On a Personal Note:
Well, the wheel of life has turned full circle and, after 3 months elsewhere, I was able to visit with people on the Oregon Coast this week. The immediate crisis that called me away is over and I am now living in a cottage on the Alsea River, between the coast and Corvallis.

Apart from the moving process, most of my time these last weeks has been focused on my spiritual work, through writing and various forms of being in the Silence. My time with others and with family has been very limited, so I was able to spend long hours going deep into the inner world. I was also able to complete a few writing/editing projects – for myself and for others. 
 
Looking at the World:
It’s a wild world out there right now, as the regime that has been slowly but steadily eroding the rights and privileges of US citizens and visitors for decades is being challenged at its very roots. Those of you who have attended my classes and workshops know that I see these times as a shift from one way of being in the world to another, and that my work has always been to help make the transition as easy as possible.
But we have not, as a population, chosen the smooth path. We have clung to the ways of fear and control and allowed others to define our lives for us. Now, after years of feeling less and less empowered and weeks of being closeted away, deprived of direct human contact, and – for too many – of our livelihood, the high level of energy that has always driven Americans has erupted. The people are saying “no more!” And the all-too-visible evidence of the bigotry and racism that has underlain all empire cultures for the past 6000 years is the spark that lit the fire.
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• All this is the reason that I pushed to get another book out, right NOW.
• It’s called Discovering A New Way and it’s about how humanity has lived before and alongside these empires that have been taking over the world for the past few millennia. It’s also about how Americans have chosen to live. And it offers a possible project that, by its very immensity, could begin to offer us a path out of the exploitative empire pattern and toward a new one.
• The book is at the printer now, and is available on Amazon, or, if you use the coupon on this link, you can get a signed copy and a discounted price.   CLICK HERE to get your signed copy.

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At the same time that all these things are happening, however, a whole new level of understanding is truly emerging – and many of you are experiencing it.
On the internet and in the stores, I’m hearing people talking about life and what’s important in different ways. They’re awakening from the hypnotic trance that the media – and an impossible schedule – has kept them in all these years. They’re discovering and sharing different kinds of concerns and possibilities for their lives and the world… all of which, of course, I find very exciting!  I’m sure you’ve noticed it, too. And I’m sure we’ll all see much more as the next weeks and months unfold.

It will be a mixed bag, of course. People will make up stories to explain what they don’t understand and then operate as if those stories are the reality we’re all experiencing. We don’t have to buy into the stories, however, and we don’t have to judge the people who invent them. We simply need to apply our principles, recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of each being we encounter and accepting them as they are, recognizing they’re on their own spiritual and emotional journey. We may be able to assist, if asked, but otherwise we just surround them with the light of love and go our own way.

The next few years may be pretty rocky for a lot of folks, but they don’t have to be. If we live simply and work together in our communities, taking care of ourselves and each other; if we focus our thoughts on how humanity is in an evolutionary process and what it will look like on the other side; if we fill our days with awareness of the many blessings we constantly receive; these ways of being will make the transition much smoother for us and for all those we care for.

I look forward to the opportunities ahead of us, to the ways we will be creating the kind of world our great-grandchildren (or great-grandnieces and nephews) will be raising their children and grandchildren in. Every time we choose our principles over fear, our appreciation for what we’re experiencing over doubt about what people tell us, our inner awareness over what “they” say, and use our talents and gifts in creating our lives – then we are building the best world for them that we can.
Blessings on the journey….
   R

As I turned on my laptop this morning, the screen came up with a big blue box telling me all the things I could learn about Windows (as if I hadn’t been using Windows for a couple decades, now, and Windows 10 since the week it came out – sigh!). My first reaction was “really?” My next was to scan the screen to find a way to shut it down.

I did. I clicked on “skip for now” (oh dear, will have to deal with it again some day) and the big blue box went away to reveal my own beloved desktop wallpaper. Yay!
Then my eyes took in the words I’ve pasted onto that wallpaper: “I am living in a universe designed to heal the apparent separation…”  It’s from the Course In Miracles, which I’ve been slowly but steadily “translating” into modern, easy-to-read-and-understand, American usage.

It woke me up – here Windows was offering me all kinds of ways to be interconnected – with my phone and other devices, with other computers, with the broad base of servers that make up “the Cloud” – and my first and only reaction was to shut it down… I wanted to remain separate!

And I thought about all the people, right now, fighting and protesting and in despair because of the deep separation among us called racism.
At that point, the insight came:
 
Humanity is committed to feeling separated, even though, every day, in every area of life, we’re being offered opportunities to overcome that illusion and feel the interconnectedness, the oneness.
 
For years I’ve been studying and teaching how this universe is one interconnected whole, of which we are all part. Its laws and processes are designed to help us experience – and benefit from – our interconnectedness. This earth is a special place where we get to bring into form what we imagine. Humanity’s fundamental longing is to overcome the sense of feeling separate from our Source, our Supply, and each other.

So the folks at Microsoft, seeking to heal the sense of separation and being focused on computers, imagine the healing as a complex interconnection of computers and other devices in one whole “Cloud” of easily accessed and utilized data bits.

Others, equally driven to undo this sense of separation, think that can only happen when we are all the SAME. Uniforms, fashions, skin color, school curricula – these are all expressions of that misguided understanding.

And yet, clearly, I, who have taught these principles for decades, now, still choose to live alone (and not put my data on the Cloud), demonstrating a need to maintain a sense of separation.

But “I live in a universe designed to heal the apparent separation.” Every moment is an opportunity to overcome this fundamental error in our thinking. We are not separate!

Every time the world erupts in racial violence – or any other sort. Every time we recognize ourselves judging another. Every time we realize that we have chosen away from resting in our oneness with the higher power, we are being moved one more step closer to experiencing the only Reality: our Oneness.

And that Reality is not homogeneous!  That’s what we need to understand to overcome our fear. We get to be our individual selves – indeed we must be! – for the Oneness to function as a whole. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, our uniqueness is essential for the whole picture to be formed.
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I doubt that I will soon take Windows up on their offer to integrate all the devices I use into one, complete, interactive network. But, today, I saw the “good” in what appears to be an awful mess “out there.” And that is...
   We are all feeling drawn into the Oneness of our common humanity, the Oneness of our common home on this planet Earth, the Oneness that is our nature and our destiny.
 
Today, I accepted at a new level the Truth of our being. All that I see “out there” is showing me what’s going on “in here.” My own beliefs, choices, and actions, are constantly being reflected back to me – not to punish me or “teach” me a lesson, but so I can simply observe them and make a different choice.

Today, I choose to reach out, from my heart, and embrace all of “them”. All those “others” who do and say things I can’t imagine anyone doing or saying… (ah, but I must be able to! Because they are, and they reflect what’s inside me! Sigh!)… so here, now, once again I choose. I embrace them, and, in doing so, I feel the dissolving, the eradication of the possibility – in me, or in them – of such violent things being done or said. We are one – many facets of the same diamond, many pieces of the same puzzle, many colors of the same rainbow. We are one – in our humanity and in our divinity. And we are free – free to choose our individual ways of being and doing and relating in Love and Joy and Peace.
 
And so it is. And, realizing that this has become a prayer, I say AMEN.