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| photo by Vanessa Hill Rogers |
We
are never separate from God. This is one of
many lessons I have been learning
from
discussing my relationships with my spiritual
masters, Helen Lordsmith and
JoLee Wingerson,
for the last 15 years (I am a slow learner). I have
heard it
said “We are God” or “We are part of
God." Ultimately spiritual experience is
personal
and the way we frame it is unique to us. We
decide what that
relationship will be. Sometimes
we pattern God after a wicked parent (which is
interesting because individuals with Dissociative
Identity Disorder also
develop a personality
modeled after their abusers).
I
feel connected to God - some Cosmic Chemical, Energetic Power,
Paternal-Maternal-Fraternal Force. I like the image Marianne Williamson used
of one wave saying to another wave: “Do you believe in the sea?” But, as fate
would have it, humans are not created to be sailing smoothly with God in our
sails. We are born thinking we are separate sinners, and our egos want us to confirm
that with proof, because the ego seeks power at the expense of our health and happiness. People will
treat us in exactly the way we believe we deserve to be treated – as Ego or
Spirit.
Lovers
and friends will come and go, but who are we between those times? Why do we
give away our power to the Other as if we are not enough. When we give away our
power to them, we are no longer the person the Other chose.
When
I’m doing it right, my happiness is not dependent on who walks in the door on a
particular day or what they are saying to me. I am totally flowing. To learn this I have kicked and screamed
when someone walked out the door or didn’t appear in the way I expected. My
heart has been shattered by conditions and expectations, and re-pieced. As as result, I’ve become a better
teacher, mother, counselor, lover and friend as I’ve learned how to sculpt my life without
expectation for the materials or the outcome. Oh how I’d like to be able to
CONTROL things. Grr. My ego is a pirate!
With
awareness of the fact that we are never separate from God, we are never apart
from the people whom we love. We can feel them in our hearts. This is not a THOUGHT.
This is something FELT and, amazingly, we can shift or morph or grow into this
feeling state of being. The example I have had to model what true love looks
like is my grandmother, Mutti, who died 15 years ago. I can feel her hands
wrapped around me when I was a baby. I can feel her embracing me as a teen when
I cried after breaking up with a boy. I can feel her braiding my hair, and I still
smell her food. Her love was so total and complete. The safety I felt in her
presence was so thorough that to this day she is woven into my heart and the
loss of her does not throw me because I can still FEEL her. (Papa was great too but he was working long days to help support us.)
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| Mutti and Papa |
I
did not realize that this could apply across the board. The trick is to be
totally open and present with the people in our lives, the people we love –
without conditions. We get into trouble when we think: “I’ll only love you if
you stay with me the rest of your life.” That’s a thought. The heart wants to
feel. TODAY. LOVE. GO DO IT. Your kids will move out. Your lovers will leave or
die. Your friends will move. Your parents are doing the best that she can. What
is your personal barrier to love? Because that is the faulty belief that you
are separate from God. That is the illusion standing between you and Heaven on Earth.
Imagine eating several Almond Joy bars (substitute your
favorite candy here) while riding a roller coaster in the snow. How different is “falling in
love,” that giddy state where about all one can stomach is vanilla yogurt and the
other person is pretty much flawless? 
