Blogs

Version 2.0 |  05/02/2011

(c) 2011 Howard McQueen

Self organizing,

self deluding,

self destructing,

and sometimes,

self clarifying.

Consciousness churning and mutating,

the relics of a survival-based operating system.

We as a species are running old, corrupted code.

It is up to each of us to reprogram,

to birth new pathways

responsive to a love for self,

knowing that all that is reflected back to us

is but an aspect of self.

Appreciating all the reflections of self

begins to create a love that unifies and heals

and reconnects our head, heart and gut.

There is absolutely no need to change

or to blame 

any of the the circumstances as they exist outside of us.

Become at peace within

and struggle no more.

The more environmental pressure bought to bear,

the more stress placed on the inner infrastructure programming,

and thus, calcified and unsustainable beliefs give way

and we learn to make our way

into the uncharted space

where consciousness may incubate

and evolve.

Billions of opportunities,

radical possibilities for this deeper love-infection to gain its hold.

© 2011 Howard McQueen

Sweet stream that runs through this valley, 

 and all life living upon this forest floor,

 this small band of brethren do bow and honor you.

You who whisper and gently caress,

 and call out to humans 

  “come in peace and learn again how I can sustain you”.

Let go most of your modern ways,

 for they do not serve you, or me.

I, GAIA, mother of all life, will show you the natural ways.

Let the sun set gently on you each and every day.

Hear the echoes of children swinging to their delight.

Celebrate the bounty of harvest,

knowing that the cycle brings with it,

the ebb of winter’s shortness of day.

Come take of my wood and my clay.

Build your structures with this and fresh mown hay.

With all this natural bounty, make your own way,

while I send my stream waters

on to rivers and into the great bay.

I’ll wait patiently for all the creatures I open to and love.

You have a place in my heart.

Think of me often

and whenever you can,

return to me, again and again. 

****

Know that Heart and I are gonna be missing each and every one of you. 

H&H

© 2011 Howard McQueen

We seek safety in our delusions.

We are simply offered a chance to live.

No warranties while we are embodied in form.

What is now within your reach of experience

 is everything

 and,

 but a drop  of the infinite now-ness

 alive in this moment. 

Drink and breathe in what you can.

Exhale your moans, groans and ecstatic cries.

This is your opportunity to be alive!

Remember not to squander it.

© 2011 Howard McQueen

Resisting action,

 without being in resistance.

Allowing the mind to be in service

 to what most desires to unfold.

Not being hooked into anyone else’s business,

 including that of the personal and shared ego.

What we most deeply focus on becomes manifest.

The juggernaut-minions of our societies,

 showered with our worship,

 continue on, due to momentum,

 until we peaceably withdraw our support.

We believe ourselves to be so domesticated,

 so beholding and enslaved to our consumptive habits,

 so tightly gripping our possessions and our securities.

Is this what we really want to believe is Living?

Deep inside, 

 beneath the bruises and callous behaviors,

 rests a spirit whispering to be awakened. 

It is an indelible and undeniably pure state-of-being,

 which, at the heart,

 is unconditional compassion and love,

 for all that has been loosed into this outer world. 

We need not be fearful.

We need not suffer needlessly.

There is this long-standing invitation

 to awaken

 and fearlessly, fully participate

 and live, even amidst those who are still fearful.

© 2011 Howard McQueen

Our inner space,

 perhaps we can agree,

 momentarily,

 to call it psychic space.

Tending to this space:

  Does it shape us

   or do we shape it?

What is this space?

Ahhh.

The portal, the gateway of

 and to

   life itself.

Open your eyes, anew.

© 2011 Howard McQueen

I hear your words.

When your words land on me,

 this is what I feel:

     [I express my feelings with “I am feeling ...” statements]

Then, I agree to hold the space for you and your words,

 without any judgments,

 without any assumptions,

 as we inquire, together,

 into the nature of your feelings

and then, switch turns,

and inquire into the nature of my feelings. 

You and I, we are many things to each other.

We are, especially, rabbis - developing an

 ever-deepening understanding of human nature,

 as it plays through us.

We are consciously dedicated to uncovering and discovering

 what is mysterious and can only be experienced

 if we become fully present.

This, my fullness of attention and presence

I offer you, dear lover and friend.

What a fantastic experience we are privileged to share!

(c) 2011 Howard McQueen

When we are connected to values that transcend

 our sense of survival,

 we encounter the possibility to become connected to caring, compassion, generosity, ...

Our intimacy with these trans-personal values 

 is put to the test when others we are connected to

 trigger in us, our own survival instincts.

We often discover we want to meddle in the affairs of others,

 thinking we are helping, thinking we are noble,

 when we are but subsidizing and attempting to fix another.

We are best served

 gently encouraging

 ourselves and others

 to take responsibility

 and reclaim their helm.

The helm is both a solitary watch as well as a captaincy.

The captaincy is to your self-developed and inherited tribe,

 your network, your community, your ...

Imagine the collective capacity and capability of a tribe of humans

 holding core shared values and shaping these in a safe, durable and sustainable container.

This tribe would evolve a wisdom to guide its members through rites-of-passage.  

A strength in inter-dependency would blossom,

 as would a collective consciousness of co-operation and trust.

Personal and tribal challenges would be openly shared,

 with the cumulative wisdom guiding right action.

We are not alone.

We have bought into the lies of separation and fear-based reactivity.

Reconnect with your tribe and your heart.

Invest your equities and your energies into tribal values.

A storm is brewing.  

Lead your tribe to a safe harbor

 and a sustainable way of living,

 where spirit and cooperation will flourish.

From the Ruiz daily email subscription feed:

"I am dreaming my life in this moment. I live in a world of illusion made by images of light. The story I create is a virtual reality that is only true for me, the one who creates it."

***

Reading this reminds me not to take anything or anyone too seriously, or too personally.

Today's message from Ruiz

"I co-create with God, and with life. Life creates what is real, and I create a story about what is real. The story is how I qualify, justify, and explain what I perceive. My story is my creation, and it's a masterpiece of art."

To have a daily message sent to you via email: Click Here

© 2011 Howard McQueen

Consciousness is this soup of preferences, expectations, desires and needs.

When not centered, there is confusion and anxiety.

When centered, there is an ability to shape all this raw,

often charged and competing energy into intention.

Is our intention reactive and coming from an unexplored and tumultuous inner place?

Is our intention responsive and conscious, coming from a well-explored inner place?

Often, our challenge is to hold this soupy array of seemingly polarized preferences, expectations, desires and needs, just like we want to be held: tenderly, compassionately, with unconditional acceptance. 

Yes, it is a tall order, and,

It is ongoing.

It is not an achieving

It is a quality of being with ...

© 2011 Howard McQueen

We are unable to speak or write what is ultimately true.

And yet, words and actions can convey us, inwardly,

 so we may experience close encounters with our source.

Our rational mind,

 when drawn into the many sensations of separation,

 constructs and replays all the many stories of our vulnerability.

Lacking a culture that supports the telling and interpreting

 of these often harrowing stories,

 we forget that each of us have an invitation

 to experience the sacred rites of initiation.

It is in our willingness to remember and relearn how to create the safe place,

 often found in the group relationship space of community,

 where we can again become naked

 and share these stories of our experiences ,

 that stripped us of our innocence.

We as a culture are remembering the modalities

 that are pointing us to the sacred rites of passage.

We are beginning to break sweat and release ourselves from all the fevers,

 all the obsessive-compulsive distractions with technology, consumerism, our vanities   

 and all our attempts to create securities. 

What we are left with, which is all we ever began with,

 is the ability to connect and communicate.

We need but rekindle our desire to reconnect,

 encourage ourselves to deeply listen,

 then deeply and honestly feel our emotions,

 and share whatever has covered over our purity and innocence.

This is the common, everyday therapy that restores our health and vitality

 and brings light, trust and respect for safety

 back into our external experience with the world.

There are a corresponding set of therapies that we each can practice, inwardly,

 to set your own self straight. 

All we need do is practice, practice and begin to gain a mastery of relating, honestly,

 to this growing awareness we call ourself.

Everything external will take care of itself,

 if we do this for ourselves.

© 2011 Howard McQueen

We are on this journey

  of awakening from our ignorance.

So much of what we hold within to be true

  has been corrupted.

We are, before, after and beyond anything knowable,

  born from a source of pure innocence.

We are born into a world and culture bred and fed

  an abundance of beliefs which seem so sincere

  and which, upon a deeper inspection,

  hold but limited and conditional truth.

As we train ourselves to not accept the surface skin of our beliefs as believable, or even remotely true, we engage in a deep cleansing and letting go of all of the inner corruption.

To gain access to what is corrupt within, you need only lend your attention to those words you speak which convey judgment.  Know that your words are like an iceberg, and merely the tip of the iceberg containing the thoughts and your beliefs which generate all the judgment.

We have been trained and domesticated into eating and nurturing ourselves with the ignorance of our culture and our world view.  We have fed and powered ourselves through our worldly experiences with this corruption. 

Corruption is, at its very core, a violence which covers over, stifles and mis-interprets the pure innocence and unconditional acceptance conveyed to us at birth.  This  violence has been contrived by our fellow humans, infected with a need for a sense of power-to-control.  It is these root corruptions that have infected our culture, that in turn have infected the belief structures we use to navigate this world.

Before any cultural conditioning, there is a pure source from which all things spring, including us, including our capability to become aware and to awaken from ignorance.

This source flows as a constant stream which prophets and wise elders have learned to drink and nourish clarity.   This stream awaits you.  When you rest by and drink from this stream, clarity arises and you see that there is always choice.  You also pierce through and reconnect to your natural rights (and natural proclivities) to feel gratitude for being alive, for the capability and capacity to love, to nuture and to hold each other as one tribe, one family, one community.  At our deepest core, we are each instruments, readied to be liberated to pursue our needs for connection. 

Next time you find yourself, or your brother or sister communicating and caught up in the pain flowing from all our ignorance, show up and show yourself / them your deepest compassion and understanding. 

We can, through the relationship of reconnection, one compassionate demonstration at a time, help each other release ourselves from our ignorance.