• We Are Known

    • March 25, 2020 9:57 am


     Dearest Readers,

    I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year. Can you believe it’s been twenty years since Y2K? Astonishing.

    Maybe I’m slow but it only occurred to me very recently that 2020 is a play on ’20/20′.

    ’20/20 vision’ and ‘hindsight is 20/20’ bring to mind a more clear way of seeing. How could we move into this new decade with a new kind of clarity? Perhaps by seeing ourselves not simply as individuals but as component parts of a Cosmic Oneness. Whether you are religious and believe that we are all Children of God or spiritual and believe that we are All One or secular/scientific and understand that we all share the same DNA, the fact remains: we are all intimately connected. We are not separate from one another.

    This fact was brought home to me again and again when I attended an amazing conference in San Jose, CA called Science and Non-Duality (SAND) this past October 2019. The organizers of the conference are a dynamic couple who had a desire to share with others their mutual love of science and mysticism and set about creating a conference where folks could come together to celebrate the mysteries and wonders of both.

    The pairing of science, with its fact-based approach, and spirituality, with its wisdom-based knowing, excites me almost like nothing else. When I was very little, I used to fall asleep by pressing my fists into my eyes so that I could view the kaleidoscope of colours that the pressure produced. When I did this, I somehow felt not only that I was seeing God but that God was living inside of me. In other words, my very first experience of God looked something like this:

    A number of the guest speakers at the SAND conference were scientists who spend their research time asking the question ‘Is the Universe conscious?’ In other words, does that kaleidoscope of colours have a consciousness? Does it know itself? Does it know me? Does it know, period?

    For me, the answer to these questions is a roof-top shouting ‘YES’. For how can the Mechanism Behind Consciousness not have consciousness itself? (The ancient yogis believe that ‘God’ is Consciousness itself.)


    Science cannot yet explain consciousness (why we have it, where it comes from, what it even is) and so it remains the greatest mystery. Religion and spirituality fill in the answers. We get to decide for ourselves.

    Einstein supposedly said something like, “Either everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle.” To that end, either everything has consciousness or nothing does. Either the Universe is conscious (of itself, of me and you and all that is) or it’s not.

    Living life as though the Universe is as conscious of me as I am of It makes life pretty interesting. It also addresses existential loneliness or the feeling that I am alone and unloved.

    On an evening walk some years ago, I was stopped short by a large scattering of wood chips on the sidewalk. I looked up to see what had caused the mess and saw perfect, round holes in the tree, as if a large drill-bit had punched in and out of the bark. The very next day, when I passed the same tree I saw a woodpecker hammering its head in and out of the tree at rapid speed. I actually laughed out loud. No wonder an animation artist had invented Woody the Woodpecker, a comical, ridiculous bird!

    I don’t know how long I watched that woodpecker. It had me completely mesmerized. I was transported by the power it had in its little head to bore holes in trees, by its determination to feed itself, by the absolute phenomenon of its being. By simply by observing the humble woodpecker, I had been awakened to something far greater than my own self-centered thoughts.

    The amazing thing is, Woodpecker has continued to show up in my life, seemingly just when I need it. On more than one occasion, when I’ve been in a funk, the bird appears. Just this past July, when I was feeling despair at the state of the world, criticizing myself for being imperfect, tired of life in general, Woodpecker stopped me as I walked through a ravine to get to my destination. I first heard the rat-a-tat-tat of the beak-against-trunk and then saw it, high in a branch of an old maple. “I’m here,” it said. 

    I wrote the above paragraph about five days ago. Two days ago, I was walking on the grey streets of the town where I live, feeling extremely melancholy. My mood had dipped, as it does, and I was heading to the shores of Lake Ontario for a boost. I caught a flash of a bird flying by and looked to the tree where I saw it land. Woodpecker. “I’m here,” it said.

    Call these encounters coincidence. Call them nothing at all. Or call them a form of conscious contact from a Conscious Universe. When I choose the latter way of seeing I am bolstered by the notion that every conceivable thing is fused with Knowing. That means that I am Known. And You are Known. And We are Known. Kind of radical, know?

    May this Knowing be the foundation of our 20/20 vision.

    From the fires of love,

    Celia

    Resisting Love

    • October 14, 2017 12:52 pm

    This blog post is the last issue of The Healing Journey, the letter I send out to subscribers. You may subscribe here to receive the email.

    Dearest Readers,

    ‘Love’ gets a lot of air time as the final solution to the world’s problems.

    All you need is love. Make love not war. Whatever the question, love is the answer.

    I do not disagree. In fact, I would march in any protest holding a One Love slogan high or chanting it loud and long for all to hear.

    Why, then, when we are so good at touting this truth, do we still resist love? And not just on a global scale, as a peaceful solution to mass discord, but on a personal one as well?

    How many people do you know who hurt themselves or reject goodness or resist love? A few? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? Billions?

    For your separation from God is the hardest work in this world.

    This line from a poem by Hafez (or Hafiz) says it all. Why are we working so hard to separate ourselves from That Which We Already Are?

    Lots of reasons. Trauma, addiction, mental illness, low self-esteem, self-loathing, desire for power and control, fear.

    In short: because we’re human.

    In evolutionary terms, it could be argued that we are still at the very beginning of our journey toward full, conscious awakening. There may be a few awakened beings walking around but most of us are still dragging our knuckles and clubbing each other.

    Why?

    Because we don’t realize Who We Really Are.

    I think I’m Celia. And I am. I’m also the Evolving Manifestation of the Mysterious Energy Creating and Sustaining All Things at Every Conceivable Level of Physical and Non-Physical Reality.

    (I know, it’s a lot easier to say ‘God’ but the word divides. You’ve heard me say it before, we need a new word. Or we at least need to come to some kind of agreement on what the word means. Until then, I’ll create variations.)

    Being Celia, or human, means I am subject to human experience. Human experience includes wrestling with ‘the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.’ I am going to get hurt and rejected. I am going to suffer. Because I’ve suffered and been hurt and rejected, I’m going to identify with these experiences. Naturally. And this identification is going to lead me to believe that I am unworthy, unloved and unlovable. Hence, when love comes my way I’m going to resist it. Or even before it comes my way I’m going to make sure it doesn’t arrive. Cut it off at the pass.

    This is the wound of separation, which leads to the hardest work in the world. So how do we heal?

    First of all, there is no cure for being human. It is what I am. No matter how hard I try, I will not outrun my humanity and the fear that comes with it.

    In the same way, I cannot outrun That Which Makes Me Human. I may be able to resist The Force Behind Human Existence but extricating myself from It? Not a chance.

    This is why separation is ‘the hardest work in the world’. Because we literally cannot do it.

    Resisting Love because we’re afraid of being hurt or vulnerable or rejected is the expected human reaction. Understanding that it is impossible to resist That Which We Already Are is the evolved and awakened response.

    Still, resistance persists. I may know intellectually that I am the Cosmos Looking at Itself or a Child of God or Bliss Absolute or however you want to say it and yet there I go again, pressing the self-sabotage button, rejecting Love before it rejects me.

    It’s okay.

    We can’t annihilate our separation work any more than we can outrun our humanness. Because our separation work is our humanness. This is how we are made. If we didn’t have the veil of separation we’d be God. Or the Thing That Makes All Things Possible. That veil is what enables us to be here.

    So, if you are in the resistance, if your separation work is generating or perpetuating the suffering, be gentle with yourself. We’re still evolving. We’re not getting it wrong.

    I recently asked a 105 year-old woman what her secret was. “I just live,” she said.

    May we all just live, as we are, trusting that Evolution or Divine Love or Cosmic Oneness is doing Its good work in all of us, even now, and even now, and now and now…

    From the fires of love,

    Celia