You Are Simply Divine — says your soul

Who ever thought their soul would have a bucket list?

Janet Conner, famed author and Unity on-line radio host personality, does. And with an expert track record in tuning herself and her reading and listening audiences into “soul-land”, I will take her at her word.

She offers a pretty intriguing invitation and challenge: “Have you taken your pulse lately? There is a Divine Presence alive and well and growing, something that marks out a rhythm of what is holy, important and good for you in your life. It knows the life of the Divine is your life and so is the Love and Presence of the Divine.”

I like lists and I do pretty well with directions and recipes. Many years ago and one day at a time, I learned through the Twelve Step Program how to thoroughly follow the path which promised I would not fail. It opened to a full life, but for the grace of God, I would not have today, without the guidance and companionship of many of the members.

I’ve known Janet Conner for five years now and besides being authentic in her words as an author, she seems to companion her readers and followers all along the way of discovery, in her books, in her Internet seminars, with her news on Facebook and in her on-line Unity discussion programs with radiant guests that make the hour fly by.

And what Janet wants to companion us with is purely ……soul inspiring.

In fact, there are soul-writers writing in soul journals all over the globe since the publication of her first book, Writing Down Your Soul. I, along with many other writers, built in a daily practice of quiet time and writing down questions or just filling a page with stuff. Then we listened. For what? For God to answer. Yes, and when the message came (and it always does), we had blank space on the left hand side pages of the journal, reserved for God, and we wrote what we heard.

This was my introduction to Janet Conner around  2010, from an article written from her in Daily Word, Unity’s monthly inspirational booklet, which I had read faithfully since the 1970s.

I continued to work with Janet with her Yearly Intention Mandalas, which she wrote about in her second published book, The Lotus and the Lily.  Again, much more soul work with recognizing the bang-ups of life, the gifts in the pain, and some power-shaking methods of finally forgiving self and others.

The design of the mandala focuses on the inner conditions you intend to live that year and statements or images of manifestations of good you wanted to appear in your life. Really, really BIG things you have no idea how they will come about. Just put them on there, said director Janet.

My 2013 Intention Mandala center with BIG manifestations images (not shown) on circumference

I have lived each yearly mandala I have made over the last five years now with astounding manifestations that have appeared that I, by myself, could not have produced.

I trust that my soul is at the center of this all.

In Janet’s latest book, Soul Vows, she recognizes the vows she formally makes to her soul as lifelong companions whose beauty and depth she can never exhaust. Thus, the pulse she speaks of needs to be recognized as both human and Divine.

She calls this union….”the new I”.

“The vows, themselves, were always breathing and living in a space of vast consciousness. They were always big — It is us who have slowly expanded our consciousness to meet them”…and then to make this just a little more puzzling, but thrilling, she adds, “filled with paradox.”

Janet considered her soul vows of over fourteen years, faithfully said upon rising each morning, to be the most important prayer of her life. Yet they had a startling change within her as the meaning of “the new I” came upon her. Their deeper nature called upon her to unite the Divine, living Presence into the human part of the vows. Within her book, she is that guide I talked earlier of needing. She presents a great map of the journey to the divine union through soul vows.

So what about that bucket list? Does my soul really want something of me? When Janet asked that same question, she looked to the fingers of her hand and her soul voice proclaimed, “Yes, I want 5 things:

1)  To connect with Source   @) to commit to values   3) to serve a purpose   4) to express itself   5)  to create a life”

Janet Conner, in finding her soul-partner publishing company, has dedicated both her writing and teaching life and her very living of life to soul communication. I witnessed and partook of many graces of her purpose, journey, and passion to be open, vulnerable and sharing of the deep messaging type of pilgrim she is.

In general terms of this bucket list, I don’t see one which honestly does not resonate in my own soul and which has not been present as a type of large, overriding value in my life  when I was busy in the details, messiness, pain, joy and grace of “life goes on.”

I’ve always sought a center. These are very centering ideals. They serve anyone of contemplative nature and even assist those who value a noisy, raucous life style. “There are many gifts, but One Spirit.”

I, for One, am paying attention to my soul’s bucket list. When its happy, I’m happy.

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Evolutionary Leadership Video Message

Agents of Conscious Evolution Wheel of Co-creation Barbara Marx Hubbard

 

From the gifts of Jan Phillips

Thoughts and Learnings of Jan Phillips, discussions with Barbara Marx Hubbard and Jean Houston.

THESE ARE THE TIMES and WE ARE THE PEOPLE.

Is there something “else” our own life is calling us to?  Let’s listen. Let’s see. Let’s do.

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Joy is in the Sharing

There’s just something about Jan and a Milkshake!

Well, it is time to check in with Jan Phillips, visionary creator, artist, speaker, and all around beautiful, SOULFUL WOMAN! I’ve been thinking of her since I am taking notes on Barbara Marx Hubbard’s  book, Birth 2012 and Beyond — the notes coming from the interview done by Jan in the first part of the book.

It seems Hubbard got stuck on what she wanted to say — and she has a lot to say — and then a visit from Jan created a SYNERGISTIC explosion which formed the first part of her book.

Well, who would have doubted that would happen, given the pioneering souls of these creative and thoughtful women! Not me.

Here is a note from Jan’s May 1 Museletter:

From Jan Phillips May 1 Museletter

                  It is blasphemous for any of us to say ‘I am not creative.’
All we do is create. We have desires and we create experiences
from our desires. We have experiences and we create stories
about those experiences. We hear the stories of others, and
we are moved to tell our own.

                We wake up every day to an empty canvas of twenty-four
hours and every night we go to bed having created our
masterpiece for the day. We can do this consciously or
unconsciously, but we all do it nevertheless. And the ones
who are conscious of it are the ones most actively engaged
in the work of evolution, of unification, of ongoing cosmic
revelation.”

So not only have I been thinking about Jan, but I got to feeling her presence, as I slipped her All the Way to Heaven CD into my player and gave myself over to the wonderful melodies and even more wondrous words other songs which create a great melodic, lyrical time-out meditation.

I am one who believes every woman should buy herself a Mother’s Day Gift for the very gift of being feminine is the gift of creatively giving birth. You can buy this CD (I’ve had mine for about 20 years now) at Jan’s website:

  http://janphillips.com/cds.html  This CD is available at this website and I heartily recommend it as a gift to yourself.

“All the way to heaven is heaven” said  Catherine of Siena. And all the way through this CD is all the way to heaven says Napkinwriter.

I am going to give you just a short sampling of the words to the songs on the CD. Keep in mind that some of these words she wrote some time ago were not ideas collectively agreed upon as you might find today…….I see them in the evolutionary path of forming our reality, for much of this is being spoken about now.

These words engage our imaginations and our souls and our eternal hope always of the divine moment of NOW, the confidence of something supportive, grander, larger than we see in  our own selves and yet they actually describe the “bigness” and sacredness and divine-ness of our very self that comes into view as we deepen our prayer practices and spirituality.

From the CD, written and recorded by Jan (partial lyrics of several songs):

 “The God that you’re seeking needs not to be sought
you’re already one like the sea and the salt
the Source is within you, the force is at hand
it’s been in your soul since your life began.”

“Each soul I’ve created
contains all the heavens
I am there in your midst
Look around you, you’ll see.”

“You are my spirit and I call on you
to help me remember what I know…
You are the the flame that lights the path I walk
the guide whose hand I need to lead me home.
I am the one whose hand is in your hand
I will lead you down whatever path you choose.
I am your guardian, I’m your dearest friend
I’m your deepest intuition, I’m your muse.”

“Sometimes I feel like a child again,
sometimes I feel so old–
there’s days when doubt gets the best of me,
days when I’m fearless and bold.
but I’m open for the learning
try to keep my candle burning
it’s not as easy or hard as I’ve been told.”

Jan says the reason for making the CD is because “the joy is in the sharing.” Because this is what we do as creators.We shape our thoughts and experiences into forms that can be of use.

And she travels world-wide, and even inspires already inspired leaders and visionaries like Hubbard with her Truth that these creative endeavors are only useful when we put them out into the world.

Jan’s gift to us is that she is always asking for us to put our gift into the world — which is the Shift Barbara Marx Hubbard is looking for to birth Earth 2012 and beyond.

(from Jan:)
“So rejoice, my child, in the gifts that you have–
the light of the world is the torch in your hand
and when you get beyond your fear and your pain,
you’ll see God in the being who goes
by your name.”

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Featherbed of Forgetfullness

It’s time to hear from Jan Phillips again. It is hard to catch up with her these days. She has been on the road constantly with her creativity, message and love across the country.

I was looking for some seed ideas to pour forth into my current creative project and this is one of her phrases that took rest in my heart: …”Me falling into this featherbed of forgetfullness,…” from Jan.

So here is a short section of her poetry and prose I am offering from her latest, best-selling book,  No Ordinary Time, the Rise of Spiritual Intelligence and Evolutionary Creativity, pages 74-75.

“To create is to make something whole from the pieces of our lives, and in the process, to become more whole ourselves. It is a healing act, a leave-taking from the chaos as we move from the choppy surface toward the stillness of the center. What was the last thing you created? What pieces were you putting together? Was it healing?”

(Yes, for Sue, it was healing. For in my doing of this one small piece of creation, that very act simply let me know I had not forsaken the completion of the whole project that has had a long standing calling in my soul).

It would not become, as the lyrics of one of Anne Murray’s songs said: …. “before the children of my mind become the orphans of my soul.” This creative child work will be born whole at some future date.  

“Into your hands, I commend my failures,
my rash judgments, my criticisms,
my proneness for separation,
my harsh opinions.
Into the bowl of your cosmic lap
I heave my ten thousand undigested sorrows,
my tempests of thoughtlessness,
my ramblings of misery, chaos, lonliness.

Lies, lies all of them!

Me falling into this featherbed of forgetfullness:
Oh, what a sight!
Remove all mirrors when I flail like this,
when I become a lost one
wandering in the dark.

“Imagine that when we’re born, each one of us comes to earth with the radiance of, say a hundred watt bulb. That’s our natural state — 100 watts. As we go through life, our job is to maintain that brightness, and even improve it if we can. What dims it, we learn through experience, is negativity, anger, resentments, regrets. What brightens it is harmony, balance, joy.”  (Jan Phillips)

I fly on these words of Jan to the upstairs bedroom in the old Wisconsin farmhouse where, as a young grandchild, I enjoyed all the gifts a real featherbed had to give.

And reflecting on Jan’s words,  I think the image of a featherbed of forgetfullness is a great place for my negativity, anger, resentments, regrets to fall…..For my drama to be swallowed up… for my chaos to disappear…for my ramblings to be drown out…for my undigested sorrows to take flight and leave me….for my thoughtlessness to be converted by the softness of the feather quills…. for my lonliness to fall through the depths and width of the feather filling….and for my misery to vanish in the feathery, forgiving down that accepts and molds to my body’s form.

Be gone, all you lies and in the morning I will replace you with a new dawn of harmony, balance and joy.  Let me arise with true love for myself and for others as is the Will of the Divine. Let me think like the 100 watt bulb and experience the radiance of it. Let me speak the words of good I want fulfilled in my life and the good I want to see created in the world.

 I am lucky enough to know, in child-like fashion, the sensual loveliness the feather bed provides. What an open invitation it held for a child at night, weary from the day’s field-roaming adventures. What a playground, it was as though fluffy while Cumulus clouds were my playmates as I sprang about it.

It is nice to think of a feather bed wiping away all the ill-effects and results of forgetting who I truly am — the results of feeling lonely, critical, confused, judgmental, miserable and sorrowful — just as easily as it accepted and comforted me, the small child.

I can lay these defects of character down gently, or even with the celebration of a big leap, landing right in the middle of them, knowing that I can awaken  and remember — in any new moment —  the Truth of who I really am.

That’s putting the pieces together. That’s healing.

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Morning Prayers – Lauds

We are Vessels of the Divine

I listened in on Jan Phillip’s morning prayers and thoughts this morning. Lauds, by itself, is enough for a time-lapse meditation.  I can only add, “Amen” to this.

Jan Phillips – from No Ordinary Time (pages 126-127)
A Book of Hours for a Prophetic Age 

 LAUDS (SUNRISE)

 I and the Beloved are One
With news as good as that
No one has to tell me twice to
Laugh out loud till I cry for joy.

We let go of the old to discover the new, as we let go of illusions to discover the real. The way to awareness is the way of subtraction, of letting go, one by one, of our fears, our doubts, our prejudices, our judgments, our inherited notions of how it should be, who deserves what, who is to blame. What’s happening is a result of our collective input. The morning headlines are the news that we are making as a whole human family, by what we do, and what we fail to do. Each one of us is a co-creator of the culture we are immersed in, and if we want to see change, we can make change by changing ourselves, our thinking and our destructive habits.

Blame is not useful. Polarization is not useful. Bitterness and negativity are not useful. What’s useful in these perilous times is deep thought and dialogue. What’s useful is a willingness to speak from our hearts, to say out loud what we hunger for, what we’re willing to live for, and what it is we can no longer abide. We are attendants at the wake of the old way, and each of us – through our actions, our thoughts, our work and relationships – is midwifing a new world into existence. This is our destiny, our meaning, our purpose, and when we come to our days with this awareness, when we sense the oak in the acorn of our beings, then we will have the energy to move mountains and shift the tides.

 …As individuals, the greatest courage that is called for is the courage to be real. When we are real, it melts the frozen places in ourselves and others. It opens the passageways between our hearts and our brains, thaws the blockages that constrain our imagination, and carries us down to our wellspring of wisdom. The solutions to our crises are already here. They exist in our relationships, in our stories, in our forgiveness, and it is through the expression of these things that we will one day live into the answers we seek.

Note: You may read the first three chapters of this book for free on  www.Janphillips.com

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Jan Phillips – Artist’s Creed

 

This Artist’s Creed has been around since 1994 and it is possible that it has inspired more women to stay true to their writing mission than any other singular piece of motivation. It is reprinted here with Jan’s permission.

Then I follow it with a short explanation of how it came to be through Jan. This is a short part of a much longer interview format I am working on for Jan.

                          Artist’s Creed

 I believe I am worth the time it takes to create
          whatever I feel called to create. 

I believe that my work is worthy of its own space
               which is worthy of the name, Sacred.

   I believe that when I enter this space, I have the right
to work in silence, uninterruptedly, for as long as I choose.

 I believe that the moment I open myself to the gifts of the Muse
                 I open myself to the Source of All Creation
          and become One with the Mother of Life Itself.

I believe that my work is joyful, useful and constantly changing,
    flowing through me like a river with no beginning and no end.

                   I believe that what it is I am called to do
              will make itself known when I have made myself ready.

           I believe that the time I spend creating my art
         is as precious as the time I spend giving to others.

      I believe that what truly matters in the making of art
          is not what the final piece looks like or sounds like,
               not what it is worth or not worth, but what
         newness gets added to the universe in the process
                      of the piece itself becoming.

        I believe that I am not alone in my attempts to create,
    and that once I begin the work, settle into the strangeness,
the words will take shape, the form find life, and the spirit take flight.

                          I believe that as the Muse gives to me,
                                 So does she deserve from me:
                      faith, mindfulness and enduring commitment.

                                     ©  1994 Jan Phillips

from my interview:

Tell us about your poem, “The Artist’s Creed”, when you created it, where it led you and what impact it had on your life and what you know of others’ lives. 

JAN:  “The most stunning thing for me when I taught my course at the International Women’s Writing Guild Summer Conference Program at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York was that I went into the room and I was with all these women among four hundred attendees and my thought was that I’m in the midst of all these marvelous women who are writing down their life. But as they raised their hands to my query of what they were writing, they began giving me all different reasons for why they were not writing.

One said, “I don’t have time to write”; the next one, “I don’t have a space to write”…my husband doesn’t support me, my kids are in my hair, I don’t think I have a story worth telling.” They gave me a whole litany of reasons why they were not writing.

 So I thought it would be a good idea for us to explore what each of our obstacles were to commitment and take a non-dualistic approach to it to see if we could spin it around and turn our obstacle into an opportunity. In facilitating this class, which I just whimsically called “Marry Your Muse”, I discovered women were in  deep trouble about their voice and expressing it. So I felt we really did need to have a ceremony and a ritual to put some energy into their newly discovered opportunities and not regress back into their old obstacles when they returned home.

These women now knew they did have time; they could make the tiniest of space work for their writing time; their work was important to them and the world, they could set boundaries for the kids; it didn’t matter if hubby didn’t support her activity; and most important, they were indeed worthy of this activity. 

So we had a commitment ceremony and ritual on the last day of class. I called in a woman, the oldest IWWG member at the conference, Dr. Benji Brooks, a pediatric  surgeon, to be the witness. We blessed water and anointed each other with water and each woman said her vow, based upon how she was reframing her obstacle.  Suddenly you have “I believe my work is worthy of whatever time it takes.”

I believe my work is worthy of its own space, worthy of the word sacred.”

 So actually the Artist’s Creed was a re-write, because I didn’t have anything written down. But I went home and I said, “These are the areas women were stuck, so I said “I think this is pretty close to what you all said and I made that creed into a card which I tried to get back to everyone in the room.

After I had done that from my home in Syracuse, this little voice  in my head said, “You need to say more, you need to write a chapter of every one of these tenants of the creed.” So I did. I wrote a chapter on time. I wrote a chapter on sacred space. I included stories of about twelve women working artists about what keeps them buoyed up and excited and light-filled during the dark times. My book, “Marry Your Muse” is a very good book for people who can’t remember why it is important that we put our creativity into the world.”

The Napkinwriter is one of the ones from that class who keeps remembering that it is important to put my creativity into the world. Do you? 

Sign up for Jan’s newsletter, “The Muse Letter” to find out more about her, visit her giftshop and perhaps discover she has a workshop coming in your area. Jan loves road trips!  http://www.janphillips.com/museletter.html

 

                                                            Jan Phillips

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