To Learn Truth We Practice Through Relationship

Richard Rohr (Center for Action and Contemplation), in one of his morning contemplation posts writes "We do not think ourselves into a new way of living;  we live ourselves into a new way of thinking."

If we want a new life for ourselves, we must be willing to return again and again to that place where we learn and can practice tools for living in a new way. The place we return to is through our connection with All Our  Relations.  What we learn is Truth. What we experience is Love. We learn to live in relationship with all Creation. We learn to think in the language of love.

Self-Reflection: I commit to practice living in relationship with all of creation in the best way I know how. In this way I wil Learn Truth

We Learn Truth Through the Sense of Touch

We begin the experience of being human through our 5 senses.  The 5 senses are not instincts, but they inform our instincts, and also, the other way around. We begin our learning about what it is to be human with our sense of 'touch'. We learn comfort and pain, hot and cold, hard, soft. Our first experience of being loved or rejected comes through our tactile experience during our birth.

In working with the Cycles of Truth, we begin with Learn Truth and the first of our five senses, touch.  This tactile sense is our first informer as to whether our world is a good and safe place to be. It is the first way we are in relationship with all of our world.

Reflecting on our early experience in the world gives us clues about where we need to update our sensory systems (quite literally).  Jamie Sams' experienced this first cycle of truth as 'Talks With Relations'.  Through the story she tells, she shows how our willingness to step into relationship with all of creation (not just people and our pets) is a tried and true way to Learn Truth AND to open our sense of touch to a higher level of sensitivity and frequency, which brings healing for us and for all we touch...

Self Reflection: I enter a new year of cycles and rhythms. I will be touched by the experience of living my life in rhythm and flow. I will Learn Truth through being present to whatever my life touches.

January New Moon and the Gift of Healing Touch.

Carolyn shares her thoughts on the night of the new moon:  I sat listening to what thoughts make themselves known to me during the time I set aside for my new moon meditation.  Thinking about the gift of the call to Learn Truth that I embrace this month. AND thinking, too, about the gift creator has provided for me through my five senses.

This month the sense we are asked to know better is the sense of touch.  My mind goes to a memory of one of the first times I laid my hands on the skin of a loved one and through that touch received awareness of their pain and the way to relieve it.  Remembering this, and reflecting on the other times my coming in touch with another has been healing for me, or them, and sometimes for both of us, I had this thought:  What if we are beings born as cells of the heart of Creator? What if our bodies are living ‘hearts of the Divine’?  Then this skin of ours, which is the largest organ of our body, is a magnificent receptor and giver of all that is possible of Divine Love.  It is no wonder that intuition is developed through our awareness of touch.  It is of no surprise that we Learn Truth through our willingness to be in relationship with all, and how often our sense of touch (as well as our voice) frames these relationships.  

Self Reflection: Am I open to the gifts which come my way with the willingness to learn truth?

As We Move to a New Year of Truth Cycles...

Being and living the vision for our life: Everything in the universe has a template for it's structure and existence (it's potential and possibility).  We, as human beings, are no different in this sense than rocks, trees the elements and the stars.  We are what we are.  Yet, as human beings, the template of our potential is often co opted by our ego and our thinking brain (a simplistic description; read Ken Wilber's  work on Integral living if you want to know more).  We have brief, fleeting moments of awareness and knowing--where we ARE fully present, and the person we dare  to dream we could be-if/when...makes herself/himself known to us! 

We are already who and what we were created to be.  But...because our sense of self is not in alignment with our 'Divine Template' it only means that we must learn how to bring our vision back from the distance of 'someday' to the present moment.  

We already are the person we sense we are called to be.  We CAN and WILL learn to experience ourselves as this person! How? We start by paying attention to the reaction of our senses in our daily lives.  We notice our preferences, likes, dislikes, prejudices, beliefs.  No judging, just notice.  No judging, just notice.

Self Reflection: The process of becoming who I am is not so much about becoming more, but a process of shedding, letting go, dropping what is not 'me'.