I had to share this from the devotional. The book of Awakening.
And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk to bloom. - Anais Nin
We all face this turning point repeatedly: when resisting the flow of inner events suddenly feels more hurtful than leaping toward the unknown. Yet no one can tell us when to leap. There is no authority to bless our need to enter life but the God within.
How often we thwart ourselves by holding tenaciously to what is familiar. It is instructive, if chilling, that in floral shops the roses that won't open are called bullets. They are discarded because they will never bloom. They have turned in on themselves so tightly that they can never release their fragrance.
Yet as spirits in bodily form, we have the chance to tighten and bloom more than once. But even spirits, if turned in on themselves enough, may grow accustomed to being closed. Unlike roses, however, the human chamber can be shut down for years, and still, it takes but one breath from the true center and we will flower.
It has always amazed and humbled me how the risk to bloom can seem so insurmountable beforehand and so inevitably freeing once the threshold of suffering is crossed.
I have a friend in recovery, and when asked what made him stop drinking, he say,"The pain of drinking became greater than the pain of not drinking." The same can be said for us all. We can flower in an instant, as soon as the pain of not flowering and not loving become greater than our fear.
Blessings,
Orions Mist
One Key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.
Many of us in this lifetime find ourselves being pleased by what we feel is good taste, and that not being satisfied unless our personal preferences are met is a sign of worldliness or sophistication. As I thought about these things I was reminded of a conversation I had with someone near and dear to my heart. He was telling me of a man that came in, with a party of people, into the dining room of the hotel for dinner. My friend was the waiter for the night. When taking the orders for the dinner meal he asked the gentleman what he would like. The man responded that he was there for a steak. My friend informed the man that because of a special occasion earlier in the day they were out of steak. Well the man became belligerant saying that my friend had just ruined his whole meal because that was the only thing the man would eat, despite the numerous other things that could have been presented to him on the menu. In an effort to appease the man, the chef, who was noted to be extremely talented, fixed a whole tray of complimentary appetizers and desserts for the whole table, which he personally presented to the man and the table himself. He was told by the man rather rudely and loud that this wasn't steak and that he could pretty much qoute " go to @#!$". The entire evening for the table was ruined and the man's evening because of this lack of finding something else that could have pleased him, his standards of what he wanted were placed on such a high priority that he robbed himself of joy, and so much so that he made the evening awkward for all those involved.
Here is the person truth of the matter. The world often views this kind of behavior as having high standards, when in actuality what it is , is a means of isolating ourselves from being touched by life, while justifying and rationalizing that we are somehow more special then those who can't meet our very demanding and often unrealistic standards.
Here is the truth. High standards can't hold you in the night, and when someone is ill being sophisticated and demanding will not help you survive. To be accepting of life does not mean denying its difficulties and its disappointments, but instead, it means that joy can be found in hardship, not by demanding that WE be treated as special at every turn, but that by accepting the demand of the sacred we treat everything that comes to us as special. Even so, we are taught to develop preferences as signs of our importance and position. So much so that those who have no preferences, or those who accept whatever is before them, we label as simpletons or bumpkins. However there is a profound innocence in the fact that sages and children alike accept the gifts that each day brings them.
The more I awaken to this life, the more I am realizing that God is everywhere, and as this devotional so eloquently put it "He is beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe". Yes God is indeed under the porch as well as on the top of the mountains, and joy is both in having that steak and having something else, if we are willing to be there, are you?
Blessings,
Orions Mist
In proportion as our inward life fails, we go constantly and desperately to the post office.
-Henry David Thoreau
You may depend on it, "Thoreau continues," that poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while."
I think I know the cause of our cultural, spiritual, and social problems today, just as Thoreau knew 150 years ago. Our inward life is failing.
Many of us know this, or course, and just knowing it doesn't change things. But what if someone--maybe you-- could convince ten or twenty people to stop going to the post office for their information, and instead to stay quiet and recollected for a few minutes or even an hour a day to attend to their "inward lives", and then I thought What if I could do the same?
I used to think that what we needed was another saint, the right saint, or a prophet, yeah that's it that's what we need, a modern-day Francis of Assisi who would call us to our senses by the power of his example and love; or a Joan of Arc to inspire us with her disdain for the acceptable, her single-mindedness, and her devotion to her voices.
But here's the deal.... We have saints; we've always had saints, canonized or not. We've always had prophets who are well attuned to their inward lives, who have voices of passion and love, voice of virtue and wisdom, who live lives of example and service, and who call us to do the same.
And still many of us keep on stumbling around to the post office.
Today, find a way to redirect your trip to the post office to a journey to your inward life.
Blessings,
Orions Mist
As many of you know I get messages from spirit periodically that come to me. As I was sitting here in my living room this evening editing my website I found the new video that i have posted on my site. While sitting there listening to the music spirit gave me some words that i found rather profound and I wish to share them with you all also.
We all like tiny ripples on the the water, touch the surface of life,
and like those ripples ever change the surface of life in the moments of time
when the wonder of a child looks upon those still calm waters
to see the presence of something intricate in nature itself.
With every outward spiral bound by fascination round
it coils and calls the world stands still again,
but in the eyes of a child see ever more clearly, the ripple of life
they have led.
ORIONS MIST
Every single one of us has a part to play in the ongoing journey of life. There is not a single move or action, word spoken or thing heard that does not effect this world throughout the course of history. Every single one of us is that child who watches those ripples that each one of those around us make. It is up to us to live a life that speaks to others so that those children, young and old, can look at the ripples of our life and see peace return to theirs.
God's Blessings to you all,
ORIONS MIST