CHOPPING WOOD/CARRYING WATER - THE ROAD TO SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT

BEFORE WE GROW INTO THE NEW US, WE SPEND MANY YEARS ON THE PATH TO ENLIGHTENMENT., THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF THE SOUL. along the way, we have many jobs and experiences that all contribute to make us into who we are to become, who we were created to be. The path of enlightenment is simply the discovery of our passions which are the gifts we’ve been given to share with the world. For the better part of this week, a friend and I are refinishing some kitchen cabinets for a friend and landed a house cleaning job and planting plants in a garden, definitely, all, chopping wood/carrying water sorts of jobs, simply .a means to an end, a way to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. These little odd jobs also help us perfect our skills, dealing with people and acquiring new talents.

YOU HAVE TO GROW INTO THE NEW YOU

Seeing yourself bigger is hard. I would say it is the hardest part of the process, however, it is all hard work, make no mistake about it. Very few are born into who they were meant to become. Remember, it’s The Journey of the Soul.
Here I am, ten years into conscious living and I had set the intention that after I had gotten back from my last trip to Switzerland and Ireland that it felt like I would be ready to have a place to ground for awhile. The paper I had written on my altar read, “I want a lovely place to live and work.” Before I left on my trip, a house sitting job appeared. It was a beautiful authentic Spanish style hacienda with the most charming veranda and gardens. The first thing that I thought as I walked into the stunning courtyard, was retreat space! Now, I was thinking about retreat space for others, but so far, it has been retreat space for myself.
When I first saw the place, I was trying to decide if I would live in the guesthouse or the main house. When the furniture to furnish the main house appeared, I knew that I was to stay in there. My first day, I felt like goldilocks. The main house was too big, the guesthouse was too small, the master bedroom was just right (very large in itself! But there was coziness to it. It seemed like the main house was for retreats and guesthouse was for guests. I had to grow into where I was to live for the next 8 months. As lovely as the guesthouse was, it was familiar. I knew the size and I knew I could live there easily. But the furniture arrived for the big house. There could be no mistake that this was the space that was intended for my use. OK…I’ll have to grow myself into it! Expand!
While explaining my dilemma to a friend, she told me the story of when she bought her new, full size luxury car. She had been wanting an Acura and yet when she received it, she couldn’t drive it for the longest time. She kept driving her husband’s little Toyota pick-up. She had to grow herself into her new luxury space.
Remember that there is a time for everything, many different cycles in life. There is a time for contracting, going inward, living in a cocoon like space. But then, there will come a time when we have to grow ourselves, just as we had to allow our God to grow from our second grade image that we had of Him.
When the time is right, when it’s time for expansion, we will need to grow ourselves into bigger physical spaces as they are presented to us.
Growing the images that we have of ourselves, seeing ourselves bigger, who we were created to be, sharing our passions and the gifts that we were given to contribute to the greater good of the whole, for the highest good of all sentient (conscious) beings, is tough work. We are continually evolving, changing, growing and expanding!
I was constantly writing down, “Who am I today?” What layers have I shed? What has healed? Who am I becoming?

PERCEPTIONS

Once again, people’s different perceptions comes into my awareness. We all have our own ideas of words, places and things.

For example: Recently I was driving to Las Vegas to move some furniture and transfer cars. However, whenever I told anyone that I was going to Las Vegas, well, you can imagine the comments! Most of them were of hooping it up, gambling, drinking, shows and “Whatever happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas...kind of attitude!” Even the man at the gas station only 2 hrs from Las Vegas, made such comments. Now the reality was that we were moving furniture, cleaning and organizing. Not quite the same picture is it.

The same was true about my recent Vision Quest, in Switzerland/Ireland. It was thought of by most as a vacation. It was definitely not! It takes conscious awareness, staying present in every moment, to move through a walkabout. Just to mention that I was there for St. Patrick’s Day brought up many different, Mardi Gras, like comments. It’s not how it was for me at all, but that was the general thought that most others had of my trip in general. Living in the moment, I was in regular panty twists, where am I going, how am I going to get there, where will I be staying, missing at times, the familiarity of where I had just left.

I thought back to a job a couple of years ago. I had told the owner that I was computer literate. I was from my viewpoint. I could do most anything that I needed to and what I couldn’t figure out, I would ask. Several months into the job, it was brought to my attention that I had possibly fabricated a bit about my computer expertise. I listened to the concerns. I thought about it and realized that I was computer literate from my experience. However, this was a younger woman, an electronic wiz, I was used to a PC, we were using Apples, and so to her, it looked like I didn’t know anything, to me, it felt like someone had put a demon in the computer. Things were just enough different that I felt like I didn’t know anything.