January 9, 2012

The Romantic Mysteries

The common wisdom goes like this: that the myth of "some enchanted evening," when all is awash with the thrill of connection and the aliveness of new romance, is actually a delusion... a hormonally manufactured lie. That soon enough, reality will set in and lovers will awaken from their mutual projections, discover the psychological work involved in two people trying to reach across the chasm of real life separateness, and come to terms at last with the mundane sorrows of human existence and intimate love.                            

In this case, the common wisdom is a lie.
                                     
From a spiritual perspective, the scenario above is upside down. From a spiritual perspective, the original high of a romantic connection is thrilling because it is true. It is in fact the opposite of delusion.  For in a quick moment, a gift from the gods, we are likely to suspend our judgment of the other, not because we are temporarily insane but because we are temporarily sane.  We are having what you might call a mini-enlightenment experience.  Enlightenment is not unreal; enlightenment - or pure love -- is all that is real. Enlightenment is when we see not as through a glass darkly, but truly face to face.
 
What is unreal is what comes after the initial high, when the  personality self reasserts itself and the wounds and triggers of our human ego form a veil across the face of love. The initial romantic high is not something to outgrow, so much as something to earn admittance back into - this time not as an unearned gift of Cupid's arrows, but as a consequence of the real work of the psychological and spiritual journey. The romantic relationship is a spiritual assignment, presenting an opportunity for lovers and would-be lovers to burn through our own issues and forgive the other theirs, so together we can gain reentrance to the joyful realms of our initial contact that turn out to have been real love after all.

Our problem is that most of us rarely have a psychic container strong enough to stand the amount of light that pours into us when we have truly seen, if even for a moment, the deep beauty of another. The problem we have is not that in our romantic fervor we fall into a delusion of oneness; the problem is that we then fall into the delusion of separateness. And those are the romantic mysteries -- the almost blinding light when we truly see each other, the desperate darkness of the ego's blindness, and the sacred work of choosing the light of mutual innocence when the darkness of anger, guilt and fear descend.

Marianne Williamson will delve deeply into the romantic mysteries in her February 17-19, 2012, workshop in Los Angeles called THE ENCHANTED LOVE WORKSHOP: Building the Inner Temple of the Sacred and the Romantic. Live streaming available. Go to www.marianne.com for details.

Comments (0)

Posted by mwblog at 11:00 AM |

March 10, 2011

PRAYER VIGIL FOR MADISON, WISCONSIN

THIS JUST CAME IN FROM FRIENDS AT UNITY OF MADISON:

WISCONSIN CAPITOL PRAYER VIGIL
March 10, 2011

This is an effort to take a positive, spiritual, Unity approach to influencing what has been the ongoing debate and disagreement at our Capitol and throughout the state. This prayer vigil is open to anyone that is willing to take a moment or more for focused prayer or meditation.

At 7:00 am and at 7:00 pm, the vigil participants will take some time for a focused prayer or meditation. The timing could be 10 seconds or an hour, depending on your situation and desired participation.

This prayer vigil is meant to be non-partisan, we don't pray for any particular results with the politics or parties. What we do pray for in everyone and every situation is:
• Divine Order
• Peace
• Justice
• Understanding
• Compassion

Be creative and let Spirit flow through you. Some ideas for prayer and meditation:

• An affirmation, example: "I choose, in this moment, to release and replace any appearance of fear or mistrust with light and love and peace."

• The Prayer for Protection
"The Light of God surrounds us,
The Love of God enfolds us,
The Power of God protects us,
And, The Presence of God watches over us."

• Visualize the Capitol glowing in white, healing light

• Create whatever prayer or meditation you feel will help bring peace and Divine Order to everyone in Wisconsin and beyond.

We will begin this practice immediately and continue until peace is restored. Share this with any souls your think would be open and willing.

Peace & Blessings,
Barry Roberts & Sandy Strietelmeier

Comments (1)

Posted by Marianne at 3:21 PM |

March 8, 2011

FEMININE 2.0

When I went to college in the1970's, the Women's Liberation movement was all the buzz. Women's "consciousness raising groups" were growing up everywhere, as women shared with each other their secrets - and anger -- that they, their mothers and their great, great grandmothers had held tight to their chests for centuries.

Feminists of the time were right about some things, but wrong about others. On one hand, there's no underestimating the explosion of formerly unavailable choices that became ours at last as a consequence of the Women's Movement. Sisterhood truly meant something then; we realized that none of us would succeed in life unless all of us were allowed to. And it became unequivocally clear that women could think as well as men, work as well as men, and deserved the opportunity to do whatever it was that we wanted to do. It's almost hard to believe that that was still somewhat of a radical proposition only forty years ago, but it was.

As with any movement, however -- whether a person's individual journey or the collective journey of a culture -- there were sometimes two steps forward and one step back. While women were powerfully liberated both externally as well as internally by the feminism of the 1970's, we made some serious mistakes as well. Looking back on it now, it's clear that in some ways we denigrated the feminine in the name of feminism. Too often we took liberation to mean simply that we were free now to behave just like men. In the name of feminism, we denied some essential aspects of our authentic selves. While feminism should have been nothing if not a celebration of our own unique characteristics, we insisted that we had no unique characteristics... that gender differences were hogwash, and a feminine woman was nothing more than a plaything for men. Calling a woman "feminine" was practically an insult! Words like nurturing and maternal weren't viewed as feminine and therefore feminist; rather, they were viewed as weak. If men could be tough as nails in the corporate boardroom, then so could we. If men could have sex and not get emotionally involved, then so could we. If men could make business their bottom line and not factor in the welfare of children in formulating social and economic policy, then so could we. Yippee. We were liberated to become their clones.

The last thing the world needed, of course, was twice as many paternalistic thinkers as there were before. But you live and you learn. In the last two or three decades, a great correction has been underway, as women of my generation have recognized the psychic scars left by our self-inflicted wounding of the feminine self. Too often, having become men, we then had a harder time with men. And having denied the importance (even the reality) of our feminine yearnings, we too often lay havoc to what is for many women a natural yearning of the heart, born of millions of years of evolution, to make a home and raise a family. Choosing to be a "traditional housewife" was seen as relatively unimportant at that time: so much less important, say, than having a real job.

I looked at my own mother -- at her passionate devotion to husband, children, home and extended family -- and I thought I could improve on that! I would go out into the world, you see -- out where the important things were happening. It took me - as I think of took millions of other women, as well - a few decades to see how very wrong I was.

In time, I came to understand that spiritual, mythical and archetypal forces are just as powerful and influential as are political, cultural and social ones. Indeed, we overemphasize either category at the expense of something precious that the other has to offer. And in a metaphysical sense - given that as Einstein said, "time and space are illusions of consciousness" - you come to realize that as far as a difference between being "out in the world" and "being at home" is concerned, there actually is no difference. The concept of "out there" or "in here" becomes pretty meaningless once you realize that everything out there is simply a reflection of one's consciousness. If anything, if we tended to the within better, there wouldn't be so many problems without: if we raised our children better and tended to our own psyches more effectively, then we wouldn't have so many political and social problems to begin with.

I ultimately realized that my mother's very traditional role was far from meaningless. I now see that is a woman's God-given role to tend to the home and take care of the children: it's just that the entire planet is our home and every child on it is one of our children. Hell yes, women need to be out in the world if that's where we feel led to be, but not at the expense of our spiritual mission. Rather, we're in the world to fulfill that mission, by proclaiming that the world is our home and that we're responsible for all of its children.

And that would change the world.

Just as we wouldn't tolerate elements to enter our home that needlessly endanger our own children, so we shouldn't tolerate elements in the world that needlessly endanger anyone's children. Homemaker and motherhood are not just material conditions that belong to a few; they are states of consciousness that belong to any woman who assumes them. Women should be the keepers of the conscience of the world. We are keepers of the internal flame - the light of humanitarian values and the primacy of love - and our greatest power lies in keeping it lit.

Corporate profits should not be our economic bottom line; the safety and welfare of this planet, our collective habitat, should be our bottom line. On this, we should insist. For we are the homemakers of the world....

Money should not be our societal bottom line; the welfare of our children should be our bottom line. On this, we should insist. For we are the mothers of the world...

Any mother, should she see something dangerous in her home, would say, "No, not in this house! No way! Not here!" And as women of the world become the strong moral force that in our collective state we are capable of being, then when dangerous elements born of unrestrained greed and aggression enter the world, it is we who should lead the cry, "No, not on this planet! No way! Not here."

A common anthropological characteristic of every advanced mammalian species that survives and thrives is the fierce behavior of the adult female of the species when she senses a threat to her cubs. From the lioness to the tigress to the mama bear, any threat to her cubs is met with the fiercest response. The adult female hyenas even encircle their cubs while they're feeding, not letting the adult males get anywhere near the food until the babies have been fed.

Surely the women of America could do better than the hyenas.

Imagine if we were to insist -- as with our collective political and financial power we could insist -that the amelioration of unnecessary human suffering become society's new bottom line. From the 17,000 children on this planet who starve to death each day to the millions who lack a basic elementary education, from the relative complacency of the industrialized nations to the brutalization of women through the world to the billion souls among us living as best they can on less than $1.25 a day, it is the sleeping giant of a conscious and awakened womanhood that can provide the only sustainable solution: putting human civilization back on the track to probable survival by giving back to it its heart.

Women worked hard, and many at great personal sacrifice, to provide for the modern Western woman the extraordinary opportunities and powers that we now enjoy. While not all our battles for equality have been won, still enough of them have been won that our focus should not be solely on getting more power, but on how to use most effectively the power that we have. We have not only the right but also the moral responsibility to speak out loudly not only for our planet and our children, and for the millions of sisters around the world who cannot speak up for themselves. Not centuries ago but weeks ago, a fourteen year old girl in Bangladesh was raped, then caned as her "punishment," and then died of her wounds. Let us speak, and act, for her.

In honor of our foremothers, for the sake of our oppressed sisters around the world, and for the love of all of our children both born and not yet born, we should wake up now... kick ass now... and change this world before it is too late. For that kind of thing is woman's work. Twas always thus, and will always be....

Comments (2)

Posted by Marianne at 7:09 AM |

February 21, 2011

A DEPARTMENT OF PEACE: To Dream, Then to Act


On February 18, 2011, Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced HR808 into the 112th Congress, calling for the establishment of a US Department of Peace. The crux of the DOP would be the establishment of an Executive level department in the US government, whose purpose would be to investigate, articulate and facilitate non-violent solutions to both domestic and international violence. It was President George Washington who first argued that in addition to a War Department we should have a Peace Department. In honor of his birthday, let's be as forward thinking in this area as he was.

Given the current make-up of the US Congress, the passage of the bill this session is somewhat unrealistic of course. But that does not matter; no true warrior for peace and justice ever let "realism" stop them. If that were the case, there would have been no abolitionist movement, suffragette movement or civil rights movement. When it comes to doing the right thing, it doesn't matter whether the status quo is with you yet. You just keep on keepin' on. We're building something in the ethers here; when the tipping point will get here, no one knows.

The idea of this bill getting out of committee this year is almost laughable, but so what? Let's not let laughter stop us -- let it propel us. Laughter is a powerful thing, as long as it's a laughter in anticipation of what you know in your heart is bound to become reality someday, rather than the cynical laughter laced with inner tears at the sight of what already is.

For two per cent of the current Dept. of Defense budget, this bill would celebrate and honor and -- most importantly -- support with actual resources the extraordinary peace-making efforts of Americans both here and abroad. It's not enough to simply fight violence with violence. We must do more than that; we must proactively create a world in which violence has no room to breathe. This is hardly some pie in the sky idea; it's an idea that would institutionalize the drive towards peace creation. Whoever wants to laugh at that can laugh. There is already enough support given to a war machine in this country; it could be argued that were we in our right minds, we would cry all day just thinking about it. So why shouldn't we create a peace machine? As John Lennon said, "Let's give peace a chance." One of the ways to do that is by giving it some political heft.

On President's Day, let's remember these words of President John F. Kennedy: "Those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." Today, let's take a stand for peaceful evolution, despite the extraordinary material forces arrayed against it. The ways of violence and brute force have always amassed material power, but don't let that stop you. Love has cosmic support.

This President's Day, do something that you might do if you were President. Take a stand for peace. Write your Congressperson and give support to the Dept. of Peace bill. Tell him or her you'd like them co-sponsor it. Find out more about it at www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-808. Write an Op Ed, attend a Town Hall meeting of your Congressperson, send this information to your mailing list. Make a beautiful noise about a beautiful idea.

We won't eradicate war until we more deeply embrace peace, and that takes more than just a wish or even a prayer; it takes spine. One of the leaders of the Egyptian protest movement said something remarkable after the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. He said, "We're dreamers and we made it happen." We're dreamers too, but dreams must do more than dream. Now we must do the "make it happen" part.

What better day to do that than on President's day. And who knows? If our noise is loud and powerful and beautiful enough, even our President might hear....

Comments (5)

Posted by Marianne at 10:16 AM |

February 20, 2011

THE MYSTICAL CHRIST

The Biblical line "There is only one begotten Son" is interpreted by traditional Christians to mean that Jesus was the only one, but to the metaphysical among us the line means something different. It is not an exclusive but rather an inclusive statement. "There is only one begotten Son" means that there is only one of us here.

Just as Swiss psychologist Carl Jung posited the notion of the collective unconscious -- mental imagery he called archetypes that we all share -- the spiritual notion of the Divine (or Christ) Mind takes things one step further: if you go deep enough into your mind and deep enough into mine, there is something deeper than just shared imagery. If you go deep enough into all our minds, we share the same Mind. We share one source point, or true identity, and that is love.

For that reason alone, the Golden Rule is a good idea. For if there is only one of us here, then what we do unto others, we do unto ourselves. It may seem to take time for things to show up that way: the person we do whatever we do to may or may not be the person to slap us or hug us back, but someone will. The realization that there is only one of us here is both an illumined realization and the wisest guide to behavior. For if I realize that whatever I give I give to myself, then I'm a whole lot more careful about what I give. They say karma's a bitch, but in fact it's a blessing. The point is to use it well.

We are joined as brothers because we are joined, period. This is the mystical meaning of the line "one in Christ."

Comments (5)

Posted by Marianne at 9:25 PM |

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