Look Up. Look Within. Connect.

Photo credit Jacqueline Sharmalee Pereira

Originally, I decided to write a blog, then there was a gap of several months and then I wrote another. At some point I noticed that I was blogging regularly. I’ve now been writing a monthly blog for the last three years. I don’t sit down at the beginning of the month and write, instead I wait until something happens or arises that feels like it is worthy of a blog. Sometimes it happens early in the month, or in the middle and sometimes it doesn’t come until the last week of the month.
 
So here it is the last day of November, and I haven’t written a jot. It might be that I couldn’t find a spare moment during my travels to even jot down a note when I did get ‘that impulse’ to write about something.  Or perhaps, it might be a matter of feeling like there was too much to write about and how could I choose? So, I haven’t taken any of the necessary steps to produce this month’s blog. But I have one last day of travel ahead of me so perhaps I will get it written and published before midnight, thereby keeping my rhythm of a blog every month. 

 
While my blogs are very simple and don’t really require any research as such, it still takes a bit of time to write in a way that the subject has some meaning to others and not just to me. I then have Carmel review it, followed perhaps by a change or two, I search for a related photo, format the photo, publish the blog on my website, send out a Mail Chimp notice to the subscribers, post a notice on Facebook, etc.  
 
In any case, this seems like a very good time to publicly thank Carmel Reid for being a capable and considerate editor, always supporting me, no matter what time of the month I send her the blog asking for her input.  Sometimes she catches typos and she might question the use of a word or phrase or let me know when I make too big of a leap that she isn’t sure the reader will make with me. I’m really grateful for her keen eye and interest in the written word. I’m especially grateful that she never suggests I say something – in a way that I wouldn’t say it! Without her, writing a monthly blog would be more challenging for me and I would have probably dropped off by now. So, a big Thank YOU to Carmel.
 
I wanted to acknowledge her support because this month, there is no way that I can send her the blog for feedback and still get it published since there is only a few hours to go before the calendar page turns to December. Any typos or great leaps this month, I will have to take full responsibility for, haha.
 
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Last month, I wrote about one of those subjects where I wasn’t sure that the reader would make the leap with me. It was contemplating and writing about “movement as a form of expression.” A couple of examples I shared were ‘moving with God’s light’ or ‘moving with love’. As you might imagine, I’m still experimenting with this. I do try to practice these movements, not as a doing but rather as an alignment, as a way of being, in motion. 
 
How does one stay aware of our multi-dimensionality in a 3D world? For me, it is about experimenting with daily situations. When I notice a fixed pattern, I like to try it a different way, just to see. Take something as simple as when I’m in the shower and I need to reach for the shampoo or body wash, which in my shower happens to be on a shelf behind me. Do I always turn to the right to reach behind me? How does it feel if I turn to the left when reaching for the shampoo? Does it create a different openness in me? Trying new movements in our daily activity can create new openness. I suspect if we can access more (through trying new movements), we can understand more. 
 
We can deepen further into ourselves and into our multi-dimensionality if we open our awareness of how we are moving. Many changes happen gradually or over time and so they aren’t noticeable in real time but then one day, in hindsight, we realise things are different. 
 
For example, my generation was definitely brought up to always put others first. It was very much a self-sacrificing sort of approach to living with others. However, in recent years ‘self-love and self-care’ have become a new catch phrases. There were a couple of years of getting acquainted with the concept of self-care, it took a little adjusting to be able to consider putting oneself first, even though we clearly understood the truth that we couldn’t help another if we were doing so from an empty cup. And so, self-love and self-care became a new way of living. At first it meant things like taking an epsom salts bath at the end of the day, learning to say ‘no’ when we didn’t want to do something, maybe buying ourselves flowers. Recently, I’ve noticed that I’ve expanded my definition of self-care beyond doing nice things for myself. 
 
Nowadays, for me, self-care is  an awareness, an appreciation, a valuing of my alignment within the universe. It is not a doing, but a way of being that makes the greater contribution to humanity. I appreciate and value what comes through me. On reflection, I see it as my new standard of self-care, to value the being that I am. 
 
It isn’t about me as an individual, as in “aren’t I great?” but rather it is about the quality of my livingness that allows God (the Universe) to use me as a vehicle for his love to shine into the world.  It really has nothing to do with me as a person.  In fact, the ‘person or personality’ has to actually get out of the way. 
 
I value the quality of the energy that I cook a meal in, or make a bed in. In this moment I am valuing the quality of how I am typing this blog. I’m not pounding the keys but rather I’m totally enjoying the energy in my fingertips as they flow across the keyboard, even though I’m balancing my lap top on my lap in the back of a bouncing bus.  
 
One of the greatest acts of self-love I’ve experienced during my recent months of travelling is that I established a daily dialogue (or you might say alignment) with our unseen brothers and sisters. Some people call them our Guardian Angels. Students of The Way of The Livingness usually refer to our invisible support staff as The Hierarchy. Hierarchy doesn’t refer to a military rank and file order but rather that without the limitations of being in a physical body, the unseen are much more able to embrace their multi-dimensionality. 
 
They (the unseen helpers) are always looking after us, guiding us. Always. But are we paying attention? 
 
While travelling, we tend to be in unfamiliar places and have to meet imperative time schedules for boats, trains and planes. So while travelling, I find myself asking for help more often than when I’m at home. It doesn’t take long before it becomes obvious that we can ask for and receive help from above to meet the challenges of travelling in the world. As I recognised and became more familiar with this support, I realised that we are able to ask for and receive this help always, it doesn’t have to be for the Big Things. 
 
If our intention is to be of service, if our purpose is to be a vehicle for God’s work on earth, then we have assistance from the unseen helpers. We just have to be clear about what we are asking for and why, and there it is waiting for us.   
 
The greatest souvenir I’m bringing home from this trip is a more active relationship with The Hierarchy. My dialogue with them starts before I even get out of bed and continues throughout the day until I am back in bed, ready for a good night’s rest. Often my conversations might be something like asking that I be aware of what is happening around me today, that I deepen in my movements of love or that I take the time to Look Up while hanging out the laundry. Or to take the time to Look Within. And Connect.  It doesn’t matter what we are dialoguing about, it matters that we are aware that we are not alone in this crazy life, that we are surrounded by an interactive love.  

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