The Year Of The Guardian

January 2, 2011

Samuel: Hello, dears.

Hello, Samuel.

S: (Looks around) It still tickles me to look around the room and, as I’m scanning about the room, all these golden pyramids pop up real fast. “Oops!” Just tell them, “You are there all the time,” and believe it, really believe it. And then it’s a little more seeable.

All right. Welcome to a new year and welcome to a year that’s not your old one. For a lot of ways, you’ve got to understand why I called last year the Year of Renewal. Perhaps not exactly the way you thought I meant it, aye? How did you renew in this year? What was reborn? What was shined and made better? What was new for you?

Bonnie.

My knees.

S: Both of your knees. Aye. That’s right. Very true.

Mary Claire.

Our home was completely renewed, and us along with it. It was an excellent thing actually.

S: Aye.

My relationships. I looked at each of my deepest . . . and all of my relationships, and renewed my commitments. And that meant change, too, because there were some that I drew closer to me and some that I felt like I needed more distance.

S: Aye. Which was easier? Letting go or drawing closer?

Letting go.

S: Aye.

Did you say easier?

S: Yes.

Oh. The opposite of that, sorry. I was focusing on what was more difficult—to let go. It was easier to draw closer and to feel the gratitude of how the relationships have evolved, and recognize that, and see it in a new light.

S: And it’s important to realize that just as Lisa said that for her it was easier to—now I’m confused because of the switch—to draw closer to you, for some it’s easier to let go than it is to draw closer to you. Think about that for a moment. How good are you at creating relationships in your life? How good are you at getting together with people you enjoy without it having to be some big deal? How good are you, on the other hand, at knowing when it’s time to let go of something or someone? Not all of the relationships in your life are meant to last your whole life through, because you change, don’t you? And what you had in common twenty years ago, or two years ago, you may not anymore. Do you hold on anyway? It’s probably one of the most important aspects of your life—one of them. Knowing what to reach out and draw to you and knowing what to let go of—and doing it. That’s good.

Renewal, more. Aye! Oh, yes!

I learned how to really let go, and in ways that were different than I thought. I had to let go of a marriage, I had to let go of my home, and all my worldly possessions now fit in a ten-by-seven storage bin and a 2000 Nissan Sentra. And in doing that—I even had to let go of two animals; very difficult to do. But in doing that, I learned how to receive, something I was never good at, and I saw that where my animals ended up, particularly my horse, is where he belonged. And it was a gift to the person who received him and to him. So by letting go I helped create that, and yet I thought I was doing a bad thing by letting go at first. So learning to receive and seeing that letting go could be a gift to others.

S: Very nice. Aye. Very nice. Aye.

My congregation, the Unitarian Universalist congregation where I’d been a shepherd for a dozen years, discerned together that we’d reached the end of the road as a congregation, that the Universe was telling us very clearly it wasn’t financially sustainable and thus it was not sustainable in terms of personnel effort. And about two-thirds of us managed to make the switch and merge with another “U” congregation. And so that vote happened in June, and so we started meeting with them when they got their own building at the beginning of September, which was a huge renewal for that other congregation. And the blended congregation has programs now, especially in music and performing arts, and for the kids, that neither congregation could ever have put together on their own. And it couldn’t have happened unless we’d have been willing to take . . . well, it was working its way to the two-by-four. And say, “Okay, this is for building something.”

S: Nice. Really nice. More? Aye.

My mother made her transition this year, which allowed for a lot of releasing and recreating who I am without parents, and I also went back to school to make a change in my career. Lots of renewal this year.

S: And I really like the choice. It’s very easy when you lose a parent—and particularly when it means that you’re an orphan now—it’s very easy to just spend your life feeling like something’s missing. Now truth be told, losing a parent, no matter how the relationship is, is different, has an effect on you that other deaths don’t. It’s different. And it has quite a touch. But it’s very, very easy to just mourn that loss and not know what you are now. And you took a stand, you made a change. Sort of like walking off that cliff. And you’re loving it. And you’re good at it. It’s grand. One more.

All right, I’ve got the front row tonight, they’re on. Yes!

I got in touch with my dance again in a way much bigger than I have before, and it’s had me look at my relationship with myself, with my larger self, which of course has trickled into every area of my life. But then it’s been about trusting myself, it’s been about empowering myself and joyfully serving in spite of what my human says.

S: Allowing yourself to—well, in a different way—to walk off that cliff as well, eh, and see what comes out of it.

And what’s coming out of it is grand because it’s showing me when I open myself up, the Universe makes use of me.

S: Touching lives across country, you have been, and that’s very powerful.

What do you want this year to be for you? I will tell you that I’m calling the year, as many of you know already, the Year of the Guardian. I’m calling it the Year of the Guardian because you are going to see the impact of Guardians in a way greater than you have so far. And I want you to think about that for a moment.

A Guardian is one who has chosen to come here at this time to guard and guide life force on this planet to bring to fruition the completion of the sacred plan for this planet. Guardians have a compact, not about who they are, but to embrace and enliven what they are.

A Guardian is here to make the world a better place, to put it simply. And the best place, the best thing you can do to make this world a better place is to be the best you so that you can become what you are more easily. Do you understand that progression? Because there’s a lot of “whos” and “whats” in there.

It is vital, more so than ever before, that you understand that, because what Guardians do has an effect in the world. If you think about it for a moment, things that you’re doing you start seeing happening around you. Things that you’re thinking about even start coming into the philosophical consciousness of others. Even odd little things like the kinds of foods you buy starts becoming the next big thing. Your being consciously, purposefully, functioning at your best, well it follows that bit by bit the world will begin consciously, fully functioning at its best.

The kinds of things you want to see in the world this coming year are the things you want to see in yourself this coming year, because you will manifest it in the world by manifesting it in yourself, because the world follows your lead. Now, of course, the world does not actually think it’s following your lead. It’s responding to an energetic summons of sorts—what you think is an energy response, what you think sends that energy out into the world—but it is multiplied profoundly. And those who are beginning to make changes receive that energy and it translates and manifests within themselves. So suddenly they are thinking, “You know, I want to try this kind of soy milk.” Eh, how about almond milk?

How do you milk an almond? Little tiny . . . (laugher)

Or there’s a lot of red in tonight’s audience, or you decide that you want to start wearing brighter, happier colors, and you’re wearing red, and passion and delight, and you see two things happen. You start seeing more people eating red, and on the fashion runways there’s a lot more red. And you also start seeing articles about passion and focused intent, which the color red can also represent.

Anybody got any examples of the kinds of things I’m referring to, things that you may have seen changing in the world as it has in yourself? Lakshmi, good.

We send energy and we ask energy for “fast, fun, easy.” And the other day I saw a billboard that said, “fast, free, easy,” or something like that.

S: Almost got it! Almost got it! Yes. Well, I guess the world may consider free to be fun. So we’ll give it to them for now, eh? Aye.

Well, years ago Dr. Alex in Pittsburgh turned me onto a site called iherb.com. This is not an advertisement, because it was a cheap place to order certain supplements that were kind of hard to find. Well, I use it and I pass the information onto other Guardians. That website is now a huge, huge firm, and they sell food. You can order gluten-free stuff and you can get it for cheaper, and if you order at least a hundred dollars’ worth the shipping is free.

S: Actually, she means it is an advertisement for them. But your point is well taken, and in fact, have you noticed that when Guardians start supporting a place it gets big, it does well, it gets noticed? That’s right.

I had over the last few years talked to my daughter on a number of occasions about being a vegetarian, which was just a wall, not even an issue she was ever going to consider. And then she called me a few weeks ago and said, “Naia,” which is her daughter, my grand-daughter, “Naia and I have decided we’re going to be, going to go vegetarian.” Out of the blue, and I said, “Oh, Okay. Great.”

S: “And I thought of it all myself, too.” [laughing] It’s actually becoming sort of fashionable not to eat your brother and sister creatures, isn’t it?

Kay, then Paula, and Nancy and Gail. Not Kay, yes Kay. It was Gail. Sorry love. Gail.

Watching the Rose Bowl Parade after our ritual, there was a float that had two dragons on it.

S: I have enjoyed that one a lot. Yes.

I’ve struggled for several years with the white sugar, the sweets, that kind of thing. I’ve found that agave syrup really doesn’t spike up my blood sugar; my body stays balanced with it. I went to Kroger the other day and they’re putting out their own brand of agave syrup. I was like, “Whoa!”

S: Ooo!

I saw a commercial yesterday on TV, and I can’t honestly remember exactly what it is, but it was for something called “The Guardian Project.” I don’t know whether it’s a television series or a documentary or a movie. But all of a sudden I perked up and saw, “The Guardian Project.”

S: Lovely, lovely.

I was listening to NPR—this was several months ago—and they had some gentlemen on a roundtable discussing nutrition. And they were debating the values of different kinds of foods, and this gentleman popped up and said “Do not eat anything with a face or a mother,” and I went . . .

S: Word for word, no less. Aye.

I had noticed—I think it was a year or two—that you were working with leadership on transparency, and it seems like that’s the buzzword now with the Obama government. That was his goal, the transparency, and I always thought that was more than a coincidence.

S: Aye. You have a profound effect on the world, and I know that in your lives you want one of those kinds of things in which you start it, you see it go through, and see the end result of it, and you can pat yourself on the back. And it’s nice when the world offers you that kind of thing. But the fact of it is, it’s rare that that really is how your work happens. It’s not a flash of blinding light, that’s right! And yet, you are seeing it. You’re seeing it and you’re going to be seeing more and more of it. And that is one of the most exciting, delightful, wonderful, and absolutely shaking-in-the-boots scary things that I could tell you is coming about, because, think about it: what you think is going to show up in the world. What you think is going to show up in the world. What you do is showing up in the world. What you don’t do, when you don’t think, when it’s handled poorly instead of well, it’s very exciting and very scary because the world in many, many ways is very much like an infant right now—very impressionable, because a leap has been made in consciousness. It’s not the biggest one that’s coming, but it’s a leap. That means that there is a blank slate of sorts, and with your leadership, as we have discussed, you’re going to be writing life’s instructions with your life this year. Should that scare me?

If you allow yourself to seriously think about what you want this year to mean, what you want to put forth on that slate, it’s not resolutions—“I resolve to . . .” It’s deeper than that. Perhaps resolutions of the heart, or maybe just out and out that horrible “C” word, commitments.Think for a moment about your life. I regularly use the idea of pie charts. I love pie charts. It’s just such a delicious visual, isn’t it? So you have a pie, and the ways you spend your time are the pieces of this pie. The first thing you want to look at is, “How many pieces is this pie cut into?” Because frankly so many of you are just scattered and spread way too far. You have so many pieces of life pulling you that all you ever feel is pulled. It’s very hard to make a decision in this area because there’s all of these other areas that need your attention, too. How many pieces are in your pie? Look at how you spend your time.

Do you know how to know what it is you really love? Look at how you spend your time and your money. What you do with your time and what you do with your money, in this country particularly, is an expression of what means much to you. If as a Guardian your desire is to express your greatest spiritual self, to live a life impeccably lived with love at all times and in all ways to be the example the world needs, to lead the way through the doorway into a brighter and better world, to make it a better place to be what you are, at your best, if that is your desire, then how many of those pieces of pie reflect that. Because you see, your heart self, your truest, self, your truest self, your spiritual self, but that tends to put a connotation on it that makes it sound like it’s something you should just do one day a week and get knee calluses while you’re at it . . . whereas that heart function of true Source love in your life, should touch every piece. It should not be relegated to its own little section so that when you’re doing this section it has nothing to do with that one.

You are here to make this world a better place. You’re not going to do that—you’re not going to do that—if your spiritual life is a piece you can let go of and come back to. It has to be everything. It has to be everything. Because, you see, your function in your career can be done with love at your best and your highest, and your function as partner or as a parent can be done at your best and at your highest, but it takes consciously making it so. And that’s really easy to forget. The power of your spiritual experience is found when that spiritual experience empowers your whole world. Your whole world. Because when that happens, your whole world becomes empowered. Too long for a bumper sticker, but it was profound.

Love and your ability to love, to both give it and receive it, is the mark of a Guardian. What do you love? Who do you love? And if your answer was everything, that means nothing. I’m asking you to think it through, specifically. And here’s why: because very much the key to this year—no, that’s not accurate—the key to you enjoying this year is by way of your truly knowing yourself. And if you simply think in generalities—“I love everyone, I love everything”—then you’re avoiding really knowing you.

What do you love? Sometimes you don’t know what it is you love, you sort of know more easily what you don’t love. All right, what don’t you love? Because it’s just as important to know what you do not want in your life as what you do want in your life.

Living love. Love is the force of Source in this world. Love is the force of Source in this world. Which is to say that when you are functioning in love you are functioning as Source in this world. And don’t you think the world needs a little more of that? So if you’re going to function in love, what does that mean? Well, let’s see . . . lots of sex, right? Isn’t that what love is? Isn’t it called making love? Right? All right, one tiny portion of it, yes. That’s just one tiny portion of it. Because love is so much more than that. Give me a few versions of love.

Kindness.

S: Kindness, yes absolutely.

Compassion.

S: Yes.

Setting boundaries and saying no.

S: And you know, children especially, whether they’re four or forty, don’t like that one.

Forgiveness, acceptance, and detachment.

S: Forgiveness, acceptance, detachment, which actually was said backwards. Detachment has to come first; otherwise, you cannot accept, which lets you forgive. Absolutely love. Suzanne.

Service.

S: Yes. Yes. And I will tell you something a bit . . . expand on that just a little. Service is an act of love. And it is true that what you do in your free time says a lot about what you love; it says a lot about what you really are. What do you do in your free time? But you know, the mark of a Guardian is serving even if you don’t have free time. Setting it up into your life as a scheduled commitment no different than if you took on a second job.

And now I want to tell you something really scary: You’re not happy, and you’re certainly not fulfilled, if you’re not regularly serving, because you’re here to give, your heart delights in doing for others. Now, of course, I think that’s might handy. No odd sideways pun intended with that, but really that’s the way you’re made—-every one of you. That’s how you are. You love to love. And Guardians’ spiritual beings are the most generous people on the planet. There is a desire to give or the other extreme is true—because of pain damage, in which the giving nature becomes covered over as a protective mechanism and they become stingy, miserly with their time, their money, the ways that they give to the community, even to themselves. I’m going to say that one again. Stingy when it comes to themselves. I should be hearing a room full of [inhale], “Oops!”

It’s comforting.

S: To know you’re at the extreme? Service is an expression of love. More.

Generosity. Sharing. The willingness to share just because you know you should even when you don’t feel like it and do it.

S: Yes, that’s right. Nancy.

Trust.

S: Trust, Yes, yes! Aye.

Unity, seeking coming together.

S: Good, good. Yes.

Sacrifice.

S: Yes. And you know, sacrifice, it’s one of those scary words, but you know truth of it is, it’s kind of like a hero. You know how the heroes always say, “I was only doing what was right at the time. I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I was just doing what I needed to right then.” That’s how it is with sacrifice. In the truest and best sacrifice, you were so pleased to be giving what you can you didn’t think of it as, “I’m losing something so important to me . . .”

What do you sacrifice? And is your life showing you that it’s worth those sacrifices? If not, maybe you ought to take a look at why you’re sacrificing what you are. I am amazed sometimes how some of the brightest beings I know have a tendency to live a life someone else wants for them part of the time. Yes, sacrifice is a part of love as well. More.

Learning to receive and thereby allowing others to give.

S: The gift of receiving because it allows another to give. That one must be a really hard one for you, isn’t it? I often have to remind people, do not take away his opportunity to give to you by insisting on doing it yourself. By insisting on doing it your way, on your timing, because then nobody else can help you with it. Do not take away the opportunity for somebody to love you by serving you, giving to you, doing for you. Learn to receive with grace. Nice.

Creation.

S: Creation as a function of love. Yes.

[…]

S: Creation as creativity, Creation as creator energy. The allowing of something new is creativity; the creation of something new is creator/creating energy. And you bring Source into the world when you recreate it in love. Yes.

When I think of recreating, I think of laughter and play.

S: Absolutely. Humor. Laughter is not only vital for your physical being, it is literally a massage of all of your insides. That’s not “heh-heh-heh,” laughter. It’s that deep heaving breath; laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh until you cry. Laughter is vital to your being. But laughter follows you through the ages. Humor is a function of Source—have you not noticed? Humor is a function of Source. Source does more than have a really good sense of humor by just watching you, though it is a pretty good show. Your sense of humor, including —absolutely vital to your good health—your ability to laugh at yourself, which by the way is very different than your ability to make fun of yourself, is important to your physical wellbeing, your mental wellbeing, and is a part of your spiritual wellbeing. Absolutely.

Bonnie.

Appreciation and gratitude, I think, is a part of that receiving; to really truly appreciate and have the gratitude.

S: Aye. Appreciating, being grateful, and saying thank you, being thankful, are functions of love, because you feel those things, because you see beyond the outer version. You’re grateful for, you are thankful to.

Lillibeth.

Being able to see the miracles in every day.

S: To see the miracles, the beauty, the joy, the power. Do you know the key to seeing miracles every day?

Looking for them.

S: How have you been doing—well, I guess it’s over now—with your month of miracles? Frank.

It’s been great. And I had forgotten lately to write them down, but I was actually . . . my phone has a little notepad and I would pull it out and write down. And it’s amazing not only how many miracles there are . . .

S: Enough to go around for everyone. Loaves and fishes.

. . . I started realizing what I usually thought of as the common, ordinary things in my life are really miraculous things. It made life so much more enjoyable, and made me so much more grateful and appreciative of life, because miracles are really a gift. And I often see them just as, “Oh, that worked out great, didn’t it?” or “Well, that’s working out; thank you,” but they were miracles. It was a real gift to me to do that.

S: There’s a phrase—-and the word isn’t quite with me right now—that is sometimes said that this generation—got it—has “entitlement issues.” They seem to be feeling as though they are entitled to things; they have these great expectations of whatever. And when you see the world as filled with miracles, then you’re not being entitled and you’re not holding on to expectations. Or to turn that around, if you’re somebody who has been working on letting go of expectations—and if you haven’t been you should be; you know who you are—then start looking for miracles until you find them, and then start seeing them every day because they are everywhere, and seeing them changes you. And the whole game, really.

Jan.

What was interesting for me when you asked us to start looking for miracles was the form that they came in. And again, what was I expecting?

S: Releasing expectations, right?

. . . what was the miracle. An example that happened within a week of what another was, I was sitting by the pool at Nancy Carpenter’s home, where I am living, and there is a little waterway there, and I was talking on the phone to another Guardian, and all of a sudden I said, “My goodness, have you ever seen pelicans in your backyard?” And the answer was, of course, no, and there were two pelicans flying back and forth in front of me and joined all of a sudden by a great heron—great egrets—and along the other bay little white ibis and then a single duck coming down. I said, “And the duck is going . . . he just dived down,” and I became speechless when up came twelve ducks in perfect formation, and I had a bird show basically in front of me. That was a miracle. “This is my miracle today!” And that’s the parting of the seas, kind of. I got a Disney bird show. On the other hand, a very close friend, pastor of my church, lost his twenty-four-year-old daughter very suddenly to a pulmonary embolism. And I was very worried about to actually meet with them; what do you say? And I happened to be in Tampa that weekend and decided I would go to church. And I was very late, so late that I thought, I shouldn’t even go; this is going to be embarrassing, I’m so late. But when I did, the sanctuary doors were closed and in the […] were Craig and Donna who were waiting until everyone was gone. They came late on purpose so they could sneak up into the balcony in the back and be there for church, and I had private time to be with them, just to hold them and I had no words. That was a miracle that I was late and they were there.

S: I love so much to see the way that the Universe gives you what you want. What’s the key to that?

Letting go and receiving what’s been given.

Not judging.

Being clear on what you want.

S: You get what you want when what you want is in alignment with what the Universe wants for you. You can pretty well guarantee it, and it comes about quickly when that’s the case. When that’s not the case, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to get it, but it takes longer to put all of those free-will passageways together so that you’re on the right road for that thing. Might take longer than you’re going to be here for that to happen. But if you want it now, then you put out there, “This or something better for the highest good,” and mean it. When it doesn’t happen, you know it wasn’t the highest good; and when it does happen, you know you’re on the right road. And that’s a miracle. A beautiful one, in fact.

I love watching the way that the Universe changes the flow of the planets to give you want you want. And I love watching the way the Universe refuses to change the pathway of the ant to make sure you don’t when that’s the right thing.

This is a pivotal year. It’s full of promise, opportunity, there is so much potential and I know that because of you. You have so much promise, so much potential, and so many opportunities before you to live the love of Source in this world and be a force of power for that which is right and good, and change this world to something better, to bring this planet and all life force on it to its highest and best function, which is love, and therefore fulfill the sacred plan for this planet. This is a pivotal year for that work.

I have big plans. You have big plans. Let us see what we can do this year to put our big plans together and make this world a better place. Make your world a better place by doing just that. I commit to do everything I can to make that as easy as possible. Please want easy.

It’s a great year for dancing; it might be a great year to learn how.

Glochanumora. Happy trails.