19 Best Spiritual Posts This Week - 22 Sept 2010

Check out posts from 7 different writers and poets, a wide range of spiritual perspectives and some great photography.




Angels are all around you by alicepopkorn @ flickr


From Denny: You know how you get those little revelation moments when you realize exactly what to do and how to do it? Well, I had yet another one of those yesterday as I was pondering how to address all the anguish I've been feeling from the world the past several months. As an empath, it can be difficult to separate just whose feelings you are experiencing when you start your spiritual journey - your own or those of others.

Empathic people receive what others are thinking, feeling and desiring. Over the years I rarely have told people because it just freaks them out, thinking they have lost privacy and fearful you really do know their darkest secrets. They are clearly embarrassed. That's the interesting thing about the Spirit of God is that when these things are revealed to you it is done in such a way that the receiver does not know all the details. If a person is in deep crisis and requires immediate attention then Spirit will let someone know to send help. It isn't like Spirit downloads you with all the information as that would be even more overwhelming. The most interesting thing about this connection of Spirit to empathetic spirit is that information is received without judgment: It just is, that's all.

Anyway, since the whole world is in economic chaos it has also sent huge populations of people into spiritual testing, most especially those who were blind-sided and never expecting it. So often, we think we are protected from adversity if we "go to church" or "are a good person." Focusing our thoughts upon the positive and doing good in the world is just the beginning of knowledge.

The only way to really find out how well you think you know your religion or life philosophy is to experience a tough life test situation. It isn't like you have to go looking for life tests as they certainly find you. Unless you want to short-cut the time period of spiritual development and then you choose to accept those challenges willingly. But most people don't choose that kind of intense internal pressure of accelerated spiritual growth. Most get blind-sided in life and wonder why their world just got turned upside down and inside out. They want to make sense of it.

So, my little moment of revelation of how to begin addressing the terrible emotional malaise, despair and deep-seated fear present in the world today was to start collecting excellent spiritual posts wherever I find them and publish those links onto this new blog. I am partial to spiritual poetry as it is a medium where fewer words can convey a larger picture and feeling. It gives the mind less to process and is easier to digest spiritually.

There are 19 posts in all, some poetry, some regular prose posts. Take a look at these many spiritual perspectives; maybe one of them will resonate with you. If you write spiritual posts, have a favorite blog and want to send me a link to a post you found helpful and interesting, send me an email, Denny Lyon: warriorspearl@gmail.com.




Photo by h.koppdelaney @ flickr


From MysticDave at Mystical Poetry, Prose and Political Viewpoints, struggling with leaving behind traditional religion, sensitive to family members and friends who have remained, yet still wanting to connect to God on a richer level:


We The People

Moonlit Place

Organized Religion





Photo by alicepopkorn @ flickr


From Neva Flores at Changeful Storm poetry blog, a young widow writing about inner and daily struggles, also some rich fantasy poetry:

Freely Captive

Separately the Same

Aglow





Sonata Music photo by jrossol @ flickr



From Beachanny By The Sea - poetry, arts and music blog where she sees clearly the music of life and in others:


TRIO

THE JEWEL

THE QUEST





Photo by Sister72 @ flickr



From Jenny Mannion who learned to heal herself of painful illness and decided to help others:

3 Steps to Manifesting Miracles: awareness, expectation and letting go are all areas discussed




Photo by alicepopkorn @ flickr



From Univisions, a group of spiritual bloggers working to advance humanity's spiritual development:


Accelerated Spiritual Growth

Keys to Lasting Transformation

Thoughts and Thinking





Photo by flamesworddragon @ flickr


From Robin Easton at Naked in Eden blog where she writes on her revelations found while out in nature in the Australian outback:

Live Learn and Get Unstuck

There is No Separation

Dare to Take Risks




Photo by alicepopkorn @ flickr


And at Best Spiritual Posts blog, three of my own poems:

A Healing Spiritual Poem: Waking The Day

Poem: Legacy of Love

Poem: Soul Journey




*** THANKS for visiting, feel welcome to drop a comment or opinion, enjoy bookmarking this post on your favorite social site, a big shout out to awesome current subscribers – and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email updates!



*** Come by for a visit and check out my other blogs:



The Social Poets - news, politics

The Soul Calendar - science, astronomy, psychology

Visual Insights - photos, art, music

Beautiful Illustrated Quotations - spiritual quotes, philosophy

Poems From A Spiritual Heart - poetry

The Healing Waters - health news

Dennys People Watching - people in the news

Dennys Food and Recipes

Dennys Funny Quotes - humor

So How Do You Measure Your Spiritual Progress?

*** A few thoughts about our spiritual journey and how to gauge our progress, especially for empathic people.




From Denny: Once you grow past the baby pablum spiritual food most commonly available in society, you begin to reach out for something more substantial. Then it's on to establishing yourself firmly planted on the intermediate spiritual level. The intermediate level of spiritual growth involves a lot of stopping to measure where you are as well as who you are now as separated as from who you were - or even who you thought you were.

If you are an empathic type like me you know that last part of the statement is a real mind-bender. Society and various cultures expend a lot of energy into demanding people fit their molds even when they don't. Empathic people often get pushed and shoved into categories that are not good fits just because other people are afraid of the indefinable. People even try to bully us into remaining if they were successful enough at trapping us there for a while.

That's the thing about Spirit, and the coordinating empaths, for as a pairing we are indefinable because Spirit is everywhere and everything. An empath is someone who is keenly aware of Spirit and the ebb and flow of the spiritual realm. That can be a real challenge for other people not so inclined or sensitive to Spirit. Then their fears and rejections often become a challenge for empathic people.

Empathic people tend not to hold onto ego issues as strongly as others. That is not to say developing empaths do not require dealing with their egos in relation to effectively following Spirit. It's just part of the growth process for everyone. It's a challenge to learn to pair our egos with Spirit, to learn to flow effortlessly with the moment and truly fear nothing. It takes time and training.

No matter who you are, where you have been in life, or where you are headed, it's always a helpful idea to take a measure of how your ego is doing on the spiritual journey. The more you gain your Life balance the more your ego is getting comfortable with Spirit and the world and is choosing to get in sync. Your ego is choosing to trust Spirit for - and about - everything.

When your ego is calming down you will find that Life is no longer like some fire drill, where everything is a big drama and has to be addressed immediately and with great flair. While emergency situations will always exist, and certainly require immediate action, you will do so with far more calm and deliberation. Your ego will have learned to act rather than react. Acting with methodical, calm deliberation rather than reacting with fear, chaotic action and emotions bouncing off the walls in all directions.

The spiritual journey we are walking is to retrain our egos. Our egos were trained by our immediate family culture, our religion and our country's culture. What Spirit does over a long period of time is retrain us to once again get in synchronicity with Spirit. It is so we can gain our balance and better understand how to flow through this life. In the end, toward maturity, our egos finally merge back into harmony with Spirit. And that's when Life gets really interesting...



Quotes

Kabbalah quotes (Jewish mysticism)


* The worst manifestation of egoism is arrogance and conceit. - Talmud

* Faith cannot manifest itself in a person without being accompanied by fear, for egoism bows only to fear. - Talmud, Shabbat

* An individual need not despair when, as he studies and works on improving himself in an effort to attain spiritual elevation, he comes to see himself as being in an even worse condition than prior to studying Kabbalah. The true nature of egoism is revealed to a person whose level is higher than that of others, and for this reason a person becomes worse in his own eyes, even though he has actually become better. - Talmud, Megillah

* The most important aspect of a person is his aspirations, rather than his achievements, because it is egoism that requires achievements. - Talmud, Yavamot; Talmud, Sota


Funny ego quotes from Oscar Wilde:

One of the world's best social commentators, that involved the struggle of the ego in the world - was playwright Oscar Wilde. It certainly is an amusing way for the ego to realize to lighten up and get serious about the business of developing into a partnership with our Spirit:

* Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. - Oscar Wilde

* Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. - Oscar Wilde


*** THANKS for visiting, feel welcome to drop a comment or opinion, enjoy bookmarking this post on your favorite social site, a big shout out to awesome current subscribers – and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email updates!

*** Come by for a visit and check out my other blogs:

The Social Poets
The Soul Calendar
Visual Insights
Beautiful Illustrated Quotations
Poems From A Spiritual Heart
The Healing Waters
Dennys Funny Quotes
Dennys Food and Recipes

How Do You Assess Change in Yourself?

*** A simple truth so easy to do for ourselves.





From Denny: When you are a serious student of spirituality - it is easy to forget that in all the striving to develop - it's often a great idea to stop long enough to check out your progress. This quote made me laugh in its simple truth!

In the early stages when you are applying yourself to personal growth it is not so easy to flow with the Spirit so you miss the obvious sometimes. When you finally do get in tune with Spirit you are taken to inner places naturally and with ease.

The most profound way to assess your growth is to return to a place in your past, like a school or hometown that has not changed. It will quickly become clear how much you have grown and changed since you left. You will even be amused at how much your thoughts have grown in awareness.

There is no wistful sadness of what you left behind but rather a joyful celebration of what you learned to embrace that benefits the good of all.


Quote

* There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. - Michael Fry and T. Lewis, "Over the Hedge"


*** Photo by *clairity* @ flickr


*** THANKS for visiting, feel welcome to drop a comment or opinion, enjoy bookmarking this post on your favorite social site, a big shout out to awesome current subscribers – and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email updates!

*** Come by for a visit and check out my other blogs:

The Social Poets
Dennys Global Politics
The Soul Calendar
Visual Insights
Beautiful Illustrated Quotations
Poems From A Spiritual Heart
The Healing Waters
Dennys Art Sanctuary
Romancing The Chocolate
Comfort Food From Louisiana
Unusual 2 Tasty
Dennys Blog Feeds
Dennys Funny Quotes
Ouch Outrageous Obnoxious And Odd

How Is Your Relationship With Your Inspiration Muse?

*** Views Today: 8,406 - Thank You!




From Denny: Today there was an online conversation with fellow poets about the subject of muses. Some had them; some didn't. All the muses seemed to be female in gender.

Several of the poets were lamenting how life's little distractions get in the way when inspiration pays an unannounced visit. They were frustrated of how many interruptions they experienced every time they tried to revisit the inspiration and write, only for that awesome inspiration to fade quickly.

We have all experienced moments like this. For creative people it's especially difficult because we can grasp the importance of what we were offered and it too quickly slipped away, seemingly elusive.

What a lot of people are unaware of, and our inspirational muses are trying to tell us, is that these moments are actually spiritual moments. The way to interact with those moments successfully is to develop a discipline of cultivating them.

Well, just how do you go about developing this discipline? When inspiration knocks on your inner door just make a mental note of where you left off when the interruption occurred so you can return to that moment. What is happening here is that it is lucid dreaming or a waking vision where your spirit is talking clearly to your waking mind - and your waking mind is aware of this conversation.





Pelikan fountain pen by David Blackwell @ flickr



A quick mental note of how you feel in the moment and maybe scribble a couple of words or phrases down on a piece of paper ( heck, the wall will do when the inspiration is fading fast - you can paint over it later). This hand-mind coordination works together to help your memory so you can regroup later and return to the inspiring moment. It's just like returning to a room you left a few moments ago.

The mind can be trained to remember your dreams, your waking visions, your inspirations. It just takes time to train yourself. Develop the structure, the obvious cues for you. For instance, always using the same pen and notebook. You could try always writing in the same place like a corner of the kitchen or your bedroom. The goal is to create familiarity and comfort which, in turn, will stimulate your memory to flow quickly and easily.

It will take a few times, maybe months, depending upon how much you practice to develop this discipline. If you practice it every day for a few minutes at the same time of day and place you will develop the habit rapidly and easily. A little bit of constant effort to create your best structure you respond well to is well worth the time to capture inspiration sublime!

As to the subject of gender for muses, well, mine has always been male. And this guy can get downright demanding and a bit of a pest at times. :) Of course, the crazy spiritual relationship with this spiritual energy is well worth it for what I've learned about the spiritual world and myself over time.

This is an amusing poem I wrote in response to a writers group recording their muses. They were all romantic and serious and my account was quite different - a bit shocking for some - for I recorded reality as I live it: always with a wry grin.







Dreaming Words



Warm



Comfortable



Drifting




Toggling between this waking world
And the world of dreams symbolic
Sheets, those delicious summer skimmers
Glide as bodies turn side to side in repose




Gently





Quietly



Softly, the growing silence
Easily falling down to fade



*Wake up!*
Comes an unwelcome startling voice
Eyes closed tight, tighter
Face grimacing a frown
*Wake up!* that voice insistent, repeats



Ascending the dark stairway of knowledge
Rubbing my inner mind’s eye
Flinging open the huge door to light
Asking an irritated *What?!*
About to fall teetering backward
Into the comforting quiet dark



*What?!*

*Write it down* he says

*Now?* comes the complaint:

*It’s the middle of the night!*



Aware it’s a losing battle
Dutifully returning to the waking world of dark
Reaching out, fingers fumbling for bedside notebook and pen
Scribbling on lines overrun from hands half asleep
Too large is the messy handwriting
Next morning tough to decipher



Words tumble down onto paper out of the inner dark
That vast library of knowledge, universal to all
Opening the heavy tall thick door
Written words enter, marching out onto now
The waking world bathed still in eerie moonlight



Fulfilled the bleary-eyed scribe’s task
Tumble backward to welcoming sleep
Covers pulled high over weary, oh, so tired, body
Descending the long narrow stairway



Down






Deeper







Arrived



The loving library of inner knowledge
Infinity to yet explore
Artifacts of knowing to drag home
And leave quietly on some welcoming doorstep




Denny Lyon
Copyright 22 June 2008
All rights reserved



*** THANKS for visiting, feel welcome to drop a comment or opinion, enjoy bookmarking this post on your favorite social site, a big shout out to awesome current subscribers – and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe in a reader or by email updates!

Uplifting Soul Quote: What is Your Power in the World?

*** Views today: 6,065 - Thank You!



From Denny: So often a person can get to feeling sad, wondering about their importance in the world. The reality is there really is a role for each and every one of us that is important. It is important to someone.

You may not have met that person yet. You may have met that person and never knew of the impact you made on their lives just by something you said, an attitude you displayed that day or how well they observed you treating another. (Like say, a server in a restaurant. You can tell a lot about a person's character - or lack of it - by how they interact with a restaurant server, and if they leave an appropriate tip.)

Stay focused upon the great goodness you can do in this world. There is so much need everywhere you look, even close to home: the grocery store clerk, the postal carrier, the neighborhood cat or dog, another customer in a store and more.

The good you do in the world does not have to be reported upon in the media or trumpeted by others to have the same impact. Life can be as good as you choose to make it every day. More people are aware of you than you think; more people appreciate you than you realize.

Quote

In every community, there is work to do be done.

In every nation, there are wounds to heal.

In every heart, there is the power to do it.

- Marianne Williamson


*** THANKS for visiting, come back often, feel welcome to drop a comment or opinion, a big shout to awesome current subscribers - and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe!

Spiritual Energy: Can Simple Words Add to Our Quality of Life?

*** Views today: 9,992 - Thank You!



Awakening photo by Pyrogas Sipo


From Denny: From time immemorial humanity has been given warnings about using our words with forethought and not with rash or cruel intent. There are karmic backlashes to be experienced if we go too far. In every religion or spiritual discipline - from the pagan to Christian to the Koran, even to today's movie "The Secret" - words are examined as important for our personal vision.

The current toxic, and excessive, partisan politics as recently demonstrated by Republican Senator Jim Bunning holding up unemployment checks to the needy across America just to advance his political agenda to make a Democratic President look bad, is a fine example to illustrate. Lying, as is common with the current Republican Party political style, has repercussions as well. Sure, we can not all be expected to like each other - all warm and fuzzy and kum bah yah style - but we can make the effort for self-discipline in order to create a more civil society.

Have you ever noticed, whether it's in politics on a national level, or at home with one of your spouse's family members, that an individual on a scorching words self-destruct acts like a black hole with everyone around them? They literally suck all the joy and energy out of the atmosphere, leaving everyone around them exhausted from trying to counter or avoid them. We all have destructive work bosses, family members or "friends" like that at some point in our lives.

Sure, we all get angry about a situation or politics at one time or another. The energy of anger is to be treated carefully and respectfully. It is a powerful energy that we must learn how to discipline rightly if and when we use it. The true object of well managed anger is to correct an injustice, correct an unbalanced situation or bring awareness to someone not focused in that direction.

The way to that discipline is to not involve your personal ego in the anger. Tough to do at first. Ally your ego and spirit with that of your Higher Self, God, Spirit, All That Is (whatever your favorite term) and choose to see situations from that higher level.

When you feel anger come over you, ask how to dispense it properly. When done properly the energy of anger can bring excellent benefits for others in their lives - like when a child is properly disciplined without malice, abuse or violence. That child changes course and charts a more beneficial path because of a parent who could discipline their anger in order not to be destructive with that authority and energy. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the energy of anger as a spiritual tool that must be treated with utmost care and respect.

Returning back to words in general affecting your vision, your life path and the lives of others... Keep in mind one thought every time you begin to speak or write: What do I wish to accomplish here? Is it for the betterment of others or is it only to give glory to my ego and my need for status or attention from others? This is the first step to learning how to handle the spiritual energy as it flows more and more to you from your Higher Self, Spirit.

There is nothing wrong about choosing not to fill the air with words just for the sake of making small talk conversation. It's fine to just observe others, wishing them goodwill in their attitudes toward those to whom they are speaking.

When you feel the inner urging, knowing it is time to speak, make it words that others will have food for thought for months and years down the road. My heart has always been warmed when someone brought up to me or my husband seven years later something we spoke to them as counsel for a situation. That recounting validates to us that we were giving out spiritual energy that benefited that person.

Words. They are tiny powerful things in our lives. Words can fly upon the wings of Spirit and make a better world. Have you considered your words today?


Quote

* But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps, millions: think. - Lord Byron


*** THANKS for visiting, come back often, feel welcome to drop a comment or opinion, a big shout out to awesome current subscribers - and if you are new to this blog, please subscribe!

What Journey is the Most Rewarding?

From Denny: This quote is so very true! The spiritual journey is also a beautiful one when you convince your ego to quit resisting what it does not yet understand. It will understand if it quiets and truly becomes teachable and learns what Life has to teach. Then a whole new world of wonderment opens up unexpected vistas to enjoy!

Quote

The longest journey of any person is the journey inward. - Dag Hammarskjold