August 7, 2011

Samuel: Greetings, dears.

Hello, Samuel.

S: Noki’s going around looking to see who needs a Seeing Eye dog. “Hmm . . . you look like you could use a little better vision. May I help you, please?”

Hello, dears. So how’d your month go?

Fast.

S: Fast, yes, yes. Feeling your sun revving up? Knocking around your solar system, or knocking your solar system around, or something like that, eh? It’s a very important time, and you get to feel the best of it—or the worst of it—because the solar energy always affects what’s going on with you; it amplifies whatever is going on with you. So, if you are generally in a pretty good frame of mind, that’s going to be amplified. And if you’re in a kind of depressed state, then that’s going to be amplified. So what does that tell you immediately?

Watch it.

S: Yes, that’s true. Watch it. Or watch out. Or maybe duck and cover when you’re around those who tend to be a little on the mean side, or something like that. But it also is a reminder that this is a great time for you to be experiencing deep passion by doing those things that amplify your passion anyway, because during these next few days, as I said before, you’re into a cycle early. But certainly, with the release that just came about, you’re already, over the next few days, going to be continuing with the effects of what’s just been released, and you can determine to amplify whatever it is you want to be feeling.

So, what do you want to be feeling for a change? How about delight, and pleasure, and laughter and fun, and close friendship, love? The good stuff. And what do you want to stay away from? This time I’m asking you.

All the rest.

Brussels sprouts.

S: The brussels sprouts of the world.

Overwhelm, stress.

S: Can you imagine if you’re already feeling overwhelmed and that’s going to be amplified. Then you’ll be overly overwhelmed. Not good. More.

Anger or fear.

S: Very good, yes. Stay away from those things that bring fear up in you, cause you to deny yourself, cause you to worry, to lose your passion. She [Noki] says, “No, you see; no, you see.” All right.

So that’s going to lead me pretty much right into where I wanted to go in tonight. What is it you tend to feel when you’re looking over your day? When you get up in the morning, what’s floating through your mind? All right, for some of you it’s, “Can I take a step? Can I even get up?” That’s right.

What are your passion levels like these days? And right now this is very important. You have just come through—actually you’re still coming a bit through—Lughnassadh energy. And what is Lughnassadh about. If you were an old pagan, what would you say it was? Harvest energy. And what is harvest about? Fruit of your labor. It’s time to reap what you’ve sown. It’s time to fill your kitchen or your coffers with the abundance that is waiting for you, based on what you have been planting of late. So, what have you been planting in your life? Now some of you have been actually doing the farmer kind of planting. Yes? And you are beginning to harvest. What are you harvesting here, now?

Beans, zucchini, tomatoes, raspberries, okra and blackberries, peaches, peppers, corn, pears, acorn squash.

S: This sounds like a feast, doesn’t it? Just bring all of that together.

What’s involved in harvesting? Frank?

What just came to my mind is, you talked a lot in the last several months about Creators and Patterners. And it takes a Creator and a Patterner. You need to have to do it. The problem I have is when I plant something, about halfway through I kind of get tired of it and it’s hard for me to want to bother continuing the effort to keep it going. It takes follow-through.

S: Everybody who’s ever given Frank a plant, remember that, please.

So it takes one who has the vision, “Here is what I want to plant.” And then it takes one to do the work. So, yes. That’s in there. Paula.

What comes to my mind is anticipation on two levels. One is you’re anticipating when that tomato is going to be ripe, or you know you can see that fruit coming to maturity and you’re anticipating eating it. And the other thing is you have to anticipate how much time you’re going to spend out picking things, because when they’re ready, they’re ready. And you’ve got to get out there every day and make sure you pull everything that’s ready to be pulled in, because there’s such an abundance of things.

S: You’ve got to actually dedicate yourself to it, don’t you, if you want to have a good harvest with that?

Heidi, Mary Claire, Lillibeth.

It takes a lot of commitment. My garden has become almost like my cats, because I can’t really go away without making plans for somebody to water. So it involves planning; it involves a relationship with what you’re creating because they become your charges.

S: Very nice, very nice.

The harvesting involves gratitude. Every time I pick a tomato, snip it, I thank the plant first. Every time I cut a zucchini or some herbs, I say, “Thank you,” and express gratitude to the plant.

S: And the elemental kingdom says, “Yay!” Very nice.

I think you also have to recognize and know the crop so well that you know when it’s ready to be harvested.

S: Very good, very good. Steven?

It also takes a lot of consistency, because the okra grows four inches overnight and (laughter) . . .

S: Really?

. . . well, you miss every other day and a lot of it’s gone to waste. It’s very quick.

S: Tell me about okra.

Awful tasting . . . slimy . . .

S: I’m not sure if this is an appreciated crop or not.

Looks like a marijuana plant but it doesn’t smoke . . . it grows perfectly in the freezer, that’s where I get mine.

S: From the freezer. Is like a melon grows on a vine, or like peanut . . . ?

Stalk.

S: On a stalk. Like brussels sprouts.

Higher, very tall . . . kind of fuzzy and slimy.

S: How big are its fruits?

It has a little flower before the fruit. It’s a real pretty little flower. And that’s where the fruit is coming in. so when I see the flower, I always think it’s time to pay attention because you’re going to miss it if you don’t. So the nit gets this little sprout, like about that big, still has a little head where the flower died, so I pick it off. That little sprout, it’s kind of fun to watch. Not really overnight, every other day.

S: Nice. Okra. Suzie.

I like the harvesting part. I like the garden part because I end up with so much I get to give it away, and it brings great joy to lots of people. And that’s what I love the best.

S: Very nice, very nice. What I haven’t heard you mention is that if you want to harvest, you’ve got to plant. And that tends to be what separates the farmers from the urban dwellers that only wish they were—the well-grown freezer farmers. If you want to harvest something, you’ve got to plant something. Or make really good friends with a farmer. And both of those are good options. You run into trouble in this life if you rely on others to provide your needs or you forget to plant because all you want is the harvest. And so many people run into trouble with that one because you’re being this good spiritual person, looking at the abundance coming your way—”Yay!”—but you’ve not planted. Or you’ve planted, but you’ve planted weak seed, or in poor ground, or you’ve not made it a part of your family and communicated with it and let it know that you wanted the best for it. And that this was a relationship.

How often in your life have you been surprised at your harvest? You’re looking for work and you’re surprised nothing has shown up. You’re getting the work but you’re surprised at how little it pays, or you’re making the effort to create friends but nobody ever gets in touch with you. Or you’re working to clear up some past poor ground in your financial sector perhaps, and plant something healthy, and yet all you’re getting is kind of deformed okra.

It’s very, very easy to forget that what you want to harvest in this life takes more than simply putting out there “This is what I want.” You’ve got to nurture it and you’ve got to be worthy of it.

Now that’s where the “create a relationship” comes in. “Samuel, I want to make more friends. I’m lonely, I have a hard time meeting people, I want to be able to experience more of laughter and joy, but nobody ever gets in touch with me.” Do you ever get in touch with them? Why is it you’re willing to be persistent and nag the Universe, but you give up the first time a person says no? What’s that about? Do you even know what it is you’ve been planting?

I’ve got a question for you: Let’s say you’re not a farmer, but you’re pretty good at being an urban farmer. You can put out your tomatoes and your okra and your beans, and come up with a crop that works well for you and you’re happy with it. What if you don’t give it the time it needs? You don’t weed it, you don’t separate them out if they’re too thick, if you don’t water it. But you bought the best seed possible and planted it in really good ground so that you would have maybe the world’s first plant-and-go garden. You hoped. What is it you’re likely to see happen instead? You might have plants that do not thrive. A nice reflection of a life that isn’t thriving. You might have plants that are malnourished, starving, dehydrated, because you can put them in a great bed, and they can be the best possible seed, but you must nurture them. And for a plant, it’s very easy to think it’s not very hard to do that. But the fact of it is, most people don’t know how to nurture plants any more than they know how to nurture friendships, relationships, lovers.

There is a dearth, a scarcity, of nurturing in your society. Why do you think that is? Any quick thoughts?

Because people are hunting to see what they can get. They’re not hunting to see how they can give.

S: Very good, very good. One reason is because people are looking to see what they can get rather than what they can give, and what you can give is fulfilling to you. Harvey.

It’s associated with femininity.

S: Explain.

Well, the nurturing attribute in our culture is usually given over to women, so a male who does this is suspect that he may have feminine qualities.

S: Oh, that would just be awful, wouldn’t it?

And what if, male or female, you have issues with mommy? You might purposefully reject those nurturing issues, those nurturing qualities. No matter your gender—you’re both masculine and feminine; you have within you not only the chemicals of both, but you have the attitudes and abilities of both. Depending upon what you have received the most of, you tend to be more comfortable with the expression of that trait. How long do you think you’re going to have to wait for a world in which it’s perfectly fine, no matter what your gender is, to be fully balanced and expressive of both masculine and feminine as it is right at the time? Your doing that will make it come about that much sooner, you know. So yes, feminine energy, yes.

David, then Frank, then Gail—was that your hand, or behind you? Then Colleen and then there was Steven and ahoy out there. We’ll go with that.

I think it’s—talking about nurturing—it would a lot be a generational thing. People don’t give enough time to things because we’ve become a society of instant gratification and machination. We look at . . .

S: Microwave society.

. . . my parents’ generation and my grandparents’ generation. They did a lot of talking, a lot of interacting and things like that. As they’ve gotten older, the babies are off to the nurseries while both parents go off to work. We have computers, we’re communicating now with e-mail. Now the generation of today is texting; texting is the nineties. They’re doing all these things on a social network but they don’t necessarily, a lot of them, have face-to-face friends. So we don’t know how to nurture. We’re not teaching it, so we’re not learning it.

S: Very well said, very well said. After David.

I see it has to do with vulnerability, the fear of vulnerability. In order to nurture, you’re making yourself vulnerable. And in order to accept nurturing, you’re making yourself vulnerable. So I think it’s hard for someone to nurture, and when someone does go about to nurture, it’s hard to accept it. It’s a very hard to find someone who’s willing to nurture or someone who’s willing to be nurtured.

S: Yes. Well said.

Who was after Frank?

It’s been said by Frank and David.

S: Excellent. Great. Steven.

We’re such an individualist . . . There’s such an emphasis on individualism in this country. In many ways, it was a country born on that very principle.

S: Hi-yo Silver!

We don’t have extended family systems like they do in India or in other third-world countries, and we don’t have that sense of interconnectedness. It’s very much every man and woman for themselves. So we highly prize individual achievement and we nurture that, but not with nurturance. We send our kids to good schools and teach them how to succeed, but that’s not exactly nurturance.

S: Well done, yes. And after Steven was . . . Janet.

In the school systems now, at least the difference I see from when I went to school and what I’m seeing taught now is so much achievement-oriented. And when one child hits another child, it’s quick, “You need to apologize,” but it’s not the nurturing kind of “I’m sorry,” and go put your arm around him and say, “I’m sorry,” like we used to do. It’s, “Oh, I’m sorry,” and then you go about and do your spelling or whatever it is. It’s not that . . . they’re not being taught.

S: All you have to do is say the magic word and then everything’s ignored from there. Does it matter if the hurt is still there? Aye.

Paula said when it’s time to harvest, you have to be able to give it time or you’re going to see it rot or get eaten by the creatures. You won’t be able to have the end product of your labor. You have to be able to give it time. And you do that because you make a commitment to it, and you make a commitment to those things that you either believe you are going to enjoy the end product of, or are giving you satisfaction already. That’s what you spend your time with. Either “I love this process, I’m happy with it, I’ll keep going,” or “I don’t really love this process, but it’s what is needed to get what I want at the end.”

The first question is, what is your life telling you you must be wanting, based on what you’re harvesting and how you’re harvesting it. “Well, I must be wanting to be kind of overwhelmed of that process and a little bit fearful and worried about tomorrow, but it’s all worth it because I will be accepted in this world.”  Love that process.

Maybe you’re growing the wrong things, maybe you’ve planted the wrong garden. What do you want in your life? What do you want in your garden? What do you want to harvest?

Frank said it takes a Creator and a Patterner. Which is true, but in everyday terms that’s saying it takes a vision and work. How do you know what it is you are here to do? How can you keep your interest going, keep that passion going to the harvest? I’d like to give you a few little ideas.

Now, I have to be frank with you here. That means I have to make bad jokes, right? (Laughter) And that is I’m about to lose all my gardening metaphor here, so I’ll just put it aside, all right?

How do you know what it is you’re here to do? “Well, I know what I’m here to do, Samuel, because you told me.” Wrong answer. But that’s not to put aside that ultimately what you are here to do is live love. Big picture, yes, that’s what you’re here to do. And the way you know that you’re here to do that is because when you’re not doing that you’re miserable. Maybe when you are doing it everything isn’t bright and cheery all the time, but you’re not miserable. Big picture yes, you are here to live love. Slightly smaller, still very big picture: yes, you are here to bring about the completion of The Plan for this planet. And you are. And you know you are. You can’t run from it. The good news is there is no job description that goes with that. It’s what happens because you are here. True, if you do consciously make the choices to live love that’s going to come about more quickly, but it’s going to happen with or without you. Maybe I should say with or without your absolute consciousness within it. That’s the good news.

But what about that everyday part? What about that, “What am I here to be? To do? What is my passion that I’m supposed to live? And why is it so few of us feel confident that we know what it is?

I’ll start at that last one first. The reason most people are not confident about it—about knowing that they know what it is—is because people have this belief that it’s got to be hard to be good. It has to “cost” you blood, sweat, tears, right? And what I want to ask you is, does that really make sense? If you’re thinking about it, you have in front of you this great group of potential beings and you’re saying, “All right, it’s time now to make a visit to earth. It’s a good time because things are changing and moving quickly and there’s so much that you can do to be a part of that, and so what I want you to do is come with just a whole bunch of stuff that you will just do horribly so that you will constantly be hitting your head against the wall . . .”—is that sounding too familiar?—”. . . so that you’ll just be miserable and unhappy all of the time, because it’s got be so hard and you’ve got to just fill up with all of these things that you don’t enjoy, because the Universe wants you to have that experience. Because it knows it’s going to get the best out of you that way.” Would that work for you?

So far. (Laughter)

S: Makes a lot more sense, don’t you think, to say, “Take on some things that you’re going to really love, that’ll be easy for you, so that while you are enjoying yourself, you’ll be finding something you really like. You’ll stay longer that way. You won’t kvetch all the time.” That had to come out of Heidi’s brain.

And yet, particularly in this society, it’s like it’s inscribed on your genetic code: “If you love it, run.” It’s so much easier when you are enjoying yourself, when you are happy, when you are flowing easily. It’s so much easier to direct with gentle little nudges than when you are miserable and stuck and building this wall that lets nobody in and trying to move that.

What do you enjoy? Now, this you’ve got to think about. What do you enjoy? And if you are willing to really look at this, I’m going to give you the long version of the exercise, but you can make it a short version as well. The short version is, I want you to think through your last week, every day, and what did you enjoy? And if your memory has gone the way of so many in here, do it at the end of each day this coming week, how about that? Every day, “What have I really enjoyed; what made me laugh; what was easy?” Write it down.

Now, the longer version of it is, last week or this coming week, last month, last year, “What is your earliest happy memory?” Now, some of you can go really far back, and some of you are kind of stuck at breakfast. But either way it’s your earliest happy memory, so what is your earliest happy memory? What is it about it that’s happy? Why do you remember it as happy? What was going on in that? What was involved in it? Were there other people, were there particular things you were doing? When you look at your earliest happy memory and you’ve thought through those things, then ask yourself, “Why do I remember this?”

Now, if you are willing, make it a project for a week, to ask yourself every day, “What is my earliest happy memory?” Because you might think that breakfast was it, but you might find that once you’ve got your brain realizing that you really are working on this, that you get a little help. And you remember lunch the day before. And then, breakfast the day before that. And you get a little more help and a little more help—”What’s my earliest happy memory? What’s my next earliest happy memory? What is the one after that?”—until you have seven earliest happy memories. And you have looked at seven different progressions of what did I do today, or yesterday, or this past week, or this past month, or this past six months, or this past year, but seven progressions that stand out as times of being really happy.

Somebody tell me a really happy memory. It doesn’t have to be the earliest, it doesn’t have to be really recent. Just tell me one. Sure!

Many years ago—fall, 1988—I brought my daughter Sasha here. Well, not to this building; it was the Unitarian Church. She was about twenty-four to thirty-six hours old and she was accepted, crying and all, by this community. It stuck and she’s here! And she’s not crying.

S:That’s two really happy memories. I like that. Bonnie.

Not quite as profound as that, but I remember getting my first pair of ballet shoes, of tap shoes. I can remember how they smelled, how they felt, what they looked like. I was so excited to get to wear them to take my dance classes. It was just amazing—those shoes, that was the way I was going to get to do it. Those shoes.

S: She can still remember the smell of those shoes. That’s lovely! Carol.

Swinging on a swing. I was enjoying the up and down, the movement, the flow of it. And watching clouds and thinking, “I could be up there; if I just pump a little harder, I can get there.”

S: This movement clears out so much in the body it’s really a good one. Not surprised of that. Ken.

I lived across the street from Union College, and they baked their own bread. And in the mornings after they served breakfast, a bunch of us kids would get around the kitchen door and get fresh bread with blueberry jam on it. And it was wonderful!

S: Nice, nice. Yes!

I was just about to say this side has no memory.

I was going to say, I don’t know how old I was, but I remember being small enough to sit on the kitchen table, and I had this big spoon in my hand, and my mother had given me a jar of condensed milk and I spent I don’t how long, probably hours, just trying to get a spoonful of condensed milk into my mouth.

S: That was kind of cruel, wasn’t it? (Laughter)

But I just . . . I remember the sun streaming in and it hitting me. It was nice and warm, and it was very comforting, and this big spoon, and condensed milk, and it was very sweet. And it’s one of the earliest memories I have.

S: Nice, nice. John.

In graduate school as a trombone major I played in the Dixieland band with all of the best players on campus, and when we were playing there was no yesterday and there was no tomorrow. And you’re just isolated in a bubble.

S: And what he said just now, “There was no yesterday, there was no tomorrow, it was just a bubble of time.” That’s one of those markers you want to look at when you have your list of seven. And if it wasn’t one of those kind of moments, keep going, because when you are using all of you, the best of you, you shift out of time and space; the memory remains clear. You can smell it. A lot of power in that. Look for a pattern. And for each one of those, ask yourself, “Do I still do this? Do I do it in another way?”

Do you still play?

No.

S: Why?

It’s a long story.

S: Trombone is a very tricky instrument. What can you do to bring some of that back into your life? Now, it may not be realistic to gather a Dixieland band around you—it’s an interesting thought, though. But what version of it are you doing? How is it that piece of you is being expressed? And if it’s not, and when you ask yourself why not and the answer, is “It doesn’t matter that much,” put it aside and come up with a different one, because that’s not going to be one of those “held in time and space moments.” It’s looking at what brings you joy, what makes you happy. And that is not to say every moment of your life you should be happy and have no difficulties, and there’s no tears in your life; as long as you are in the world with other people, that’s just not going to be the case. But when you know those things that are your talents, when you know those things that make you happy, when you know those things that are a part of successes for you, then you can bring them back when you need them. And when you need them is when the passion starts winning. Because it will.

Do you remember falling in lust? Maybe some of you still are, and if that is the case, I’m very happy for you. But for most people there is that initial “Wow, just being around you fills me up with everything I could possibly need. Let me just breathe in the glorious smell of your tap shoes, let me taste the nectar of your . . .” Better stop there. “As often as possible, please.” And then one morning you wake up maybe a little too sore, or tired, or a little cranky, or one way or another the world has imposed itself just enough that you back away just a little bit—not even enough that anyone would notice, because a loss of passion happens because you’re not looking. It’s not when you’re not looking; it’s because you’re not looking. And that’s as true with a lover as with a job, with a group, with any kind of commitment.

So how do you get the passion back? Well, there is another piece of homework I have for you. It’s the “getting passion back” homework. And it’s a “Brilliance Journal.”

Getting passion back in your life is not about focusing on this one area where you’ve lost passion. It’s focusing instead on all of the wonderful, incredible, magical experiences of your life. When you’re working to get passion back in one area or one relationship, well, you’re really focusing on the negative, aren’t you? “Well, no, because I’m trying to make it good?” Right. You’re focusing on, “This isn’t working, so I’m doing all of this to make it work.” When you find you’re at a time in your life in which with somebody—or with some piece of your life—you’re without passion and you want to get passion back, be it sexual passion—this works just as much for that—be it work passion—just as much for that—at the end of every day, write down the things that were wonderful, great, brilliant. This will make one of the biggest, fastest, changes that you’ve seen of my “write this down” homeworks, because it changes your focus to that which is bursting with light. You’re seeing the wonderfulness of your life. You are remembering the good, which is a habit you get out of when you’re not getting all of the physical, mental, emotional cues, the big dose of hormonal cues that go with passion. It’s so easy for it to slip away bit by bit.

And it’s not just that area of your life, I promise you. When you’ve lost your passion for this—fill in the blank—I promise you, it’s not the only area of your life. I promise you, you have forgotten how to focus on the joy. And by getting your focus back on that joy, you’re building your muscles for that which is good to show itself to you, for “you being good” showing itself to you. For “the one you are with bringing joy” showing itself to you. Your whole life can change on this.

That’s also what makes it one of the most dangerous exercises I’ve ever given you. You know why?

The opportunity for change.

S: Can be very scary.

But it’s not automatic. You have to be willing and not afraid to embrace it.

S: Right. How do you know what it is you’re here to do? Find those things that throughout your life have brought you joy, made you laugh, that you remember as bringing you happiness. And look to see what is the seed of that harvest? How do you keep the passion for it going? Make a point every day to look for and write down a record of, “This day was brilliant because . . .” Because it puts the light back into all of those shadowy areas.

You’re at harvest time. What have you been harvesting? There is so much in front of you—so much joy, so much happiness. It’s what you’re meant for, but sometimes you forget how to see it and slowly forget how to live it. So, remind yourself every night. “Here are all the ways my day was great. This is how I laughed. This is what made me feel loved and good.” Write down the great stuff, because you start reminding yourself “It’s a good life and good things happen, and I’m ready for more.”

May your garden grow wildly prolific. May your joys be the zucchini of life—never ending, always looking for something to do with it.

Glochanumora.