Returning to Source
The return to the bare branches of trees in November can be such a wonderful metaphor for the awakening process. In the life of the mind, leaf fall can look like a scary time. All the lushness of summer has fallen away, and we are stripped to our bare branches. Mind wants more to show for all the efforts of its lifetime... maybe mind would prefer the flashiness of the color of the dying leaves to last until springtime comes with its greens, or to have leaves all year round. But no. The opportunity of this season is in meeting the winter with nothing but the essentials. When all the color and show is peeled away from our mind-based worldly lives, we human beings then meet our essential nature. We are able to have a direct experience of what generated the whole show, and what all of it returns to when its done. This is always and already available all the time. We just cover it over with our egoic doings. If we, as human beings, can meet these short late autumn and winter days with all the extras peeled away, then we are taking advantage of the invitation of the season. We are invited to look into this by the world around us. We can acknowledge mind and it's agenda, and as we take that perspective we are looking at mind from outside of it. Behind all of our ideas about what is going on, who we are, who others are, and what just happened or what might happen next, we are able to find ourselves free already. All the constrictions that we put on ourselves and our world may still be running on as a noisy tangle of thoughts, but we no longer draw our identity from that source. We stand aside. We look to the bare trees, knowing that they will clothe themselves again with leaves, come springtime, but that their the essential nature yearly is proved through leaf-fall. They offer us this lesson yearly, so that we may find our own essential nature, and know what is real, and stable, and perfect already just as it is, including any scars and dead branches. To take full advantage of the upcoming shortness of days, and bareness of branches, listen to Mother Nature. She is teaching us all the time, just waiting for us to listen. Do not take anyone's word for this. Look for yourself. No intermediaries are needed.
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Bare Reality
Open, no longer busy,
There is nothing, but
Just this simple moment.
A teaching without words
Just This,
The whole Holy wholeness of it. Words can only point
And fall short.
A request for assistance:
As an addition to this newsletter and website, I am in the midst of setting up a way for us to have two way conversations. The way that is evident to do that is through a blog and a Word Press Blog has been set up already, even though all of you can't see it till next month. However, because I am inexperienced, I would love to have some assistance in knowing how to maximize this technology to create a space for an online community of support. Is anyone out there more experienced than I and willing to make suggestions or even be an administrator? If so, please drop me a line at alice@wideawakeliving.com The object is to be there for people who don't have a big local support system for awakening. One way communication is nice, but at least in my experience, it can be very important to have some alive interaction with others on the subject, especially those who are just a little further along in the process of learning the living implications of awakening.
An easier option for being of assistance, is if you would just pass along the newsletters or the website to people you know who are either interested in, or in the process of awakening. You could use the link below for a single person, or if you have a list of people's emails that you would trust me with, I will send them an invitation myself, but will not subscribe them without their explicit permission. This is just to make it so that people know about this available support, so that they can take advantage of it if they wish, and not to be junk mail for people who don't want it.
Openness to Questions/Requests in December:
Please feel free to send me, Alice, heartfelt questions or requests on subjects you would like addressed this month at alice@wideawakeliving.com as a starting place for the blog. After that, the blog will be the place to ask questions and share in each others processes.
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