Living Consciously April 20, 2009

Dear friends,

One thing I loved about early childhood was being so close to the ground. That world of the very small was my personal playground. The backyard was teeming with life; butterflies, beetles, spiders, toads, ants, worms, birds, flowers and lizards. I spent hours peering into the center of pansies because I was convinced I saw a queen sitting on her throne there. I would gently squeeze the wings of a butterfly together so I could gaze into her face and then softly return her to her resting place on a leaf. Water droplets on my skin were as fascinating as rainbows made by the lawn sprinklers and dirt was an endless source of fun.

Growing up changes our perspective. We see things from above, looking down, rather than up close and personal. In his epic poem, The Voice Celestial, Ernest Holmes advised us to Learn once again to view the airy wings of conscious life, the very soul of things. He said to Go back to those half pagan days before reality was hid in haze. With everything we each have to deal with everyday, our time in the lap of Mother Nature is limited, yet even in the city there is the blue sky, the window box of red geraniums, the birds nesting under the eaves. There are the sounds of children laughing and the bliss of a cool drink of water.

But the most accessible marvel may be the person sitting next to you in the office or the guy who served you coffee this morning. The people all around us were once our playmates in the garden, but because we no longer share the joys of discovery with them, all we see are their adult failings. Perhaps you are the one who they have been waiting for to lighten up the mood, change the conversation in the lounge. Maybe it is up to you to bring your sense of wonder into the mix, to organize an activity that will put smiles on those faces. Or perhaps it is a simple shift in our own perception.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes

Living Consciously April 21, 2009

Dear friends,

Have you noticed how when you become conscious of something you begin to see it everywhere? In school I would have that experience with new words. Suddenly everyone was using it! I would hear it on the television, from my friends parents, in a book. There is a similar function of self awareness. Once we become conscious, does it not follow that we will continue to discover more and more of what we are?

When we first learn of the power of mind to create experience, we marvel at how things seem to show up just when we need them, how we feel that we somehow knew this or that would happen. It becomes a game and it is quite exciting for awhile. But the self that we are becoming conscious of, the spiritual self, has so much more for us to uncover. We begin to discern the deeper levels of desire in us which are for love and beauty, peace and joy, ever flowing supply. Our attention shifts from things to qualities, from getting to experiencing. We are beginning to remove the mask of our own making to find the deeper connection to the source of it all.

With some meditation and study we learn that we are not the creative power itself, but the outlet through which it finds completion. We are then in the wonderful realization that everything we seek we already possess. We deeply accept that whatever we desire will not come to us from the outside world, but will come through us as we express it with abandon. It is a beautiful truth that as we freely express our love and joy, peace and prosperity, they seem to show up wherever we are. We see them everywhere.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes