Is there a virus circulating the globe? Or, reality being really consciousness, is the increased fear that had taken hold of people for some time been given a name and exteriorized so that it can be “handled” in a way more believable than simple self-awareness? (We don’t know how powerful we are.) When growth comes, not everyone can cheerfully join with it. Change and the unfamiliar bring fear. Fear brings discord to our world. We are one big world, we share everything as never before. We are growing and learning and resisting it … together.

Now, both in separating from one another, and in sharing a common challenge, we can see how much we are connected. Where does the fear come from? We do not know who we really are. Because we are each unique, each different, each valid in our individuality, diversity threatens our insecurity and makes us defensive and intolerant and requiring conformity. We had to be taught to think this way. We entered this world loving ourselves and all we would meet, then forgot all about it. We forgot because we were made to believe something untrue about reality. Now the old reliable rules of this world are changing; the “absolutes” are losing their power and confronting the outmoded world-views that still fill our minds. Isn’t that ironic? Ironic, because I know that the disruption is trying to get us back on track. We just do these things the hard way. We are struggling with the old and the new. We are unsure of so much.

I don’t think life is remotely complicated. I don’t believe problems need complicated solutions. We already have the wholeness we keep looking for in the world. In no longer being able to go out in the world and “get some life,” we have the opportunity to find what actually creates our life. We’re stuck at home with … our self. The one and only one we came here with. Our self is life and how it gets expressed. We are energy, consciousness, the very substantive stuff of existence. We are spirit. Free. Unrestricted. Unconditioned spontaneity. Life flows out from within us. Not the other way. The way we treat each other is, frankly at times, hard to believe possible. Our obsessive acquisitiveness has buried us in bloated density. Our need to control reality has bound us and made us, temporarily, stupid and small.  

It really is all very simple. This is an ‘entry and departure’ world. We think the departure is a tragedy. Some people are taking this opportunity to depart, that is all that is going on there. The Earth and it’s human societies have heaved a sigh of relief as we cease the everyday noise.The silence we now enjoy will bring insight, guidance and will show us how to intelligently take care of ourselves and each other. We will find new inclusive ways of doing things. We are wonderful Beings, supported in freedom in a Mind that thinks in us and provides us with the Allness of its knowledge. Now that the world is quieter, we can hear it. We have the time and space to listen.

I am looking there, within the invisible yet full of feeling me. I am telling myself about life’s true presence within me. That’s all I need to do as I go through my day. I find that this simple acknowledgement breathes me into the actions I need to take, I find the people I need to talk to and the things that need to be said. I am not alone, not empty. I need only give up being afraid and not doubt that there is a blessing unfolding for us. Reality’s creative power is attitude. Yes, it is that personal a means. I am the wisdom I need. Everyone is this to themselves.

It is to this understanding of ourselves that we need to bring our faith. Our attention. This is the true nature of the human being. We are variegated life. Some will choose to see a Blessing today, others a ready way to get back Home, and still others will hold on to the familiar though it brings suffering. My expectation will show me a sound and meaningful resolution. This is a feeling/mental universe. We can receive clarity from the healthy use of our thinking and attitudes. We can create a happy world where every living thing has equal value and preciousness. And since there is no waiting in God, we can consider that potential reality … already here.

It is to this reality that I commit my focus at this present time of global uncertainty. I know I am guided, inspired and supported by Something more than myself to show the good I intend my life to represent. The world is created one human at a time. I am responsible for the human I am and the thinking I do. I recognize this sacred authority in everyone. We are not at the mercy of an external power.

Let the words come. They hold treasures. They are the little indicators of the Quiet one you are. You think you keep repeating yourself, but what you are doing is saying what matters to you that you have forgotten. You come to your writing with unkindness for your self. You write from a judgment that makes it hard for the words to appear, they feel unwelcome. You see yourself through critical eyes. You are comparing with the world and you cannot come out as being in anyway as you think you should be.

But you need not be so critical. In fact, you need not be critical of yourself in the least. There is nothing to criticize. You were not created to be going through an existence of criticism. Too soon you forgot to wonder where had the gentle life gone. When you found yourself in the world and heard what it was doing you allowed it into yourself and it worked its way in you to seem to become you. Unkindness is what you heard, now let it go away to be a thing that never happened. Let go of this tendency in you toward your self. Write with a sense of welcoming what comes from you. Write with a sense of welcoming life and each day that newly begins. Be welcoming of your mind and its ability to tell you wonders. Be welcoming of the smallest activity of human life that you have come to enjoy. Be welcoming of the fun you have with others. Be welcoming of the insight that comes so readily when you let it.

Life eagerly waits to bring you its treasures. It eagerly waits to show you the fresh. It eagerly wishes to bestow upon you all the good that resides in it. And all you need do … is allow. Welcome it by trusting in its silent and invisible presence hiding in your thinking as a living thought; in your feelings as conviction; in your human life as hope.

Allow this inner splendor to enable your movement through the world. You need not work hard to make life work, do not interfere with its working. Imagine its presence in the quietest possible way. No other thing need be done by you, even now, when so much has appeared to go wrong. But nothing has gone wrong. Nothing has become lost to you. The wonders of Life are the gift you welcome from yourself.

I am, she said. She said it softly, as if it were a secret. Her secret. Meant to be kept a secret because it was such a sacred thing.

Well, it is a sacred thing and she knew this in the depth of herself where she said these words for in her world true things were hidden. Two little words. Only two little words and yet something came from them that was so unspeakably vast, so deep, so far-reaching. And so close, that she could no longer exclude herself from life. From herself.

I am, she said, and her world changed as she found the changeless within it.

By the side of the path to my house is a tree that took root overnight. I woke one morning to find it standing in the soft glow of early dawn. I instantly knew it had always been there and in this knowing, I felt distances collapse.

Is knowing more true than sight? Are my eyes slow to see what is already here? Perhaps my eyes sleep while great surges of energies quietly create molecules for time and space to show. What precious invisible impulses bring this world to visibility?

The tree is real for I have climbed it. I sit on its branch and I feel the roughness of bark touch my skin and leave a mark. I breathe its buds of fragrance in Spring and taste its fruit in Summer.

Why did the tree come? Who is this creature of such stillness that shares my world with me? Who is a Tree? I ask this cautiously because I am almost afraid to be answered. I live in a world where deep questions are not asked and true answers not believed in. I’ve come to feel silly myself in asking them. Still, the person I am wonders about a lot of things thought not important. I sense my happiness and my sanity depend on keeping my wonderment alive.

Gathered in my pockets are the questions of all my hopes and dreams. I know that life is not mysterious. The mystery is that I prefer to stand in darkness never reaching in my pockets for the treasure of questions waiting there. The answer comes as a question, after all. I exist to ask wonderful questions about trees and many other things.

To begin anew was what she wanted. She began with one gesture outward, but the real movement had taken place an instant before in her heart. She had been listening to her heart. It was always saying something. It was speaking in her. That was how she knew she was alive and cared for.

She knew all kinds of things as she let herself receive the murmurs that kept flowing from somewhere within her. They were small murmurs, gently felt, not very noticeable. What she noticed most was her desire to hear them. She knew there was something to hear, something to be listening to. She had gotten into the habit of listening outwardly and this had created confusion in her. So now, today, this minute, as she sat down to write she said, I will listen. I will let it come to me this awareness of the thing I am. I need to know who I am for I am not the world.

It was surprising to her to find that there were words at the ready. She felt a slight pain in her wrist and hand as she began, but she knew that many things existed to distract her from the words that come from the Wordlessness that was waiting to tell her all she longed to know. To hear herself was all that mattered at any time, today was as good a time as any other except that it was in fact the best time, being the only one imbued with power.

The now of reality was this tiny moment squeezed in between the noises from a dream that took itself very seriously. Oh yes, she had succumbed to the noise. Falling flat on her face out there was the greatest gift to be given. She knew she had simply stumbled out of her peace. But peace was here. She could feel it. It knew all about her as only It could. How well It knew her. How well It upheld her. How well It conceived of a life for her. Her desire to let out all that It knew of her was the pressure she was constantly feeling. Such great pressure that felt like illness, but it was not. It was health wanting freedom from being cooped up in ignorance and fear.