The Art of God

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.)

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.