere that prayer is not for the Power to whom you are praying. It is for you. I agree. When I pray, it is I that am changed.

    As I expressed my fear and asked for guidance my heart began to ease, the anxiety began to lift and I was returned to a state of well-being, gratitude and relaxation.

    I received the Inner Guidance I needed to live this day fully and passionately, as though it were my last. I remembered that it’s not about me, that I am here to be a worker for the Creator.

    I don’t know how prayer works. I just know it does.

    Inspiring Message for the Day: When I speak what is in my heart to the Power that makes the grass grow, the flowers bloom and the wind blow, I receive the strength I need to move forward with joy and fearlessness.

    The Diviners

    • September 30, 2009 4:42 am

    When I was in high school one of the books on the required reading list was Margaret Laurence’s “The Diviners”.

    This book changed my life. I couldn’t tell you how, exactly, only that it touched me deeply and went straight to my heart and stayed there. The protagonist, Morag, spoke to me directly. I felt she was my best friend in the world.

    The lessons that Morag learned, I learned, and Laurence’s imagery, characters and truly great storytelling have stayed with me these many years. The writing is so good.

    One of the myriad lessons that Christie, Morag’s guardian, teaches her is “Judge not lest ye be judged.”

    A quick search tells me it’s from Matthew 7:1.

    As a young teenager who fancied herself a soothsayer, these words made a whole lot of sense to me and I would often preach them, believing I had the authority to do so. Youthful arrogance, anyone?

    It wasn’t until my late 20’s when a rude awakening brought me to finally admit the truth about myself: I am judgmental.

    It’s a painful thing to admit and yet I know it’s probably true of all of us. We’re human. That’s what we do.

    Yesterday I was speaking with a young woman I’m helping to guide through the rocky waters of the healing path and lo and behold I found myself talking about LOVE at the very same time I was casting judgment on some of her other teachers.

    Ouch.

    Of course, I didn’t realize this until later when I was obsessing over the session. Something was wrong. What was it?

    A little digging, some sharing with a friend and voila! I’m humbled.

    I once knew a man, an Elder, a Great Chief, who said to me, “Celia, we can’t get so heavenly that we end up being no earthly good.”

    I would love to be able to tell you that all this inner work I do has freed me from the bondage of Celia and I never judge anyone anymore. Ha! But I strive for that freedom and, to the best of my ability, I admit when I’m wrong.

    It doesn’t feel good to say, “I judged that person.” But it feels good to accept it and let it go.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I’m human. I’m on the path. I’m doing my best.

    The Great Mystery

    • September 29, 2009 10:19 am

    There is a rainbow on my living room rug.

    The sun is shining through the window hitting a stained glass frame resting on the sill and the colours of the rainbow are mixing in with the patterns on the Persian rug.

    I’m sure there is a scientific explanation for rainbows but I don’t wish to know what it is. Don’t get me wrong, I like science. I would even go as far to say that I love science.

    What I love most about science is that often the scientific explanation for a thing only succeeds in deepening the mystery of its origin.

    Once I was riding a train from Montreal to Toronto and I was sitting across from an elderly couple in the “family” seats, where two face two.

    I don’t remember how we got on the subject but the gentleman asked me if I had read “A Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking. I told him I had struggled through part of it but didn’t get all the way to the end.

    He said, “What’s wonderful about that book is it presents all kinds of information, which is totally fascinating and very, very intelligent but in the end what Hawking tells us is that we still don’t know. There are no answers.”

    This is the Great Mystery.

    The Great Mystery is a wonderful title for the Divine, the Force, God, Higher Power et al.

    The word “Great” gives it the power and reverence it deserves and the word “Mystery” encompasses the notion that who we are and why we are here is ultimately inexplicable.

    The Great Mystery allows us to have faith in the unknown while trusting in the omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent Power back of all things.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: In the words of the great songstress Kim Beggs: Just look for rainbows in gasoline ’cause everything is Divine.

    Into the Mystic

    • September 28, 2009 7:13 am

    Yesterday I was speaking with a friend who is living on the other side of the country about the mystical journey of life and the process of letting go.

    I was describing to her my own process of walking through my fear everyday. Everyday I must do the thing I think I cannot do. Everyday I pray for courage and I show up for the ride.

    “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter that I’m afraid, I’ll do it. Whatever I’m supposed to do I’ll do it,” I told her. This is my practice.

    My friend, listening closely, told me about a film starring Ingrid Bergman called The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. It’s a B-movie from 1958 that nobody saw. In it, Bergman plays a missionary who is sent to China. At one point in the film she is visiting a prison and beyond the bars she can hear screaming and terrible sounds that evoke unspeakable horrors.

    The guard says to her, “Aren’t you afraid?” and she says, “Yes. Open the door.”

    My friend told me this story to illustrate her point, which was to say that my fear does matter. We cannot negate our fear. Our fear is real. So, yes, YES, I am afraid. Now open the door.

    But the only reason I’m able to say open the door is because I trust. I trust in the mystical experience.

    The mystic believes in spiritual truths that are beyond the intellect. The mystic believes that we are being guided every second of our lives. Every single thing that happens to us is guidance from on high.

    This is challenging. But it is also liberating. Life becomes an adventure to be lived out every moment as we wait to see which path to take, what road to follow.

    Fear of what lies ahead is inevitable. It feels terrible. But trusting Guidance is the key that allows us to say, “Yes. Open the door.”

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I’m terrified but I’m willing to do whatever it is that I am supposed to do. I will pray for courage and I will walk forth into the greatest adventure of all: my own life.

    The Spiritual Solution

    • September 26, 2009 6:21 pm

    I started this blog because the cat I live with wakes me up each day at an ungodly hour and I was so enraged one morning that I prayed for help because I truly wanted to kill him.

    When things happen to me that are disturbing in nature (from the mundane to the very serious) I seek what I like to call the Spiritual Solution in order to discover what is really going on.

    The SS involves looking at the bigger picture and asking pretty deep questions: What is the message? How can I be of service? How am I attracting this? What can I change? How can I practice love here?

    Living according to the Spiritual Solution is not easy. It’s a narrow path. It’s much easier to complain and be annoyed and resentful or have a pity party or give up altogether. But there’s not much peace to be had by reacting emotionally to things or taking things personally. When I accept that there is something to be learned from difficult situations I am less likely to get depressed because I’m trusting in a Higher Plan.

    Even though I fantasize about strangling my cat, I choose instead to love him, love him, love him.

    “Do to us what you will and we will still love you.”

    Those are the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

    He was an advocate for loving our enemies. Love them until they are worn down, love them until we are victorious.

    This is a radical approach and I believe we must adopt it for everything that happens in our lives. Whatever we are fighting today, we must fight with love. We must love the thing we hate into submission.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: I am willing to love my enemy because I believe that this is ultimately how I will win freedom.

    Being Here Now

    • September 25, 2009 3:47 pm

    Well, the cat woke me up at 4:17 a.m. but did I get up to blog about it? No, I did not.

    There were no forthcoming inspirational messages coming through so I ignored the cat and slept until I had to wake up at 6:30.

    It’s already been a very full day and I’ve still got a “to-do” list a mile long. I’m blogging right now to avoid tackling it.

    Why do we procrastinate?

    Here’s a crazy idea: most of us procrastinate because we know that if we actually get the thing done we are going to feel GOOD. And many of us do not believe we deserve to feel good.

    I’ve done some pretty big work on myself to believe that I deserve to feel good but some days are better than others. I can still fall back into the old way of thinking that tells me I don’t deserve to feel free, it’s better if I’m stressed etc.

    I call these thoughts The Voices of Dissent or TVOD.

    Often TVOD occur when I future-trip. Instead of being here now I’ve launched myself into a situation or a scenario that is not happening anywhere but in my head and as a result I’m feeling anxious.

    Ergo, when I am not here, I am in fear.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I return to the present I return to peace. Keep returning to the here and now. It is the only time we really have.

    Abundance is an Inside Job

    • September 24, 2009 6:48 am

    The cat has been trying to wake me up for the last two hours but I wouldn’t budge.

    Poor thing. He was actually hungry. Sometimes he forces me to get up and there is still food in his dish but this morning it was empty and now he’s gobbling and crunching his kibbles as though he hasn’t eaten for a week.

    I was dreaming of a grandmother and her two granddaughters. One of them was sick and I was asking if she’d been to the doctor to make sure it wasn’t swine flu.

    She gave me a book with a page in it that had been written just for me. It said:

    ABUNDANCE

    I told her I’d been working on that one for a while. And I have, in waking life.

    What I have found is that when I create inner abundance, that is, truly believing that I am everything I need to be by getting rid of the belief systems that tell me that I’m not, the abundance in my outer world expands.

    It is vital that I dig out the belief system that tells me I’m unworthy, or that I don’t deserve to feel free or prosperous or loved. I must do this in order to believe that I am enough, that I do enough, and that I have enough.

    Digging out this old way of thinking is challenging and we can’t do it alone. But when we rise to the challenge and seek the help we need to change, we can then experience true abundance, which is a feeling of having and being enough.

    Affirmations are great but if I’m still operating from a belief system that tells me I’m a piece of crap then the affirmation is not going to go very far. I have to change the belief system by removing the old way of thinking.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I seek help and change my inner world, my outer world transforms. I deserve to feel abundant. I am everything I need to be, today, now and always.