Remembering some wise teachers: Stephen Levine, Shakti Gawain, and Mary Anderson

I'm going through a full-fledged sorting and throwing out fest. I just found some quotes I'd kept from years ago from three truly beautiful souls: Stephen Levine, Shakti Gawain, and Mary Anderson. Just touching on something they wrote evokes peace in me and appreciation for their light which still shines:

Healing, like grace, can be somewhat disorienting in its early stages. It is a breaking through of the old to reveal the ever new. Healing, like grace, always takes us toward our true nature. Indeed, healing is not somewhere we are going, but a discovery of where we already are--a participation in the process unfolding moment to moment. Many of us pray for a miracle when all else has failed. We wish for grace to descend upon us. But grace comes from within. Grace arises when the work of healing is in process. A graceful healing into the spirit that goes beyond the need of definition or even words like "grace" or "karma" or "spirit." Though many of the people we worked with did not begin with a spiritual inclination, many uncovered their healing by taking on what some call spiritual practices toward the discovery of a deeper self. But we did notice that even those who had shied away from what they call "spiritual stuff" in the course of their daily confrontation with the impermanence of the body, cultivated a certain quality of heartfulness and peacefulness.

Stephen Levine, Healing into Life and Death

We each have an infinite supply of love and happiness within us. We have been accustomed to thinking we have to get something from the outside in order to be happy, but in truth it works the other way: we must learn to connect our inner source of happiness and satisfaction and flow it outward to share with others--not because it is virtuous to do so, but because it feels really good! Once we tune into it we just naturally want to share it because that is the essential nature of love, and we are all loving beings.

Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization

A small boy, upon being asked how he would describe God, said simply, "I think of Him as Light." Looked at from the angle of color and its place in our lives, this is a very apt description, for all life is energy vibrating at a different rate. Each vibration has a corresponding color and all color rays emanate from the central source, the Great White Light or Logos as we are instructed by the Ancient Teachings. In fact, as with everything else in life, there is an outer form to be perceived by our senses and an inner or hidden meaning to be discovered.

Mary Anderson, Color Healing

I was aware that the decluttering I'm going through is part of a transformation I'm going through: out with the old to make space for the new, physically, mentally, and spiritually. But there is also an interplay between rearranging my physical environment and my thinking that feels like a graceful dance.

Some of it is obvious -- I have new things I want to do and I'm getting rid of old papers, books, clothes, projects, and stuff that no longer interests me -- rearranging my physical space so it's easier for new desires.

Some of it is understandable because of the work I've been doing with Abraham-Hicks -- as I see things I haven't touched or read or looked at for a long time, I've been thinking about family and my life -- gaining clarity about how I want things to be now.

Some of it is unexpected -- I'm also having an integrative and very loving experience with my past that has just come full-blown into my consciousness.

The awareness started this morning when I wrote a friend about how I viewed past romantic relationships. I explained that I had loved them so I didn't want to get rid of the love when they ended -- I just wanted to come to peace with how it had changed. And as I wrote that to her I could feel those relationships with the men I had loved as something inside me that had been woven into a path or a whole cloth. I could feel my appreciation of them and what they had given me and their appreciation of who I was and how they had loved me supporting who I am now.

I had this warm feeling of peace and love as I was entering the excerpts for this post. I was remembering the time when I read that information. I lived in Virginia Beach and was into psychic development, dreamwork, and healing in a big way. I went to workshops, met a lot of people, was in groups, did research, published a newsletter on dreamwork, learned a lot, and had a lot of fun.

Awhile ago I had a feeling of hardness inside me like a wall or block. I felt empty and was puzzled because I know I'm not empty. I touched on it and did the work that felt best: EFT, placematting, and giving it to the Presence and having a good talk about it -- then I forgot about it.

So, now I've been guided to these quotes and these warm and loving experiences of all of the good things in my life -- I'm filled to overflowing with them and they spill into my life now. I tossed the paper the quotes were on after I entered them and that felt really good, too. I'm getting rid of the stuff that doesn't matter and the warm, living experience flows through for me.

(Copyrights are held by the authors noted.)