Create the Life You Imagine ~ December 2018
The Practice
“Life is a Mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved.”
~ William Butler Yeats
The final lesson of the year is well timed for end of year reflections and new year commitments. The process of uncovering our spiritual home is the work of our lifetime. As we have discovered through Dorothy’s story, it takes Courage, Passion, and Focus to set off on the journey, and as we proceed we develop the gifts of Compassion, Creativity, Consciousness and a sustained Connection to our spiritual home. If we are intentional about deepening our spiritual life, we will take this hero’s journey again and again as life provides us with opportunities to shed the parts of ourselves that no longer serve us and to live in greater and greater integration from our true Home. Thomas Merton called this home the True Self and said that our attachment to our small, separate, false self must die to allow our True Self—our basic and unchangeable identity in God—to live fully and freely. With practice, we will become more and more comfortable living from this home, and then we bring this gift of awareness with us as we move though the ordinary moments of our lives. As you reflect on the final lesson of the Oz journey, consider committing some time each day to an intentional practice of prayer, meditation, or spiritual reflection during 2019 to maintain your connection to your spiritual home. Thank you for joining me on this path and I wish you blessings and joy in the new year:
Lesson 8: WALK your divinity into the world.
Having made your way Home, you recognize that you are a manifestation of God and that love, joy and connection are your birthright. You come to know yourself as an expression of the OM consciousness, knowing from your core that I Am That, and you stand prepared to walk the journey of that unfolding divinity into the world as a transformative process and presence. The myths and legends teach us that we do not get to stay on the mountaintop. The great mindfulness master, Thich Nhat Hanh, writes that “Every morning, when we wake up, we have twenty-four brand new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these twenty-four hours will bring peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.” This is our work as bodhisattvas, as those who are enlightened, to return to the space of our ordinary lives, to the place where our journey began, and to share our light with others.
The trip from Oz to Om is from the outside to the inside; from a focus on finding our happiness, peace and joy in things outside of ourselves, to finding those treasures lying within as the essence and ground of our being. Moving through these evolutionary stages does not occur of its own accord. We must participate in our own unfolding. Bear in mind that evolution is a process, and progress on the path requires a clear intention, a contemplative practice, a healthy dose of self-awareness and the patience and perseverance to walk the path.
Dare to be the hero of your own life story, while remembering that the hero’s journey will take you on a path that is not for cowards, for the small and meek, for the faint of heart or for those without the focus and fire of the soul. We must walk the path moment by moment and day by day with as much consciousness as we can muster. We will confront obstacles. We will be challenged. There will be struggles. But remember that the obstacles, challenges and struggles are invitations to go deeper and to make choices that are more aligned with our soul’s intentions. If we hold onto the markers of the hero’s journey, we can make those choices with more awareness and faith, trusting that if we surrender to the unfolding process of life we will move into greater and greater consciousness as we go.
In the end, Dorothy is transported home by the sheer power of saying “there’s no place like home.” There is no power on earth like the power of taking your place in your own story, from your “hOMe” in the center of your Being. All things are possible from that place. Miracles happen from that place. Doors fly open from that place. You are the hero of your own story. Walk your life like the hero of the greatest myth and the most amazing mystery ever told. The privilege of a lifetime truly is being who you are. Wake up! Follow your bliss! The universe depends upon it!
Tracy
