thoughts

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Mysteries of Water

“On a tide of tears she rises…”

The mysteries of water are many.  There is so much we do not comprehend  of water, yet it is the source and substance not only of our physical being but the container for the energy of our soul in form.  It is and contains an ultimate mystery.  Being in Wonder at water’s many blessings is perhaps one of the simplest  ways for us to connect with both Gaia-Earth and Supreme Creation at once.

This poem reflects one of water’s miraculous abilities…to carry memory over time through generations and DNA.

For those of you who are not Jewish or do not know Hebrew, some of the words may be a mystery.  At the end of the poem are translations, but I suggest you read it a time or three first and let the mystery soak in.  Then read the translations and soak some more.

Shechinah Rises
 
On a tide of tears        
She rises
Oceanic grandmother Spirit
Womb of my foremothers
 
Upwelling Ruach
Sculpts pathways
Over DNA-etched skin and bone
Bearing mitochondrial memory
In water-bourne blessing
From she to me
 
Shechinah memory
Between nameless unknown hers
Re-membered in Ha-shem
 
Seeded nashema-encoded genes
Bear fruit in the flesh of my body
Our Spirits’ longing
Pours from my eyes
As you-we pray 
A long-drowned dream
 
Beseeching
Teshuvah…return
To your-mine-our ancient G-d-ess
 
Shechinah
Kee l’olam hee lee
Forever She is me.

Stephanie K. Nead, 2009                      

The Shechinah is the feminine divine essence. G-d-ess in all the power, majesty, equal strength and needed balance of the feminine, every bit as strong, full, complete and necessary as the masculine aspect or essence of G-d.
 
Ruach can be described as the overarching aspect of soul/spirit. Our personal soul is our nashema. Ruach is “bigger,” less known in any conscious sense to our human understanding. The Holy Spirit is the Ruach HaKodesh in Hebrew. Literally translating as Spirit the Holy.
 
Note: tears carry an inordinate amount of mitochondrial DNA. No one knows why…but it is fascinating.  Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA that comes solely from our mothers and is the fundamental DNA of life.  It ultimately takes us all back to our genetic “Eve.”
 
Hashem means “The Name” in Hebrew. Ha (the) Shem (name). This is one of the most “familiar” names of G-d…like talking to your best friend. It is, to me, a name encompassing a very close, personal love between myself and a beloved who is beyond name. We say Hashem, because G-d’s name is far too sacred to ever be spoken aloud.  So we name the many aspects of G-d, all considered to be names for G-d, without trying to encompass all G-d is within one small word.
 
Nashema means soul. It is the personal soul of each individual.  And it is the part of our soul that may, in part, be passed down from generation to generation, the part that might carry and remember, to resolve or repeat, the experiences of our forebears.
 
Teshuvah means return. It has been mistranslated as repentance. In fact, it means to turn back to G-d, as in to turn one’s face back toward and to move once again toward, rather than away from, G-d. Teshuvah is always done with humility and the recognition of the need for grace and work on oneself, the recognition and acknowledgement that one made a mistake, is sorry for it and ready to learn to do/be differently.
 
Kee l’olam hee lee is translated here as “Forever she is me.”
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Prayer: Earth and Water

Gaia's Womb...

As you pray for the Earth, pray for the water. 

Pray for the water of your body before you eat…and the water of your food…that the water of your body be cleansed and nourished by the water of the food, that the waters you breathe out with each breath are purified as they pass through you, that your body be purified by the waters, that all the waters of the planet be pure. 

Send love to the waters of your own body as well as to the planet.  All waters are one water-body on this planet, as all water is endlessly recycled through the breath…breath of ocean tides, breath of clouds rising and falling again to earth, breath of your body, in and out…all is a constant circuit of life renewing: blessing, cleansing, healing, bringing new life. 

There is no life on this planet without water.  Every cell of every thing is mainly water.  Water carries energies and properties we have yet to imagine much less comprehend.  Bless and pray for the water. 

As you start with what is closest to home…your own body, you begin in your own root here on Earth.  It is important to always start here…with your own root, your own body.  Only from your rooted body, self, and place on Earth can you send forth powerful healing.  The healing is as much in your recognition of oneness and dependence as it is in your “sending” and intention. 

Be thankful, be loving, be kind…and send smiles and loving peace to your own waters and all the waters of the Earth through the endless recycling of which your breath is an integral part.  In this oneness all of Gaia is together.  In it there is healing and health. 

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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!

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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.”

 

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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/

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“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/

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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/

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Humans: Gaia En-earthed Part Two

 
 

Gaia's majesty in rock and sky...

 

(This is the second installment of a piece 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/

This creation, this earth, these bodies…this is not meant to be a limitation.  It is a gift, an experiment, an expression of Creation. 

The Creator and the Creation are One. 

Whatever name you give to the ultimate impulse, which is the very heartbeat and breath of the One, the impulse is movement…there is nothing but movement.  And in this movement, there is always extension of the Being of the One, and in this there is creativity. 

The One is not static, not finished, not done.  Always complete but never completed, the One is a constantly breathing tide of movement into expression, always exploring the limitless possibilities of experience.  This world, this physical universe…and all that is of it, and in it, including all that is non-physical (which is the greater portion) is part of this exploration of the One. 

The One, the Creator, is the ultimate artist. 

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/

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Humans: Gaia En-earthed

Blessings for a day filled with loving laughter in gratitude.  May you recognize fully all the richness of your life.

(This post begins a long piece regarding humans’ place in, with, on this Earth, as creatures and creations of Gaia.  I will post a short section each day for the next couple of weeks.  I will create a new page that I will append to each new post, so those who wish may read through the entire sharing as it unfolds.)

Human beings tend to think of themselves as walking upon the earth but not being of the earth.  There is not the recognition that your bodies are made up of water and dirt, that every element and chemical that builds your bodies is of this earth.  And so, like the bees, the grasses, the ox — and the water that is so much a part of you — you are of this earth.  You are part of a much larger organism and a much larger consciousness than your individual “I-ness.” 

In that loss of awareness, or separation, is a tremendous dislocation and disconnection that creates a fear of death, a fear of complete annihilation, because it loses the recognition that you are part of a much greater Oneness.  And then comes the need to try to change that and control it, which truly is beyond your ability to do.    Our Friends

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/

 

Marvel of creation between earth, sky & water...all in the making of Gaia...all held under her dome...

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Through Your Eyes…

Creation experiences seeing through me, a creation, as Creation unfolds before Itself a sunset harmony that nourishes the essence in me, in Creation. There is only Creation...when I breathe, I integrate my embodied place...a point on the web through which all energy can flow... Stephanie K. Nead

“The whole of Creation looks through your eyes and works through your world.  There are worlds upon worlds within your world.”    Our Friends