Quote:
Originally Posted by RascalPuff  |
Too much to read this early in the A.M. but I do get the drift.
As the saying goes the microcosm is a reflection of the macrocosm.
And along with that I might add the following excerpt, with your permission.
"** Chapter 18
How Life Looks When I Am Inspired **
"Give me a man who sings at his work."
Thomas Carlyle
"They can because they think they can."
Virgil
" I'd like to acknowledge right from the outset that I don't live at
this level of being in-Spirit 100 percent of the time -- like most
everyone else, I occasionally have lapses and feel uninspired. Yet
these moments have become rarer and rarer; in fact, it's difficult
for me to recall a day in the past several years when I felt
completely uninspired.
What follows is a personal account of both how I feel inside and
what seems to take place in the world around me when I feel connected
to Spirit in the ways that I've written about.
**Jack**
The same day that I completed Chapter 17 and read
it over the telephone to my editor, Joanna, on Bainbridge Island,
Washington, I had the most profoundly mystical experience of being
in-Spirit in all of my 65 years. The photograph on the cover of the
book is a re-creation of what happened.
When I finished up with Joanna, I went for my daily hour-long walk
along the beach... but for some reason I elected to take a slightly
different route along a grassy area adjacent to the beach. I was
recalling my friend Jack Boland, a Unity minister in Detroit, who
crossed over about a decade ago. Jack loved monarch butterflies,
often telling stories of how he marveled at these paper-thin
creatures who migrated thousands of miles in high winds and returned
to the same branch on the same tree where they first emerged from
their cocoons. Before Jack passed away, I presented him with a
beautiful paperweight containing a dead monarch that I'd found in
perfect condition. When he died, his wife returned it to me, telling
me how much Jack loved that gift and how much he admired these
amazing creatures who had such mysterious intelligence built into
their brains, which are the size of a pinhead.
Jack always told me to "be in a state of gratitude," and he ended
every sermon with this message to God: "Thank You, thank You, thank
You." On three occasions since his death, a monarch butterfly has
landed on my body. Since these creatures studiously avoid human
contact, each time this has happened I've thought of Jack and
thought, Thank You, God- thank You, thank You.
Anyway, as I walked, feeling grateful for having completed the
second-to-last chapter of book, a monarch landed on the ground,
three feet in front of me. I said Jack's magic words to myself (Thank
You, God-thank You, thank You), and felt deep appreciation for my
life and the beauty of the day. The butterfly stayed right there
until I approached, then he flapped his wings several times and flew
away. Thinking of Jack and feeling a little bewildered and immensely
thankful, I watched this creature in flight, now 40 or 50 yards away.
As God is my witness, the butterfly made a U-turn and not only
headed in my direction, but landed right smack on my finger! Needless
to say, I was shocked -- but not totally surprised. I must confess
that it seems to me that the more I stay in-Spirit, the more I
experience synchronicities similar to this one. But what followed did
border on the incredulous, even for me.
This little creature became my constant companion for the next two
and a half hours -- he sat first on one hand and then moved to my
other hand, never even coming close to flying away. He seemed to be
trying to communicate with me by moving his wings back and forth, and
even opening and closing his tiny mouth as if attempting to speak...
and as crazy as it may sound, I felt a deep affinity to this precious
living being. I sat on the ground and simply stayed with my new
fragile friend for 30 or so minutes. Then I called Joanna from my
cell phone, and she was also stunned by the synchronicity, insisting
that I somehow get a picture of this event.
At this point I decided to return to my home, approximately a mile
from where I was sitting, with my new companion. I returned along the
beach walk, where the winds were brisk -- the butterfly's wings were
pushed by these high gusts, but he clung to my finger, and even moved
to another hand without making any effort to leave. As I walked, I
encountered a four-year-old girl with her mother. The girl was
sobbing over some perceived tragedy in her young life, and when I
showed her my "pet" butterfly, her expression went from sad to
blissful in one split second. She smiled from ear to ear and asked me
all about the winged creature on my forefinger.
When I got home, I was talking on my cell phone to my friend Reid
Tracy as I walked upstairs. He laughed with me as I related the
bizarre synchronicity at play in this very moment. I said, "Reid,
it's been 90 minutes, and this little guy has adopted me." Reid also
encouraged me to get a photograph of this, since it was obviously in
complete harmony with what I was writing.
I left my new friend -- whom I was now calling "Jack" -- sitting on
the handwritten Chapter 17 on my lanai, and went downstairs. I found
Cindy, a young woman who works nearby, and asked her to run to the
store and purchase a disposable camera. She did, and I went back to
the patio, put my hand next to Jack, and watched him jump right onto
my finger! (The photo on the cover of this book is a re-creation of
that magical moment.)
It appeared that my butterfly companion had decided that he was now
going to live with me forever. After another hour or so of meditating
and communing with this little creature of God -- and pondering this
event as the most unprecedented and out-of-the-ordinary spiritual
episode I'd ever encountered -- I gently placed Jack back on my
manuscript while I proceeded to take a long, hot shower. When I
returned to the patio, I placed my finger near my winged friend as
I'd done many times in the previous 150 minutes, but he now seemed
like a totally different little critter. He fluttered away, landed on
a table, flapped his wings twice, and flew off, straight up toward the
heavens. Moments with him were now history, but I still had the
photographs, which I treasure.
The next morning, I decided to watch one of my favorite films,
Brother Sun, Sister Moon, which I hadn't viewed for more than a
decade. And sure enough -- in the opening scenes of Franco
Zeffirelli's interpretation of the life of St. Francis, there he
was... with a butterfly alighting on his fingers.
** Inspirational Vibrations **
I don't believe the intruments to measure the phenomenal paradoxes of the Universe have been invented at this point in time, so all mankind can do is speculate on them.
There are some very intelligent minds at work in this endeavor, to allow mankind to truly know, what It's really all about Alfie. I will read the link you provided and thank you, it expresses something that touches me deeply at my core.
There is a force at work in nature the likes of which may forever remain unknown to us a s human beings, and which can only be known to us when know such things as the Divine interplay of a higher Consciousness, a utterly trustworthy parental spirit, if you will, of which are IT's offspring. Ciao brother, friend, Self and, Namaste`
The Sprit within me, Recognizes, Honors, and Greets, The Spirit within you.
Drifter