What To Do With Leftover Turkey

November 29, 1998

Samuel: Hello, dears.

Hello, Samuel.

S: So, how’s your week been? [Long pause] Yes, it has been?

Eventful.

S: Eventful? Filled with event. Have you felt by any chance that the world shifted a bit, or maybe you did? Have you felt that perhaps there was just the slightest softening around the edges? Maybe your own? Have you found yourself feeling more connected, perhaps, to maybe even complete strangers? Maybe more in touch with your own internal self of love? Your connection of love with others?

Or maybe you’re experiencing the other end of it, which happens. It happens. Perhaps you’ve not been finding yourself experiencing quite the heart of love and joy, but maybe you’ve been experiencing that energy as anger, maybe, or fear. Because where there is not love, there is fear.

How have your dreams been over these last couple of weeks? Because your dreams are always an expression of how your spirit is doing, how your subconscious mind is doing, and how the two are putting together what’s going on with you.

And you had doors opening in your world. You have had an energy of love filling out, sort of as a small child fills out as they get larger and older. Aye. Is that a way to think of that? It fills out, that energy. Maturing. Coming to a completion, and you are touched by it.

The reactions are a response to where you are, where you’re going in your life right now. And as a particular gift, special gift, just for you. Tonight only! Aye, this group’s been to Egypt. All right.

The Universe allows you to see what your weak spots are, the ones that need to be shored up, filled out with that love, in a like fashion. What the parts are that are yet a bit toddler-like. It’s quite a gift, your reactions.

Tonight, I want to talk about what to do with leftover turkey. Aye. It’s fitting about now, isn’t it? Aye. Now let’s see, what can you do with it? Well, of course, for the most of you, you have just come off celebrating a holiday that’s dedicated to murdering birds. Right? We will celebrate and make sure that we have a big, fat, murdered bird on the table. Right? Make sure that it’s specially bred so that it has . . . never mind. That seems typically American, too, don’t you think?

And because, so very much in your society, the giving of food is a means of expressing love, then a holiday that centers around the eating of food, as this particular one certainly does, then you’re going to find very much that it brings up issues about love. You’re going to find that it brings up issues about family and partnership and relationships. You’re going to find that it brings up issues of sharing and caring. And it centers around the ritual of making a meal so large that the table is laden, because what does that represent?

Abundance.

S: Abundance. Sure. The abundance of the season. That’s good. The abundance of love and overflowing good will that’s being offered. Sure.

So you make and you give, and you make and you give, and you make and you give, and everybody fills themselves until they are the stuffed turkey, or something like that. And then you start clearing it away, putting it away. And that’s when you start with the leftover turkey. Right?

So, what do you do with it? Well, there are several things you can do with it. Actually, this is recipe time. For instance, you can freeze it up and then dole it out slowly over time. Anytime you want a special little meal, or perhaps any time that you want to remind yourself of that time that everybody was together, well, you can just fill up another plate of leftover turkey.

It’s an interesting reaction I’ve got in this room right now. A whole lot of you are saying, All right, are we really here talking about turkeys? And the other half is saying, Oh, I know just where he’s going. All right. And the other half is just sitting, waiting for the zing. Hah!

So you can freeze it up and dish it out slowly over a long period of time, as the mood strikes you, as the occasion permits.

Maybe what you want to do instead is just mix it up into something different altogether. What are some of the things you can mix it up into. You can make a soup with it, sure. Make a turkey stew or a turkey soup.

Turkey hash.

S: Turkey hash. What would be hash?

Mix up the turkey, chopped up in potatoes and onions, and make like a patty. Fry it up.

Nobody else is going to do that.

S: So you’ve got a very finely minced turkey that you can then fry up when you’ve mixed it with other vegetables and made sort of a turkey loaf out of it. Turkey patty. “Two all-turkey patties . . .”

[Someone finishes a fast-food jingle.]

S: That’s the one. Aye, all right. Well, you can make turkey patties. What else can you make up that takes it away from its original view?

Sandwiches.

Turkey mousse.

S: You can have . . . did I hear a turkey mousse? And turkey sandwiches, sure.

Salad.

S: And turkey salad. And turkey . . .

Turkey hot brown.

S: And a turkey hot brown. And what’s a turkey divine?

Oh, you throw broccoli on top of it.

You throw on some gravy and it makes sort of a turkey casserole.

S: So you’ve got a turkey that’s divine, even though it’s dead. And you’ve got a hot brown that’s a turkey.

You can make enchiladas.

S: So you can change its nationality. Spice it up a bit, make it forget where it came from. I’ve got a question about that, though. When you’re eating it, do you know that you’ve got turkey?

Yes.

S: Hash or patties or soup or stew or tetrazzini or delight or mousse or . . . I think they’re getting out of hand here. All right. You cooked it up. Why would you not know that it was turkey? You would know, wouldn’t you? So, no matter how you disguise it, no matter what else you do with it, no matter how long you wait before you haul it out again and put it on your plate, you know you’ve got turkey. You know you’ve got turkey. You know when you first had it. You know what the situation was that brought it up, and although it’s disguised well enough that you’re quite proud of what you’ve done with it, it’s still your turkey, isn’t it? Happy Thanksgiving.

That is very much what humanity does generally, what you do with “the turkeys” in your life. Now what would I be saying about the turkeys in our life? Obviously, I’m not talking about your large collection of feathered friends. Aye. Maybe so. [Laughs] I’m not obviously talking about the two-footed bird called turkey, wild or otherwise.

[…]

This has to be symbolic.

S: Indeed. But you also have, do you not, an expression in your life that somebody’s a turkey. Now, what do you mean by that? What do you mean when you say somebody is a turkey?

Not very bright.

S: Not very bright. They’ve done something silly or inappropriate. Or maybe even . . .

Less than honorable.

S: That works. Turkey. Aye. And every one of you has in your life turkey. You have those people or those situations, you have experience—bottom line . . .

Or you’ve been the turkey.

S: Perhaps in which you were the turkey. The star of the table. Finely cooked, beautifully dressed, turkey. But in your head you have leftover turkey. And what I mean by that is that you have your beautiful little hands wrapped around some experience that brought you pain or a feeling of stupidity or a sense of inappropriateness or an experience of dishonorable behavior, to or by. You have a turkey.

And you keep changing what it looks like and still serving it up. Maybe what you do is you put it in that freezer of yours, you think it’s heart, but it’s really cold storage. And whenever it seems appropriate, you pull it back out and you say, “Do you remember that turkey?”

Now, what might that turkey be? Give me a few examples of the sort of turkey I’m talking about. I’m talking about unforgiven experience. I’m talking about those treasured meals that you’ve fed on but not been nourished on. And if you were just thinking of the sort of hypothetical things I could be talking about, what are the sorts of things you might come up with?

The Christmas after my mother died, I purposefully got my dad a Christmas present, and that year he didn’t get me one. And I felt hurt and betrayed and all of that, even though he was grieving. And recently, over the last few months, I had an experience that I felt abandoned or I was upset, and it immediately brought me back to that. And the connection was wonderful, but I realized that that was a turkey.

S: Yes indeed. Lovely, lovely. That’s a very personal and very touching sort of experience. Perhaps you might want to come up with something much simpler, like the elementary school turkey or the . . . ideas?

Any pet peeves that make us judge or make me judge other people will quickly . . .

S: Personal issues that create a judgement.

Yes, and just keep that going, rather than looking at the peeve, seeing how I can get rid of it, and moving on.

S: Aye. [Issues] that tend to be held on to. What are a couple of examples of such pets? Aye.

I’m not sure it’s an example, but relationships. We tend to stay in relationships or continue to have friends or continue to participate in family functions, whether they are feeding us or not.

S: True. Think of a couple of situations, going along where Joyous was, about your personal issues that create a wall and a judgment in your life.

Faux pas, where you are trying to do the best you can and you’re well-intentioned, and what you do is totally inappropriate, and the result is embarrassment or humiliation.

S: Aye. Aye. That can be a turkey that you keep for a long time in order to make sure that you never have turkey again. You just keep eating that turkey with that being the idea. Aye.

Well, thinking that because you’ve had one disappointing experience with a person, that it’s going to be that pattern repeated or you see something similar with another person that they remind you of that experience. And so you think that that person’s going to . . .

S: “When I was twelve, I had this incredible turkey and now anytime I hear a gobble, I remember that turkey.”

Keeping people in boxes that they’ve outgrown, and never allowing them to do that.

S: True. That’s a good one. Sure. Aye.

Blaming people for their belief system, rather than accepting it and finding the commonality, rather than the differences.

S: Blaming, not accepting, refusing to find what is common. Refusing to seek unity. Paula, then David.

Situations in which you didn’t take care of yourself, and by not taking care of yourself you had to blame the other person, because you couldn’t take responsibility.

S: That’s a good one. Sure. Aye.

Somewhere, I’m just hearing the little voice in my head serving the turkey up to someone else. You know, “Don’t tell me I hurt you. Let me remind you of the time you hurt me.”

S: Yes, yes. Blame. Sure.

You have turkey in your life. Now, at a typical Thanksgiving holiday, why is it. . . . Shift gears. All right, shifted? Why is it that you do not just say, “Oh, look, leftover meat. All right. Goodbye,” and toss it. Why do you not do that? Why do you make a point of wrapping it up—I’m saying this to a room full of vegetarians. Why do you wrap it?

You’ve got too much invested in the meal.

S: Yes. You’ve got a lot invested in it.

Because you’ve always done it.

S: Just a moment with that one. And because you’ve got so much invested in it, you cannot simply let it go. You’ve built your whole life up around this—sometimes—mythology. You have paid a whole lot of dues.

Frank reminded a group he was with recently—certainly not particularly aware that there I was, listening in on his conversations—of a very lovely story about “I’ve paid my dues; you must as well.” Do you know what I’m speaking of, Frank?

No.

S: There once was a farmer. He needed some help. He needed some help gathering in the crop, and so he hired somebody to come and work, and said, “I will pay you . . .”

“. . . ten dollars for the day.”

S: “. . . ten dollars for the day if you’ll help me bring this crop in. I’m desperate, and there’s a lot of asparagus out there.” And so . . . or it was melons, or something like that. Thank you. And so they’re working away and come about noon time, the farmer looks around and sees somebody standing by the side of the field and says, “I’ll give you ten dollars if you’ll spend the rest of this half of the day helping us bring in this crop.”

And the first person took a look. Ten dollars for a half a days work? I’m only getting ten dollars for a full day’s work. That can’t be right. But did not say anything, just held on to it. A little further, a couple of hours on down, it was clear that it still wasn’t going to be brought in and so the farmer went out looking for someone else, and brought that person in, and said, “Can you help us? If you can help us before sundown in a couple of hours, I’ll give you ten dollars.” Two heads went up. Ten dollars? That’s what I have for half a day, a full day’s work. I don’t think that’s fair. Except, of course, the first one by this time was a little more indignant.

And, finally, with sundown very quickly approaching, the farmer went out and sought about five other workers and asked them to please come in. He’d give ten dollars to get it all up and out before the sun set in the next half hour, or so. And eventually, working together, they were all able to do it.

But once it was over and the farmer had the group in front of him and started paying ten dollar bills to all of them, the first worker was very angry. “How dare you do that! You’re giving them the same amount of money for working half an hour as you’re giving me for doing it all day. What’s that about? That’s not fair.”

All right, somebody, take it back. What’s my point? [Pause] That full of turkey are you?

Well, I was just thinking, there’s room all through that process for renegotiation.

S: Could have been room through the process for renegotiation. That’s true. Say it again Lou, love.

Lulu?

S: Lou, love. But Lulu if you wish.

They all negotiated for the same amount of money at that time.

That’s it.

S: Aye.

So what happens at that time is the contract.

S: Well said.

The first person was happy with the ten dollars, and had he not known what the other people were making, he would have been happy at the end of the day. So it shows me what comparative judgment does.

S: Good.

The person who began to see that other people were getting paid more, didn’t take care of his angry feelings at the time, but let them build up, and build up and build up so that it became worse and worse as the day progressed.

S: A lot of lessons in here. Where’s the point I was making?

I was going to say it seems like it’s a fair deal until you start comparing it, and then if it isn’t a fair deal, then you need to take care of it then or throw the dead turkey away. It’s like, stop it if it isn’t a good deal any more.

S: Aye. You’ve got this turkey. You have invested so much into it, you made this compact around this turkey, and so it means so very much to you because it’s yours. And it becomes the standard by which you judge anything that seems like it from there on. Unable to rejoice in the joy of another who for half an hour’s work gets ten dollars. Not knowing how much they needed it, just like you. Or did not need it, and were just being kind.

You hold on to the turkey because you paid for it. You paid for it. But here it comes, beloved: It might not have been something you had to pay for. Maybe it wasn’t your turn to cook. Just simmer a while. You have invested so much in taking care of your turkey, in keeping it available to pull out at a moment’s notice in order that you have something that reminds you that you’ve been hurt.

Or perhaps that reminds you that you’ve been even successful. Excuse me, Samuel, I think that you got those words crossed up there. It sounded like you said that sometimes the turkeys are those things that are successful in our lives. I believe that you have told us repeatedly to be able to remember in Sensurround our good powerful spiritual experiences, so you must have gotten that wrong.

I’m reminding you that some of you hold on to your one bright shining moment as a means of never having to have any others, lest they not be so good, lest it not give you the same thing, lest . . . you fill in the blank there.

The turkeys in your life can be those painful experiences in which you have been wounded and hurt and you’ve been a victim and you have established the victim-ology that goes with Colleen’s wound-ology you were discussing with me: the mastering of pain in one’s life because it reminds you of what you don’t want anymore, because it is something you never want to forget, because it had such a powerful impact on you, because it makes other people behave certain ways around you, because it gets you discounted admission in two cinemas. Whatever. Better parking places, I don’t know.

But some of you hold on to the good ones the same way. It was the most powerful, wonderful experience I’ve ever had. What a pity. What an incredible loss. You’ve not had one today? That’s a turkey. That’s a turkey.

You disguise it. You spice it up. You give it a different nationality, but it’s still that turkey in there, hidden a bit better.

How many ways do you eat turkey in your life? Turkey being those things that you hold on to that keep you from moving ahead, because you fear having more of the bad or the good. You’re fearing its duplication, so you hold it still.

Quick story. I like this story. I’ve always liked this story. Let’s see, four great spiritual students got together, decided that they were going to meditate in total silence on the opening of the next Heart Portal. They were going to light a candle to remind them of the light that they are, and use it as a point of focus to visualize a beam of light going up to a golden pyramid. Doesn’t matter.

And they were going to have that silent meditation for . . . how about all day, from the threshold of sunrise to the threshold of sunset. And so they sit; they find their heart tone. They begin with a merging heart tone, creating their personal spirals. And as they tone, don’t you know that that dawn breeze—or maybe it was their internal breeze—blows the candle out.

And the first one said, “Oh, darn, look at that. The candle went out.” And the second one said, “Oh, you’ve talked! We weren’t supposed to be talking now.” And the third one said, “You two just bicker all the time. Will you just shut up and keep going.” And the fourth one said, “I guess I was the most spiritual, because I did not talk.”

And those indeed are the four corridors to judgment in your life. The four great directions that your turkey payments are about. The four evaluations. What am I trying to say here? The four . . . costs.

The first one is the student who is caught by the world. Something out there gets you off track. “Well, the candle went out. We’re supposed to be meditating with this candle. Look, there’s the candle and it’s gone out. Well, there’s this irritation, I can’t keep going. There is this . . . there is . . . there is  . . . Look, it’s not what I think it should be. The candle’s blown out. All is lost.” Something in the road. Something in the world. Something out there. That’s one of the corridors to lack of power.

And then there’s the second. “Oh, look what you’ve done.” Blame. Blame is quick and easy, and it’s the cancer that eats your heart. Blame. “You did it. You ruined it all for everybody.” Forgetting perhaps that it would have been perfectly all right to remain quiet and keep doing what you were there to do, no matter what was going on out there. “Ah, but you see it all changed. It did not start out that way. We had this agreement.” Right. Just blame. Do not recognize that you took part. That’s good turkey. You can eat on it forever. It’s the bird that keeps on giving.

There’s the third. “Oh, you two, you always argue and fight. You never get along.” Again, the inability to continue on your path, because what’s happening with other people throws you off. It could have been just as easily,” The two of you get along so well, and your energy compliments one another’s so much, it makes me feel left out.” There’s always something to somebody whose issues are people, and always, always, that hallway directly parallel to the one right before it. It’s a blame corridor, because ultimately you’re blaming you for not being a part of that experience, whatever it happens to be. The tearing apart of the people in order to be relieved of your own duty.

And, finally, the one whose ego was so involved, so proud. “Hah, I did it better than all the rest. I never did talk.” Well, would that not be how it would have to be said? “Hah, I won! I did not talk.” Except just then. Just waiting, obviously not in that vision at all, just waiting for the opportunity to pounce up and be better. Good turkey. Good eating that one. Four paths to the turkey coop.

So what are you doing with your turkey these days? Making hash? Or what is that word?

Enchilada.

S: That’s the word. Aye. Enchiladas. Or stew.

Also, stew, also you can say you can make a turkey stew, symbolically, and it’s to continue stewing.

S: Ah yes, stew in your turkey. Or maybe you just keep it looking just like it started out, so that you can very regularly draw it out and show it to everybody and have it once again.

What can you do with it? I think this year it’s time to toss your turkey. Right. Clean out the freezer. Thaw out the heart. Feed it to the cat. Do not feed it to the cat; throw it out.

And how do you throw out something that has defined you for so long? How do you just rid yourself of something that has been your specialty dish? Everybody knows you make the best turkey, that you can do more with that same tired turkey than anybody. Everybody knows that. Well, what will you do when turkey mousse is no longer on your menu?

You will replace it. And that’s the question I leave you. You are about to move into what I gladly call the season of light, the season of hope. Somehow it has never stuck, calling it the time of the turkey. It isn’t there. You do not in your life release anything ever without replacing it with something else. And every one of you in here who at one time smoked and stopped will be very quick to agree that it does not always mean that you give up something not so good for something great. Sometimes you give up something not so good for something also not so good. Finally stopped smoking, but now I’m addicted to hard candy, because that’s what most people do, because they’re seeking that feeling.

Now, if you have been preserving your turkey inside that frozen heart of yours, and you remove the turkey from that frozen heart, you’re going to be seeking something that allows you to feel like your frozen heart is still safe. So you’re not going to be looking for something to melt it down. You’re not going to be looking for something un-turkey-like. You might go for chicken. Or . . .

Tofurkey.

It’s the tofu-based turkey.

S: Tofurkey. That’s sounds like something they should stop me from saying. Tofurkey! I hit my foot! Doesn’t it?

It’s a conscious act to replace with something good, and you must choose what it is you are going to replace the four great halls of judgment with in order to not be cooking one more turkey in your life. Sometimes I go a bit too far with these metaphors, don’t I?

[…]

S: Yes, indeed. You have turkey that’s been left over from the holidays of your childhood, and you have turkey that’s left over from this one. You have experiences that are based on things outside. You have turkey that tastes a whole lot like blame. Some of it is flavored with people stuff, some of it is ego stuff. The outside world. Blame. A lack of personal responsibility. The need to see oneself in a higher and better light. You have these turkeys in your life, and they will weight you. They will weight you down so that your experience in this season of light is filled with slowly rotting turkey. And it’s your conscious decision to break the pattern, to throw out the turkey, that’s going to make the difference.

“But wait a minute. It’s not fair that he’s getting paid the very same amount I am, because I have worked so hard and I have done so much, and I deserve it more.” Beloved friends, that’s turkey talk. Believe me, beloved ones, this Universe loves you so much that you always—I promise you—you do always get what you deserve.

You are here because, from the instant you said yes, in the light that you are to come here at this time, from that very instant, you have come here to help change this world. But when you’re as stuffed as the turkeys you hold around you, you can’t do much.

You can change this world, but you change this world by changing yourself, and it only makes a difference, it only happens—the change only happens—when it is made with love. You change this world by changing yourself with love.

Glochanumora. Happy trails.

Gobble, gobble, gobble.