North's Journey Journal

What is the world that I am present within? Which is the illusion and which is real. What is the higher road when facing pain and uncertainty? Does the sensory input we focus on define our reality or do our desires, and expectations pre-select our reality for us? Is our destiny insurrection against ourselves for what we lack or resurrection out of what we truly are? To ignore the obvious may mean I am in denial, or that what is obvious is defined by the observer. Is it possible that what is a limitation in your world may be my salvation? Even asking these questions is the essence of self-awareness. I have lots of time to reflect on this. My world has shifted into a very slow pace. I feel I am moving within stillness itself, for my old world has stopped revolving and I am sensing a counter revolution beginning.

Over the past three weeks I have resisted this deceleration. I want to move faster, do things for myself, get the results now. It’s been a slow detox from life in the fast lane. I have come to realize how much my mind runs ahead of my body without checking-in. In the fast lane, my body speaks in ways that I often minimize and don’t listen or worse that I think pain is the only definitive state and I fail to look beyond it to see a greater understanding. Prior to the diagnosis, I failed to self-examine the greater viewpoint. I simply kept focused on the outer world and ignored the symptoms that my body was sending me that something was seriously wrong. “Just a little skin irritation, a short-term infection, no reason to slow down the brain wheels”. Now I have been forced to slow down everything. And in that place the body speaks so loudly the pendulum swings in the opposite direction… I am inclined to believe that the body really defines who I am. Yet, this thought is as false as ignoring the warnings and other body signals.

For example, I found myself in a few days ago, sitting in our kitchen at about 6:30am listening to a body diatribe. My head was pounding, throat dry and neck soar. The message, “this is not fun, it will last forever”. I had spent another night dancing with sleep, but never getting a slow easy set. The choreography was… sleep an hour, up one, two hours, then up half, another hour sleeping and so on. This has been the pattern since surgery. They took my salivary glands on the right side, you know. I wake up feeling the dry stitches that hold my new palette in place. And no matter how soft my belly was, it feels like leather in roof of my mouth, air-dryed from snoring. My sleep apnea compounds the problem. As I sat in the kitchen that morning, feeling the dryness of my mouth and the pain in my head, I felt the emotional thought speak... how long and why? My thought was “how do I get out of here, is there no escape?” Has the body become my tomb?” This was a momentary experience. With these physical sensations and experiences it is easy to become attached to this is the "real world". But is it reality?

The Truth: The real world we experience is the attachment we make to the prison of our ego thoughts. Our thoughts are our source of creativity. They can be like the skulls that hang from the Hindu Goddess Kali’s neck. Constantly changing from terror to chrysanthemum blossoms and then back to skulls. This is the process of creativity. Our thoughts are the key to causality in our lives. We become identified with the thoughts in our lives. This is an incredible power. We can revive ourselves or we can lock ourselves into a prison or a tomb. The mistake is in believing that we are the source of the thought. At one level this is true. At the level of a Yogi, a Saint or a Messiah, there is another Source. We are no different, its a matter of removing the veil that we use to hide our true selves. As Matthew Fox says, a stone has been rolled over the the entrance of our tomb. This is how we lose our way, because we cannot always easily discern the false perception. Who will roll the stone away for us? To do so ourselves, means we must be able to choose a perception that will serve others and ourselves in a more compassionate way. We must become the Love we desire. Rebirth is in accepting that there is higher meaning, beyond what we can see. We must accept there is an Angel that will roll the stone from our tomb, if we choose to accept that gift. But that means total surrender to a Higher Will, Forgiveness and taming of the ego, and inviting in the Holy Presence.

The “real world” shows up in so many ways. There is a business world, a spiritual one, a nutritional one, social, family, financial, home, hobbies, political and the list goes on. All these worlds comprise the universe of our egos. We so often get tricked into thinking that each is “real”. Each becomes a separate tomb with its own stone over the entrance. The only real world is the instant that we release our attachments and see a higher view… an "overview" as Barbara Marx Hubbard calls it. In that perception, we can be reborn into a new thought and a connected whole life. To find stillness long enough to allow the illusion of the tomb to melt and a new seed to take root.

In each of us is the capacity to commune with our Creator, our Source, our God, or whatever label your belief system has chosen. For me, I hold a God-Image that is masculine feminine, eternal infinite, benevolent. When I find myself stuck in a “thought tomb” I am learning to tap that ability to commune and pray for clarity. Last night I only awoke three times. The stone moved a little. I am adapting and opening to my new world. In that instant of opening, I am asking the Will of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit to come into my life and release all false perceptions. I open myself and allow the serenity of that surrender to spark a new thought and experience. A deeper understanding to my challenge has been presented. A simple thing. The same process can apply to any aspect of life. The result becomes a resurrection that is beyond imagination, because it is from Source. And in that place I forgive all my past attachments and see them as merely acts of creativity and the process of growth. In essence that is what we really are… expressions of Source, vibrating through all kinds of experiences, conditions and relationships. The question is… are we aware enought to move the stone in front of our tomb? Perhaps you have glimpsed the same overview at some point in your life. I hope so, because from that perspective we are evolving together. And what if one day, together, we were able to shift the “real world” out of this short instant of fear and pain into an eternity of reality? Now, that is "real" rebirth that I believe is waiting for all of us. That is the new thought that is ready to be born.

Thank you for reading this.

Much Love and Light,

North



Artist: Eagles
Album: Hell Freezes Over
Year: 1994
Title: Learn To Be Still

It's just another day in paradise
As you stumble to your bed
You'd give anything to silence
Those voices ringing in your head
You thought you could find happiness
Just over that green hill
You thought you would be satisfied
But you never will-
Learn to be still

We are like sheep without a shepherd
We don't know how to be alone
So we wander 'round this desert
And wind up following the wrong gods home
But the flock cries out for another
And they keep answering that bell
And one more starry-eyed messiah
Meets a violent farewell-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

Now the flowers in your garden
They don't smell so sweet
Maybe you've forgotten
The heaven lying at your feet

-Solo-

There are so many contridictions
In all these messages we send
(We keep asking)
How do I get out of here
Where do I fit in?
Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin'
It's waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

You just keep on runnin'
Keep on runnin'