What a summer! Today I remember, with gratitude, all of the joys and blessings I experienced this summer. What a full, fun, fantastic voyage it’s been! Every event, from singing in Yellowstone at The Gathering of One, to recording more music with Barry Goldstein in Manhattan, to spending an eternity of bliss with my spiritual family in Mt Shasta, to packing and moving into a new home, and all of the mini voyages inward and outward in between, was an opportunity for me to open to greater Havingness.
Accepting and allowing more and more Joy, Peace, Grace, ease, Love, laughter, abundance, well-being, harmony, and miracles in our lives is what I call Havingness. And, Havingness is also about giving space to what is, even if it isn’t wonderful, and allowing it to be as well. Havingness means when we’re having a bad day and things don’t appear to be going well, we can have it. Having, or allowing, the events, circumstances and people in our lives that we don’t necessarily want or enjoy makes room for what we <em>do</em> want and enjoy! When we give ourselves, no matter what we are feeling or experiencing at the moment, total permission to be, we allow the energy to keep moving. When we don’t hinder, block, resist or try to change what is, it naturally and effortlessly flows to the Truth, which<em> is</em> Joy, Peace and Eternal Love.
It’s really quite simple! But, so often, we make it extremely difficult and painful. Why is that? 🙂 Well, it happens when we take ourselves and our feelings, experiences and circumstances seriously. In effect, we believe what our senses tell us is reality, and we either rebel against it, resist it, try to change it, hold onto it or run away from it. Silly us (can you hear my laughter? 🙂 When we believe what our senses tell us, we have fallen asleep in the dream. We’ve become hypnotised by the physical world and it’s very convincing and distracting menu of emotions and sensation. In any moment, however, we can wake up and say to ourselves (with a good hearty laugh!) Wow! this is a fantastic dream: such dramatic special effects and entertaining dramas! We can then be grateful for our awareness, and remember Who and Where we truly are.
Havingness is our ability to remain awake, aware and accepting, giving space for everything that appears to be, so that, just as clouds in the sky: they appear and disappear, changing form and appearance as they drift in and out of the sky. The bright blue sky (in this analogy) is the ever-present, unchanging, still and certain Reality. And the clouds are the experiences, people, roles, circumstances, feelings and emotions of this world that constantly shift and change, appear and disappear. Our havingness for those clouds, our ability to just let them be, give them space to appear and disappear, is linked to our havingness for what lies, always, beyond those clouds. When we can have God, when we can truly have our divinity, eternity, Love, Joy and Peace, we can let any and all people, situations and experiences be. We can walk in peace through this world, knowing that our presence, our loving awareness free of judgement and resistance, is what truly brings about the appearances we would like to have.
The first step to changing an appearance (ie circumstance, situation, person, experience etc) we do not like, want or enjoy, is acceptance. We have to be able to have it. If we judge, resist or deny what is happening in or around us, we are putting our energy, which creates what we call ‘reality’ (the clouds:), into it and literally strengthening that appearance. However, if we accept what is happening in or around us, if we have it, give it space to be, we are withdrawing our energy from it. By not fueling the fire, so to speak, it dies out on its own. We are always the only fuel for any ‘fire’ (ie circumstance, person etc). If you can have it, you can change it. In fact, if you can have it, it will effortlessly become what you truly want anyway: all of the qualities of Reality~ Joy, Peace, Love, Grace, Freedom, Eternal Serenity….
What a gift and a fantastic tool Havingness is! I’m certainly reminding myself, as I write this, to practice more Havingness. The more you can have, the more you have, and the more you have, the more you can have! And the more you can have it, the more you will have what you already have because you are: Love, Joy, Peace, Freedom, Eternity!
Yay! (It’s always fun putting words to the experience of God because it’s a bit of a challenge: you really can’t put what is beyond words into words…but you can enjoy seeing how close you can get 🙂