Living Consciously August 17,2009

Dear friends,

Last night I had a dream about dreaming. In it I was telling someone about my dream and they said “Oh that is the same dream I had last night.” I awoke thinking about the depths of consciousness, about how we are conscious on a different level when we sleep but maybe there are levels to that as well! If we could plumb the depths of awareness where would we find ourselves? What would we be? Perhaps Light. Perhaps Love. Perhaps everywhere, all at once, all the time. Perhaps every level of self-realization would take is into finer and more subtle forms until there was only the great I Am.

I guess the little point I am trying to make is that this now moment is not isolated and disconnected from the vastness of our Being and the Source of it. This now moment is very important on one level yet is one with those finer aspects of us and they are the emanations of true wisdom and Intelligence.

This incarnation may be the intention of a conglomerate of us that is coalescing as this body and personality for a deep purpose. That would not be for the purpose of a career or a certain relationship, but for the joy of individualizing an evolved consciousness in form. I like thinking of myself in this way because I need all the help I can get and seriously, I feel that greater presence when I am really being myself and expressing my higher awareness. As Walt Whitman so wryly observed “There is more to a man that what appears between his hat and his boots."

I am leaving for a four day retreat. I haven’t decided if I will take this talking machine but if I do, I’ll keep you posted.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes

Living Consciously August 24, 2009

Dear friends,

Happiness is natural and necessary to the greater good of humanity. It is celebratory but is also a feeling of peace and well being. It is a normal state of mind, which sustains us through difficult challenges. I know a basic happiness is essential because peace and well being support health. It is well documented that certain states of mind affect the body in either detrimental or life supporting ways. People generate so much stomach acid from worry and suppressed anger that ulcers are the result. Tension causes headaches and insomnia. Nervous anxiety is induced by the mind. On the other hand, our bodies function well when we are calm and loving, cheerfully expectant of Good.

Yes, there are conditions that are related to enviornmental issues but those issues are the result of our collective unrest. We create the health of our environment. We make choices as a people that reflect our inner state of dis-ease. The results are toxicity in the air and water and our food. In the extreme state, our collective dis-ease causes war and poverty, violence and crime.

It is so important for each of us to maintain our inner balance, to cultivate deep peace and love for ourselves and the world. It is the dominant consciousness that creates our shared experience. When enough of us are truly happy within ourselves and peacefully going about our daily lives with cheerful expectations, we will see a drop in crime and disease. Actually, this has been proven. A population with one percent meditating on a regular basis has resulted in significant and measurable reduction in crime and violence in that area.

Each one of us is important to the whole. We are the peace makers. We are the answer to our shared longing for a world of that reflects our spiritual nature.

Rumi: The thirst in our souls is the attraction put out by the water itself.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes

Living Consciously August 25, 2009

Dear friends,

When I was a child, my best friend bemoaned the fact that she had not been born with brown eyes. Where this started, I do not know, but she would sing the old song, “Beautiful, beautiful brown eyes” as if it were some personal anthem, while her own robin’s egg blue eyes were her best feature! This puzzled me even as a child because clearly she could not change that aspect of her physical appearance. In high school she wanted to be taller and thinner. She wasted so much time and energy wishing she were different. Have you ever done that with something that was simply not changeable? Have you resisted some basic fact about yourself?

Some people think that we choose our bodies and families and conditions before we are born. I do not agree with that, but we might as well have. However we got them, they are ours to deal with and accept. Once we accept ourselves as we are, we are free to focus on our positive attributes, develop them and express ourselves in more authentic ways. It is impossible to be seen and known for who we really are if we are trying to be something else. Wishing that we had had different parents or talents is a waste of our time. Our focus has to be on the attributes about ourselves that we know are worthy of our time and energy.

Every one of us is the unique appearance of a cosmic presence. Our physicality is merely a vehicle for this amazing beingness to bring itself into the visible dimension of life. We each have wonderful qualities to give to our world as our special way of being. Spirituality is not about changing who we are, but becoming aware of who we have always been.

Peace and Blessings,

Rev Carol Carnes