Putting a price on My Soul

Life seems to be about settling, or satisfying this yearning. Ultimately I believe its for a true experience of what we believe, or think, is God. But why this yearning for something that is truly everywhere? This has been the answer, the conclusion, the solution to all my questions, seeking, yearning - to those deep, slow burning questions that I have inside. There are many, or have been. It all came down to the statement when I took the risk to step out of the game - "I want more!!" I yearn to know the "God thing", "how do I fit?", "how does it work?", "why?"

But if it is already here, in everything, why do I have to go somewhere, or seek, or do? I guess it is the nature of the experience here - in this we call "life". I also seek happiness, peace, appreciation - is this the same desire for God? After all of the acquisition of things, experience, knowledge it has always been followed by a "neediness" for more. That experience has become "wanting" - there is a bitter taste it has left behind. Some thing in my heart tells me that "doing" any more will leave me dissatisfied - "Doing" in the sense of expecting some external reward - money, prestige, recognition. Of course I like to be noticed - I think we all do. But after stacking up a bunch of paper, or numbers, or words I found there wasn't much satisfaction. The satisfaction, now, comes from just the act of Sharing. It's kind of like "Being" for me. I've done a lot of stuff, gotten some answers, or more questions, but it's fun to just Share. But how can I put a price on that? It does seem to be the most important game in the world. I used to play Monopoly. But it did get boring. I found the reward of winning to not be worth the anxiety of "wanting" to win.

What is a fragrant flower blooming in a dew covered meadow worth? Or the laughter of children? To become like a child offers the chance to enter the Kingdom?

I've really lost interest in putting a price on what I do. The numbers game has really come to bore me. Does a tree trust that the Earth will still be here to hold its roots? Do I question each day whether the "science" of the electrons of my body will still operate in balance, or even the galaxies? Why this lack of trust in what we call human affairs?

I depend on nature for my lessons. When I go outside the elements and living things seem pretty peaceful - always moving, yet peaceful. Even the stars or the elements in my body seem in balance - at least it feels that way. I have learned that everything is living and dying - but that is just the natural process of things. The interesting thing is the consistency of the consciousness of the feeling of being me. I've been told I go lots of other places but I don't really remember, clearly.

I can tell my appreciation for what is, has been, is expanding. Sometimes the joy, the ecstacy that seems to emanate from my heart is increasing. I have learned a lot in this lifetime - and now I know I really know nothing. But my yearning to be one with God has expanded too. And yet now I know that I can't ever be out of God - so, I guess, I am really yearning to Be, here, Now - because, I guess I am - at least this part I am aware of. I'm pretty sure God really is taking care of everything. At least the last time I checked he/she/it was.

I'm just thinking I'm just going to Share my stuff - I don't know what else to do. I'll let someone else put a value to it. It just feels good to Share. Others can take it or leave it. I like my stuff. Sometimes it really surprises me. Not many other people seem to notice. Ah, what the hell. I'm not very good at marketing and advertising - well, actually I just don't want to play that game either - I can be pretty good. I don't play Monopoly, chess or video games either.

I guess I'm just becoming a boring old guy. I like to think about God, life and how to feel peaceful and really happy - how do I avoid feeling angst, or frustration or anger? What can I do to help others to feel happy? I like this stuff now. I don't really know how to put a price on those things. I don't really want to "raise money" to do them either. This game just has really gotten boring to me. And it seems to cause a lot of angst. I guess I'm screwed because many people tell me that I have to play the game just to live. Hmmmm . . ., this is quite the conundrum . . . . What am I gonna do?

Don't be afraid - It's all Love

There is no reason to be afraid. I am tentative to almost bring up the idea of "fear" because there is a paradox. Jung captured it in the idea "what you resist, persists". In any case, we have to be able to look at what we "think" is going on, and face it, and come to terms with it. In regards to fear, is that it is just an idea. Of course one could go into a lengthy discourse on the subject. About how it is a biological survival mechanism, blah, blah, blah. One of the most ridiculous quotes, that was invented and broadly adapted in the United States of America was "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself". OMG - can you believe we bought into that? I did - I even re-quoted it.

Anyway, not to get into a long diatribe, why don't we have to be afraid? Because God did not leave us, or forget us - we are not disconnected from the source of this beautiful creation, the All That Is. If we had been forgotten, then we wouldn't be here.

I took a walk by the Mississippi River just a few minutes ago. I was thinking about love. That which is the source, supply and product of all that we are, what is, and there is absolutely no disconnect from original source because if there were, IT, whatever It is, you, me, trees, flowers, bugs, stars, galaxies, universes, the infinitude - IT would cease to exist. There is no way for any part of the cosmos, from the smallest particle to the infinitude of universes and dimensions for any part to be cut off.

However, in our power, we have adequately created the experience of separation. But this part of our story is over, as I have been experiencing. It is time for the conversion of our collective experience to one of peace, harmony and abundance. Many are looking outside, at the moving pictures, distractions, inversions of energetic, chaotic display hoping to hook onto a semblance of balance but the material manifestation is fleeting, continually moving.

The true center (the zero point), of the spiral, the storm, resides within our own Being, which in this physical dimension is an emanation with its center-point within our physical bodies. The "collective human, external creation" has so much static and chaos as to be an impossible place of grounding. It is similar to if you spill water on an electronic circuit board - the ground will be lost and the functionality of the system is totally lost. To seek the peace in the ever changing show, in the outside world is an act of futility. It truly is a significant form of entertainment, but your consciousness will lose itself in the ever changing patterns and emotional turmoil that is swirling around the globe.

The best use of your energies, attention at this time is to be sure to connect, at least for a portion of each day, to the center of your conscious emanations. Each human being is a quantum, multi-dimensional portal of the Divine spark of life. Each being transposes the energy and consciousness of the Infinite Mind into a creative vehicle, co-creative partner in Life. Essentially, via the breath as the vehicle of the Spirit energies, we transform thoughts and feelings into physical manifestations on this plane of existence. The energy patterns have been diverted and controlled as a mechanism to teach us what the possibility would be for the disconnect from the Source Love, but this was only an illusory process. It was only an experiment, a test. But now our re-connect is well underway, essentially a total remembering of our Cosmic nature and what our part has been in this grand endeavor on this tiny sphere, but which has been a total success in contributing a vast array of experience to the Infinite Collective. The disconnect has ended, but what is required now is the individuated consciousness, You in other words, to re-establish the connection. It happens through your allowing, knowing and the action required is simply to become cognizant of your breath and its Divine Blueprint - embedded in the action of breathing deeply, and consciously, in and out. Then watch with wonder in the transformation, the transmutation of your experience.

Compassion

Joy effervesces
from deep in my being,
as if from the atoms themselves.
The nature of my true life,
expressing itself,
untangling beliefs and ideas.
The light at an energetic level,
spiraling up, releasing, revealing,
silly perceptions introduced
into consciousness for a play.
An unread demonstration of possibility,
as thought ingrains alternatives
of things that just might be.
The ropes and chains of past prisons
cannot any more impede
the nature of life, the stuff we're made,
has as its purpose love.
But all is allowed its own expression,
the totality is endowed,
the possibilities are endless
the limits aren't defined.
Now my heart relinquishes
old patterns not endowed.
These old ideas just don't fit
my choice is one of joy,
and the idea to trust the process
is all that is required.
No worries, no pain, no fear.
For that which sustains,
is and always was,
giving me permission
to express what I see best.
The only issue was contradictions,
mis-understandings of what is.
But now emerging deep within me
the incredibly open mind,
the heart that has always compelled
no longer do I have to find
for it was always in me,
and it was never lost.
But now I realize the real truth,
that it is the heart of the One.

Marvel´s Adventures by Mark Skadberg

Today I have a very special sharing. It is from my brother Mark - who wrote and shared this piece at our Mother´s memorial service Sept. 11, 2004. There isn´t much more to share except the incredibly beautiful message.


Mark’s talk at the Memorial Service

When Mom asked me to write something spiritual for her memorial I knew I would focus on what came after—on what her journey might be. But we are still here in this world and just the other day it hit me: for about the twelfth time I wanted to call and ask her the proper way to make beef roast. And she was no longer there to ask.

It is one of the unfortunate aspects of the human condition that you never know how much you love someone until they are gone. I miss her so.

But her last years were calm and peaceful and almost carefree. She found the joy of a multitude of books and they took her to worlds she couldn’t go to for herself. Dad is the one who gets nearly sole credit for making these last peaceful years a reality for her. And I am asking all his friends and family to help him find ways to fill in the great gulf that has been left by her passing and to find joys for himself.

And now we turn to what came after.

Up and Out, Beyond and Back

Her time was close,
she knew it sure
and yes a little fear
But family close
that she could feel.
That she could hear
and know them all,
yes those so far away.
They gave her solace, hope and ease.
Their love began to lift her high
With one last push it was up and out.
The colors swirled around her now
The purple of passion The blue of the sad
The green of regret the yellow of joy.
These colors they swirled and swirled and swirled
A tunnel was formed before.
It was not dark but silver grey
Along this way she slowly passed
Before her now she saw it clear
The white light beckoning
She’d seen it before and back she drew
Afraid of what’s to come
But gentle hands they took her arms
And led her through the light.

To her surprise She found herself seated on a finely carved bench. A soft mist was all around her and it gave her comfort and warmth and drove away the fear. Her guides who she knew but did not know caressed her shoulders, mind and heart.
“They will come soon,” they said and drew away.

Slowly the mist began to drift away and she saw a vast open meadow surrounded by tall trees of many and varied colors and shapes. She took great delight in this and she felt the joy well up inside her. And then she pondered. Had she ever felt pain before or was pain just an illusion?

The mist closed in around her once more and it was soft and warm.

And then they were there, Laurie, and Helen and Anna and Butch. A joy took her that she could not describe but soon this was followed by something else and she remembered things she did not wish to remember in this place.

Questions hard as steel rose into the air and hung there demanding to be answered. ”How could you? Why? Why did this have to be? Why did you go away?”

But the answers came fast and quick and complete. A spiritual, cosmic sense of all that had gone before, the reasons, the mystery that lingered behind every event was now at her command.

And the hard of that steel dissolved like a fog in the summer sun and all, yes all was understood in the light of true and complete understanding.

They lingered a day, a year, an age. No question was left unspoken and no answer was left unsaid. And in the end she knew all of what had happened and mostly importantly why. And all was joy and love and laughter once again.

“We will leave you awhile now but not for long.” They said.

The mist closed around her once more and before her appeared a beautiful tapestry. It was hers. Her life, her loves, her struggles all were woven into this work, and the knowing of the many lives she knew. Each image or symbol was an event, a person, a feeling. All were connected in lines and circles and love. All she had to do was put her finger on an image or a symbol and she understood. She laughed with joy. It was all so complex, yet so, so simple and in the end it was only beautiful. There was no other way to see it. It was.

Then through the mist the elders joined her once again.
“It’s time to play.” They said and smiled.

She rode a comet among the stars and gasped at the wonders that she saw. She swam in a thousand oceans, of a thousand colors, of a thousand worlds, with a thousand people and strange creatures she had never dreamed before—or had she?

She sang in a celestial choir just one of a multitude of voices. And she sang solo while an entire world gazed in wonder, enthralled by the power and beauty of her voice.

And the colors that she saw. Pink trees and purple rivers and mountains of all gold. The worlds she saw were unnumbered but all were strange and beautiful and real.

She held the universe in her hand and saw it as it was--a living breathing thing. And she played golf with an electron as a ball, and did it just for fun. “Hole in one!” she shouted with glee as a nucleus burst apart.

And last she rode a unicorn along a rainbow that stretched a thousand miles. And she found the pot of gold. As she peered inside she found to her delight that the gold inside was Love—yes merely, just merely love. She left the pot, the pot of gold, for someone else less fortunate. For in Love--both within and without she was wealthy beyond all count.

But then in time she began to still and her spirit calmed and became quiet once more.

She found herself on the same bench and the warm mist closed about her once more. She saw before her a small blue/green planet on the edge of a galaxy and it drew close before her. She balanced it on her finger as she watched it slowly revolve. It was such a pretty little thing.

She stayed and gazed for a day, a year, an age.
And then she called the elders to her side.
“Playtime was fun but there’s work to be done.” She said.
“Indeed?” They asked.
“Indeed.” She said. “The world I think, it needs me now.”
“Indeed?” They asked.
“Indeed.” She said. “There’s more to learn, to teach, to Love. It’s time—it’s time to try again.
“Indeed.” They said.

And it was so.