Flying Free

Image

“Flying Free”

Photo by Stephanie K. Nead

Hello Friends,                                                                                                       May 2012

Welcome to summer, which by the lunar, more seasonally sensitive calendar, started about a week ago.   Flowers are blooming everywhere, trees are sending forth pollen and new leaves; life is renewing itself after winter’s hibernation and nourishment.  The sun’s warmth kisses each thing awake, including sleepy humans.  The annular Solar eclipse is about to happen.  I hope you have enjoyed it, each in your own style.

I also hope your winter’s rest has been rejuvenating and that life is presenting you with wonderful opportunities this summer. 

Below is an excerpt from Our Friends, as well as a poem from me (my poetry seems to arise from the same source as Our Friends, however one might name that beautiful mystery.) 

May you be blessed with all your dreams and all your needs fulfilled through the movements of your life.

Love,

Stephanie

Our Friends

This is always the challenge of what you call the spiritual quest: the cleansing of consciousness in order to make space for the purest essence of your Being and heart–the sunbeam of the sun, the spark of Divine at your core, for which this body and this lifetime where created—to pour through your body in service to and love for this life, this Earth, this Creation. 

The ultimate spiritual teacher is moment-to-moment living.  Tangled threads of conflict, anxiety and pressure show you the knots in yourself.  Daily life bumps you into the residues, toxicities, beliefs, patterns, and inheritances of a lifetime (or more) that call for release, asking to be reframed and detoxified.  Your tight places call to be transformed, composted into nourishment through your journey, so that you might freely and fully give your gifts in and to this life.

Learning the ways to bring this transformation about is the exploration.  Feel, in your body, the energies, emotions and habituated patterns you are carrying.  What you shy away from, what is uncomfortable or painful, what you do not want to feel—these are the knots. Ask: how can I begin to dissolve this; how can I begin to soften around it so that I can work with it differently?  How can I begin to move within it?  How can I loosen to create an interface between me and it, so that it is not controlling–I am not being controlled–by what comes at me from inside or out?  This is a core challenge of the spiritual life and the consciousness-emerging process. 

This is your journey through the body now: to engage and deepen within the body. Your body is your guide for cleansing and ultimate knowing.  Listen for its nudges; begin to honor and listen, profoundly and deeply.  Let your body guide you by deepening within it even in those times when you find it difficult to feel your intuition or hear your still, small voice.  Go deep within and your body will bring forth both your intuition and your small voice. You will hear them as you breathe beneath the layers of habituated tension, anxiety, worry, and reaction.  Deepen into your body to where you find rooted strength and courage.  As you do so, you will be able to let go of old habits of emotional and physical holding. 

Bring yourself with faith to the exploration and journey; all will be well.  Faith is the ability to trust and not know at the same moment, brought together in the same “emotion,” in one felt-sense.

The ultimate challenge of spiritual unfolding, of Becoming, is to bring through whatever is occurring in the moment the Essence and heart of your Being,  Faith is the doorway, because Essence cannot enter where self holds tight the reigns.

Our Friends are available for private sessions, offering specific insight, guidance and practice for your personal journey.  Contact Stephanie at 541-292-9390 or sknp4710@aol.com

Awakening

 

Awaken body

Wake in body

Wake embodied

 

I long

To awaken

Fully

Embodied

 

Who awakens?

Not I

Who longs

I prevents waking

 

Not body

What is vehicle for seeing

Feeling

Cannot be asleep

 

What then

Has slept

To wake

Embodied?

 

Only I

Who thought

Herself

Awake

When life was thoughts

 

Life embodied

Now shows

Sleep in thought

 

Can I waken here?

Can thought-I awaken embodied?

Need she do so?

 

Or

Is it more important

The eye-opening One

And the body

Who

Ever awake

Become known

 

The One

Innocently and eternally

Being

Discovering

 

Opens the eyes

And Is

Embodied

 

 © Stephanie K. Nead, 2009

 

Healing

"Dancing Together" Stephanie K. Nead

From a recent session:  With permission, I share it here.

Question:  How to create prosperity, abundance…of money, of joy, of love?

It is to differentiate from the you, you were taught.  It is to differentiate from the you who feels so small and dark and weak and hurt, and cleave to the strength of your soul, of your gifts, of your mind, of your Being.  To know that your soul is always there in all its purity, beauty and strength, that love is always with you.

We know there are times when you feel you cannot trust, have faith, feel loved, when you feel that all of your fear and pain comes between you and communion, comes between you and Creation.  Yet, everything that you need is there.  All of Creation, and all the allies you need, are ever with you. 

Be in process: feel yourself, be true to yourself.   Feel the negative experiences of this child you were, this adult you have been, what you went through, how painful it was.  Look at and learn the imprints it gave you, see how you have lived by those.  These things are important. 

It is important to breathe this, to sweat it, to swim it, to work it, to walk it, to yoga it, to scream it, to cry it, to be with you, to be with the you who has felt hurt, and to nourish and nurture that you in a way that you never received before and that only you, only you, with G-d, with Creation, only you can give this to yourself, because it is from you that you need to know you can get it at all times, the one who never leaves you. 

This is a very human process.  Pain does not mean you are wrong or bad.  Often it means that a healthy part of self has been pressed down for a long time.  It struggles to rise and be free.  In your learned holdings, you feel pain. 

See it as a process to freedom, a process you can only engage by engaging, by breathing, being present.  So often adults do to themselves what they were taught as children: that freedom comes through bondage, the bondage of suppression, repression, “pretend,” denial. 

Thus, the free self, the full soul, the life-force of full breath and embodiment/incarnation remains unexpressed, and the struggle takes new forms. 

You must clear the pain, you must listen to it; you must be with your whole self, the whole experience of your body and being and life, so your soul, with your gifts, can come through your body and Being and life with greater and greater clarity.  It will bring wholeness and richness, nectar and nourishment, more and more and more as you clear what needs to be cleared, by listening to yourself, to what you experience, giving your ear to yourself. 

You can give to yourself the listening.  You can give to yourself the truth of your experience and your feelings.  You can listen to you and care for you, own and honor and protect and nurture and love you in the truth of your experience.  In that, you will heal and you will bring in more light and more openness, more expansion of your soul and your Being, and you will gain confidence.

Most humans lack confidence.  The part of you that is wounded and hurt feels so weak, feels incapable of doing the work of your soul.  You see it, you feel it, you know it is there, but you are more grounded in the pain, in the ways it has bound you and ground you down.

And so you need to be present with yourself, you need to clear out the pain.  Through this, you gain confidence that pain is not going to overwhelm you, is not going to overtake you.  You gain confidence as you have more and more space in yourself, in your life, as you have more energy in your days for the flowing of your soul, for the energies of your soul to come forth and be.  You gain confidence that you will follow through, that you will be able to stay in that light of Being, that you will be able to be the wholeness of your soul, because the pain will no longer be constantly threatening to surface and drown and overwhelm you. 

This is a necessary process, this relieving, this letting the pain out like opening a dam, letting it move, releasing it from your body so that you can be free.  It is in openness; it is in letting your cells and your body speak and release, through your movement, your energy, your thoughts.  Through this you grow clear for the flowing of your soul, in all the ways that your soul wishes to flow. 

Know, learn, realize, feel that your gifts are always there.  Your gifts are always with you.  The strength of your gifts is always there. The truth of your gifts is always there.  The need is to live in genuineness, in truth, in clarity of communion within yourself, and to bring forth who you are with a clear, rooted, groundedness, without dishonesty, without hype, without persona, without pretense.  You can learn to do this. 

Be in your path, be true to your soul, and in being true to your soul, remember that your soul is in your gifts, not in your pain.  You pain is in your body.  Your pain is not your soul.  Your beauty, your gifts, your strength, your aliveness is your soul.

In this, you will remember life and light, happiness and joy, prosperity.  It will bring your own love into the world, and in bringing your own love into the world, you will draw to you a love song…and in that there is abundance, there is prosperity, there is care, there is joy, there is all. 

Gift Received…

My thanks to Leslie for the letter below, which she sent out today.  Sometimes reading Our Friends words through other people’s eyes gives me new appreciation.  So it was today.

My life has been rather busy recently, and I have not had time to get a new post completed.  I hope to do so very soon.  Inspiration rises with the return of the sun in our parts.  I hope spring is blessing you.  Stephanie

 

 

Praying for the water of our water planet, of our bodies, of our Life...water responds to our prayers...we can offer our gratitude, our apology, our desire for forgiveness...in so doing we join and all life on Earth flows together...

 

Since I got the green light from Immigration, I have been listening to some of the many recorded sessions I have had with Stephanie Nead and Our Friends during the last 12 years or so.  I don’t know what I would have done without their insights, explanations and loving support to make extremely huge changes in my life during those years, realigning my outer world to better match the essence of who I truly am.  
I went online to see what they have to say about the current global situation and found two web pages of particular interest.  I’ve included the two quotes from one page here – and highly recommend that you check out the other webpage and Stephanie’s whole website online: https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/humans-gaia-en-earthed-2/.
Blessings to each one of you!  It is indeed a blessing to me, to have you be part of my world!
Leslie
 
Quote of the Day 
In honor of the Summer solstice, I am posting two quotes of Our Friends.  They both feel essential to this 
day.      -Stephanie

Disconnection from the Earth leads to disconnection from your own bodies and one another. 
Whether you are disconnecting or connecting, it is always reinforcing. Connect more deeply, consciously and consistently with yourself, with one another, with animals, with the stars, with the energies of Creation, and you reinforce connection.  Disconnect from yourself, and you cannot help but disconnect from all others.  You must be connected, with compassion, acceptance, love and peace with yourself. 
For most humans, it is most difficult to connect within themselves in a loving, accepting, respectful way, and then to connect with other human beings in a loving, respectful, accepting way.  It is the most challenging work for human beings right now.                               Our Friends
 
Blessing and Gratitude 
It is a great gift to Creation, to the Spirit of Life, that you feel richly blessed.  It is a huge blessing to Creation when you take in, richly and deeply, all the blessings of your life, knead them like bread dough within you, so they nourish your very being.  Such deep receiving sends out, like rainbows, loving 
blessings to Creation.  Your gratitude nourishes the energies of Life. Gratitude is life force.  To feel appreciation of your blessings is to bless.  And the blessing is a real thing, with living energy.   Our Friends 

Greetings Everyone!

Gifts Gained through Earth Communion

Below is a letter from my friend Leslie Lightfall.  If you have read previous posts I’ve shared from Leslie, you know she is deeply committed to communion with Earth/Gaia and brings forth some of the most beautiful songs of the Earth.  I share this letter, because it illumines the gifts gained through committment to communion. 

However you feel called to communion, follow your path.  It will unfold for you over time with deep blessings.  What may seem miraculous to others, may be more truly an expression of profound attention, deep listening, wholehearted surrender, and open hearted receiving, as well as committed work and intention.  Leslie’s experience is inspiring.  Blessings, Stephanie

Earth, Water & Fire Glory

Hello, all you beautiful people!

I feel extremely blessed at this moment sitting here in Dunedin as I have been watching the devastation in Christchurch on TV.  I am about 5 hours south of Christchurch and had been planning on leaving for that city in two days to meet Leanne at the airport. I woke up in the middle of the night feeling the brief roll of an earthquake, and the strong impression of the Christchurch airport being closed and of me canceling my trip up north.
However, when I talked to the other people here where I’m living, neither of them had felt anything.  I went on to the NZ earthquake tracking website and it didn’t show any earthquake activity during the middle of the night.  I still felt very strongly that I was being guided not to go to Christchurch and though I knew it would make it extremely difficult for Leanne to get around when she arrived, I sent her an email telling her about my personal internal earthquake and that I felt I had to follow my guidance and wouldn’t be meeting her in Christchurch after all.
I sent this off about 3 or 4 hours before the 6.3 earthquake hit, doing so much damage, closing the airport.  When I heard about the quake it validated my following my intuition, even when the outer events didn’t support what I was being made aware of.
I deeply appreciate those of you who have communicated your concern for my welfare and want you all to know that I’m just fine and dandy.  I have texted my friends in Christchurch and as of the first earthquake they are still OK.  The news broadcasts have shared many stories on the TV.  One precious one was about an elderly woman who was totally disoriented walking up to a policeman and getting a hug (people were downtown and their cars were crushed under piles of rubble, cells phones not working, phones lines down and they had no way to get home or find out if their loved ones were OK and were wandering around in a daze, not know what to do).  
I know from the core of me that sending loving energy to the Earth (and to the little pieces of Earth walking around in human form), is terribly important for all of us to being doing right now and for the foreseeable future. Particularly in groups.  I invite you once again to sing to the Earth!  Talk to the Earth!  Bless her with your prayers and love!  And LISTEN when she/your inner guidance speaks to you about where to go and what to do!  Hold a picture of the Earth in all her magnificence and immense beauty and perfection deeply in your mind and heart.  
Thank you, each one of you, for being part of my world!
Much love, aloha and warm chi to all,
Leslie

Leslie Lightfall
Email:  llightfall@gmail.com 

Website:  www.earthsongnetwork.net

Blessings as Winter spins into Spring…unfolding new life…

May Gaea Be Our Guide...

“I bend my knee beside the pool of blessings at the threshold of eternity.”        (traditional Hebrew prayer: translation by Rabbi Sue Morningstar*)

The ultimate spiritual teacher is moment-to-moment daily living.  The ultimate challenge of spiritual unfolding, of Becoming, is to bring through whatever is in the moment, the heart of your highest self, your Being, your Essence.”  Our Friends

Hello My Friends,

I am thinking of you as the year turns and the inwardness of winter begins to shift to the rebirth of spring.  I hope, wherever you live, and however your life is unfolding today, you feel within the newest shoots of life’s endless rebirth.  I hope everything in your life is well and good. 

The past year was amazing for me…starting with the building of my blogs: for Our Friends sharing www.innerteacher.wordpress.com.  My artwork can be found at www.stephanieknead.wordpress.com

A summer article about my communion and sharing of Our Friends (http://www.roseyroundtherogue.com/column8-16-10.html) was wonderful and introduced me to a new group of truly lovely human beings. 

I was blessed with an ongoing presence at Ashland Art Works Galleries, an artist collective here in my hometown.  (If you ever visit southern Oregon, please drop me an email or call.  I’d love to meet you, and I’m always available for in-person, as well as phone, sessions.  Meeting Our Friends in person is filled with love.)  I spent the late fall happily ensconced in my art studio creating new work for a show starting February 1st at Illahe Gallery here in Ashland.  (the photos will be on my art site as of February 1st.)

My poetry has been flowing.  As you will see, each new piece for this show is accompanied by a poem. 

So, the grace of the past year has been the infusion of my creativity, including Our Friends, more fully, day-by-day, into my life.  A greater gift is hard to imagine.  It is the inflow and epitome of abundance for me.  They say “Do what you love and the money will follow.”  Well, then, I should soon be very wealthy! 

May you be blessed with all you need this year.  May you recognize both the need and the receiving.  May you hear with your heart and body, letting go the stories of your mind and history.  May love light your way and may you feel yourself blessed every day.  May life always be received as a gift, a mystery, an honor.

Love,                                                                                                                                       Stephanie

*This translation is based on the multiple meanings inherent in every Hebrew word.  For those of you with a Jewish background the transliterated prayer is “Baruch Atah Adonai, elohaynu melech haolam.” 

Baruch means “blessed” or “knee.”  Atah means “One” or “pool.”  Olam means “threshold” or “eternity.”

 

Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse &…

Moon Shadow and Sun reflection...deep blessings of Creations energy...

There is much talk about 2012, and much talk about this solstice, with its conjoining lunar eclipse.

I think being blessed with an imagination is, at times, a problem. Or perhaps it is simply our huge human ego, which, despite all evidence to the contrary, still wants our human existence in the Cosmos and in God to be the purpose, center & meaning to both.

So many huge spiritual and astrological dates have come and gone, and lo, little has changed. I’m not saying the energetic events are not huge; I am saying that humans are not the focus or purpose of them.

Creation and God have much more profound, powerful, & extensive foci and purposes than we will ever know while here. What ripples to us of these events and gifts are the tiniest ripples, long dissipated by the much larger waters within which we live and have our being as humans. When it hits us like a black hole, we’ll only know that…we still won’t grok the enormity and meaning of it to Creation and God.

We need to engage, to work with the flow of Creation’s evolution…and for this reason alone. To do this we must disengage our egos; this will also disengage our fear, whose existence only inhibits our ability to commune, connect and be of service — in our small way — to Creation and God.

 It’s not about us. We are sunbeams of the sun.

Perhaps we might start by writing our own autobiography from this moment forward, each of us living the best of ourselves — the highest self we know is within us — in action in the world. Write how we have manifested this in our life as though looking back from 20 or 30 years hence.

Like writing the lists we might use to vision and manifest a new home, we can reach forward and connect with our best life by putting it on paper and then moving toward it with action.

It’s not just what we think and feel, it’s how we act in the world that matters. How do I contribute to the best that I dream?  What are my gifts to bring?  How do my joys apply? 

As the earth shifts, physically and energetically, as the moon illuminates this transition from darkness into light with great clarity, may we take time to breathe it in, to witness it, to sing with the moon, the dark and the light.  May we use this night to turn our energies toward living, in action, the best life we possess inside, the life that yearns to come forth, unique to each soul, into this waiting Gaean Earth. 

 May your darkness nurture you, may your light bless you.  May both, equally, awaken you.  Stephanie

Please pass this site on to others.    https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/introduction-nice-to-see-you-here/

To schedule a personal session with Our Friends, in person or by phone, call Stephanie at 541-292-9390. For more information on sessions, click  https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/contact-and-session-information/

 If you would like to keep up with posts to this Inner Teacher site, please sign up for an email subscription

To Gift this work, click here…and many Thanks!   https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/donations-gifts/

“The Pivot of Free Will” Gaia En-Earthed Part VI

 

Earth, Sky & Water...the elements of Gaia that create one another, sustaining and expressing Her, endlessly...

(I am deliberately posting this thread in small pieces, because there is much to absorb.  Each piece offers something essential to ponder.  I hope you are finding it nourishing.)  Stephanie

Free will is The pivot upon which turns the creation called human. 

You have long seen this pivot as a personal human failing.  It is not. 

It has indeed astonished the One what you have chosen to do, as a body of humanity, with this choice.  Yet the greatest mistake lies in, and the greatest pain grows out of, the story you have told yourselves — for eons — that this “fall” is your fault and that somehow you are unutterably and irredeemably flawed for having made this choice. 

This story, this belief, has lead to a human-made separation from Self, from Essence, from communion.  Believing yourselves guilty, you have disowned your own soveriengty, your very Being in and with Creation.  Self-judgment has cut you off from that communion that is yours always.  And so you have “fallen” into such fear that you have treated youselves as you believed you deserved, creating enormous pain because of a false belief.  It was never so. 

To read Gaia En-Earthed from the beginning, click https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/humans-gaia-en-earthed-2/

Please pass this site on to others.    https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/introduction-nice-to-see-you-here/

To schedule a personal session with Our Friends, in person or by phone, call Stephanie at 541-292-9390. For more information on sessions, click  https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/contact-and-session-information/

 If you would like to keep up with posts to this Inner Teacher site, please sign up for an email subscription

To Gift this work, click here…and many Thanks!   https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/donations-gifts/

“The Pivot” Gaia En-Earthed Part V

   

 

"The Lava Darkness" ... what is revealed in the darkness, what embraced, what gifted...in the blessing of the dark, what do you open to receive?

 

(I am deliberately posting this thread in small pieces, because there is much to absorb.  Each piece offers something essential to ponder.  I hope you are finding it nourishing.)  Stephanie

What you consider “the fall,” as so many of your stories portray, is merely the chronicle — very important — of the critical decision that created this art form and  allows this unique exploration to create movement.  The “decision,” the choice, was to create a will that seems to be, believes itself to be, separate from the Creator, the One.  This free will is The pivot upon which turns the creation called human being.      Our Friends

To read Gaia En-Earthed from the beginning, click https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/humans-gaia-en-earthed-2/

Please pass this site on to others.    https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/introduction-nice-to-see-you-here/

To schedule a personal session with Our Friends, in person or by phone, call Stephanie at 541-292-9390. For more information on sessions, click  https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/contact-and-session-information/

 If you would like to keep up with posts to this Inner Teacher site, please sign up for an email subscription

To Gift this work, click here…and many Thanks!   https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/donations-gifts/

Gaia En-earthed Part IV

En-earthed creature blending with his home in gorgeous dignity. Photo by Stephanie K. Nead

 

 

To read the piece from the beginning, click https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/humans-gaia-en-earthed-2/

It is a sad mistake to perceive physicality as a limitation to be overcome or escaped.  It is a mistake to believe that you have less and experience less on earth, with bodies, than is possible in “spirit.”  Precisely the opposite is true. 

With a body you are graced to experience touch, smell, taste, sight, light, hearing, as well as emotion – life force of your Essence, that spark of the Creator which reflects, enhances, uniquely expresses and experiences the whole precisely because it (you) are “limited” by the vehicle of this creation.  Everything that is within Creation as a whole, with the Creator, resides within you.  It cannot be otherwise.  You experience the felt sense of this.  You do not need more. 

What you perceive as limitations of perception are much less a function of the vehicle of your body, than a function of beliefs developed over ages by humanity. 

In truth, you have access to the whole of Creation from within your body; you do not need to leave it to experience anything.  In truth, with your body, you may engage in experiences those “outside” of physical form cannot. 

In truth, each of you are the vessal through which many Beings see, feel and experience.  Your concept of yourselves as one, as individual, as an “I” is vastly mistaken and leaves you feeling alone and isolated in a alien state, which indeed it would be…were it true. 

As you reclaim your true embodiment, you will discover there is no alone in Creation, in God, in the One.  There is the experience of movement; there is the experience of uniqueness as a means of extending the experience and expression of Being that is the One, but there is no alone, no true separation.         Our Friends

To schedule a personal session with Our Friends in person or by phone call Stephanie at 541-292-9390.  Introductory sessions are half price: $50.  Refer a friend and get another session for the introductory price.  Order a gift certificate for the Holidays and get a session for yourself at half price.  For more information on sessions, click  https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/contact-and-session-information/

 If you would like to keep up with posts to this Inner Teacher site, please sign up for an email subscription.  The only thing that will come to your email will be each new post when it is published.  I do my best to contribute a new post three to four times a week. 

Also check back on the “Recent Additions to This Site” menu tab, as not all additions go out as new posts. 

Please pass this site on to others.    https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/introduction-nice-to-see-you-here/

To Gift this work, click here…and many Thanks!   https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/donations-gifts/

Gaia En-earthed Part III

Crater Lake Photo by Stephanie K. Nead

 

 

This is the third installment of “Gaia En-earthed,” regarding humans’ place in, with, on this Earth, as creatures and creations of Gaia.  I will post a short section each day or two for the next couple of weeks.  To read the piece from the beginning, click https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/humans-gaia-en-earthed-2/

The One, the Creator, is the ultimate artist. 

As an artist, to explore one must first choose a medium.  Without this choice , one cannot create but is stuck in stillness, all possibilities locked within.  Choose a medium, be it clay or oil, metal or fiber, math or music, and suddenly you have a limitless array of expression.  The medium creates parameters within which creation becomes possible.  Such is true of physical life, of this earthen creation, of your earthen bodies. 

Call now to schedule a personal session with Our Friends in person or by phone. (541-292-9390)  Introductory sessions are half price: $50.  Refer a friend and get another session for the introductory price.  Order a gift certificate for the Holidays and get a session for yourself at half price.  For more information on sessions, click  https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/contact-and-session-information/

 If you would like to keep up with posts to this Inner Teacher site, please sign up for an email subscription.  The only thing that will come to your email will be each new post when it is published.  I do my best to contribute a new post three to four times a week. 

Also check back on the “Recent Additions to This Site” menu tab, as not all additions go out as new posts. 

Please pass this site on to others.    https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/introduction-nice-to-see-you-here/

To Gift this work, click here…and many Thanks!   https://innerteacher.wordpress.com/donations-gifts/