I have alluded here from time to time that I have been on a path filled with struggles in recent weeks. It has been a time that many would call, the dark nights of the soul, referring to a time in one’s life when spiritual practice and discipline suddenly loses all it’s experiential value.

This particular journey through the dark nights of the soul started for me when I had what then seemed like a minor fall in my driveway, on the last full moon, January 8 ~ the Wolf Moon.

That fall however, coupled with other concurring trials and tribulations, has managed to turn my world upside down and leave my soul weary and wondering. Try as I may day by day, hour by hour, and at times minute by minute, I ask for answers and I am, most oft left wanting.

Yet, there are times through it all, when I know that the universe has some mighty plans for me in this time of darkness, and I see a spark of light beckon through the darkness. I have watched the moon as it goes through it’s phases and as she began to wax, I began to feel my strength waxing with the her.

In a recent moment of clarity a few days ago, when faced with yet another trial, I knew that the intuitive, empath in me had in fact been feeling the wound resting in the vessel of a dear one. Learning what I had, some of my suffering then became clearer. And, in that moment of clarity, I thanked the Mother Goddess/Holy Mother and the Grandmother Moon for guiding me, nurturing my soul and feeding my heart with their wisdom. Yes, they were listening…

Then like balm to the weary soul, the Grandmother and the Mother guided me back into the light with their strong, nurturing voices ringing clear in the darkness…

Rise Up. Rise Up… You are not alone in your struggles. The Mother hears… She listens.

Daughter, you must know that these are the tests of time… And you have weathered for worse than this on your journey through this life.

Tired as you may be, you must Rise Up, because you have work to do. There are those who need the healing and wisdom of which you have been gifted…

So… Rise Up. Rise Up… The moon is full once again and you have been replenished in it’s ethereal light.

And so they spoke to me, the Great Mother Goddess and the Grandmother Moon and I felt my strength slowly return. Still I know, needed as I am, there will be more dark nights before the tests of time are through…

I believe, there are times in each of our lives that take us each into the dark nights of the soul. But, no matter how dark the nights may seem, no matter how bleak the circumstances are, no matter how deep the despair, call out to her…

Call out to the Holy Mother and she will be there to wrap you in her arms of love and comfort you. The dark nights will pass. There will be light.

And, remember too, to look to the Grandmother Moon when she is full, as she is tonight (Snow Moon) and bask in her glow… For she has come to guide you back from the dark nights of the soul…

Blessed Be…

(Photo credits: Wolf Moon ~ c. Jerry Blackburn 2012 & Snow Moon ~ c. Jerry Blackburn 2012.)

With each dawn is a new day of opportunities and blessings. I welcome them upon waking each day. I open my heart each day with a sense of gratitude. I welcome the blessings and I work through whatever obstacles may come my way for I know from hardship comes wisdom. And so today, I welcome the dawn… and the new day. As I do every day. ~~ Pamela J. Leavey

I was first introduced to the teaching of J. Krishnamurti while studying A Course In Miracles, with Tara Singh while living in Los Angeles. Since then I have found great comfort and wisdom from the teaching of J. Krishnamurti…

The center of suffering

When you see a most lovely thing, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful sunset, a ravishing smile, a ravishing face, that fact stuns you, and you are silent; hasn’t it ever happened to you? Then you hug the world in your arms. But that is something from outside which comes to your mind, but I am talking of the mind which is not stunned but which wants to look, to observe. Now, can you observe without all this upsurging of conditioning? To a person in sorrow, I explain in words; sorrow is inevitable, sorrow is the result of fulfillment. When all explanations have completely stopped, then only can you look -which means you are not looking from the center. When you look from a center, your faculties of observation are limited. If I hold to a post and want to be there, there is a strain, there is pain. When I look from the center into suffering, there is suffering. It is the incapacity to observe that creates pain. I cannot observe if I think, function, see from a center- as when I say, ‘I must have no pain, I must find out why I suffer, I must escape.’ When I observe from a center, whether the center is a conclusion, an idea, hope, despair, or anything else, that observation is very restricted, very narrow, very small, and that engenders sorrow. ~~ J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Let go of the suffering, I believe Krishnamurti is saying here. Release it. Sorrow is inevitable, we all go through it. We can’t get past it if we hold it at our center. It’s a hard lesson, but in time we must release the sorrow and suffering and move through it.

More from J. Krishnamurti again today, because his wisdom and teachings speak the truth…

Relationship Is a Mirror

Surely, only in relationship the process of what I am unfolds, does it not? Relationship is a mirror in which I see myself as I am; but as most of us do not like what we are, we begin to discipline, either positively or negatively, what we perceive in the mirror of relationship. That is, I discover something in relationship, in the action of relationship, and I do not like it. So, I begin to modify what I do not like, what I perceive as being unpleasant. I want to change it; which means I already have a pattern of what I should be. The moment there is a pattern of what I should be, there is no comprehension of what I am. The moment I have a picture of what I want to be, or what I should be, or what I ought not to be, a standard according to which I want to change myself; then, surely, there is no comprehension of what I am at the moment of relationship. I think it is really important to understand this, for I think this is where most of us go astray. We do not want to know what we actually are at a given moment in relationship. If we are concerned merely with self-improvement, there is no comprehension of ourselves, of what is.

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.” ~~ Marcel Proust

I was reminded yesterday of the great wisdom of J. Krishnamurti:  

You have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary rapidity of insight, when the mind is very still, when thought is absent, when the mind is not burdened with its own noise. So, the understanding of anything -of a modern picture, of a child, of your wife, of your neighbor, or the understanding of truth, which is in all things- can only come when the mind is very still. But such stillness cannot be cultivated because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.

The more you are interested in something, the more your intention to understand, the more simple, clear, free the mind is. Then verbalization ceases. After all, thought is word, and it is the word that interferes. It is the screen of words, which is memory, that intervenes between the challenge and the response. It is the word that is responding to the challenge, which we call intellection. So, the mind that is chattering, that is verbalizing, cannot understand truth -truth in relationship, not an abstract truth. There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle. It is the subtle that is difficult to follow. It is not abstract. It comes so swiftly, so darkly, it cannot be held by the mind. Like a thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it. Your reception is merely an invitation of greed. So a mind that is caught in the net of words cannot understand truth. ~~ J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life.

Souls who walk in awareness choose a different path. They seek to experience all the peace and joy, limitlessness and freedom, wisdom and love that Oneness brings. ~ Neale Donald Walsch

(Painting by Claude Monet ~ Artist’s Garden at Giverny)

Imagine this and embody it:

“You are goodness and mercy and compassion and understanding. You are peace and joy and light. You are forgiveness and patience, strength and courage, a helper in time of need, a comforter in time of sorrow, a healer in time of injury, a teacher in times of confusion. You are the deepest wisdom and the highest truth; the greatest peace and the grandest love. You are these things. And in moments of your life you have known yourself as these things. ” ~~ Neale Donald Walsch: Conversations With God, Book 1

Live knowing who you are in the world and practice showing up each day as this beautiful being filled with light and love!

I walk to the beat
Of The Goddess’s drum,
I sing her ancient song;
I call out her name
But, she already knows mine.
I am her sister,
I am her daughter,
She is crone,
I am apprentice.
I feel her heartbeat
In every beat my heart takes;
She speaks to me in my sleep,
She speaks to me when I am awake.
I follow closely in her footsteps
I learn my lessons well;
I have claimed myself as part of her
And she as part of me. 
She listens quietly
When I cry out in pain;
She wisely heals my ills.
She gives me hope 
By her very purpose
Takes me back where I come from.
I walk to the beat
Of the Goddess’s drum,
I sing her ancient song.
She fills me with her many gifts;
I bless her with my love,
Devotion pure, divine and boundless
For she there is no less.
I am her sister,
I am her daughter,
She is crone,
I am apprentice.
I claim her wisdom 
As part of mine,
I share her with my sisters;
For she exists in every woman
Who hears the call of their name;
From hidden place
Thought long lost,
She rises like the sun.
It is the Goddess
In every woman,
Who walks to the beat
Of her drum.

c. Pamela J. Leavey 1997

(Inspired by: When the Drummers Were Women, by, Layne Redmond)