Behind the Clouds

Life for me has been serendipitous.  Some of my most powerful lessons have emerged when least expected, as the luxury of this self imposed retreat has shown me.  Grief was expected and the added books on my shelf  clearly indicate wanting to learn more about this new experience that is occurring.  I have witnessed some of the stages such as how the invisible stress can manifest physically in the body and the multitude of  unexpected emotions.

What has surprised me is how the experience of losing the presence of someone very close and dear has  uncorked what has become stale wine representing a lifetime of unwept tears.  It’s as if I’ve spent my life preparing a feast  that is hidden somewhere in the clouds of my forgetfulness.  How tidy is that!  This invisible ‘feast’ manifests itself in all kinds of emotions like apathy, grief, fear, guilt, anger, etc.    This ‘feast’ becomes the ‘food’ of  our psyche.  Some call it the ego, others call it the ‘pain body’ and some, our unconscious mind.   However, until we recognize this misguided energy has no sustenance, we cannot release our attachment to it.  To ignore it, delays the opportunity to stop recycling the past, which is  a part of our human conditioning.

The book The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin, suggests that  developing the skill of accepting and releasing emotions leads to emotional freedom.  Ulf and I attended several of the first seminars while living in Sedona. However, it often  takes the catalyst of a jarring emotional experience to let the genie out of the bottle and become aware that we’ve been nibbling at this feast all our life.  What we are not aware of is the fact that this ‘feast’, which has been stored in our minds, has decayed and is indigestible.  We have isolated this emotional feast from the creative cycle, making it stagnant.  We often feel the preponderance of this trapped energy and reach in the medicine cabinet for relief.

Initiating the process of freeing this energy seems difficult because we have identified with what we have created. Because it somehow defines us, we keep  resuscitating these emotions with the many stories of our life.  If we take an honest look at what we’ve been trying to preserve,  we probably think we would starve to death.

All of these emotions and subsequent stories supporting them are spawned in the feeding ground of our fear. A Course in Miracles says there are really only two emotions:  love and fear.  We have used our imagination to create many seemingly different delicacies to disguise fear.  We have done the same thing with what we think of as ‘love’.  Often we have used the word ‘love’,  to mask our fear of abandonment, among other things.  These interpretations  occur in our dualistic reality where everything has an opposite.  The Course also says, “Peace of mind is clearly an internal matter.  It must begin with your thoughts, and then extend outward.  It is from your peace of mind that a peaceful perception of the world arises.”  By casually observing and freeing our decaying symbols of fear, whenever they arise, we shift our perception and experience of Love, which has no opposite.

So, as you can see, peering into our cloud of forgetfulness is not for the timid.  The desire for peace is the beginning of transforming this toxic waste, containing the ingredients of fear, into a nurturing abundance of energy we can then truthfully call Love.  We can do this with simple awareness. When one of our ‘delicacies’ enters our consciousness, ready for consumption, we can then recognize it as the imprisoned teardrops of our past, and allow them to fall as raindrops and nurture whatever they touch.  Each time we do this, moment by moment, the cloud vaporizes and becomes part of the cycle of life again.

Ulf has provided me with this incredible opportunity to transform my clouds to raindrops of love instead of tears from the past.  As I said, it’s a moment by moment process.  Ulf, I’m so grateful to you for being that gentle, yet persistent catalyst for me to continue learning from our experience.  I have a sense we may even be sharing the same classroom.  As sometimes occurs when the clouds release their bounty, a rainbow appears from behind the clouds.  How about getting together at recess on that ‘playground under the rainbow’!

Copyright 2010 Bev Hamilton

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Tags: A Course in Miracles, Hale Dwoskin, Love, Sedona Method