Expanding possibilities

The winter solstice honours all the seasons, including the feminine or yin darkness and internal focus of winter, anticipates and celebrates the return of the light. In honour of this, I want to celebrate some women who have matured in obscurity and emerged to offer us all new hope and inspiration.

The council of the 13 indigineous grandmothers

Quoting from their website (click on the pink link above to view their website) :-

13 Indigenous Grandmothers from all over the world—the Arctic Circle, North, South and Central America, Africa, and Asia— ….agreed to form a global alliance

The grandmothers are both women of prayer and women of action. Their traditional ways link them with the forces of the earth. Their solidarity with one another creates a web to re-balance the injustices wrought from an imbalanced world; a world disconnected from the fundamental laws of nature and the original teachings based on a respect for all of life.

These women have approached the Pope requesting that the Vatican rescind several Papal Bulls and inspired other women to work together in their own communities.

Amma - Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi

There are many spiritual teachers who are making a difference. I choose Amma because of the international recognition of the value of her teachings and work, huge number of people’s lives she directly affects, both through her world tours of (free) public events :-

In India Amma has been known to individually embrace over 20,000 people in one day, sitting sometimes for over 22 hours. Over the past thirty five years, She has embraced over 26 million times!

and through her extensive charitable projects proving homes, hospitals and other much needed practical resources as well as supporting the earth.

Additionally, of all the people I have seen following all kinds of spiritual paths, those who connect with Amma appear to have most joy and positive development.

Anastasia

Anastasia, her abilities, aims and teachings are described in the Ringing Cedar series by Vladimir Megre. In what sense these books are true is, in my opinion, less important than the questions of their value. If they are, as has been said, making lots of people’s lives healthier and happier as well as helping the earth, and if that lasts and increases, then they have my vote. If they also have some new and useful ideas, or help us integrate and implement ideas we already know, that is a welcome bonus.

The main point of the book are that :-

• we can co-create and enjoy paradise here on earth through a direct conscious relationship with God and the earth and that that will bring about peace on earth, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health and increased abilities.
• This is coming to be through Anastasia’s first creating it with thought.

Amen and bring it on! To me, everyone having and nurturing their own space of love is a lot more appealing and useful than everyone having their own business or million dollars.

There are some practical suggestions on growing one’s own food and explanations about why this is helpful, but Anastasia’s powers are not explained, the suggestion being that, once we have re-created paradise, the generations who grow up therein will have more abilities. We oldsters are not lost however - if we create our family paradise and get ourselves buried in it, we will more quickly and easily reincarnate back into our family and re-inhabit our family paradise. Depending on the family, this might increase the birth rate or halt it altogether!

To some extent then, paradise is still in the future, hypothetical and dependent on others. It could also be somewhat restrictive - might we not learn, grow and enjoy more if we reincarnated into an entirely different family, region and culture?

If we are to take more from the book than simply becoming animals on the top of the food chain, we could do with more guidance on, for example, answers to our difficulties in forming and sustaining long term love relationships.

Additionally, there are some apparent inconsistencies in the books. For example, the first one starts with Megre meeting Anastasia’s grandfather & great-grandfather who try and fail to persuade him to fell a ringing cedar tree. Later in the series we read that the grandfather and great-grandfather are two of the select group of high priests who have controlled the world largely through use of images, which given their lack of success with Megre, was hard to swallow.

My main interest, however, is in taking what is useful. The most significant ideas for me so far (I haven’t finished the series yet) are around increasing thinking speed and knowing and owning our God-given power as creators. Both of these are in line with my own current development and perception and, if not easy, appear both possible and worth the trouble.

Increased thinking speed

Increasing thinking speed is not that relevant for digesting sound bites but it becomes extremely relevant in evolutionary terms. This is most obvious in business. Ebay and Amazon are doing so well because they were first and have stayed ahead of the game. The first people to take advantage of buy to let mortgages and the boom in housing prices made the quickest, easiest money. Those who continue to accurately predict the market, which includes how most people will respond, continue to do well.

The same is true in other areas of life, such as the environment, politics, terrorism and war. Increased thinking effectively expands the possibilities available to us at all times.

When Anastasia talks about thinking, I don’t get the impression that she is talking about the kind of verbal, linear, analytical thinking and problem solving that Megre indulges in, but, rather about creative thinking - something to keep life interesting when all the problems are solved. Translating every thought into words slows down our thinking, adds a level of abstraction and imprecision and limits what we can think about to our vocabulary.

Other things that effectively slow down our thinking include lack of practise, interest and stimulation and frequent interruptions which lead us to have to keep re-starting or, more commonly, give up!

Knowing and owning our God-given power as creators

Having and trusting a sense of our creative abilities also expands possibilities. Instead of gimme, help me, save me , wishful thinking or an egoic need for control due to fear, we know the peace that passes all understanding which comes from direct personal contact with the divine and we create from that serene place.

And more

I’d love to add more women to this list. Who do you celebrate?

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 20th, 2008 at 1:34 pm and is filed under feminine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.