Trans-formation

Living long enough we all find ourselves surrounded by an old way of thinking, being or loving that is going up in flames.    In that unexpected moment, we usually find ourselves full of fear, feeling trapped by an old way of life coming in on us.  But this is the passage of rebirth that we must move through if our lives are to unfold.  It is the momentary and painful crossing from what is old into what is new.  We must trust that the greater sea we are jumping into will douse whatever catches fire as we move through.   This is what faith is all about.   Mark Nepo

This body is not me
I am not limited by this body.
I am life without boundaries
I have never been born,
And I have never died.


Look at the ocean and the sky filled with stars,
Manifestations from my wondrous mind.
Since before time, I have been free.


Birth and death are only doors through which we pass
Sacred thresholds on our journey
Birth and death are a game of hide and seek.


So laugh with me,
Hold my hand,
Let us say goodbye
Say goodbye to meet again soon.
We meet today
We will meet again tomorrow
We meet at the source every moment.
We meet each other in all forms of life.

Born

"I was born when all I once
feared - I could
love."

Rabia

Waking Up

"The rewards of "birthing" are "birthing" itself -knowing that through divine grace you are becoming more and more of an instrument of divine love and justice, feeling the divine working more and more intimately within you, seeing and knowing the Divine inspiring more and more of your wants, growing wilder and calmer, more and more heartbroken and blissful, watching the Divine manifest more and more richly and playfully in your mind and heart and body and soul and relationships and surroundings.  No external glory or fame or success could ever approximate the ecstacy that such awareness will bring you or awaken in you such depths of gratitude; no external failure can ever take its joy from you."  Andrew Harvey

Change

"Things are always ending and arising and ending.  But we are strangely conditioned to want to experience just the birth part and not the death part...We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold to things.  Yet the true nature of life is that we're never in control; we can never hold onto anything.  That's how life is.  Although we can accept this intellectually, moment by moment it brings up a lot of panic and fear.  So my path has been learning to relax with this lack of control and the panic that accompanies it, learning to stay in the space of uncertainty, learning to die continually."   Pema Chodron

Bardo

Bardo = a liminal period between the old life and rebirth

Change

Do not fear. Look beyond what's dying to what's being born. ~Marianne Williamson

Inspiration

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rilke
Book of Hours, I 59

Dark Night of the Soul

"The dark night itself is a kind of vessel that allows our putrefaction, the breaking apart of a life that once made sense but needed reviving."  Thomas Moore

Born in Soul

"To be born in soul again and again is a positive experience, but it also involves pain.   It means entering a new kind of life just when the old one might have grown comfortable.   Familiarity can bring tranquility, but you also need the sting and chaos of the new.   To be alive entails both of these qualities, the yin and yang of peace and pain."  Thomas Moore

Consciousness

"Initially, matter does not want to become conscious, nor does spirit want to be embodied.  Only gradually do body and psyche push toward consciousness, and only when they are sufficiently grounded in love, can conscious matter be penetrated be the light of the spirit.  The Divine Child, the new consciousness, is born of that union."  Marion Woodman

Wholeness

"Most of us are dragged
toward wholeness
We do not understand
the breakdown of what has gone before.
We do not understand.
We cling to the familiar,
refuse to give up our habitual lives,
resist our growth.
We do not understand rebirth
do not accept the initiation rites.
Most of us are dragged toward wholeness."

Birth

"Life is a labor pain.  We are hear to give birth to ourselves."   Bernie Siegel

Shadow work

"To face our shadow, the dragons and hags that we spent a lifetime running away from, is perhaps the most difficult journey we will ever take.   But it is there, in the shadow, that we retrieve our hidden/lost parts, learn our lessons, and give birth to the wise and mature self.   The difficulty of this dark journey is matched only by it's rewards.   Every single person in this whole world is offered-over and over- the chance to take the voyage from Once-born innocence to Twice-born wisdom."  Elizabeth Lesser

Love

"Love is the continuous birth of creativity within and between us."   John O' Donahue