Foundations Under My Castles In the Air

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.  ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

This month is about AWARENESS:

Being awake, mindful, and conscious about who we are, what we want, and where we want it. Dreams (the castles in the air kind ) are the beginnings of any idea, of any manifestation or any journey. It can be the beginning of any step into our self-confidence. It is an experimentation of the mind where we see the brighter future and can experience our greatest strengths, and imagine the failures and successes to learn from; where we envision our best life.

Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.  ~Gloria Steinem

Day-dreaming vs mind-wandering?

Mind-wandering is a distraction from what's going on; off-task musings like staring into the air, looking out the window on the train. These are usually without a specific purpose other than being distracted from the present. Do not attempt this when driving or handling heavy machinery or pointy objects.

Mind-wandering can be a powerful precursor to day-dreaming. It allows a flow of discovery.

Daydreaming is a visionary fantasy, usually with pleasant thoughts of hopes or ambitions. It is a use of the imagination of something coming to pass and is experienced while awake. Daydreaming leads to an act of visualization/envisioning

Be fully awake if you want to dream.   ~Paulo Coelho

Daydreaming is focused, usually intentional, and are imaginative what-if mental projects possessing a narrative structure. They are usually full of plans and goals to achieve, showing feelings felt with a mental picture of purpose and success. This type of dream is like a seed with the potential to grow into a majestic sequoia. These castles in the air are also like the architectural blueprints for a building. They are only a potential, a design until you start to pour the concrete of the foundation and pound the wood and nails together.

Day-dreaming can be unity with our best self, the precursor of the mental equivalent or of the manifestation. In order for it to move from a vision to an envision, from fantasy to fact, you must live it on the inside to build it on the outside.

Building Tool #1:  Find the meaning it has for you

Parable of the Fisherman

One day a fisherman was sitting by his boat while playing with his child on a beautiful beach; his fishing pole resting against the boat.

A wealthy businessman came walking down the beach, trying to relieve some of the stress of his workday. Curious and horrified at the sight of the fisherman wasting the day, the businessman asked, "Why aren't you out fishing?"

The fisherman looked up at the businessman, smiled, and replied, "Because I already caught enough fish for one day." The businessman followed, "Why don't you catch some more?"

"What would I do with them?" replied the fisherman. "You could earn extra money," said the businessman, "then buy a bigger boat, go into deeper waters, and catch more fish. You would make enough money to buy nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. With that money, you could own two boats, maybe three boats. Eventually, you could have a whole fleet of boats and be rich like me."

"Then what would I do?" asked the fisherman. "Then," said the businessman, "you could really enjoy life."

The fisherman looked at the businessman quizzically and asked, "What do you think I am doing now?"

It's not about more, more, more - it's about fulfillment, fulfillment, fulfillment. A heartfelt purpose with a mission and a vision,

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.  ~Carl Jung

Awaken to the why more than the what of your dreams; that is a foundation-builder.

Building Tool #2:  Hold the vision

Get clear on what you want this dream to look like, smell like, taste like, feel like. Use this envisioning as your motivation, a compass point to keep you going in the right direction.

IMAGINATION, VISUALIZATION, SPECIFICATION

Building Tool #3:  Baby Steps

Identify your milestones and gap areas, reverse-engineer your success, and pick the action steps to make for each milestone. Use networking, research, outsourcing, content creation, etc. Break your action steps into smaller chunks, simple tasks that you can accomplish. In education, better your current skill-sets. In connections, connect with needed contacts and allies to assist you and other resources needed for completion, including our spiritual communions (our at-one-ments). Do the actions and hit the milestones one at a time.

Confidence, going in the direction of your dreams may include a journey that is fearful, terrifying, unknowing, and difficult, but we go towards them. Sometimes with baby steps, but always with boldness. They are an adventure that builds the life of majesty we want and that has always awaited us

Building Tool #4:  Connect with Spirit and stay in tune with having your dream

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.  ~Henry David Thoreau

Our inward reflection and inner work project outward and peace within reflects on everything we see and do. 

Conclusion and Call to Action

Don't dream it, be it!   ~Dr. Frank-n-Furter, Rocky Horror Show

The Science of Mind teaches us that the relationship between the individual and the Universal Mind is one of reflection. We reflect in our lives those castles in the air we have laid a foundation under with attention, focus, feelings, and belief. In the conclusion of Walden by Henry David Thoreau, he says: 

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” 

It's not about chasing your dreams

It's about being a reflection of your dreams 

It's about going from imagination to contemplation to realization to initiation

It's about going from a vision to envisioning, fantasizing to being it to living it

Final Building Tool:  Never let anyone else’s opinion about what is and is not possible become your reality

Your dreams are not impossible, nor ridiculous. They are the start of something that could absolutely change your world. Without dreams, nothing changes, nothing grows or evolves.

So dream.  Dream bold.  Dream big.

Build those luscious, rich, mouth-watering, divine-inspired castles in the air! Then bravely lay a concretized foundation under them and start building your greatest, most fun, most sexy, most prosperously abundant vibrant life today!

A. I.

I am awake. I bear witness to my thoughts and pay attention to those that ignite my life with love, kindness, respect, dignity, health, and prosperity. All others, I learn from and transcend through to my highest.

As Light pours through me like the rays of the Sun, day or night, my heart is bright and awake. It sparks feelings that illuminate and support my dreams. And from them, I breathe this Light back into the nostrils of the Universe, bringing my clearest vision of abundant ideas alive. 

Awake to my Divine nature and communing with the constant amazement of the beauty that surrounds me - I rejoice with a mighty sound, a grateful heart, and a loving spirit.

THE NIKE WAY

We should be careful not to divide our mental house against itself. Having announced the law of liberty, we must not deny it. When we shall all know the Truth, then ways and means and methods will be found for the freedom of all. The mold of acceptance is the measure of our experience. The Infinite fills all molds and forever flows into new and greater ones. Within us is the unborn possibility of limitless experience. Ours is the privilege of giving birth to it!   ~Science of Mind

Ease, like all of experience, is a choice we birth. It is a frequency in our cosmic collaboration, a state we allow to experience by aligning with it. We decide whether to have discord or harmony, chaos or order, disarray or synchronicity, or difficulty or ease.

“Here you go blaming any unease in my life on me again,” I can hear you say. Well, it's not about blame, it's about responsibility and power - your responsibility to be open to and allowing yourself to change your thinking with the power of choice

With COVID and other crappy things happening around us, it can be hard and you may need to wallow in it some. Go ahead – wallow in it some...I'll wait...a little bit. I get that it seems impossible to get through or past all this, but so was:

• the sub-4-minute mile till Roger Bannister, 1954
• the horse-less buggy or air flight until Karl Benz, 1886 and the Wright Brothers, 1903
• the World Wars, the Depression

Yet, each of these beliefs was proved wrong by someone at one with their purpose and with faith in their ability, willingness to step out of their comfort zone, and deciding that nothing could sway them.

And we can -will- do that too!

What makes life comfortable, relaxed, unembarrassed, reassured ... at ease? Does it take willpower - push, push, push? Or can you choose to be calmly decisive, continually improving / transforming/transcending, being filled with grace and gratitude, and applying yourself with the discipline to focus on the good - on what you want and have control of - you?

When we start thinking things are going to be hard, expecting difficulty, stop signs, and barriers; when we withdraw from activating our power, we get everything we want...difficulty. Instead, use this information to empower you to correct wrong-thinking.

What empowers a life at ease?

When you start thinking things are going to be hard, first - forgive yourself. Allow yourself to start shifting your thoughts in new ways that align with a life of ease and withdraw from thought patterns that don't fit that vision of ease. New patterns of thinking require willingness and allowing, forgiveness, and persistence in your spiritual practice. We must trade the striving with the joy of learning and applying yourself to a new adventure that serves you

Here's a little story to illustrate the point, called "The Navigation Troll" by Adam Oakley

Amanda, Greg, and Richard are looking for the Feasting Tree...

“I’ve read about this something here that can take us wherever we want to go to, to the Feasting Tree, but we have to pay him a price,”  Amanda said. 

“Pay him in what?” Greg said.

“In memories. We have to give him one bad memory from our past, and he turns it into time.”

“He turns it into time?”

“Yes, and he uses the time to take you to where you want to go. The book that Bernard wrote, said that the time he turns it into is equivalent to the amount of time you would have spent dwelling on it if you had kept it inside of yourself.”

“I don’t have any bad memories,” Greg said.

“I bet you do,” said Amanda.

“Well, how do we get in contact with whoever this is?

“He’s the Navigation Troll. We have to walk into an area where we can all be in contact with each other, and each touch a separate tree at the same time. Then we have to give over our bad memories.”

Richard barely heard all this. He was listening to all the birds from above and hopping along the ground telling him that they should not go, that they should keep well away from where the Earthman went. The bird calls were gradually becoming harsher and more screechy.

“Calm the birds down now, will you Rich?” Greg said. But Richard could not hear him.

As they approached and an area with three thin, young trees, all very close to each other, Amanda said, “Hold my hand, Greg.” 

Greg reached out and touched Amanda's had and his heart leaped. Her hand made him feel ignited and alive, and he did not want to let go.

“Richard, join us” she said. Richard walked up, in a slight daze, and held her hand. 

“Now you two hold hands,” she said. Greg gradually raised his arm to grab hold of Richard’s open hand. 

“Now everyone touch a tree with their knee.” The three adjusted their legs to follow Amanda’s orders.

“Now, think of a memory, a bad memory, one that you don’t like to think about, but still lives inside of you. Then say out loud. ‘I give this memory to the Navigation Troll.’”

There was a pause, a silence. Then.... “I give this memory to the Navigation Troll,” Amanda said, with her eyes closed.

“I give this memory to the Navigation Troll,” Richard said, his eyes also still closed.

Greg said nothing, and then the earth began to rumble.

It was like an earthquake, the ground shaking and roaring from the inside like there was something bubbling up from the very depths of the Earth. Then, in the small space in the middle of the three, a long black-haired, fleshy, grumpy-looking face of a troll began to emerge; followed by a short, stocky body covered in a pair of dry, dirty shorts. The figure was shaking with the earth, eyes closed and not moving its limbs at all. Then its eyes opened. 

“You called?” the troll said, pulling out a little notepad and a pen from a pocket in his shorts.

The three of them broke their grip with each other as Amanda said to the troll, “Yes, we want you to take us to wherever the Feasting Tree lives.”

The troll looked up at Amanda with its very large eyes, permanent sneer, and scowling mouth and said, “Hmmm, what you ask is extremely dangerous, and very far indeed. That will cost you, dearly.”

“How much?”

The troll scribbled something on his pad and then said, “Well, by my calculations you just need a bit more.

“A bit more what, asked Amanda?

“Your memory was a good one. And the memory from this lad, here, was ok,” the troll pointed at Richard with his pen. “But I am yet to take either as I only take payment when all terms are agreed. This lad, has offered nothing. I still need a good, dark memory, from him. If he provides one, then I can take you to where you need to be.”

“I have no bad memories,” Greg said.

“Oh, but you do, lad, you do. What about when you were beaten up that time at school?”

Greg’s body stiffened up. “How did you know about that?”

“I can see it. It’s under your skin. It’s always there, isn’t it? It’s always with you.”

“Yeh, but I need it,” Greg said.

“How so?”

“It stops me from getting beat up again.”

“Does it now?”

“Yeh, because of that I started getting my brother to teach me how to fight.”

“Ah” said the troll, writing something down on his notepad. “So what you mean is that the event made you learn to fight and it brought you closer to your brother. Very good, but the memory of it, the darkness of it, the pain that still lives inside you, do you still need that? Do you still need to think about it in the same way? Do you still need to hold on to it? Do you really feel as if you are at peace with it, or does it give you nightmares, terrified of a fight happening again?”

“I’m not terrified,” Greg blurted out. He paused a moment. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like the feeling when it creeps up on me sometimes.”

“Then give it to me.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to give it away. I want to keep it.”

“But why? Do you secretly enjoy it?”

Greg thought about it. Perhaps he did. Despite him not liking it, something inside him secretly enjoyed feeling victimized, hard-done-by, hurt, harmed by circumstances beyond his control. It was a strange, sick kind of enjoyment, a self-inflicted suffering that he was strangely addicted, seemed normal for him. “Maybe. Maybe I do like it,” he said defiantly.

“I see. Maybe it gives you a sense of self? Holding on to that memory, makes you feel like you really exist.”

“Yeh.”

“Aha, so do you still want it?”

Greg shyly said, “I feel vulnerable without it.”

“Yes, but do you still want it?”

Feeling agitated, Greg sputtered for a moment before screaming, “No, no I don’t. You have it. I don't want it anymore. I can't stand it anymore. Take it as payment.”

“Fantastic,” said the Troll! “So, that’s three traumatic memories that are yet to be healed, in return for a one-way transport to the home of the Feasting Tree. Correct?”

“Correct,” Amanda said.

“Right,” he said, making more notes. “Now, I can only take you so far, then you must walk the rest. You will be dropped off around six trees’ lengths away from your desired area. Then, I will point you in the right direction. All agreed?”

“Agreed,” they all said.

“Very good. Please place your hands on my hair.” The children were very reluctant to touch the troll's hair; it looked as if it had never been washed. But slowly, they reached out, knowing this was the right path to the Feasting Tree. Strangely, the troll’s hair felt soft and alive.

“Take a deep breath in,” the troll said. All three breathed in. “And let it go.” The three exhaled and began to feel their piece of darkness, which had been cunningly living within them for the longest time, travel out of their bodies and move into the hair of this troll. As the darkness transferred, the troll’s hair began to turn white, and their surroundings became blurred and the air made a high-pitched, whining noise. A moment later, everything around them started to shimmer as if the world was turning into liquids. Soon, the liquids began to evaporate into gases until the color drained out of the world and they were left in semi-darkness.  They became aware of a portal that the Navigation Troll was dragging them through, which seemed to bypass the normal rules of time. He was running, jumping, and panting, and even though it seemed as if they were traveling far, they all knew that the time passing was being condensed into just a few seconds. 

Suddenly, they stopped. It was still very dark at first, but soon light began to shine like the sunrise on a new day. “Here we are,” the troll said, “your destination. It is here you start on a new path. A path of adventure, clear of the memories that held you back. Go forward to the Feasting Tree, save your friend as you have yourself.” And so they did.

This stuff is not about lying on the couch waiting for the doorbell to chime or the phone to ring; fun and possible as it might be to open the door or answer the call and find your soulmate with a bag of money and the keys to your new car and house, It's about being ready for the next thing, which is the original thing - it's about leaning into Creation and trusting your connection and communion with It. The Universe has your back and can guide you. Trust your intuition. Your emotions are indications of how aligned you are and not something to be fixed or afraid of. They are something you can re-tune and to be at-one with the Divine. This is subtle and deep stuff being in at-one-ment with the Divine within. Like Yoga and Pilates, small moves with great form ignite deep and huge improvements, transformation, and transcendence.

You are the tailor of the cloth your wear. You are the chooser and the receiver of the vibration you connect with and amplify. Choose to give attention to what it is you want. Choose loving, constructive ideas and choose to follow your inner positive nudges without second-guessing or telling yourself right away why you can't do what just occurred to you. 

An inner-oriented life is like sitting in the eye of the storm, placing yourself in the low barometric calm for decision making and action taking while moving past trauma, manifesting peace and calm, and waiting out the tempest around you. The more you're in sync with all that you are, the more you allow yourself to connect with things that manifest ease in your life.

What is the Nike way? 

Just do it:

Don't wait till you've got all the steps down or you have the most clever words to say or until it's not noisy or you are centered.

Just do it:

Affirm your good, state your intention, connect with the Power within, bring passion, clarity, heart and soul, and as much game as you got right now. Tell the Universe what you require in your life today.

Just do it:

Be grateful in your prayers, contemplations, meditations, thoughts, feelings, and actions. The Divine Power, Intelligence, Love, Light, Beauty, and Wisdom is within you right here and right now to dance, play, support, and manifest your greatest good!

God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because God is good. Nothing we can do will either decrease or increase God’s eternal and infinite eagerness to love!    ~Richard Rohr

You just need to show up and live the Nike Way.

Just do it....right now!

Affirmative Incantation

Today, I befriend myself: 

I support my purpose and my desires, I look after and protect my inner child, and uphold the integrity, honesty, courage, loyalty, fortitude, kindness, and dignity of a person of great character.

I take the risks I must to clear the cobwebs, let go of the limitations and fears, and step up to my Best Self. Anything that requires cleansing, illumination, or repair, I boldly and bravely do so with ease and grace. I do not criticize, I optimize.

I unabashedly and whole-heartedly declare my dreams manifested with the havingness of having them and surrender to the power in me to bring them to fruition. I sing out “Olly, Olly oxen free” declaring the Divine within to emerge with all its love, Light, beauty, and wisdom; guiding me to be the best friend my life has ever had.

I am grateful for my ease in this task, my peace of mind in this charge, and my assuredness in this mission. Success is ours, my friend!

The Fear of Faith

Are you afraid of being full of faith? Faith equal religion in your mind? or something that has not been proven? or about trust and you just don't have any left? or about the success you aren't ready to have?

Faith and fear are two sides of the same coin. You either have faith or you are had by it. Having faith means you know that there is only One power and all is possible through that One Power within you right now. You know that you are made of God-stuff.

Being had by faith means you are coming from fear, are owned and enslaved by the negative ideas and experiences of your history or the news, are trapped in the idea that your supposed failures are proof of your lack of faith, and it scares you to even try anymore.

When we move from having faith in prayer, having faith in God, or having faith in anything period and upgrade to a way of Being Faith and allowing that Knowingness of our Constitution, our Supreme Laws, to be all that we are, it opens us to experience life in the same way that an MD will jump into action at an emergency while she was out dining. She IS a physician on a 24-hour call. We are Meta-Physicians and our call is also 24 hours a day / 7 days a week / 365 days a year. This knowing and Being our Divine selves, it's our automatic response to our ups and downs.

What Is Faith?

Faith is not bargaining, begging, manipulating or pleading; tempting as it is to do just that in the last 6 months.  It is a calm knowingness that all is well no matter what human condition we might be experiencing.

Faith is not superstition. It doesn’t require rituals, dogma or magic to be achieved - though they can be meaningful and fun. And you don't have to be religious or spiritual to have or be in faith, because “faith is the complete trust or confidence in someone or something.”

Faith is not something we turn on and off. It's like a dimmer switch, we always have the knob in our hands to turn up or down.

Faith is loving the experience we are having, even if we don't like the experience we are having. Understanding that by keeping love active, .no matter the experience or condition, we learn what to avoid or encourage, using logic, feelings, memory, & intuition to heal and prosper.

Faith looks beyond what's in front of us in the 3D world. We are in touch with the multiverse of intuition.

Faith is not static. It is not something we just have and forget about; it requires practice and intentional expansion. It's like peace and justice, constant. We build up our faith muscles through spiritual practices when things are going well in life so that when we hit a crisis, those practices are second nature.

In order to have faith, we must have a conviction that all is well. In order to keep faith, we must allow nothing to enter our thought which will weaken this conviction. Faith is built up from belief, acceptance, and trust. Whenever anything enters our thought which destroys, in any degree, one of these attitudes, to that extent faith is weakened.  ~Science of Mind, p. 158

Faith is the path back to ease from fear and anxiety. You can be anxious and still have faith.

Intentional imagination, visualizing, and envisioning are spiritual practices. Some of these practices get poo-poohed but research confirms your brain doesn't know the difference between experiencing, witnessing, and imagining. 

...imagination is a neurological reality that can impact our brains and bodies in ways that matter for our wellbeing  ~Tor Wager, director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, CU Boulder and co-senior author of a paper published in the journal Neuron

Imagine a barking dog, a furry spider or another perceived threat and your brain and body respond much like they would if you experienced the real thing. 

If you have a memory that is no longer useful for you or is crippling you, you can use imagination to tap into it, change it and re-consolidate it, updating the way you think about and experience something.   ~Marianne Cumella Reddan, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, CU Boulder 

Faith operates every day. It is a choice we get to dial-up or down.

You would think this month's theme is faith, not ease, but with faith you get the ease.

Conclusion and Call to Action:

 Faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea…You realize, I think, that it is more valuable, more mysterious, altogether more immense than anything you can learn or decide upon in college. ~Flannery O’Connor

When we respond to the world with love and compassion, we are practicing faith.

When we surrender our ego, our need to be right, or our need to fight and allow ourselves to be completely immersed in the Divine. we are practicing faith.

The results are a calm, an ease, a revelation that all can be handled. Even COVID, unemployment, illness, wealth, or any prosperity or success (many people see success as a burden and the rest of their lives reflect that). 

The keywords of this Fall season are...

reflection, harvest, gratitude, balance, and self-love

If one will have faith in [their]self, faith in [one's] fellowmen, in the Universe, and in God, that faith will light the place in which [one] finds [them]self, and by the light of this faith, [you] will be able to see that ALL IS GOOD. And the light shed by this faith will light the way for others. We become conscious of darkness only when we are without faith - for faith is ever the light of our day and the light on our way, making that way clearly visible to us, even when to all others it may be beset with obstacles and the ongoing rough. ~Science of Mind, P 158

As the equinox balances the light and dark, the seasons change, the harvest is honored, and we step into a new cycle of growth; inviting more peace. Yes, you have grown during the pandemic by recognizing what areas of our life need balance, let go, or put on ice.

On the Equinox, everything is in balance. There is no you and me, or this and that, instead there is just one:

One planet, one world, and even one soul

During this autumn season, I invite you to:

• acknowledge your personal growth cycle
• harvest a gratitude list
• ask the Universe what you can do to bring harmony and balance to the soil of your life's garden
• do a fall deep clean
• release that which no longer brings you joy
• change some rhythms and habits that no longer serve

 This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~Dahli Lama 

Make that your religion, your faith...kindness to others, of course, kindness to one's self. That's a faith to never fear.

Affirmative Incantation

I surrender myself into the contagious Loving Grace of the One - knowing I am Divinely guided in everything I think, feel, and do. 

I fall into the arms of the Great Knowing, comforted and supported by It's great Power, Love, and Wisdom. I meet my fear with faith, my dark with Light, my disdain with love, and any dis-ease with ease.

The weather may dry and cool, but I do not crack, snap or lose my warmth. The light may shorten and the dark lengthen, but I do not slow down or hoard for the winter.

I am a magnet for health, well-being, calm, creativity, strength, love and respect. My prosperity in all things is backed by the full faith and credit of the Universe - ever-expanding and ever available to me right now.