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Black History Month Helps Us to Make Love Real
Love is quite possibly the most confusing word in the English language. There are so many ways we use the term, so many different things we mean by it, and so many ways we don’t understand it at all. Yet Love is THE primary impulse we escribe to Spirit/the Universe/Life and in the Science of Mind we say “Love and Law, this is our teaching.”
So how do we make love real in our lives – not Hallmarked, not conditional, not Disneyfied, not transactional, not abstract, and not convenient – but real? All month we will be exploring Love as a Verb rather than simply a Noun and examining what types of dysfunctional expressions of love we want to disrupt!
Black History Month
How utterly appropriate, or should we say ironic, that the Love Month is also Black History Month. Could any people have been less loved than the enslaved Africans brought to our shores for the expansion of the White man’s economic engine? Now we all know the Golden Rule “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Although it’s stated in different ways, it is at the heart of all the world’s religions.
Immanuel Kant provided us with a philosophical rendering of the Golden Rule which he called “the Categorical Imperative.” It is best known in its original formulation: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” A second formulation, less well known but my personal favorite “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.”
So, it’s okay to have employees that are the means to fulfilling the production of the widget you invented, but never to forget that they have dreams and goals and desires of their own and must be supported and empowered as individuals as well.
There is a third formulation of the categorical imperative that contains much of the same as the first two and is too convoluted to quote. However, what it basically means is that “we must will something that we could at the same time freely will of ourselves. In other words, it is not enough that the right conduct be followed, but that one also demands that conduct of oneself.” In other words, it’s not just about how others behave, we have to hold ourselves to the same standards.
Quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
Clearly the Golden Rule and the Categorical Imperative were not applied to those enslaved. Neither those who traded and owned slaves, nor those who were complicit in the slave trade, held themselves to this higher standard. It is imperative that we claim the felt/lived/embodied experience that African Americans and Black people are, and always have been, human beings who deserve to be seen and treated as equal – people with their own lives, power, and will to create and be rather than being a means for someone else’s ends.
Seeing someone only as a means to our own ends robs that person, or group of people, of their humanity and dignity, reducing them to the level of domesticated animals or machines. While we ourselves may not be actively engaged in using others as a means to our own ends, we must recognize the deep personal impact this history has on our family, friends, community, and neighbors who are Black.
Celebrating Black History Month invites us into a truly empowering relationship with each other. Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate the impulse of Love that has flowered into the creations, inventions, expressions, and lives of people who are Black while acknowledging and respecting the overwhelming damage done by the legacy of slavery in the US.
Now it is our turn to Make Love Real and follow the impulse of Life as it is seeking to express as us. We Make Love Real when we notice and respect an African American’s experience and point of view. We Make Love Real when we explore the ways we may be unconsciously contributing to perpetuating a subtle bias of less than. We Make Love Real when we work to remove institutionalized and systemic biases that play out in so many ways in our nation.
This means we commit, individually and collectively, to treat Black people always as ends and never as merely means to an end. While it’s doesn’t sound like it comes from the heart, it is a powerful commitment and a deep expression of Love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
May you be blessed intimate love – a love that knows you, sees you, empowers you, refreshes you, and showers you with blessings.
May you be a blessing of intimate love for another – by knowing, seeing, empowering, refreshing and showering another – partner, child, parent, friend, co-worker or stranger – with the blessing of your love.
Daily Words are on break through the month of January
Annual Theme 2022 – Sacred Disruption – Reimagine Everything!
Dr. Petra’s Daily Words are in the process of sacred disruption so that they can be reimagined. Please look for Dr. Petra’s Daily Words to resume on February 1. Happy 2022!
Closing the Chapter
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. T. S. Eliot
New Year’s Eve is a defining moment that can close a chapter and cast a new one in your life. History shows us that the date for the celebration of a new year has been all over the calendar reflecting different religions, moons, and seasons. December 31 is pretty much an arbitrary demarcation of the cycle around the sun that says this day is where we agree we start the new cycle. So rather than starting in a winter month we could go back to agreeing that the new year begins in the spring. What is more significant than the starting date is what you choose to do with the celebration itself. Symbolically, resolutions of today are similar to the secular version of spiritual vows of the past. What’s impactful for you today is your crucial soul reflection of what you are doing with your endless infinite trek through time. On this day nostalgia will rise, remembrance of people, places, joys, sorrows, and yearning for finding the comfort of home again will fill your field of awareness.
Leave behind anything that doesn’t belong in your new year. Write down those things that are no longer welcome in your new chapter for this coming year and burn them in the fireplace tonight. Or get together with some friends and create a dissolution ceremony for this list of particulars that aren’t going to hitch a ride any further through time with you. Proclaim your completion with the past and join your friends in throwing your lists in a bowl of fire and watch them turn to ashes. Letting go of what doesn’t belong in your life expands your abundance potential as you start a new chapter of your life!
Spiritual Contemplation: Write that list of what you are committed to leaving behind in the old year. Then, burn it ceremoniously tonight. Don’t wait.
Affirmation: I let go of that which no longer serves me.
Dimensions of Consciousness
The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness. Lao Tzu
You have been graced with two dimensions to consciousness—the mental and the spiritual. The mental dimension allows you to overcome obstacles, create material form, and move toward your dreams. This is the realm of affirmations, visualizations, and knowing that you are captain of your ship and master of your fate. It is a powerful state to co-create life from according to your choices and desires. You have complete freedom to co-create anything you want.
The spiritual dimension invites you to commune with the Divine, sip from nectar of Presence, and know the Truth of who you are. This is the realm of meditation, the mystical experience and the consciousness of Oneness. It is a powerful state of oneness and connection with everything and everyone, with Beingness Itself. By living from the spiritual dimension of consciousness you invite and allow the impress and impulse of the Divine to move through and as you, sensing and feeling that the Presence is as near as your breath and as close as your heartbeat.
Both dimensions are yours to play in, and you can move freely between them. One is not “better” than the other. You are a being that operates in both realms simultaneously.
Spiritual Contemplation: Are you aware of when and how you move between these two dimensions of consciousness?
Affirmation: I live from my higher dimensions of consciousness as I move through my life and the world.
Freed from Karmic Debt
All’s love, yet All’s law. Robert Browning
The God of many people punishes evil and rewards good, but just because many people believe in this concept of God, it doesn’t make it so. You don’t need to attempt to influence God or sacrifice for God in order to win favor. If you believe that the creative Life Force is the truth of you, then this Presence, this eternal good, is forever seeking to express through you. God is love and all-knowing, today and tomorrow and forever more. If you make a mistake, let it go and become something other than that mistake. The law of cause and effect, often labeled karmic law—as you sow, so shall you reap—does not need to imprison you.
You can’t convince God to give you your good, nor can you earn it—because it’s already been given and only awaits your recognition. You are a child of the Divine and because of that you have been given nations as your inheritance. As Jesus said, “Today you shall be with me in paradise; your mistakes are forgiven, go and sin no more.” Those are statements of grace transcending punishment. When you stop doing what is bringing hurtful consequences to you, you are able to break free of the karmic wheel because you‘ve chosen to embrace love and forgiveness. When you no longer entertain thoughts and deeds of human realm, you free yourself from human law. What a gift you give yourself! The way to stop sowing in the physical dimension is to recognize your spiritual identity. There is law, but there is also grace. But behold, there is only one power in the Divine, not two. When under grace in the spiritual realm there is no room for clashing. In this state of harmony there is only your abundant good to express.
Spiritual Contemplation: Where are you waiting for your karma to play out? How about accepting being in paradise today? Embrace the concept that all blunders are already forgiven, and go and create from a new level of awareness.
Affirmation: I am now free of my karmic debts!
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Celebrating Kwanzaa
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. Maya Angelou
We have religious holidays and we have secular holidays. I see Kwanzaa as an opportunity for African-Americans to reaffirm ourselves if we choose to, a chance to rebuild and renew our focus. I see Kwanzaa as a holiday of the spirit. Jessica Harris
Kwanzaa is a pan-African celebration of heritage and culture and family and community. The principles and the manner of observing the holiday lift up traditional values that are key to our lives. Janine Bell
The seven principles of Kwanzaa—unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith—teach us that when we come together to strengthen our families and communities and honor the lesson of the past, we can face the future with joy and optimism.
Former president Bill Clinton
Our children need the sense of specialness that comes from participating in a known and loved ritual. They need the mastery of self-discipline that comes from order. They need the self-awareness that comes from a knowledge of their past. They need Kwanzaa as a tool for building their future and our own.
Jessica Harris
Kwanzaa is a holiday that should be celebrated by everyone, not just the black community. Jacqui Lewis
Kwanzaa isn’t a replacement for Christmas or even Hanukkah. Kwanzaa has nothing to do with religion and while some may twist it to be political, in its nature it is not. Kwanzaa is not the tool of its creator. Kwanzaa has a life of its own. Kwanzaa is about the spirit of people—all people regardless of color or race. Kwanzaa is a holiday of the human spirit—not the divine. The two were meant to co-exist peacefully. Author Unknown
Spiritual Contemplation: Be with these quotes in your meditation today.
Affirmation: I affirm the unity and interdependence of all humanity as we are One with each other and One with God!
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Wisdom of the Samurai
If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. Maya Angelou
A story is told of a Zen master who was a great and legendary samurai warrior. He eventually settled down in a small mountain village where students still came to him to receive his teachings and insights. One day, a young arrogant warrior, wanting to prove himself superior to the old ways, journeyed a great distance looking for this master teacher. Along the way he boasted of his skills and conquests upon unassuming bystanders, and eventually found his way to the monastery to challenge the former samurai so he too could be added to his list of conquests. He tried everything to provoke the old guy into a fight. He hurled insults, rocks, and eventually even spit on him. But being true to the way of spirit, the Zen master warrior didn’t respond to this childish behavior. The arrogant youth, humiliated by the lack of response, left the town by the end of the day.
Many of the old samurai’s students questioned their master as to why he didn’t engage with the youngster and show him that people shouldn’t be treated that way? To this he responded simply, “If someone offers you a gift and you don’t accept it, who does the gift belong to?” “To the giver, of course,” the students replied. “The same is true when people throw their emotions at you, whether they are in the form of anger, hate, or insults,” said the master. “When you do not accept them, they remain with the one who’s holding them.”
Spiritual Contemplation: Have you taken on emotional trash that isn’t yours when it was thrown your way? When have you let other people’s emotional garbage remain with them, and how did it feel to walk away clean? Where in your life are you being challenged to embrace other people’s toxic emotions? What are you going to do about that?
Affirmation: I accept only the gifts that bless my life!
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The Garden of Grace
Grace because the Universe is Itself an infinite givingness—It can’t help it; that is Its nature. Ernest Holmes
The garden of the Divine has fragrances you can’t describe. Surrender your need for explanation, and wander in the mystical realm beyond reason. You will be uplifted by Grace, empowered by Vision, and revitalized by Life Itself. When you return, you may not have any words, but your healing and transformation will impact everything.
Connect with your Center, and you connect with the Source of All. You are a portal of the Divine where the infinite and the finite merge, one into the other. Your being is the fulcrum where Spirit becomes matter and human becomes Divine. Breathe into the still point at your Center, and you breathe in the Heart of the One.
Spiritual Contemplation: When do you experience the presence and gift of Grace?
Affirmation: I am open to the gift of Grace as the Presence of the Divine. I open myself to the mystery and mystical experience of the One.
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No Room
Joseph went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the City of David which is called Bethlehem to be taxed with Mary his wife who was great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:4-7
It’s almost unimaginable to think of a very pregnant young woman about ready to give birth showing up at your door in the middle of winter and being told, “Sorry, no room for you here.” Can you even fathom telling someone to go deliver her baby in the barn with the animals? That’s not quite the romantic version of the story, but a powerful precursor to an unfolding saga of no room. Herod learned of Jesus’s birth from the gossip of the day and sent soldiers to Bethlehem to eliminate all children. There was no room for his teaching, no room for his miracles, and the leading religious leaders wanted him gone. Even in death he didn’t get his own tomb. Herod’s tomb was borrowed.
This story comes from two millennia ago, but the question is still valid today. Do you have room for the birth of Christ Consciousness in your world? Having no room at the inn is not nearly as significant as having room in your life for a higher awareness to birth itself into your experience. Is there room in your expression or are you full? Is there room for peace, or is war taking up too much space? Are your pursuits leaving too little time for your spiritual revelations? If you are too busy to create space for God in your life, you are too busy.
Spiritual Contemplation: Are you so full that you don’t have the energy or inclination to create space for something greater to enter into your life?
Affirmation: I always have room for God!
Contemplating the Christ Consciousness
Christ means the Universal Idea of Sonship, of which each is a member. That is why we are spoken of as members of that One Body; and why we are told to have that Mind in us ‘which was also in Christ Jesus.’ Each partakes of the Christ nature, to the degree that the Christ is revealed through him, and to that degree he becomes the Christ. Ernest Holmes
Christ is the embodiment of divine Sonship which has come, with varying degrees of power, to all people in all ages and to every person in some degree. Christ is a Universal Presence. Ernest Holmes
There is no one particular man predestined to become the Christ. We must understand the Christ is not a person, but a Principle. It was impossible for Jesus not to have become the Christ, as the human gave way to the Divine, as the man gave way to God, as the flesh gave way to Spirit, as the will of division gave way to the will of unity—Jesus the man became a living embodiment of the Christ. Ernest Holmes
Spiritual Contemplation: What do Jesus and the Christ Consciousness mean to you?
Affirmation: I awaken to the Christ Consciousness.
The Christ Consciousness Revealed
To practice the Presence of God is to awaken within us the Christ Consciousness. Christ is God in the soul of each one of us. Ernest Holmes
There is no way to force yourself into the mystical realm of the Christ Consciousness. As you dance between the dimensions of self-awareness and unity, you simply get seduced into surrendering your sense of self into the radiance of the Whole. You merge your self with the Self, and Oneness is all that is left.
Spiritual Contemplation: Take these words by Ernest Holmes into your spiritual contemplation: “As the human gives way to the Divine, in all people, they become the Christ. “
Affirmation: I awaken to the Christ Consciousness within and I see it in everyone.
Multiplying Joy
My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations. Michael J. Fox
My son has the ability to disrupt the orderliness of a room almost instantly. He has a creative energy that leaves a wake of colorful toys—hot wheels and their accompanying tracks, books, and marbles—in esthetic disarray in the blink of an eye. I can hardly fathom there’s that much potential waiting for placement even possible. Seemingly, out of nowhere, an abundance of stuff is strewn on the floor like a minefield that awaits my bare feet as he calls me in to join him in his play.
You might put a limitation on everything in your world while others bask in an understanding of the God Consciousness with no limits in any field of their endeavor. You can create from what might appear to be nothing by enjoying what you have to play with. Somehow from somewhere, another piece materializes from almost nowhere and then another and before long you are sitting in the midst of God’s colorful abundance that brings you multiplying joy. It’s only natural you’d look for a playmate to enjoy your expanding good fortune.
Spiritual Contemplation: Where are you multiplying your joy and where are you multiplying your fears? Do you realize you are using the same neutral energy for both actions?
Affirmation: My abundant good seems to appear out of nowhere!
The Divine Spark
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. Genesis 1:3-5
The winter solstice is one of the oldest seasonal festivals of humankind. It seems right to place the birth of the light at the time of the greatest darkness. Today we know the sun will come back but our ancestors weren’t quite so sure and didn’t take that return for granted, particularly since they were impacted a lot more by the winter elements than we are today. As an agricultural society that depended on crops it was definitely worth celebrating.
What a powerful metaphor was embraced by the Egyptians with the birth of Horus, the Persians with the birth of Mithra, and the Christians with Jesus, to mention just a few of the divine child saviors. How interesting that they all share the same story of a miraculous virgin birth and of the winter solstice celebrating the return of the light to a world of darkness. Amazing how people separated by time and space tapped into a universal story of truth that is as relevant today as when it was originally told and celebrated. Unaware of your slumbering spiritual magnificence, you walk this world oblivious to your greater potential. Winter is the germination and preparation for the flowering of spring as all things that come into existence must first be born. There is a divine spark in you that is ready to make its return and birth itself into expression. As cold as the dark times may get for you, remember that from the beginning of recorded history the return of the light has been celebrated, and the return of that light is your story.
Spiritual Contemplation: Where in your life has it become so dark that you’ve begun to question whether the light will return for you? Remember, the birth of the light comes at the time of the greatest darkness. Take some time to contemplate this ageless celebration and its relevance to your world today.
Affirmation: Today the light returns to my world!
Leaving Selfhood Behind
In creating this world below, the world above lost nothing. It is the same for each Sepfirah (progressively unfolding emanations as God becomes manifested): if one is illuminated, the next loses none of its brilliance. Kabbalah
A goal on the spiritual path is to move from being an individual who is under the law of the world of form to one who lives by spiritual principles—to leave behind the earthly selfhood that is caught in good and bad, ease and struggle, the law of opposites, and walk this world as an expression of the Divine emanation all that Spirit is. Either you are a branch on the tree of life that has been cut off and will eventually wither and die, or you are connected with the trunk and draw nutrients from the depths of the roots that feed the whole tree. Every problem you face comes from a sense of separation from the whole. The tree already knows how to heal. It knows the proper disbursements of the abundant resources.
As you meditate and reconnect with your life source, you come to remember what principles govern your life. In this conscious realignment you are lifted above the laws of this world to that which animates your very life as a branch of the tree. The branch is unaware of the many sources feeding it—sunlight and rain and nutrients from the soil—yet it benefits from them all. You may not be cognizant of the invisible flow backing the totality of your happiness and well-being, or even the people playing an unseen influence. Your meditation establishes your active oneness in the flow of the spiritual sustenance that is ever available to you as a branch of tree of life.
Spiritual Contemplation: Where in your life do you feel disconnected from your source?
Affirmation: I feel my connection to the Tree of Life!