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| Detail of The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo Location: The Sistine Chapel |
When I think about Creator's gifts to us, I like to have fun imagining that God/Creator is sitting there, realizing that it feels lonely, and Creator has just made a lovely planet upon which the people it makes can experience life, and Creator is pondering some of the checks and balances it needs to build in so that the people will not be bored, and so that they will be supremely protected. After all, if they are essentially immortal, like Creator, they must have a vast repertoire to choose from to amuse themselves. Creator thinks to Itself, These gifts must not be containable or measurable, they must reflect the beautiful flow of life.
So these gifts that I perceive that originate from Creator to each of us are: Immortality, Imagination, Intuition, Creativity, Freedom, Choice, Emotion, Intention, Rhythm, Breath, Guidance, Birth, Death, and Giving. Notice that with each of these Gifts, and the list is by no means all encompassing, humanity has attempted to control and/or own or usurp each one, but it is essentially impossible. We can choose to experience each one, no matter the circumstances of our lives. I learned the most about this when I watched some very moving YouTube videos of interviews with people who survived the holocaust, and how they used their gifts even while imprisoned, experiencing, and surrounded by horrors of the worst kind. When I ponder on these gifts I am amazed at the vastness of them, and how they can inspire us and fill us with Creator's love, no matter what is going on.
Let's look at them one at a time.
Immortality
When we learn how to use the feminine principal of listening/receiving, we discover that we can connect with a host of loving guides and teachers who do not currently reside on Earth in physical form. We discover that we can connect with our Source, which is even larger and more loving and healing than these higher vibrational resources. We discover that, like a drop in the ocean we are individuals, but like waves in the ocean, we can join with others, and like the ocean itself, we can just "be" a part of the whole. This is cool beans.
Imagination
Can we collect imagination in our hands and put it in a jar and screw the lid on? Nope. It's absolutely uncontainable. We can't sell it, buy it, or entrap it, removing it from its inherent owner. Wow. This is a gift of huge proportions. Immeasurable. Vast. It comes straight from Heaven.
Notice how we have been taught by humans who are selfish that imagination is bad, silly, not worth anything. Then look at some of our greatest heroes and master human beings, and you will realize that without their imaginations we would be living in a very different world. We have light and warmth and heat and beauty, and we also have a lot of bad and scary things too. We'll talk about those in a minute. But the power of the imagination is a truly Divine gift that we should never allow others to try to control or usurp. It belongs to each of us. It is interesting to note that the use of imagination upon our bodies can be of tremendous help in healing many diseases. I'm reminded of Henry Ford's well-known saying: "Whether you think you can or you think you can't - you're right."
Note that the opposite of imagination in today's world is worry. We've been taught to muddy up our beautiful imaginations with worry so that many of us feel pretty crippled. Let it loose. You don't have to ask anyone's permission. Just play with it. The bad and scary things that people have created with their imaginations are by-passable. Just choose to bypass them. Turn off the news and instead, seek what information you want to on your own, at your own pace, and in your own time rather than being spoon-fed every single day, even more than once per day. I like to be informed, but if I cannot do anything about what is happening, I keep that as a small part of the way I spend my time. And I usually like to mute the commercials if there's something I really want to see on regular television. Does anyone watch that anymore?
We can choose wisely what we allow into our minds and hearts.We can be aware of the control we have over most of what is coming into our sphere of awareness. We can use our powers to control our environment to a large extent. It's so easy! We can recognize the B. S. for what it is and choose accordingly. Are we really so bored that we need garbage to entertain ourselves with? Do we really want to spend time with others who only know to circle and circle around the drain? Choosing wisely helps us to empower ourselves, often in far greater ways than we'd ever dared to dream of.
Intuition
Can we capture intuition in our hands and put it into a jar and screw on the lid? Nope. Can we buy it or sell it, removing it from its original owner? Nope. It belongs to each of us. We have mechanisms within our bodies with which we can receive guidance, in various different forms. We just need to learn how to use them. Intuition belongs to each of us and is one of our inherent Celestial gifts. It is that still, small, loving, gentle voice within that tells us "Yes, do more of that," or "No, that's not such a good idea."
And when we go against our intuition, how many times do we find that we could have avoided some hassles if we had just listened? If we wish to learn gently, without experiencing trauma and headaches and hassles, it helps us to learn to work with our intuition. It's easy. It's free, though we can find those who will help us learn if we prefer to purchase the time of some Earthling who has already discovered the blessings of this Celestial gift. Heck, it's fun. And sometimes it can be life-saving.
While we're on the subject of intuition, it's a good time to talk about "the Clairs." These are the senses that we can use related to intuition, and they include clairvoyance (clear seeing), clairaudience (clear hearing), clairsentience (clear feeling), claircognizance (clear knowing), and there are a couple more, such as clairaliance (clear smelling), and clairgustance (clear tasting). All of us may find ourselves experiencing any of the Clairs at one time or another, whether intentionally, as in meditation, or at any time when we feel relaxed and our systems are open to receiving guidance or visitation from the otherworlds.
For example, when I sit down with my special journal to write with my daughter who lives in the Celestial world, the two Clairs I find myself using the most are clairaudience (I hear the thoughts she downloads to me), and claircognizance (what I perceive is coming from a knowing from deep inside of myself). Quite often I can feel her touching my hair, which tingles in an unusual way, (clairsentience), and many times I can smell her fragrance (clairaliance).
There are many ways in which we can practice with our "clair" skills, and most of us will find that one or two of them come more naturally than others. I didn't have to "teach" myself to use these skills when writing with my daughter, they just happened quite naturally. I would hazard a guess it's because of all the years spent drawing and painting, as that process is very close to the processes using the clairs, since they involve receiving, or what we could call inspiration.
Creativity
Right, we can't pick up creativity in our hands and put it in a jar and screw the lid on. You're catching on. Creativity is vast and immeasurable. It belongs to each of us as individuals. We first need to learn to define it such that we are not limiting it to "I can draw," or "I can't draw." Creativity makes its appearance in a million activities we participate in, you name it—knitting, sewing, cooking, writing, performing, singing, dancing, building, and on and on without limit. Wow, what a gift!
Do we allow ourselves time in our lives to use this Celestial gift? Some of us are bound to jobs in which we are told what to do, or our jobs are very repetitive so that we can hardly find ways in which to use our creativity during work hours. But we can often find ways to build it in such that we make these jobs "ours," and we can use it after hours all we want. It's fun!
Freedom
You know, unless we are chained to a wall, or have special physical needs which may be somewhat limiting, this gift belongs to each of us and all we have to do is give ourselves permission to use it. Once we're of a certain age, and sometimes way before that, and sometimes way late into our golden years, we realize that we do have right inside of us the right to make our own decisions. That is freedom.
No human being has the right to make us believe that we cannot or should not choose what we wish to do, how we wish to be, who we wish to be, what we wish to experience. We are, most of us, essentially free, but many of us do not give ourselves permission to exercise this right. We stay stuck in situations that don't make our hearts sing because we are afraid, we don't believe in our capabilities, or we are too young yet to be able to step out.
When I think about freedom it means exploring things I want to explore, going places I want to go, doing things I want to do, without feeling like I'm "under anyone's thumb." I've been there and seen the end of that "under the thumb" movie. Rewrote my story. So glad. If we feel that our heart is not singing, we can give ourselves permission to step out and rewrite our story. We can do it one step at a time if it feels scary, we're worth it.
Choice
Yep, this is a BIG one. Freedom and Choice are sister gifts. How we choose to apply choice in our lives can affect our own sense of freedom and also that of others. Choice is also a big one in that it applies to so very many things. We can choose how we feel. We can choose what we do. How we spend our time. Who we cultivate as a friend, who we stay away from. We can choose to live or die. Choice is a huge power. Let us use it wisely. Let us choose things that make our hearts sing. Let us choose love.
The nice thing is that when we choose unwisely, we soon feel the consequences, so that guidance is built right in. And we can choose to listen and adjust our activities, thoughts, and behavior, or we can dig our heels in and choose just as we always have. If we continue to choose just as we always have, we will experience pretty similar results. When we choose differently, we experience different results. It can be loads of fun. Or a real ball and chain. Either way, this gift is truly vast and powerful.
Emotion
Yes, I think of emotion as a Celestial gift. Research shows that we retain the ability to feel emotion after we die. It also shows that we tend to experience much more positive emotions when we graduate to the world of Unity, where duality does not exist, and here on Earth this is one of our greatest guides on what to continue and what to release. My daughter calls it "following the happies."
If something is causing distress, unease, fear, this gift of emotion guides us to remove ourselves from that if at all possible, or work to transmute it. If something is causing us to feel inspired, fulfilled, happy, full of joy, this Celestial gift of emotion is telling us to do more of that. I'm not talking about substance abuse, because we know that when we're in that loop, it owns us, we don't own our experience of it, and that causes distress along with false happies. Still, it is our choice of whether we will pursue more of it or release it. No worries. After all, we are immortal....
Intention
Intention is a sister gift to choice. It is also related to our participation in listening and our participation in acting. When we feel an urging in our soul to do something we can have all the intention in the world and if we don't act upon it, guess what? Nothing is going to happen. On the other hand we can go about doing all kinds of things all the time, but if we have no intention behind our actions, our results are not going to be predictable, and they're most likely not going to be what we wanted or expected.
When we learn how to consciously set our intentions and then act upon them we create a formula for bringing our dreams into reality. Intention is a very powerful gift. It's worthy of note that when our intention is negative, it will most likely come around to kick us in the butt, so it's a good idea to keep our intentions positive and for the good of the whole.
Rhythm
Rhythm is what we use to bypass the logical mind. Rhythm puts us into the flow. Rhythm is often associated with music and dance, but we also have rhythm in the cycles of the seasons, the flow of ocean to shore, our breath, our movement when walking or horseback riding, and so very much around us. We can feel rhythm in performing a sport such as archery, gymnastics, running, or any number of activities. Rhythm is movement. Rhythm is one of the powerful qualities of the universe that can create life when we join our bodies as male and female. It also relieves stress when we move our bodies; they like it!
Rhythm is very healing when used with love as its foundation. Here on Earth, we can have rhythm that is soft enough to soothe a babe to sleep or hard enough to kill. Rhythm is a powerful Celestial gift.
Breath
Breath and rhythm are sister gifts. When we breathe the air in, we are bringing the flow of the universe into our bodies, and when we exhale we can use our imaginations to clear out anything negative within our systems, or we can use that out breath to send love out into the world. With breath, we can control many of our physical systems; we can learn to soothe our fears with long, slow, deep breaths, or we can push through demanding activity such as climbing our favorite mountain by breathing fast and hard. We can sing through the control of the breath. And we can whisper. We can communicate with others through the control of our breath and how we push it up our throats and around our tongues. With this rhythm of the breath, and using it as language, we can make people cry, and we can make them laugh.
Note that breath is one of the most easily controllable gifts when others wish to overwhelm us or put our physical systems into distress. Let's choose to be friends and work with our words and sister gifts to keep the peace.
Guidance
Guidance is a Celestial gift. We are never alone. We can listen. We can choose who to listen to, what to listen to. Wow. There's some power there. We can listen to our inner guidance, or we can seek outer guidance, from other people, nature, books, and any number of resources, some of which are just excellent, and very loving.
Though we are experiencing what it is to be an individual here on Earth, we are essentially coming from the Whole, and it is inherent in our nature to belong. So we feel a sense of belonging in joining with others. It is one of the reasons we seek guidance—so we have a sense of community and we feel we are bypassing that feeling of separation, of being alone, which is just an illusion. It helps us to seek guidance from the very highest and most loving resources, whether here on Earth or from the otherworlds.
Sleep
Are we left to live out our Earth adventures all by ourselves, alone, and without love, guidance, and rejuvenation since we feel such a sense of separation? Nope. We have a built-in mechanism that brings us back to our Home whenever we put our bodies to rest and go to sleep. We are not gone when we sleep, we are traveling between worlds.
We can do many things while we sleep. We can go and visit our beloveds that are currently alive on this planet. We can go and help others who may be crossing over into the otherworlds. We can gather with our higher teachers, guides, and angels for learning and healing, and we can visit with our beloveds who have crossed over into the otherworlds. Isn't it curious that every creature who lives and breathes, also sleeps?
We are not, at this point, very consciously aware of what sleep really is. And we don't know how to use it. And that's the inherent power in it. It's our connection Home, built in so that even if we don't consciously learn how to connect to our Divine resources it happens every night whether we know it or not. We are never alone. We are most beloved. Sleep is good, very very good.
It's helpful to make sure that our sleeptime is not invaded by too much media, and to give ourselves a chance to really enjoy it. There is a host of beautiful music we can listen to as we go to sleep, and there are thousands of excellent meditations we can listen to as we go to sleep. We don't have to alarm ourselves with the news. Try turning it off way before bedtime, and stepping into the beautiful worlds of love. I've noticed a huge difference in how I feel in the morning when I wake up since I started listening to sleep meditations when I go to bed.
Dreaming
Sister gift to sleep is dreaming. And our dreams are very powerful. Dreams are like a "language" that our teachers and guides and higher sources use to communicate with us. Some of our dreams can warn us of upcoming danger. Some can teach us and guide us about choices that would be good for us to make. Some can help us process the events of our days. Some can guide us on our larger life purpose (recurring dreams are often messages about our life purposes). Very few dreams are completely without value. Nightmares are often quite the opposite of what they seem upon waking. We can even have contact with our beloveds who have crossed over in our dreams.
A great deal of research is starting to take place on various kinds of dreams. It only takes a few minutes to write down the highlights of our dreams and we can look them up later, when we have time. My favorite resource for dream analysis is very simple - Betty Bethard's The Dream Book: Symbols for Self Understanding. If we keep a dream notebook by our bed, and follow up on the simple analysis, we will begin to see patterns and learn to understand this language that we have access to. It's fascinating to watch how our dreams change with our growth and activities as the years progress.
In the Native American culture, which is steeped in very strong spiritual connections, grandparents could often "dream" of the child to come and they would make clothing for these children who weren't even born yet, and after the child grew, as an adult, they would be given the clothing and it would fit perfectly, because of the dreams of their loving grandparents. I find that just fascinating!
Birth
OMG we have birth and what a lovely, special event that is! A baby is one of the most vulnerable, beautiful, innocent beings we ever encounter, and for most of us, our hearts go right out to them in protection and love. They are so close to Heaven there is nearly not a one of us who doesn't have their heart captured by the beauty and perfection of a baby fresh from Heaven. And I don't mean physical perfection either, you know me better than that by now. They are one and all, absolutely perfect.
When I see a baby, my first thought is that they have come here for an adventure, and an adventure they will get. How brave they are. My heart goes out to them and I decide that if I have any relationship with them as they grow I will try to share with them all the love that I know, and all the beauty, and the fun, and the wonder and magnificence that life can be.
How lovely are our babies, whether they are in human form or four-legged, winged, swimmers, or tiny creatures that live out in nature. It is always amazing to me to see the relationship between mothers and their babies, in all forms upon this planet.
Death
Well thank goodness we have death. We know that if we didn't have this magnificent balance in Creator's plan, we would have no children, no babies, endless ownership and control, and no rhythm in the cycles of power upon this beautiful planet. There is something inherently right and good about death. It scares us silly because we witness the decline of the body like a flower withering, and we are so in love with the spirit of that body that we have trouble acclimating to its metamorphosis.
But morph it does, and I'm glad of that. We've learned that there is no separation after that metamorphosis. We are all connected at all times. We just need to learn how to access that connection.
So when we look at all these inherent Celestial gifts from our Creator that are vast and uncontainable, we realize that we can carry them around with us and use them in most circumstances, as big spirit people have throughout the centuries, even in the most horrendous conditions, such as war, and the concentration camps.
I write about them here to remind us all that we don't come to this planet unloved. These gifts are how much we are loved. All we need to do is learn to be aware of them and use them.
"Happy birthday. You are beloved. And these I gift to you..." Creator said....
We are well equipped to handle way more than we've been taught so far. Learning consciously to use these gifts ourselves is immensely empowering to us as individuals, and even better when we join together, in love and light, for the benefit of all.
It is worth mentioning here that there are human beings on this planet who we might define as "evil," and these are the ones who cause harm and destruction, restriction and suppression of one or more of our Celestial gifts. They may do this on a relatively small, personal level, and some of them have done, and are doing this on much larger scales.
What my daughter taught me about this is that these are the people who are so densely integrated into the Masculine energy (physical action/output) that they've completely forgotten how to listen and receive higher guidance using the Feminine energy (receiving input). They've forgotten that they are a part of the Whole, the One, and they've fallen completely under the veil of separation. They live their lives based on fear and control instead of love. When this happens, it's like a part of their operational system is shut down, and so they function with only half of themselves, causing havoc and chaos wherever they go.
The thing that gives me the most comfort in thinking about these kinds of individuals is that they cannot ever hurt us permanently, and in fact, if they cause us suffering, we still have our Celestial gifts, and when we use them to get through difficult circumstances, we can survive and recover from far more than we might think.
My daughter explains to me that when we apply love to any difficult situation we encounter, it brings about healing. If we suffer death at the hands of these types of beings, they have only given us the greatest gift. They've helped us on our way Home.
And our experience of Home will be quite different from theirs, in that they will be the judges of themselves once they cross over, and when they step back into the wholeness of their beauty and magnificence, upon their life review, they find themselves experiencing all of the emotions that they caused in others in minute detail, because there is no disappearance of the Self and what it has caused or created. This knowledge helps them to set up future lives in which their purpose is to help others, heal others, and experience the loving side of their inherent natures as spiritual beings so that they can restore balance and heal on very deep levels.
Many of our religions describe this state that harmful individuals experience as "hell," but it is not an "outside place," it is an internal state that each individual creates by and for itself. This is the magic of the ONE.
Giving
One of the most beautiful and pleasure inducing gifts we are born with is the inherent ability to give. The most precious gift we can give is the gift of ourselves, our time, our attention, our love. Love is the one thing that most human beings yearn for over and above all else.
Unfortunately, in today's world, many of us have forgotten what love really is, and we seek to complete ourselves through partnership with other human beings where the connection isn't really love, but infatuation or a "tradeoff," or the mistaken sense that they have what we need to become whole. It's not until we are whole in ourselves, when we learn to love ourselves, that we can really experience what it is to feel true love, because it is a giving thing, not a taking thing, and we cannot give it until we are it.
We don't have to be perfect to experience love, but it helps if we're on the pathway to growing into our potential according to the urging of our souls so that when we encounter another we are meeting them on an honest level, a level in which our vibration is as high as we can make it through the love that we experience in the moments we create. Then when we come together there is a melding and joining that feels fulfilling, and it has the power to affect many others in positive ways, who are within our sphere of influence.
Namaste
~Jen
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