Next Steps

 

How do you know when it is time

  to travel in a different direction? 

 

Is it star alignment?

Is it voices in the night?

Is it a trusted friend's insight?

Is it a card pulled from a tarot deck?

Is it a reading the writings of a wisdom teacher?

Is it going on a retreat and journaling?

 

There are paths, practices, and parallels.

 

Perhaps it is your enneagram type calling?

Perhaps it is your yin or yang side calling?

Perhaps it is your interaction with a loved one?

 

Is it a whisper or a shout that is heard?

Is it a shove or gentle nudging?

Is it a seasonal life pattern change?

 

Where are you out of balance? 

How do you know?

 

Can you open your heart and listen?

What values you hold need a deeper dive into?

Is it a small shift or great step to more fully embody

  these values? 

 

Spirit is always calling.

Nourish and nurture this calling.

Shift the terrain, inner and outer. 

 

Can you view your life as a theme?

Harvest the gifts of the past.

Cultivate self-honesty and self-love.

 

Decide to walk forward into the Light.

Decide to move what is stuck.

Decide to pause and listen for what wants

  to come in you, through you, and as you.

The mandala of your being is being expressed.

What is to be given? What is to be received? 

In all ways radiate this with gratitude and kindness.

-----

9-5-20 - richard hammer 

 

Today Is The Day

Today Is The Day

Today is the day

to add another thread to your life,

the creative weaving of the loom of you,

to add another awakening

to the ever changing vista,

to appreciate all that is you

and around you,

to be available to the experience

of rising and setting suns,

to touch another

with your ever flowing loving kindness,

to sing and dance wildly

in the evening moon light

while kissing the stars,

Today is the day to be all you can be,

authentically, unreservedly, boldly, uniquely you.

This IS your time.  Seize the day.

And show the world your happy face.

richard hammer

7-21-20 

~~~~~~~ 

The photo is of Rebecca Dowling, a relative, 

who passed on from cancer at a young age. 

So much life lived and to be lived.

The Mystery Point

The Mystery Point

There is a stepping in and a stepping out,
and the place in between.
A moment of lifting of veils of conditioned
awareness for what lies there.

This is the mystery point,
a point of infinite energy and engagement,
a point of power, presence, and possibility,
a point of joy in the unknowing,
a point of allowing the fullness of being
to be uniquely expressed.

Just this, now
and now, and now.

~ richard hammer (6-12-20)

   Wisdom Moments

There is wisdom everywhere.

There is grist for the mill everywhere.

There is light for the next right step everywhere.

Pause now and listen.

What is asking to speak?

What is the voice that seeks being heard?

Sit here for awhile

  river’s edge, shoreline, or open field,

  mountain top, or forest path.

Open to the beauty that is shining here.

Open to the mirror of yourself

     Seeing you.

          richard hammer

               5-27-20

This time of CV Lock Down - March 2020

This time of CV Lock Down - March 2020

I have been pulling a card each day of the CV lock down from the Gabby Bernstein deck of cards titled Miracles Now.  Yesterdays card was – “When I fell blocked, emotionally distressed, or overwhelmed – I turn to my breath”.  Today’s card is “I am ready to receive love”.

---- 

There’s a current Oprah-Chopra 21 Day Meditation ongoing series titled Hope In Uncertain Times. Currently on Day 8 – Activating the Hope Inside You. There’s a five day look back (free) to catch up. I have done most their 21 Day series but am finding this one to be one of the best.   Go to https://chopracentermeditation.com/experience

---- 

Yoga International offers many free very good  programs.  

General areas of interest are in the categories of 

Move – Meditate – Relax – Breathe, 

They also have many very good courses to spend time on. 

See at  https://yogainternational.com 

---- 

Then there is exploring the world with Kelly Wendorf and EQUUS.

Today's email article from her is noted below. You might like to subscribe.

15 WAYS I'M STAYING SANE IN LOCKDOWN  (today’s email from Equus)

https://mailchi.mp/equusinspired.com/15-ways-im-staying-sane-in-lockdown?

Kelly Wendorf is an ICF Certified Master Coach. a spiritual mentor, facilitator, horse-woman, published author, poet, mother of two astonishing people, and courageous life explorer. She is the Founding Partner of EQUUS, and the author of the new book Flying Lead Change (Sounds True), released in October 2020.   -https://equusinspired.com/

----- 

And then there is this from poet and writer Jeff Foster for readers this week.

NONE OF US ARE IMMUNE  -- - Jeff Foster
It’s going to be okay.
It really is.

We will face this situation together with love, humour and patience.
We will weep together, we will laugh together.
We will discover togetherness in our apartness.

And the worst of it will end one day.
And we will have learned so much by then.

We will now be called to face very difficult feelings inside of us.
Fear. Grief. The loss of an old way of life. Our devastated plans.
We will learn to face ourselves. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
Nowhere to go except within.

A sacred quarantine.

We will learn to face our boredom. Our restlessness. The part of us that wants to be somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else, having some other experience, in some other Now, living in some other life.
We will let go of the wonderful future we had planned.
We will let the fantasy future die, release it, and grieve it.
We will return to the solidity and warmth of the present.

We will make the present into our home.
We will begin again, here, build a new house on new soil.
We will explore a new way of life.
Strange, at first. But full of possibility.
Slower. Kinder. Quieter.

We will talk to each other honestly about death, and life, and impermanence, and how we feel about all the changes that have come to us and our loved ones.
We will learn to value life a little more.
Yes, perhaps we will learn to value life a little more.

And live with our hearts cracked slightly open to the elements.
And lean into uncertainty, and find our salvation there.

None of us are immune to change.
To rupture. To the shattering of old, familiar forms.
This is the way of things, this has always been the way of things.

From this perspective, nothing has gone wrong.
Crisis simply means “turning point”, and none of us are immune from the turning.

The breaking of the old makes way for the birth of new.
It has always been this way.

Love. Humour. Patience. With these things, we will come through.
Stronger than before. Renewed. Ready.

I am sending you all my love, my friends.

- Jeff Foster 

~~~~~~~~~  

May you be safe and know love this day.

May you pass it forward seeing others being safe and knowing love. 

Richard  

2020 Change and Being

 2020 Change and Being

There’s a time for change,

  and a time for standing still

A time for wandering,

  and one for cultivating

A time for creating and manifesting

  and one for resting and resetting.

What kind of time is it for you today?

Let it be one of mindful inquiry

  and even of allowing the unknowing

One of accepting the grace that

  the universe has in store for you.

Take time now to write to inspire

  your vision for action.

Visual acuity is graded as 20/20

  when there is clarity near and far.

What is it inside that is clear, your inner vision?

What do you see beyond you that is clear?

What work, or action, is calling you forth in

  both fields of seeing, inner and outer?

Call it educated intuition, a stirring of the pot

   to see what rises to the surface

Then savor and serve it to the world. 

            richard hammer

                1-6-20

For 2020 - Do These Write Outs

For 2020  - Do These Write Outs 

(make it a game with yourself)

An Opening of Doors for establishing insights and thresholds

Name 20 Things to be Grateful for.

   It could contain things that went really well for you, or someone you love,

    in the last year. Gratitude helps establish clarity.

Name 20 Things to do in 2020 to raise your energy level ….

     and the level of you appreciating your being alive, of being “Here Now”.

Name 20 things you can/will do to “Pay Forward” to help others in 2020.

  Your time at a charity, a note of Thanks to someone who needs to be “seen”,

  perhaps some gift from your heart that would be unexpected by the receiver,

  a monthly monetary  contribution to an organization that is helping others, …

Name 20 things you could create or develop in the coming year.

  These could be things you will learn, such as cooking a recipe, developing a new craft  or skill, or visiting a new place that you have never been to before.

  It’s a cultivation of self exploration and the elements around you. Life is a gift to be discovered, enjoyed, and appreciated….. and shared with others.

A Practice for You

Adopt an Essence word for you for 2020 that will help guide you.

It is an alignment word. A word that brings you back on track for 2020 endeavors when you have wandered off.  It is a word that has a feeling to it that inspires and leads you on the year’s journey.  It can be two or even three words. Like a mantra, repeat it to yourself mentally upon rising as a remembering. Write it out and post it somewhere for you to see.

In 2018 my Essence words were Simplify-Clarity-Trust.  The gift is that they continue to stay with me even two years later and I take on a new set of words for a new year.

~~~

Establish a plan of daily self care that includes

The Daily Triple 20 -  each is for 20 minutes, or more.

1. Walk outside, in the sun. Perhaps in bare feet at the beach for earthing benefits.

2. Exercise - specific movement: yoga, pilates, QiGong, physical strength training, weight lifting, swim, bike, run, fitness classes with others or following online.

3. Meditate – a formal seated practice (your style), or just sit quietly (maybe in nature), could include journal writing.  

ॐ

The Lens - Ram Dass

The Lens

by Ram Dass

Lens 1 shows you a balding old man - my physical being. Lens 2 is my personality and social responsibility - father, student, meditator. Lens 3 is my mythic identity- Jung's archetypes that are bigger than life. Lens 1, 2 and 3 identify the differences between us. How I differ from you and you from me. Lens 4 allows you to look into the eyes of another. There is another awareness looking back at you. It's another awareness witnessing the scene.  But Lens 5 takes you somewhere else. You look and you see yourself looking at yourself by looking at yourself. There’s only one of us in Lens 5. if you get down into the smallest units of matter – the quarks and electrons and sub-neutrinos, all that stuff way down there behind the patterning of stuff – it’s all the same stuff.

It’s all homogeneous and moves in and out of everything. There’s only one of it. You can call it the One in the spiritual unity that lies behind the diversity. You can call it God if you want to. There’s no name for it, and many names.

In Lens 6 you disappear. I disappear. Even the lens disappears. I am nothing more and nothing less

RAM DASS

Love – Serve – Remember