My Favorite Place To Be

I have a very unusual relationship with my sister. She knows what I am thinking without my even saying a word. Now, that might be disconcerting to some people, but I love it.

When we are out shopping, I know just what she would like. And, she, in the same way, knows my preferences to a tee. It's the same with people. We just seem to pick up the same things about people. We talk about it later and have the same perceptions. It is uncanny.

We also have the same taste. We can walk into each other's homes and find the same things. Sometimes it feels amazing that we can know from several thousand miles away just what the other has. It makes it easy to give each other gifts.

When we were growing up we didn't appreciate our "gift". We were so so different. She loved to stay inside and create doll clothes. You would find me hanging out of a tree or playing baseball with the neighborhood boys. We felt about as different from one another as you could possibly get.

She would always give me "the look" if we were around something that we were both perceiving. In retrospect, I guess this was my first clue that we were on the same page. She would also give me "the look" when I did something that offended her--like running around without a shirt when we were very small.

I don't know exactly when she became my best friend. I think we might have been in our forty's. It just snuck up on us. It wasn't anything that we were trying for, or anything we could have imagined. It probably happened gradually. Since we have lived in different parts of the country and didn't see each other that often it was more difficult to detect.

Now, though, she is my safe place. She is my favorite place to be. I

am glad to have someone who knows me, sometimes better than myself. I can trust her to be honest with me about everything. She is the first person I turn to whether it's good or bad. And, she is always right there. Solid. Present to me. Loving me to the max.

I am lucky and I know it. She is the greatest blessing in my life and I am glad now when we can spend time together. It is the most comfortable thing in the world.

Gratitude for Consciousness

At the current time, many people are obsessing and feeling paranoid about how bad things in the world are. That makes it even more important to offer a powerful blessing by filling the ether with gratitude, both for the big events we have encountered in recent years and for all the little things we have a tendency to take for granted.

It is important to step back from what we perceive as problematic and scary and think in terms of the planet's spiritual growth as well as our own. There are many things for which to be thankful. How wondrous to be privileged to share in the illumination process of the planet Earth. How wondrous to be able to recognise and acknowledge the flow of divinity within the mundane and within each other. How exciting that we are the privileged who hold the vision for a new Earth. There is so much to celebrate, so much to appreciate and so much to marvel. We can celebrate the balance we are bringing into our own lives as well as that of the planet.

While the problems of the Earth may appear out of control at the present time, it is important for each one who is living and experiencing on the planet at the present time to accept responsibility for what is going on. While it might be tempting to blame others for our predicament, this is not the answer. As we view the apparent mess that is presenting itself for solutions at this time, it is tempting to try to find just who is to blame and then mentally try to convict those we deem guilty. Again, this is not the answer. In fact, it is more of the same old patriarchal energy the stimulated the arising of these problems in the first place.

Because so many of the models we observe and pattern our lives after continue to persist in the blame game it may, at times, be tempting for our egos to fall into the same pattern. After all, it may attempt to reason, if we can just find the guilty party, that person could be held accountable and life could go on in a better fashion. While it may be tempting to access blame to a person or group of people we deem guilty of social crimes against the planet, doing this misses a very important point: They are all parts of us.

The truth is, all the problems of Earth belong to all people of Earth. This means that each one of us must bear some of the responsibility for all of the problems we perceive. It cannot be otherwise. All those attempts (in our minds) to separate ourselves from all those we see as guilty only serves to exacerbate the problem. Additionally, it robs us of the internal space for thanksgiving and contributes to the relative lack of balance seen in the world today.

The absence of balance that fosters the non-clarity and distorting motivations that have brought about this current crisis has arisen from the collective mental conglomerate of the human race and simply cannot be pinned on a few select individuals. This is true no matter how harshly we judge the few.

It is tempting to slip into victimhood here. However, the truth lies in the fact that we are not victims. While this may be somewhat difficult to let in, facing and embodying this truth can help us cut through that non-clarity and distortional thinking and projecting. The ramifications of the predicaments may appear to be paralyzing in certain economic sectors and may seem difficult to deal with in conventional reality, but the old patriarchal habits will offer neither solution nor solace.

Facing our difficulties, if we are paying attention, will help us notice that the moment is ripe with possibility. This is something for which we can be quite grateful. If a solution is to be found, it will come about as a result of consciously viewing old patterns with fresh eyes and seeing the possibilities that have not previously been seen.