SUNLIGHT REFELCTIONS

Take a moment and remember all the places you've gone swimming. Remember all the swimming you've done out doors, in sunlight, where the water is shallow, clear, and you can see the patterns of sunlight on the bottom. It might be a beach, or a lake, or a swimming pool, but the sunlight is refracted by the surface of the water and collects into ever moving patterns of light. Ribbons of light that intersect in brighter blobs making a network that depends on the patterns of waves above.

When I was in college and studying physics I always had a sense that this was an image of how energy collects to form particles, which move and interact, always changing. I never "worked out" this metaphor in detail, but have often remembered it since. There is a field of energy that exists everywhere, and the particles are just denser places. There is light everywhere on the bottom of a pool, but it's collected, focused by the waves into brighter ribbons and blobs, into forms and particles.

Later I studied yoga and my teacher spoke about how consciousness became denser as it came out from source and into the physical. He spoke as if there were planes, or levels with interfaces which could reflect and refract consciousness as it emerged, helping to give it form. This is what happens at the surface of the water, the interface with the air above, and the light which was uniform is refracted and reflected and takes on form and pattern as it enters the water and shines onto the bottom.

Spirit infuses matter, as the light shines into the water. It projects into matter, but is refracted in ways that produce form. It is denser in some places, bright and noticeable, and less so in others, but never absent, only relatively less present.

When the water becomes still the patterns fade, the light is everywhere the same, until a breeze comes or a swimmer moves, and waves are formed and the pattern of light and dark reappears. Perhaps this it how the mind works, creating patterns, dramas, and dreams; by refracting the light of spirit into brighter and less bright, light and shadow we may call it. When the thoughts and emotions still and the surface calms, spirit can shine evenly into us. The forms disappear, and we may miss the variety, the beauty of the patterns, but the stillness allows peace and an unrefracted experience of the divine.

In your mind's eye, or the next time you go swimming under the sun, notice these patterns and let your being remember how spirit infuses you as the sunlight does the water. Notice what images or metaphors arise for you.

(© 8/10)

DEEPER AFFIRMATIONS

Several weeks ago I was having one of those days where mental focus and clarity about my current spiritual journey was less than optimal. Being reworked by Spirit again, leaving me to trust in my higher Self which knows this business better than I. Fortunately a good friend of mine was available to take a look at things for me and in the course of having a conversation with my higher Self and was told to remind me to make use of affirmations.

My fuzzy mind reacted with an attitude; been there done that, not likely to help. This is in spite of having made use of affirmations, or self-hypnotic suggestions for many years. When I first read about affirmations they were discussed as a way to reprogram the mind. Repeating a well constructed affirmation would stir up counter programing and belief, all the reasons something wasn't possible. Eventually this mental back talk would be cleared out and the new positive belief installed.

When I trained as a hypnotherapist, self-hypnotic suggestions took this a step further. By dropping into a trance state first, conscious mental filtering is by-passed and the suggestions enter directly into the subconscious. This is a process I teach most of my clients and have used extensively and effectively myself.

In spite of the mental brush-off I was inspired to work that week with a new affirmation. As I repeated it to myself as during the following days, I noticed something new. There was a body level response. I was feeling the affirmation. It wasn't just a mental loop of words going over and over and fading into automatic background (not that that's bad). I would think the words to myself and I would feel my being respond with the quality that the words represented.

It was like dropping stones in a well and hearing them splash, except I was dropping them into myself and feeling the echo. This was pretty cool. As a ceremonialist I recognized this as a form of invocation. The words were invoking a state. Rather than somehow reprograming myself to be something new, I was calling forth something that was already there. This is what my higher Self had been after. It wanted me to use affirmations to remind myself of what I already was. Calling forth qualities that my higher/deeper Self already knew and could bring forward into the receptive space I created by "listening".

I have been shown over and over in my work that we are already everything we need to be. We are souls that are fully capable and realized. Just not fully conscious. But the places that need to heal have the wisdom for that healing, the Self we want to be is already existing, even if we are not fully aware of it. We are deep, reaching all the way to Source. If we call down into ourselves another part of us will answer.

So when you next work with affirmations, try them with this in mind. Say the words; then pause; listen/feel for the echo from your Self. Create a space to feel them in your body and know that they are already true. Calling your Self into awareness you will be everything you can be.

(© 8/10)