Fullness

I have been thinking a lot about this word--fullness.  What does it really mean, when it comes to living my life with fullness, in fullness, within fullness?  My life feels full, and I am opening to receive even more of that fullness, in an even greater variety of ways that are well-suited to who I am.  This moves my experience of fullness into something that is overflowing and abundant.  
Another thought I've been having about fullness is the thought of emptying to receive fullness. It seems the less I know about the ways fullness can come to me, the more readily that fullness is able to arrive in my life.  Accepting the empty, Unknown, quality of my life's unfolding seems to facilitate the unfolding process.  It's as if I have stepped out of the way of its coming to me, and so it flows freely to me.  This is not to say that I have no participation in this process.  I am the person actually living my life, and having the experiences of my own true life.  In addition, I ask for guidance and assistance along the way, and in so doing, I am able to co-create this process with All That Is.  I cannot imagine a way of living life that provides any more fullness than this.

"Above all else, then,

be prepared at all times for the gifts of God, and be ready always for new ones.

For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive.

As God is omnipotent in deeds so the soul is equally profound in the capacity to receive.

If a cask is to contain wine, you must first pour out the water; the cask must be bare and empty.

Therefore, if you wish to receive divine joy and God, first pour out your clinging to things.

Everything that is to receive must and ought to be empty."    
                                                          --Meister Eckhart

The Path

Being on the path.  It's a daily, hourly, moment by moment process.  Staying attentive and connected is the task.  With loving attention the path unfolds.  We are well-guided if we listen and if we ask for assistance.  Love is what the path is composed of.  We love ourselves, we see the love that lives in others.  Loving life is the way steps are created on the path.  Joy and gratitude become the by-products of steps we take on the path.  Life is full and rich.

..."after I had experienced much, I learned to trust my own heart.  When you have this deep understanding, whatever occurs, you can let it occur, and all things will pass on and be quelled.  You will reach a point where the heart tells itself what to do...."                                                                                               --Achaan Chah     

Love and Grace

Love opens our hearts.  It brings us opportunities for grace to enter our lives.  We never know how an opportunity for change will come along.  Love flowing to us keeps us open to those opportunities, and they may come from very unexpected places.  Love invites us to be touched by grace, and we are then able to respond to opportunities in welcoming, rather than resisting, ways.  We are able to be guided by Divine Love that is greater than ourselves.  Doors open.  We are free to move through them.  Love shows us the way.

"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.  Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things...  Make love your aim..."           --St. Paul

Honoring

In the midst of large change anxiety comes and goes.  Recently for me, it has been coming in the form of old patterns and messages that come from a part of me that isn't authentic; that isn't truly who I am.  I have needed to turn gentle and compassionate energy onto these old voices in order to free them from their stuck places, and enable them to move on.  Only then am I fully reconnected to my peaceful center and to my process of positive change.

"Tibetan practices teach us that we benefit by honoring and feeding the demons.  When the demons arrive we must recognize that they are part of the dance of life itself.  When they threaten, it is only our illusions that are in danger.  The deeper our bow to the awesome changing powers of life, the wiser we will be, and when we embrace them, they turn into a rainbow.  Every color shines in the awakened heart."                                                     --Jack Kornfield

Opening to Gifts

Within the past week I have had several very powerful animal visitations.  Two in person, and one through the gift of thought.  Though the animals have been very different, their symbolism has included elements of plenty and abundance.  One clearly encouraged me to "Go for it."  These are welcome messages to me, and I'm continuing to stay open to the fullness of their energy and to further insights.  Conventional wisdom might say, "Look before your leap."  But I am being encouraged to leap and see where I land.  This is requiring the largest kind of trust I've ever placed in the Universe.  It is a fit for me at this time, and it calls on me to bring forward my fullest, largest self.  There is power available for us to access and utilize.  We are asked to open and receive.  We release control and allow the space that opens us to be filled.

"In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty...in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past conditioning.  And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrated the dance of the universe."                        --Deepak Chopra

           

Believing into Being

Amazing time.  Change is happening at deep levels.  We are all flowing with the tide of this change.  I am personally listening with all of my senses for the specific ways that Source is calling me to BE in this world at this time.  I am being asked to put full trust in the unfolding of my best life.  The task for me is to believe always that the Universe has my best interests at heart.  The active expression of this task is Being.  I am being encouraged to believe that by being who I am in the present moment,  the outward expression of my highest good will become the physical truth of my life.  Very challenging stuff.  And yet my beliefs are strong that there is overwhelming wisdom, benevolence, and power at work in all facets of my life and Life in its most grand form.  We are here to live and love and flourish within the vibrant energy of Divine Presence.

"You are already where you need to be.  You need go nowhere else.  Feel it now in the moisture on your tongue.  Sense the effortless filling and emptying of your lungs, the involuntary blinking of your eyes.  Just an inch or so behind your sternum where your heart beats.  That is where the makom is (the place of God).  Right here all along and we did not know it because we were fast asleep, here in this very makom."                                     --Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

  

Opening

I am in a process of opening.  And what I really want to do is make things happen.  But that is efforting, not opening.  Opening is allowing.  If I can stay open, I can allow things to happen; I can let things happen.  Opening is freedom.  I will continue with this process of opening. 
So why do I sit with my arms folded?  Fear.  I'm holding onto fear.  But fear is not a part of Divine Presence.  It is not a part of the essence of Source or Great Mystery.  If I uncross my arms and stay open, then I let go of resistance.  I release what is unnecessary and in the way.  At the same time my opening becomes an invitation.  Staying open invites Creation in.  It invites something to come to me which is necessary, healing, important, vital.  New.

"We need to remember that where we are going is here, that any practice is simply a means to open our heart to what is in front of us.  Where we already are is the path and the goal."                                          --Jack Kornfield