Lost and alone on some forgotten highway, travelled by many, remembered by few. Looking for something that I can believe in. Looking for something that I’d like to do with my life.
There’s nothing behind me and nothing that ties me to something that might have been true yesterday. Tomorrow is open. Right now it seems to be more than enough to be here today
And I don’t know what the future is holding in store. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m not sure where I’ve been. There’s a spirit that guides me, a light that shines for me, my life is worth the living. I don’t need to see the end.
Sweet, sweet surrender. Live, live without care like a fish in the water, like a bird in the air..........
A few years ago I went to see a clairvoyant. I can’t remember much about what SHE told me but I can remember an incident around her little girl who was about two years old. I had been told that the little girl often brought things (from her home) and gave them to the person who was having a reading and that somehow they would represent something to that person. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention at the time. I was looking around the room, basically checking out the lady who was doing the readings and to get a “feel” for her. The little girl did interact with me but for some reason I didn’t focus in on what she did on the day in question.
The next day I was sitting on the bed listening to John Denver’s “Sweet Surrender”- in particular as the line saying “like a fish in the water.......” played I had a vision of colourful fish going around and around on what looked like a carousel. I thought “that’s what the little girl handed to me yesterday”. I rang the psychic and asked her whether they had something that looked like what I saw and she said that they had a lamp with coloured fish on the shade placed in an up and down fashion and that was probably what her daughter had given me.
It seems to me that letting go of “control” and learning to surrender is key right now in the evolution of the Universe. I recognise that this message has been finding its way to me over the last several years and it has come to me in many different ways. Interestingly it is one of the first insights in the best selling “Celestine Prophecy” – control dramas and how we each play them out. This was one of my first lessons on my spiritual journey since I met Ann Revie (a wonderful principal and teacher).
I read in Wayne Dyer’s book “The Power of Intention” about stress and ego:
Stress is a Desire of the Ego
That pesky ego is at work when you’re experiencing stress and anxiety. Perhaps your ego-self feels more effective dealing and coping with stress because you feel you’re actually doing something in the world. Perhaps it’s habit, custom, or believing that this is the right way to be. Only you can analyse the why. But the fact is that stress is familiar, and tranquility is unfamiliar, so ego desires stress.
But there’s no actual stress or anxiety in the world; it’s your thoughts that create these false beliefs. You can’t package stress, touch it, or see it. There are only people engaged in stressful thinking. When we think stressfully, we create reactions in the body, valuable messages or signals requesting our attention. These messages might reveal themselves as nausea, elevated blood pressure, stomach tension, indigestion, ulcers, headaches, increased heart rate, difficulty breathing, and a zillion other feelings – from minor discomfort to serious, life-threatening illness.
We speak of stress as if it were present in the world as something that attacks us. We say things like I’m having an anxiety attack as if anxiety is a combatant. But the stress in your body is rarely the result of external forces or entities attacking you; it’s the result of a weakened connecting link to intention caused by a belief that ego is who you are. You are peace and joy, but you’ve allowed your ego to dominate your life. Here’s a short list of stress inducing thoughts that originate in your ego self:
• It’s more important to be right than happy
• Winning is the only thing. When you lose you should be stressed
• Your reputation is more important than your relationship with your Source (God, the Universe, Higher Self)
• Success is measured in dollars and accumulations rather than in feeling happy and content
• Being superior to others is more important than being kind to others.
•
And so it goes on….. from” The Power of Intention” by Dr Wayne W Dyer
I believe that in order to achieve these ego desires, one needs to CONTROL. There’s been control since the garden of Eden. God created Adam and Eve, then he put controls on them. They defied him and set off a chain of causes and effects and karma. Countries try to control other countries leading to wars and conflict. Relationships with control issues lead to conflict and so it goes on. So control and ego haven’t brought peace to the world.
A couple of months ago I started thinking about the movie “Happy Feet” – in particular the scene depicting the penguins (who have marched many miles) get to the edge of a cliff. They are frightened, but they finally take the plunge and jump towards the water. They are so overcome with glee when they realise that their surrender led to feelings they could never have imagined. There was that surrender theme again.
I had met a new friend, Sue. She emailed me saying that this poem had literally almost fallen on her head:
“Come to the edge, he said. They said we are afraid. Come to the edge he said. They came. He pushed them and they flew.” By Guillaume Apollinaire.
We had been talking about surrender. At that stage she didn’t know about my “Happy Feet” thought. The power of thought and the collective consciousness – a subject for another story.
Interestingly, not long ago I was rereading “The Divine Matrix” by Gregg Braden and the first page contains a quote which is almost word for word as the poem above. A pattern for me to notice I say.
Today I drew a “Grace” card – Brandon Bays and after shuffling, this one popped out – UNCONDITIONAL LOVE . It reads - The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky circles of their freedom. How do they do it? They FALL... And falling.... They are given wings. (Rumi). So from that, I determine that unconditional love and the act of surrender go together. It was in the drawing of that card I decided to write this story................. Yet still I could feel my ego at work. I felt stressed, driven (as I do when I get “high”). I was frightened that I may get out of control (just like the penguins). I hadn’t surrendered..... far from it.
A couple of things had happened making me believe I could release John Denver (as I had made a pact to let go and let God earlier this year). I clicked one of his songs. Of its own accord, youtube started playing John Denver songs on autoplay one after the other. I didn’t click on it. When it got to “Sweet Surrender” I listened once. Then it came on again. I went to the kitchen to get tea. Came back and another version of the song was playing. I thought “this is unreal”. Then it came on a fourth time.
That’s when I said “OK God I get it!” I had to turn off my thoughts and my ego hold wanting to control the situation – something I thought I had become expert at (but obviously not). I had to and I have to surrender.
At this point I will finish the story with a quote from Wayne Dyer “Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace”
...... and from me last week on facebook:
“Life is full of paradoxes but when we realise it is not about FIGHTING TO WIN but the LETTING GO OF CONTROL that we finally start to understand unconditional love........... Well that’s what I reckon anyway. Maz Barnes
The Butterfly – 15th August, 2010
Next weekend I am going to Sydney to attend the "I Can Do It" conference run by Hay House. I know I will get to meet some of my favourite authors/ teachers like Caroline Myss and Dr Wayne Dyer, so (very sneakily) my ego kicked in (as it does when you're not in the flow) and I became intensely preoccupied with writing a story which I just KNEW would impress Caroline Myss.
I searched through my journals and flicked madly through the pages of Caroline's book "Entering the Castle". I couldn't find what I was looking for and I was very frustrated. My mood was slightly elevated and I couldn't focus on anything else except this brilliant (lol) story I intended to write.
I made myself head outside to hang the washing on the line. As I looked around I spotted someone over the road who had obviously just woken up to a beautiful "sky blue" day and it led me to thinking about the metaphor of the butterfly and how night and day are the perfect examples of the cocoon (night) and the butterfly (day). Don't ask me why that is what I thought, but sometimes these things happen to me.
And....... as would happen, when I came back inside, instead of my ego-driven story coming into play, my butterfly story evolved. Whilst sifting through my journals, I was attracted to a story I had written in June 2008, entitled "The Butterfly":
Did the fact that the little stained glass butterfly kept falling down from my bathroom mirror prompt me to take particular notice of a page in a book I was reading? I don't know but the butterfly has been a symbol for me since something that happened in 1979.
Years later, I was to visit a friend with bipolar when she was in hospital. She came up to me with a gift she had made. It was a little blue stained glass butterfly. She seemed to think it was important to give it to me. We have crossed paths and wavelengths a few times (collective consciousness).
Having often pondered on the symbolism of the butterfly I found a brilliant example of it in a book called "Discover Your Destiny with the Monk who Sold His Ferrari. The 7 Stages of Self-awakening"........ "You are walking towards the light. The darkness will pass. The butterfly is coming....... The laws of nature explain the laws of life...... you know that. A caterpillar cannot remain in the cocoon forever. A butterfly must emerge when the time is right. Just trust in nature's timing; it's not the same clock as you. Remember that always. Your pain will pass - it always does. And as Carl Jung said: There is no coming to consciousness without pain. Again, release control and just realize that there is a larger unfolding taking place. And all is good."
I have been that caterpillar in the cocoon for a long time. I really hope that my time to be a butterfly is not far away........ but I surrender and trust in the process of life 69,000 (lol) times a day.
........ and, as if to cap it all off, when I was searching for the other reference in "Entering the Castle", I nestled down into the Fifth Mansion (pg 266) entitled "Dissolving into Holiness: From Silkworm to Butterfly".... and I knew I was meant to read this chapter and absorb it into my being...... pg 267."This final release of the ego's hold on you is like a silkworm breaking out of it's confining cocoon and lifting into flight as a beautiful butterfly"
ONCE AGAIN - ANOTHER EGO LESSON. WE NEED TO RISE ABOVE THE EGO, LET GO, SURRENDER AND TRUST. :)
10th May, 2011
Once again ego has kicked in and I am pushing too hard for answers. I know it, I feel it, yet I’m finding it hard to ease back. An email arrives in my inbox. “Munay79 has updated his youtube”. I clicked on it, only to find it is a clip from “Eat Pray Love” – the one about learning to choose your thoughts, chill your mind , surrender and let it be”. Oh my….. the Universe has brought me the message again. You see – that youtube clip was first posted back in January. Why today – at this time did the message come to my hotmail – just when I needed to see it???
Oh – and the recent movie I came across very randomly called “The Fountain” starring Hugh Jackman just blew me away…… Underlying theme to this amazing movie ……… SURRENDER!!!! Ok ok ok!!!
And strangely enough, a little book called “The Red Balloon” crossed my mind ( I had bought it during the time of my very first mania). Over the years I had mused about that metaphor and came to the conclusion that a red balloon blowing in the wind has to epitomize the thought of SURRENDER…. And there’s similarities between the “death” of the red balloon and the Hugh Jackman character in “The Fountain”
Doesn’t really matter how I’ve reached the conclusion…… but without a doubt, the answer is SURRENDER. We can’t CONTROL. It doesn’t work.
TO LET GO
To let Go...Doesn't mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.
It's not to cut myself off,
It's the realization that I can't control another.
To Let Go....Is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.
Is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To Let Go....Is not to try to change or blame another,
I can only change myself.
Is not to care for,
but to care about.
To let Go....Is not to fix,
but to be supportive.
Is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.
To let Go....Is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcome,
but to allow others to effect their own outcomes.
Is not to be protective,
it is to permit another to face reality.
To Let Go....Is not to deny, but to accept.
Is not to nag, scold, or argue,
but to search out my own
shortcomings and to correct them.
To Let Go....Is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes,
and to cherish the moment.
Is not to criticize or regulate anyone,
but to try to become whatever dream I can be.
To Let Go....Is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.
Is to fear less and to love more.
And I do "LOVE YOU"
So I will..."LET YOU GO"...
Oprah Winfrey talks about her lesson of surrender when her dream was to get a part in the movie "A Colour Purple".
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