I recently read a book that had a huge impact on me. I picked it up at the library “by mistake”. Ha! I live I Sedona, I know better than mistakes!! I got home, looked at it, wondered what it was, and thought I’d read it anyhow. Funny how Spirit puts things in our paths when we’re open and allowing.
The book is an ostensibly simple story about a woman’s life, told through the perspective of how her soul orchestrated a life contract so it could learn and experience certain things. The story showed how when we incarnate, we forget there is a plan and then wonder why on earth we’re doing the things we’re doing, and what the point of it all is. So, we judge and condemn ourselves and others, blame everyone for our pain, make what we consider to be huge stupid mistakes, ad nauseam. You know the feeling?
So, when I looked at my life from this higher perspective – and really this story could be about any of us—I got such a different view. So much self-judgment, fear and doubt about this journey I call my life simply disappeared, leaving nothing but love and compassion behind. I became able to look at the people around me differently too, seeing them as souls on a journey to learn, grow and experience. I have become free of the compulsion to judge their paths, personalities, and choices and can simply honor and bless them — and myself too. I see how courageous we all are to have embarked on these journeys we call life and bless all of it. Wow, what a liberating shift this has been!
I felt a strong desire to share my experience by leading a study group. After my friend John read the book and had a similar experience, we decided it would be fun to co-facilitate it. We submitted a proposal to our minister here at Unity of Sedona and were approved to offer the workshop, which we’re calling Earth School for Souls, at the church. This is new for me. I’ve worked with some groups in the past, but this is different. I’m so glad to be sharing the experience with John, as we each bring different skills and perspectives to the group.
Our dear minister, Mark Pope, reminds us to simply allow Spirit to use us as we are, to surrender to being a channel for grace in whatever way it wants to come through us. So, last Sunday we announced the workshop at church and were met with a great deal of enthusiasm.
As divine timing would have it, this past weekend I also participated with 24 other dear friends in what was originally termed Chaplain Training. It was a deeply transformational weekend, beginning with a heart opening ceremony in which all of us experienced opening to divine energy more deeply than ever before. It also included a death ritual, in which we imagined that we only had two more hours to live. We surrendered attachments to people, places, things, attitudes and judgments. We wrote a last will and testament. And we wrote last words to loved ones, and also to those we have less than loved. We surrendered our plans, our wills, our dreams. Then we burned it all.
I realized as I gave all that away, that none of it was real or important except the love I had given and received along the way from family and friends. It may be that I never felt the love for all of them as strongly as I did in that ceremony. So, I will share what I wrote with them so they don’t have to wait till I’m gone from this body to know it.
I truly felt as though I had completed my old life lessons. I felt I had done well with this life and could return to heaven having completed my curriculum. That felt good.
So on Saturday, we all began new lives. We spent the day sharing deeply with each other and the love, compassion and rejoicing were astounding to behold. The depth of oneness among us continues. I’m happy and excited to be embarking on this path now, so free, so clear, so opened, so full of love and light. All of us are forever transformed.
I have spent the last couple of years pretty quietly, doing a lot of inner healing, coming to a lot of realizations. It is obvious now that this year is about me showing up, stepping up, and allowing whatever gifts, talents and abilities I have to be seen and shared. I wrote about that last time, and how my big earrings remind me that I’ve outgrown the phase of my life where I played small and safe. How wonderful it is that as the activity of grace has so prepared me for this time, and now I’m ready to say yes, I will serve. I will speak, share, show up because I’ve been so filled with light and grace that it is just overflowing. And it feels so good.
The book, by the way is A Hit of Heaven by Andrea Avari, PhD. It is available on Amazon.com or through the author’s website, www.andreaavari.com. And for those of you in the Sedona area, the study group is being held at Unity of Sedona in the sanctuary, on Monday evenings, beginning August 2, at 6:30pm. The suggested love offering is $10 per class or $50 for the series of 6. The book is required, and we have them available for $10. Pre-registration is requested but not required. Email me at meredithdavis1@gmail.com if you want more info.
My friend John the eloquent writer and poet has posted a new blog and I highly recommend that you check it out at http://in-lite-un.blogspot.com/
