Monday, March 17, 2014

STRUGGLE

Where does trouble lie but in our minds. This has been a long and difficult Winter. I shouldn't have looked at the forecast. It calls for 6 to 8 inches of heavy snow tomorrow. No.............. Oh well, we will make it.

I have been reading an article about the importance of avoiding negative thinking. Humanity is moving into a higher vibration where thoughts will be more rapidly manifest. I definitely do not want any of the thoughts I have been having this Morning to become manifest.

I don't like to struggle with my thoughts. Whatever the event is, the snow tomorrow or whatever, we need not struggle. One can live in the moment and be accepting of what will come. Struggling just robs us of the happiness which is our entitlement. We will find it amazing how our whole world can change by replacing thoughts of dread with thoughts of love and hope.

I was reading another article this Morning. It was focused on our tendency to engage in reductionist thinking. We compare and look for contradictions in all incoming ideas. We parse and chop any new ideas and reject anything that doesn't fit with our preconceived idea about what is true. We tend to see ideas as competitive rather than complimentary. We have difficulty examining two ideas that may have some seeming contradiction. Instead of being able to expand our mind to contemplate the ideas we need to reject all or parts of one. To learn we have to suspend the idea of any final conclusion. There are no final conclusions.

There are excellent examples of this phenomena in all the sciences. The Russian approach to genetics and biological development is quite different from the thought process in Europe and the United States. Yet they don't have to be seen as competitive. The differences can be seen as complimentary and enriching to both.

I am more familiar with the struggles in my own field of psychotherapy. Freud, Adler and Jung each presented a view of man that seemed contradictory to many psychologist. I didn't think they were contradictory. I thought they[Freud, Adler and Jung] were like the nine blind men and the elephant. They were groping the elephant and describing what an elephant must be like by the experience they were having, feeling the part they were clinging to.

The truth, like the elephant, is much bigger than the part we can see and analyze. It is important that we don't stop and conclude we know. The idea of man can contain everything Freud, Adler and Jung thought and taught. Their ideas do not have to contradict and compete with each other. It is not a winner takes all race. It is not a race at all. Our awareness can expand to include all the ideas. With time the ideas that are not based on truth will fall by the wayside. We do not have to compare, choose and reject.

We are on the brink of many great new discoveries. We are going to be invited to accept ideas that we would have thought preposterous a few years ago. When it comes to really understanding Nature, The Earth, The Cosmos etc. we are more blind than those nine men and the elephant. The elephant is much larger than we can imagine and the grasp we have is much smaller.

Let us open our hearts and our minds, as well as our eyes. Be open to new learning and experience. When a new idea is presented, hold it in your mind examine and consider it. Resist the idea to compare and reject. We are going to get plenty of practice. A whole new world is opening up to us.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

Friday, March 14, 2014

TIME TO GET TOGETHER

Underneath the facade that everything is normal, our institutions are crumbling. Our financial system is teetering on the brink of collapse.

Is it time for folks to get together and dream about the future? There is so much work to do, but timing is everything. Coming together to create a new world cannot begin until people feel in their hearts that the time is now. Sometimes I feel like shouting, "It is time to get together" then I think, maybe we need to wait a little longer.

However the conversation can begin. At some point soon folks in every community will need to get together to revamp their social systems.

EDUCATION
We need to teach our children differently. We need to insure that they know they are deserving of love, they are worthy beings filled with light. Each child most be allowed to learn at her/his own pace. School should be a joy, a love filled place. We must end drudgery, failure, measurement against another etc. I certainly don't have the answers. I think most of us agree that we don't want what we presently have.  Education needs to be an entitlement up and through a PhD.

FINANCE
The only purpose of money is to serve us. Never are we to serve it. In our present world, money is our deity and banks are our temples. That needs to be over. We will need some medium of exchange that we will be comfortable with. This will be a huge change.

MEDICINE
The worship of money has corrupted everything. Nowhere is it more obvious than in the sacred and precious art of healing. Doctors are limited to allopathic medicine which has been reduced to using, mostly, remedies that can be profitable. If a healing drug is natural, but cannot be synthesized and patented it falls by the wayside. The bottom line controls everything. We don't know what healing drugs may occur in the plants growing in our vacant lots, much less our woodlands. We need to stop looking at the body only as a machine. We need to see that the mind, body and spirit are one. Healing is something we are entitled to in the same way we are entitled to education.

RELIGION
With religion we need to start completely over. I can't begin to describe all that is wrong with it. Yet, I think the idea of community and the getting together once a week for a good purpose has value. How do we rescue it? We need to end the idea of belief. Religion must be based on the search for the truth. No person or organization can say "I have the truth and you must get it from me." One person's truth is not someone else's  truth. We all have an equal connection with source. No person can set them self up as closer to the creator than the rest. If we start with the idea that, All is Love, perhaps we can see what role religion can have. There certainly is value in learning and teaching about our spirituality.

AGRICULTURE
This part of our society is probably just as corrupted by money as Medicine. The people dedicated to making a profit have the same strangle hold on Agriculture as they do on Medicine. The solution seems simpler, we need only to grow our own food at a community level. We can all take turns tending the organic gardens surrounding our community. Much food can be grown right in the city, vacant lots can be converted to gardens. This revolution is already taking place. Many of us no longer wish to support corporate agriculture.

I have said all this before, haven't I. Is it it time to begin a conversation in earnest? Should we be coming together to talk about what we want our institutions to look like? How are we going to help all the folks who have been going along thinking nothing was going to change?

I can imagine groups coming together to form Healing Centers to help people make the transition to the new world. Peoples minds and bodies have been sickened by our present world. We need to develop ways of restoring ourselves to health.

At some point those who have been dreaming of paradise must come together for implementation. Is it now? I don't know. We must know the timing in our hearts. Let us begin the conversation. What do we want to do? How can our dreams become reality?

Happy Friday.

Love and Peace,  Gregg



Wednesday, March 12, 2014

DISCOVERING WHO WE ARE

We talk about oneness. What does it mean? How can we understand it? Everything is made of energy. We are energy. At an ego level we separate everything. We reduce everything to its smallest denominator. We parse and parcel everything. And there is nothing wrong with this. It has been our mission to explore separateness.

At a soul {the energy that activates the physical} level we know we are all connected and ultimately One. We all derive from the same energy; the same Source. Source is Vastness. It is Unconditional Love. We have given it many names; Allah, God, Shiva, Great Spirit etc. It matters not what we call it, for all is one.

It is easiest to think of our real selves as Soul. That is the unit of energy in which we project our bodies for this illusion. We use the word illusion not to mean it is not real to us, but to make clear it is as real as a movie we all decided to produce and direct together. As our creation we can modify it and change its direction with our thoughts.

In order to create a more comfortable illusion {paradise} we need to appreciate our Oneness. We created the idea of separateness. It is not real. We never became disconnected. It just seemed like it because we attached and limited our consciousness to our bodies. In fact, every thought, idea, deed, wish, feeling etc. affects the whole.

When we say love is everything. We acknowledge, at a soul level, we know we are love and can create only with love. What we have made in our present world is love pushed through the cookie cutter of our ego separation. The love is difficult to see through the pain, despair, anger and other fear generated factors.

If we want Paradise, we need to acknowledge our Oneness. We need to realize that everything we think and feel; every idea we hold onto affects everything else. Again we get back to the only thing there is, Love. What would our world look like, if all was Love?

We are one with everything! Our bodies are obviously one with the Earth. They are made of the same stuff. However, our spirits are one with the Earth, too. Everything is energy. Everything is activated by energy [soul]. When we come to grips with the idea that the Earth is a living being, with a Soul like us, we will amend our relationship with her dramatically. We will be aghast at how we treated a Mother who nurtured us and taken care of us so lovingly.

It wasn't too many generations ago when we were aware of our oneness with the Earth. Certainly most native cultures knew. Pagans of the pre-christian era seemed to understand. Peasants, the world over, seemed to know. We gradually lost our connection as we depended more and more on technology that separated us. More to the point, those wanting domination used religion to demonize nature and alienate us from our roots. Folks who know their oneness with Nature are hard to dominate.

Most of us have a deep longing to feel a greater connection with Earth. This was expressed in the 1970s with the back to the Earth movement. When Jamie and I responded to this urge to be modern homesteaders we did not know it was a movement. It was only after we moved and engaged in subsistence farming that we discovered it was a huge movement and there were several magazines dedicated to helping this group form new lifestyles.

There is a much bigger and stronger movement occurring right now. It is the longing to experience Oneness. It is the wish to end all divisiveness. It is the wish to live with Peace, Joy and Love. We can do it.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

Monday, March 10, 2014

THE PROMISE

Yesterday it was Sunny for half the day and the temperature was in the forties. The snow pack shrunk. Although we are still deeply covered, there is no denying Spring is on the way. Today started out with full Sunshine. It is definite. Spring is here.

It is time to get reconnected with the Earth. Here in the Northern Climes we are locked in our dwelling  places for up to six months. Sure we go out, I am outside two to three times everyday to do chores, but it is not the same connection you have with Nature if you just pop out of the nest now and then. Years ago I went ice fishing several times in the Winter. Stood out on the ice, no house. It made Winter much more enjoyable. I do connect with the Earth in the Winter. I savor the beauty of a Winter Day, I am not completely disconnected. Still, with Spring we feel a longing for what we have been missing; the singing of the birds, the sprouting plants, the swelling buds, we long to get our hands in the Earth. We can feel the energy rise up and engulf us with a new hope for a better world.

This Winter has been a trial. It seemed particularly stressful. Its very persistence was remarkable, hardly a day above freezing and night after night below zero. For us, here on Laughing Water Farm, there was no transition. Sure we had an Autumn; it was more like a mild Winter than Autumn, we didn't have any of those wonderful October and November days where the Sunshine dominates and the leaves crunch underfoot. No, hard Winter came in one early December day and never released its grip.

Winter's grip has been released. People all over the world can give a sigh of relief. The war worshipers and money changers are losing their grip. Their attempt to incite war in the Ukraine and other areas are fizzling. We need to pay no heed to their machinations. Their hypocrisy is blatant and the truth of their manipulations are becoming more and more obvious. As I have said before, the revelations about what they have been up to and the depth of their cunning, will shock the most jaded among us. Yet, as I have stated just a few sentences ago, we need not heed them. We should ignore them because the anger they might instill will block the love we have that is needed for the creation of the New World. Those in control have used fear, anger and related emotions to control us for thousands of years. Let us not react to them in a negative way, thus attenuating the love we have to give each other.

We need to remember that love is the solution to all our problems. The dark, whether it is the dense dark of the cabal or the temporary darkness that sometimes engulfs us, cannot stand up to love.We need to remind ourselves that we are the bringers of light and the conduits of love from Source.

Many of us seem to be better at shining our love on acquaintances and stranger in a shopping center than on our close family members. It can be discouraging to feel our inability to receive or give love to people that are closest to us. This problem is caused by the build up of ego reactions in the relationship. We are not bad people if we feel we have insufficient love. This is a universal concern and it is caused by one thing and one thing only; the belief that we are not lovable. We may know intellectually that we are lovable and still harbor doubts in close relationships. We have been carefully taught by our culture that we are unworthy.

We can do more for the world than anything else by discovering that we are worthy and deserving of unconditional love. The ones that are closest to us are the ones that will miss out the most if our love is blocked by our own spurious and false negative evaluation. Let us remind ourselves constantly that we are glorious beings of light fully deserving of unconditional love. Meditation helps immensely.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

Friday, March 7, 2014

IT DOESN'T ALWAYS SEEM SO EASY

Sometimes we wake up and things don't seem so easy. The Winter is too long. The dog peed on the rug. There is too much work to do. The news of the world seems particularly mad. So called 'world leaders' threatening each other. How can we see the bright side when all is gloomy? I have been there, have you?

I have a suggestion to make. Stop looking at the outside. Sit down with a cup of coffee, tea or cocoa. Just relax for a few minutes sipping your beverage and then close your eyes. Imagine a column of light, originating from the center of the universe, flowing down on you. Imagine this light is unconditional love and a reassurance that you are loved absolutely. Any judgement is your own. Look to see how you have been criticizing yourself. Let the light wash away your self judgements.

When we came into this world of duality, we knew we were going to have these days. We knew that we were going to forget utterly that we are beings of love and co-creators. That is okay. We can't really go backward. Our path might drag us through the brambles but we are forever going forward.

We are here to teach and demonstrate oneness. In our souls we understand that. If we look at the horrors of the world, we see they exist to create division or are the result of division. We don't have to take sides no matter how seductive it is to think this side is right and that is wrong. We are here to promote oneness. If we avoid taking sides, in any conflict, we can find and feel the oneness that exist. Let your love flow out on all. The darkness on either side cannot stand up to Love.

It always helps to remember, we are here in the service of love. Winter will be over. The dog might not pee on the rug again. If we see how we can make life easier for folks around us, life will look better to us.

Let us keep our eyes on the goal; paradise for all. We are beings of light and co-creators. We are being successful. The light is growing stronger and stronger. Soon all will see.

Happy Friday.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

CREATING PARADISE

Even though the cold will persist for a little while longer, I can feel Spring's arrival in my bones. It can't be stopped. It is coming.

And so is paradise. The template for paradise has existed since our separation. It has been planned to the last detail. We need do nothing but allow it.

Many of us have heard the promise and are frustrated because nothing seems to be happening. If you look there are changes that can be seen. The controlled media overshadows the positive with their cries of doom.

More importantly, we don't have to wait. We can allow paradise in our own life merely by choosing to see it. See love in everything. You will begin to see paradise emerging. Have you had the experience of happiness flooding your being for no apparent reason? We are just sitting there and all of a sudden we realize we are extraordinarily happy. If it hasn't happened, it will soon.

At our soul level we know we are one. Our hearts know our oneness. But our minds................. they are often ruled by our egos. Our egos don't want to give up control. Seeing oneness means they can't control us anymore with fear and judgement. We may think of our egos as a spoiled unruly child. A child that needs to be reassured that it won't die if it loosens its control. When our ego acts up, just love it. Tell it, oneness won't deprive us of the awareness that we have separate identities. As long as we have bodies we will have a sense of separation. We sense through our bodies. But that separateness can be rich and we can reinforce each other with love.

Will your heart to rule your mind. The heart is love. The heart knows how to deal with the ego. The mind is a marvelous machine. A wonderful calculator. An amazing gatherer of information. It is an inept decision maker. It thinks it knows about love. It doesn't. Our hearts must drive our minds and make the decision. The heart knows love. The heart knows oneness. 

So we don't have to wait. We can create paradise now. Be happy. When we are happy our love flows out to the whole. As the global love increases the dark recedes. You can't be controlled by the dark if you won't buy into their control mechanisms; some variety of fear.

Jamie and I were talking about the people of the world and how so many have difficulty seeing how they have been manipulated and controlled. I said, "Most of us are like sled dogs. We put the harness on in the Morning, pull the sled all day and hope for a fish at night". They don't have time to look to the left or the right. They are busy surviving.

We help them unglue their eyes with every loving smile, with every loving thought. We can't force them to see. We can help them to see only by opening our own eyes. When we acknowledge how we have been manipulated and used; when we can slip the harness off ourselves, then, and only then, can we help our neighbor remove his harness.

But no matter, if our harness is half on half off, if our eyes are still squinting; we can begin the process of bringing in paradise by our willingness to see it. Let's remind ourselves several times a day that we are great beings of light who are entitled to live in paradise. We shall take every opportunity to bless all around us; shine our great smiles on all and see the love in everyone.

Love and Peace,  Gregg

Monday, March 3, 2014

BELIEF SYSTEMS PART II

If the forecasts are correct, last night was the last night, this season, that the nighttime temperatures will be substantially below zero. It will be cold this week and next week there supposed to be a substantial warmup.

I wasn't inclined to delve into my personal history, but to really answer the question, "Where does your belief system come from?" I have to at least give a sketch of my life experience. I gradually recovered from the negativity created by my early scholastic experience. High school wasn't as painful as grade school. I worked in a factory for two years and then joined the Air Force in 1954. My goal was to go to college and this was not a feasible goal without the GI Bill.

I discovered an ability to get good grades in Air Force technical school. I was trained as an electronic technician and generally earned the highest grades in my class in electronic theory. I could write a volume about my time in the Air Force. I had many valuable and broadening experiences, at many levels. I was stationed mostly in the South. My home base was in South Carolina, we were a mobile radar unit and we had maneuvers all through the Southern states mainly Texas and Louisiana. Thank God I was in the service between wars.

I enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1958. I majored in Psychology and minored in Anthropology. I was married after my freshman year [1959] and bought a house in the Spring of 1960. My first child was born in June of that year. My undergraduate experience was a rich and rewarding time. I proved to myself that I could not only do well academically, I could, at the same time, become a husband, homeowner and father.

Upon graduation I was not prepared to go right to graduate school. My goal was to become a psychotherapist and my wish was to get a doctorate in psychology and then attend the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis. At that time I was still a devotee of psychoanalytic theory.

I was open to finding any kind of job remotely relating to my education. I applied for a job as a Social Worker without having any real idea of what a social worker was. I got the job and a new world opened up to me. My job was to provide social services to families who had a 'disturbed' or a 'disturbing child'. I discovered social workers could be psychotherapist.

I went back to the University of Minnesota in 1964 and received my MSW in 1966. In 1968 I joined a child guidance clinic and received a Certificate in Family Therapy the next year. I was in the private practice of psychotherapy, on a part time basis, since 1967. I went into full time practice in 1970.

During all this time I was growing up. I was proving to myself that I could fit into the world of real people. I had to first join the group, before I could discover if I wanted to be part of the group. I could always see the emperor had no clothes. The craziness of the world was always obvious to me. I could now see that I could achieve anything; but how do I change the world? Do I accept it and chafe occasionally? I wasn't really the type to lead demonstrations.

Also, during this time my wife and I discovered we were on different tracks. We worked very well together and had four beautiful children. When we reached a stage in our evolution where we no longer had survival struggles; we had enough money, a good car and a nice house, good friends. What more was there? And that was the question. I knew there was something else I wanted to pursue. We didn't have the same answer or didn't even ask the question the same way. I was a person that couldn't imagine divorce. How could that happen to me? It did and it was right. I do not regret a day of my first marriage. It was wonderful and I think we both made tremendous growth. At some point we realized the growing stopped.

From the time I met Jamie, and part of it was attributed to her, I was on an accelerated learning curve. I was discovering that many of the conclusions, by established science, were simply not true. In my own profession, I was taught that graphology, hand reading, astrology etc. were simply nonsense. Yet, I encountered people who did handwriting analysis who came to more sound conclusions than an MMPI could demonstrate. This is merely an example of many, many experiences I had that demonstrated that I didn't know what I thought I knew. It seemed like our whole consciousness was going through an evolution. At the time I read an interesting book titled, "The Crack In The Cosmic Egg" by Joseph Chilton Pearce {1971]. A good read.

What Jamie and I had in common was a wish to find our roots in the Earth. How did we get so separated from the Earth? As a species, how come we act like we don't want to be here? Our technology seems to take us further and further away.

We wanted to explore what it was like just a couple generations ago when people had to live closer to the Earth. We lived for seven years without electricity or running water. We heated our house with wood and had a wood cook stove in the kitchen. We had a pump outside the kitchen door and an outhouse out back.

We had our ups and downs, because of no regular income, but for the most part our life was rich and elegant. Wherever Jamie is, elegance surrounds her. Our house became filled with books mostly dealing with the meaning of life. I have learned not to go heavy on recommending books, because when one asks the question, "What is the meaning of life" the right book seems to arrive at the right time. There are many great books on spirituality. I must have read over a hundred and to this day a new book will make its appearance and I will be urged to read it.

Early on the Edgar Cayce books were very helpful to me. I enjoyed the Carlos Castaneda books. I learned a great deal from the Urantia Book. There were many more. Some books are temporary learning experiences, some are like an oasis. None should be treated as bibles {especially the Bible itself}. My touchstone is probably "The Course in Miracles" but another might find something else equally as helpful.

During this seven year sabbatical we had two children. I hoped that the rest of the world would join us in our lifestyle. It was obvious that wasn't going to happen and we didn't feel it was fair to raise our children in an environment where they would feel alien.

I rejoined the regular world in 1984. I started over at the bottom, as the lowest paid social worker in a rural county. A couple years later I worked as a family therapist for a private social service agency. From there I went to an urban county; first I worked as the Children's Mental Health Supervisor and then became Program Director for Family and Children Services. I retired in 2000.

On an informal basis, I am involved in some form of counseling, when requested. Helping people sort out their feelings and understanding of life remains my first love.

I hope people find some value in this background information. I won't be revisiting it unless I am asked to. I will be happy to elaborate on any aspect of my life experience in the comment section.

What is happening in the world right now is what is really fascinating. I hope to be back to that on Wednesday.

Love and Peace,  Gregg