Light of Truth

Posted on January 3, 2015 by mcallister
light of truth

In the center of your being is the Light of Truth, the pure aspect of your Soul that is part of all that IS, shining forth through all the levels of your human beingness, animating and manifesting your presence in the world.

Close your eyes, give your self a breath, feel into in the warm darkness of your inner space. Let all the lights and pictures from your mind and emotions fade and dissipate. Tune your awareness to your inner Light, the conscious energy of Being from which all the forms, thoughts, feelings, molecules of your human being come forth.

Letting go of space, find spaciousness. Letting go of time, find eternity. Letting go of self invite your Self to fill your awareness. Going down, up, inside, or underneath, slip through the bonds and bounds of the physical and resonate with your Soul’s Light, your unified Essence.

At this turning of the year take time to come to rest in the Light of Self, letting all the rest dissolve, and fall away. Know that as you tune into your Truth, all that is not in resonance will fall away, effortlessly. Know also that your small self doesn’t have to DO this, or anything else, except relax and let go. Intending to tune to Truth you are naturally called home to Source.

Bathe there as in warm spring water, the waves of a gentle sea, the sweet smells of tropical flowers, or the soft gaze of a lover’s eyes. Release all effort, all sense of trying, of limitation or lack. Allow awareness of how your aspect of the Truth of all that IS flows into and through you into the manifest world. Saying yes to this, you open to the infinite. Ask what it wants to create through you.

Coming back to your body and human being, allow this Light to shine through from the inside. Let the mind be still for a while longer, only serving as a screen for your Soul to show you an image of how it wants to manifest this coming year. What will it create through and for you, if you let it? What resonates with it in the next cycle around the Sun?

As you move back into Life, bring this sense of Truth and Light with you. Notice what resonates with it and what doesn’t. Honor your feelings and your knowing of this; honor your own Truth. Some things will fall away, let them. Some things will show up, notice if they resonate and take them up.

Let the Light of your Truth shine through you. Let your Essential Self find room in the world. The pure notes of your Being will join in harmony with those of others who are also living from the core of Truth. Welcome to a glorious new year.

(© 1/2015)

Posted in Inspiration, Metaphysics, Newsletter | Leave a comment

Heart Breath

Posted on December 16, 2014 by mcallister

When I was a boy, my family spent summers in Maine whereI loved to swim and play in the ocean. As long as the tide was in far enough to cover the rocks we made the ocean our playground. With my heart breathing joy, we invented games all day.

Now I live far from the ocean and I swim laps in a saline pool. Up and down, back and forth. I still invent games when I swim, though they are more internally oriented than when I was a boy. Having practiced t’ai chi for many years I focus not on speed or form, but on how relaxed I can be while swimming. My body then teaches me how to swim easily and efficiently. Speed and form follow.

In the water there is another factor though, breath. When I am relaxed, breathing is easy and falls into a natural rhythm set by my strokes. When I push too hard, going into effort, or thinking anxious thoughts and go into fear, breathing quickly becomes labored. My body tenses up and if there is enough fear I will almost certainly manage to inhale some water. My swimming is completely disrupted.

So my prime rule is to swim within the breath. Whenever I feel my breath tightening I slow down, or consciously relax my torso, moving tension down, leaving it behind. As long as I follow this rule, my breathing is rarely affected by waves or disturbances around me. More importantly, I find that I am swimming stronger at the end of my swim than at the beginning. My body has oxygenated, relaxed and opened to the air I am breathing, become more efficient.

In life outside the pool there is a parallel: focusing on having an open heart. When my heart is open, love and life force naturally flow efficiently in and through it. When I start to push too hard, think too much, or multi-task beyond a certain point, my heart begins to grow uneasy and fearful and shuts itself off. This works exactly like becoming short of breath in the pool.

I go back to t’ai chi: let the stress levels drop off, grounding thoughts or fears into the earth, reducing my commitments and todo lists a bit, limit how many people I come in contact with during the day; whatever allows my heart to relax and open again. In time it becomes more efficient and I can get more done, while still being open to Spirit, to Love, to Life.

Learning how to feel this place where the heart says “too much, I’m about to feel overwhelmed”, is a constant practice. This place is always in flux, moment to moment, day to day. I notice what activities open it up more, which I have to be more cautious about. Over time the ability to hold an open heart and still get things done, to be present and effective, increases; ultimately more so than if I keep on pushing myself.

Take some time to listen to your heart breathe. Just as you can’t swim when you are short on air, you can’t really live when you are short on Love. Listen to your heart, and you take care of yourself, and in the end, of everyone else around you as well.

(© 12/2014)

Posted in Inspiration, Life Lessons, Newsletter | 1 Comment

Seeding Abundance

Posted on December 3, 2014 by mcallister

As we celebrate the abundance of the earth that nourishes our bodies and the communities of family and friends that support our souls, I have been thinking about the seeding of abundance performed by honey bees. These small beings work industriously to collect flower nectar that becomes honey in their hives. As they go from flower to flower collecting liquid sunshine for their own sustenance, they inadvertently collect and spread the pollen of the flowers they visit. The seeding process is vital to the life cycle of all the flowering plants, and to the production of most of the food that human beings grow and eat.

Without the work of these tiny genetic messengers, we would have very bare tables at Thanksgiving.

Contemplating the bees what I am struck by is that the vital pollination process is something that they are probably unaware of. They are simply doing their dance of life for themselves and yet this also creates even more additional abundance for the whole web of life the world over.

When we are focused on doing our spiritual practices and work, we do it for ourselves, but this work also has a great impact in the world around us. Most directly with those family and friends that we live with, or meet from time to time, who may benefit from our words or deeds, but always from the example of our being. Our energy of being radiates into the global fields and supports all life well beyond our knowing and physical presence.

I recently watched a movie called Searching for Sugarman about a musician who recorded several albums in the early 1970’s. These albums seemed to vanish into the world with no visible impact, and the musician went back to his life, walking in the power and integrity of being himself and humbly serving those around him.

While he seemed forgotten his music made its way around the world to South Africa where it spoke to a generation of men and women struggling to change the apartheid system there. This man, who was utterly unknown at home and who knew nothing of the fruits of his work, became more famous there than the biggest bands in the rest of the world.

Only decades later, when some of his fans decided to track down the story of the singer who had so influenced their lives, but who they thought was already dead, was he discovered simply being himself. He was able to finally visit the country his music had inspired and be recognized by those he had affected.

Being yourself, doing what your soul is called to do, or even just doing your own soul’s growth work, has an impact in this world. You may never see it, but it is there. Like the bees you may not even know what or who you are pollinating with your essence and being, but that doesn’t change the gift for those that are receiving it.

So in this season of celebrating abundance, take time to celebrate your Self, especially the aspects of your soul that no one else seems to see: validate them, and give yourself permission to make time and space for them just for their own sake, knowing that somewhere, somehow, each time you speak or act from your soul, you are spreading more pollen, seeding abundance into the world.

(© 12/2014)

Posted in Community, Inspiration, Nature, Spiritual Process | Leave a comment

Trust Deeper

Posted on November 16, 2014 by mcallister

This week I left a suddenly snowy and seriously cold Boulder to visit friends in Vancouver. Traveling for me often yields interesting lessons and this trip was no exception.

In 5:00 am winter dark, with light snow and a temperature near zero, I take a bus to the airport rather than trying to drive. As we approach the north side of Denver, the low sky greying slightly as the sun rose somewhere over head, we hit solid traffic. Dead stopped.

Not having wanted to get up at 3:30 this morning to catch an earlier bus, there is not a lot of extra time before my flight leaves at 8:00. Part of me is beginning to be nervous. An accident up ahead in morning rush hour could mean all sorts of delay. I check in with my guides, and they say it’s all cool.

The driver has access to information and alternative routes. He turns off onto a long looping detour. We are moving, but time is ticking by. The sky is as light as its going to be as we get back to the airport approach road; after 7:00 and nearing boarding time. My guides still say I’m OK.

On the approach road we find more heavy traffic. Three lanes of crawling cars. My mind is running failure scenarios, involving a non-refundable ticket. I’m having trouble believing my guides now, but keep moving forward.

I have done an on-line check in for the first time, and have no checked luggage, so I can skip the front desk. I don’t know my gate, so I txt my son, waking him up again and get the gate! He confirms my hope that I can skip the main security system and go through a much smaller check point on the walkway out to the A terminal gates.

We pull in, 50 minutes late. I grab my bag from underneath the bus and take off running. In the doors, up an escalator, around the main terminal and out the walkway to the check point, huffing and puffing with my luggage.

Mercifully the line here is short, they don’t ask me to unpack anything. I’m off again, just trying to keep my legs moving, across the rest of the walkway, down a ramp to the terminal, where the speakers are already calling last boarding for my flight.

As I enter the terminal I find that an escalator I need to go down is closed for repairs. Really! I’m giving up in my head, but my guides still say OK. I consider trying to climb over barriers, but its not practical, so I lug my bags around to the west side escalators and walk down to the gate level. Shuffling back towards the east wing I hear another final boarding call, but forge on.

My breath is hard and rasping in my throat and my gate is way out at the end; three moving walks and floor space to cover. As I come to the gate there is no one there except the attendants, but its still open! My guides have been speaking truth. I walk down the ramp onto a half empty plane and drop gratefully into my seat.

I have been wondering how many obstacles are going to be thrown at me this morning, but realize now that my guides are showing me that I can trust them in spite of all the glitches. Trust and keep moving forward. In the end I had perhaps 10 minutes to spare, though if I’d slowed down earlier I would have been caught when security shut down.

Later in the day I have similar experiences with other legs of my trip. Being late, worrying in spite of guidance and then having time to spare in the end. I am learning to hold open the possibilities I choose even when they appear unlikely. I am grateful for being supported even when I doubt.

(© 11/2014)

Posted in Inspiration, Life Lessons, Newsletter, Spiritual Process | Leave a comment

Surreal Days

Posted on November 3, 2014 by mcallister

A bright fall afternoon; blue sky, yellow trees, patches of green and red leaves still, the colors are unusually vivid today, everything feels alive. Driving across town there are squirrels dancing in the middle of the street, until the car comes and they reluctantly separate, retiring to opposite sides. Somehow the afternoon feels slightly heightened, dreamlike or, surreal. Later there is front yard with a giant web and several reindeer caught in it, hanging upside down. Across the street more squirrels are playing tag under parked cars.

Have you ever experienced a scene, on afternoon, or even a whole day which seemed different or odd in some way? it might be that your senses are unusually clear. Or there might be some unexpected smells; lavender, jasmine, or something else you can’t quite define. It might be a strange juxtaposition, an animal or person doing something unexpected, or seemingly out of place. For a while you feel you’ve stepped out of ordinary life and into something a little magical, a little spiritual, or just a little strange.

When you walk a spiritual path, which is true for anyone who hass said yes to Spirit in any form, in your inner intent or in a formal initiation or ceremony, it is understood that things in your life might change. Most of us consciously wish for change, we have a spiritual practice because we expect that it will make our life in some sense different or better.

So what happens when something does change? when your awareness begins to shift? or when spirit begins to “speak” to you in new ways? When the changes are small, a tweak here, an amplification there, you might not even notice them. If you do notice they will be easily welcomed, and your mind will feel good about making progress.

When changes are larger, or of a qualitative nature, where you are beginning to experience of life in a new way, the mind may not know how to process it, how to receive it. You find yourself then in the realm of the surreal, where experience might be dreamlike, harder for the mind to grasp, like traveling in a foreign country.

Your mind may have concern about this state, that something is wrong, or out of control. Be assured that nothing is wrong, though it may be a bit out of your ego’s control. Welcome the surreal, the dreamlike, the strangeness that comes with something that’s really new and different. It is not a sign that your sense of reality is askew. It is a sign that your awareness of the world is shifting, which it will do as you grow into Spirit, into your Self. You are dancing closer to Self and Spirit and they are communicating in new ways.

Surreal experiences can be welcomed as a sign of deeper progress, of things significantly shifting in your life rather than just being tweaked. Notice it, appreciate, enjoy it, drop into it, and know that you are moving forward on your path. After a while what is surreal today will become normal and just real tomorrow. And tomorrow what you experience as surreal might be more than you can imagine today.

(© 11/2014)

Posted in Inspiration, Newsletter, Spiritual Process | Leave a comment