Those who don’t feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of spring water, or take sunset like supper, those who don’t want to change, let them sleep… This Love is beyond the study of theology, that old trickery and hypocrisy. If you want to improve your mind that way, sleep on. I’ve given up on my brain. I’ve torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away. If you’re not completely naked, wrap your beautiful robe of words around you and sleep. ~Jellaludin Rumi

The path is never clearly defined in the beginning. You may be the only one around you who sees it right now.

This morning as I was in the yard, I found myself stooping down every few feet to uproot an acorn that had sprouted, or re-route the swedish ivy that had grown across into the walkway.  I was surprised at how quickly everything had grown since just last week.  It’s the same with my nature trails in the woods out back; if they go a month without attention, they can quickly close up, with new growth obscuring the trail. I’m often the only one around me who sees it, and that can make it hard to get back on track.  As I uprooted the oak seedlings midpath, I pondered: I know I should take this one from the center of the trail, but what about this one near the edge?  How narrow exactly IS my path and just where are the boundaries and why?  At times the path is only 14″ wide and at times 48″.  I get to decide how wide my path is.  I get to decide what to weed out in order to maintain my vision of what I want my path to look like and where I want it to take me.  I’m the one who decides how narrowly to define it, how quickly to travel it and whom to invite upon it.

Jeff brown soulshaping.com

It doesn’t matter whether we think we’re drawn by love or destiny. We attract the ones we need for as long as we need to work out the issues we have. Woe be the partner ready to work on theirs when your mate isn’t.  Some partners can’t feel alive unless they continually poke at each other’s wounds.  Jeff Brown says, It’s often difficult to distinguish a soul-mate from a wound-mate because powerful connections excavate the unresolved emotional material that each of us holds. The stronger the connection, the stronger the light shining on those dark places. Some wound-mates truly do contain the seeds of our soulular expansion. But not all wound-mates are soul-mates. Sometimes they are toxic connections masquerading as something more heightened. Sometimes they are destructive battle-grounds with very little possibility for expansion.  It’s an important distinction. We want to go where we grow.

Wound-mates: Those relationships that are sourced in unresolved emotional patterns, issues and holdings. Not to be confused with soul-mates, which will also trigger shadowy material to the surface, but which hold a greater deal of promise. At the heart of soul-mate connections is an opportunity to work with the shadow in a growthful manner while wound-mates just flounder in the mud, trigger after trigger, downward spiral after downward spiral, attached at the waste. If they don’t help you glow, then let them go.

(Excerpt from the ‘Sacred Feminine Rising’ Healing Course)

Let someone love you just the way you are – as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe that you must hide all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.”  Marc Hack

A friend asked why I spend so much time on the magazine when it only pays for itself and doesn’t earn income, why don’t I spend 40 hours a week doing readings instead?  Wouldn’t I make a whole lot more money? True, my readings are the income but, the magazine – I’m in it for the outcome, not the income.  Plus I enjoy it so much, it’s like the story of the Chinese lettuce farmer who was known far and wide as a writer of exquisite poetry and the grower of poor, bitter lettuce.  “Why don’t you stop farming lettuce and spend all your time writing poetry?” he is asked time and again. “Because, ” the farmer says, “If I do not grow poor lettuce, then I cannot write beautiful poetry.”

Building momentum – do it for the income and do it for the outcome
The Horizons Magazine Mission Statement

Established in 1992, Horizons Magazine is designed to inspire, educate and entertain those who are exploring the body/mind connection and seeking spiritual solutions to everyday life.  OUR PURPOSE IS: To provide a forum to connect those who seek purpose in life. To use our combined power to encourage each other in our personal visions. To remind you that you are far more powerful than you can imagine.   Continue reading →

Jeff Brown
soulshaping.com

What separates the healthy from the unhealthy is not their histories – for all of us have screwed up at one time or another – but their willingness to learn from their mistakes. Jeff Brown
CD commented: And the courage to be genuine about it instead of pretending.

No more coffee for me! Helping a friend make some calls, I managed to book 11 people for 8 slots… I never expect everyone I ask to say yes. I should know better by now. Whatever it is, it’ll be perfect.  And 24 hours later it was, they just opened up the back room for extra space!

Abraham Lincoln once remarked to a fellow-passenger on an old time mud-coach that all men were prompted by selfishness. His fellow passenger was antagonizing this position when they were passing over a bridge that spanned a slough. As they crossed this bridge they espied an old razor-backed sow on the bank making a terrible noise because her pigs had got into the slough and were in danger of drowning. As the old coach began to climb the hill, Mr. Lincoln called out, “Driver stop just a moment.” Then Mr. Lincoln jumped out, ran back and lifted the little pigs out of the mud and water and placed them on the bank. When he returned, his companion remarked: “Now Abe, where does selfishness come in on this little episode?” “Why, bless your soul Ed, that was the very essence of selfishness. I should have had no peace of mind all day had I gone on and left that suffering old sow worrying over those pigs. I did it to get peace of mind, don’t you see?”  Taken from Feinberg, Psychological Egoism