You have not lost your wings

I sat in my garden staring at our latest seedlings: peppers and squash, melon and pumpkin. We had planted them the other day, eyes on the rising sun, filled with harvest hope. Six hours later another massive hailstorm, evidence of climate change, solar flares, Mercury retrograde or, you know, our secret guilt over believing we separated from our source, nearly wiped them out. Still, they stood peaked, but tall. Triumphant, little green survivors I couldn’t help but give a hearty thumbs up.

My eyes drifted then, following my ears toward the gurgling fountain we’d recently filled, wedged in a raised bed in an outdoor corner, flush against a wall of windows beside the kitchen door, and landed on a stone fairy I’d bought on a whim in a garden store years ago, standing vigil among a fresh crop of coleus. My husband had placed the slab of wings she lost last year that neither of us had summoned the energy to fix, respectfully at her feet.

A stray beam of sun suddenly slashed through our ash tree’s foliage. Bathed in the spotlight, the fairy stood, diva-like, despite her earth-bound predicament, as if about to deliver an aria of despair to kindred garden companions. And she seemed an apt metaphor for the inner child I’d become acutely aware of recently within the body I still see in the mirror each morning, having experienced an almost unrelenting sense of its forgotten toddler refrain of, “What about me!” “I’m not safe!” A 24/7 dirge that seemed to have sprung, unbidden, from the depths of my heart, like the uninvited creature popping out of Sigourney Weaver in the old Alien movie, I could apparently ignore no longer.

For the past few weeks, I’d been seemingly plagued with nonstop, troubling digestive issues that my Western physician thus far had no explanation for. I’d had bouts of these symptoms in the past that always responded to the Chinese Medicine formulas prescribed by an alternative doctor I’d consulted for various ailments over the years. This time, however, the problems persisted, and the inner teacher of fear grabbed the bullhorn in the form of a two-year-old me, arms outstretched, eyes outraged, as in a childhood photo my aunt had recently sent me, screaming “What about me!” “I’m not safe!” I mean, pick me up for God’s sake; get me out of here!

Although I’d been begging my right mind for help in understanding the overwhelming fear that seemed to have gripped me in relation to these bodily issues, staring at the illuminated, wingless fairy now triggered a welcome (relatively speaking) epiphany. My inner child, but a fragment of the same inner child within us all workbook lesson 182, “I will be still an instant and go home,” so poignantly reveals, was screaming loud and clear to anyone willing to listen: “Pay attention to me!” Enough with forgiving all those nut cases in your dream and chatting it up with Jesus (that memory of uninterrupted union in our mind that remembered to smile at the tiny, mad, idea of separation). What about me and my safety from the imaginary derelict parent we secretly believe waits just on the other side of this veil to ‘strike me blind,’ as the Course so diplomatically puts it?

I knew it was no coincidence at all that these symptoms had seemingly arisen in direct proportion to my increasing willingness to let figures in my dream off the hook for their perplexing behavior. To truly recognize that everyone here was fighting the same hard battle Ken Wapnick often talked about (quoting Philo), just like me, and respond compassionately.  It was no coincidence that treating my physical symptoms in what Ken called a 2 + 2 = 4 world (where things add up, but remain illusory) required, among other things, a neutral diet consisting of small portions of boiled chicken, broth, white rice, applesauce, noodles, and tiny wisps of steamed spinach resembling fairy food. Served to pacify the teetering-on-a-precipice toddler within while effectively separating me from other grownups and drawing embarrassing attention to an all-too “real” condition I’d really rather not discuss while breaking bread.

The little girl, the one in the photo, whose very survival seemed thrust on the line as a result of my increasing choice for right-mindedness, was not a monster. Not some extraterrestrial deformity, but a starved and thirsty, weepy little waif, terrified of being washed away into the primordial tide should I continue to choose the inner teacher of abstract Love for all over the inner teacher of special needs. Her needs! The ones that never got met in the childhood of her dream, the ones even the happiest of dreams of exile from our seamless union with our only and forever-loving source could never deliver.

The Course tells us everyone has the same inner child, secretly afraid he will never find his way home and that, even if he did, he would no longer be welcomed by the parent he fled. No wonder he fights like hell to protect the only safety he believes remains, the imaginary fortress of a vulnerable body adrift in an alien, hostile universe, prey to innumerable random threats.

“We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly about in endless search seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.” (Workbook lesson 182, paragraph 3)

Everyone has the same inner child constantly screaming, “What about me?” and, “I’m not safe!” Battling the enormous shadow his feeble self casts in this hell of a world he thinks he invented. The bully’s infantile swagger and false bravado are but flimsy superhero costumes that can never adequately mask the little child fighting to make his dream real, terrified of the voice of undifferentiated Love outside the dream calling him home from playing an ultimately enervating game of trick or treat.

And so, as the symptoms and my inner child’s meltdown continued, I finally stopped, and descended for an elongated instant into the stillness I am always fleeing, although I claim to crave it. Sat down and invited my inner child to crawl into my lap and let me rock her. The inner teacher of our prevailing union beside us, that proverbial older, awake sibling (as Jesus refers to himself in the Course) completely certain we all made it out of this dream of separation, not only alive, but embraced, and endlessly celebrated. Cradled once more in the Love we never really stopped sharing as the one Child of God we have always been, fantastic fantasies of exile, notwithstanding. Forever safe, endlessly creative, nourished, and joyful, “not one note in Heaven’s song missed,” inhaling the absolute, singular security that quells all fear, heals all pain, and fills all lack.

The child within rested now, curled in her cradle, dreaming, I suppose, happy children’s dreams. Recently, I found the yellow “tickle feather” Ken had given me a few years ago from his seeming eternal stash to remind me not to take this journey home so seriously. I pulled it out of my pocket now. When the blur of welcome tears cleared, I went into the garage to look for some glue for those wings.

“When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are home.

Rest with him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love’s messages to those who think he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in his hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them that they may see He would be Friend to them. He asks that they protect Him, for his home is far away, and He will not return to it alone.” (Paragraphs 8 and 9)

The Foundation for A Course in Miracles could use our help as they continue to so gracefully teach and publish the mind-healing, life-altering work of our beloved teacher and mentor Ken Wapnick, who selflessly dedicated his life to helping us change our minds about the world and find our way home. You can express your support and appreciation for this ongoing work with a donation here: https://www.facim.org/bookstore/p-195-donate.aspx .  … And, now, when you buy on Amazon, you can support The Foundation for A Course in Miracles, too! Details here: http://www.facim.org/announcements.aspx 

Enjoyed talking with CA Brooks of 12Radio again June 6^th, about ACIM workbook lesson 182, “I will be still an instant and go home,”our one frightened inner child, and how the return to our innocence is not a direct route! http://www.12radio.com/archive.cfm?archive=839A58DE-1143-DC70-C44DD7CC78DFBECC 

Here’s a link to details about a new Tuesday night class I am offering here in Denver https://www.foraysinforgiveness.com/classes-events beginning in May 2014. 

The Foundation for A Course in Miracles continues to offer illuminating classes taught by a talented, devoted, inspiring staff! I was so deeply moved and inspired by their presentations at the March academy, and can’t wait to return for more in July! Check out their offerings here:  http://www.facim.org/temecula-schedule.aspx    

HALF-HOUR, FORTY-FIVE MINUTE, OR HOUR-LONG MENTORING SESSIONS NOW AVAILABLE: Although A Course in Miracles is clearly a self-study program and the one relationship we are truly cultivating is with our eternally sane and loving right mind, mentoring can help remind Course students having trouble applying its unique forgiveness that the problem and the solution never lie in the difficult relationship, situation, behavior, health issue, etc., but in the decision-making mind. In every circumstance, without exception, we can experience inner peace and kindness toward all, unaffected by the seemingly random strife of a world designed to prove otherwise. By choosing to look at our lives as a classroom in which we bring all our painful illusions to the inner teacher of forgiveness who knows only our shared innocence beyond all its deceptive disguises, we learn to identify and transcend the ego’s resistance, hold others harmless, and gently allow our split mind to heal. One-on-one, hour, forty-five-minute, or half-hour mentoring sessions are conducted via traditional phone or Skype (your choice). Please contact me to find out if mentoring is right for you before submitting a payment below. (No one is ever turned away for lack of ability to pay.) 

My dear friend and wonderful teacher Lyn Corona continues to offer wonderful new classes at the Rocky Mountain Miracle Center through her School of Reason for Course students and teachers. You can subscribe to her website http://www.schoolofreason.org/ to receive information about upcoming classes. 

My good friend and gifted A Course in Miracles teacher and writer Bernard Groom has been posting beautifully written, heartfelt essays about living A Course in Miracles for years at http://www.acimvillage.com/. I found his recent, kindly right-minded contemplations there on the death of our beloved teacher Ken Wapnick deeply comforting! Bernard lives and teaches in France with his dear wife Patricia. You’ll find a wealth of information in French on his website http://uncoursenmiraclesenfrance.com/ including recorded talks available for purchase or free download: http://uncoursenmiraclesenfrance.com/audio/. 

Here’s another ACIM hangout video I did with my friend Bruce Rawles http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yogj9ckTXbc&feature=youtu.be . In this one, we talk about our love for our teacher Ken Wapnick, a demonstration of kindness to one and all, and how we can honor his life and heal our minds by living all he has taught us!

My latest book, Forgiveness Offers Everything I Want is available on Amazon in both paperback and kindle versions. If you read and find the book helpful, I would so appreciate you posting a brief (a sentence or two is fine) review on Amazon. 🙂

Forgiveness Offers Everything I Want is also available at the Rocky Mountain Miracle Center in Denver, Colorado, where I teach weekly on Tuesday nights, takes up roughly where my last ACIM essay collection left off, and conveys my growing faith that no matter how wrenching, wild, or wacky the dream of our lives may appear, we always have a choice about which inner teacher we are looking and listening with: the ego, the part of our mind that believed the “tiny, mad idea” of separation from our source had real effects. Or the “right mind” that remembered to gently smile at the bizarre thought of it. If you’re thinking about buying a book and live in Denver, please consider purchasing a copy from the RMMC to help support their great work.  Forgiveness Offers Everything I Want, and my previous book, Extraordinary Ordinary Forgiveness, are now also available from the ACIM Store: http://www.acimstore.com/default.asp.