May you be blessed

May you be blessed with good friends.
May you learn to be a good friend to your self.
May you be able to journey to that place in your
soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling and forgiveness.
May this change you.
May it transfigure that which is negative, distant or cold in you.
May you be brought in to the real passion,
kinship and affinity of belonging.
May you treasure your friends.
May you be good to them and may you be there for them;
may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth and light
that you need for your journey.
May you never be isolated; but may you always be
in the gentle nest of belonging with your
anam cara.

From ‘The Notebook’

The reason it hurts so much to seperate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we’ve lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we’ve found each other. And maybe each time we’ve been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.

 

When I look at you, I see your beauty and grace and know they have grown stronger with every life you have lived. And I know I have spent every life before this one searching for you. Not someone like you, but you, for your soul and mine must always come together. And then, for a reason neither of us understand, we’ve been forced to say goodbye.

 

I would love to tell you that everything will work out for us, and I promise to do all I can to make sure it does. But if we never meet again and this is truly goodbye, I know we will see each other again in another life. We will find each other again, and maybe the stars will have changed, and we will not only love each other in that time, but for all the times we’ve had before.

Dear Friend

Because you are my friend, I see

life in a different way

And joy I had not hoped to know,

adds sparkle to each day.

A long forgotten memory

arises from the past

Of all we are allowed to keep

and things that never last

But seasons come and seasons go

and we remain a part

Of all true nobility

we carry in our heart

A friend to understand and care

that’s how it ought to be

And so I pray the road you walk

… is wide enough for me.

{Nicci Gibbs}

Spartacus

 

From Alchemie Solutions

“None but ourselves can free our minds.”
Bob Marley (Redemption song) 1945 – 1981

In the last century before the beginning of Christianity a Thracian slave challenged the might and power of the Roman Empire and very nearly brought it to its knees.

Spartacus began his life as a slave and found himself as a young man condemned to the mines of Libya, a harsh, forbidding environment, from where, after hamstringing a guard with his teeth, the story goes, he was bought by a Lanista to be trained to become one of the finest gladiators Rome had ever seen. That was Rome’s plan…

Spartacus had other ideas. He led a rebellion which threatened the very core of the power base of the Roman Empire – slavery. He formed an army with a core of Gladiators and fanned the embers of hope of every slave in Italy by beating every army of crack legions sent against him. Thousands of slaves threw off their shackles and flocked to his banner as he marched south to the sea.

All he really wanted to do was flee Italy, flee Rome, by taking ship with the Silesian pirates, then at war with Rome and find a place for himself and his adopted people to live in peace. But, betrayed by the pirates, they were pirates after all, he was forced to turn back on Rome with the intention of escaping over the Alps.

Here his luck ran out. Pincered by three armies he was brought to bay and after a heroic struggle defeated by Crassus.

Here comes the good part…

Those who were not slaughtered were destined to be sold again as slaves to pay the cost of his rampage through Italy, provided that they give up the body of Spartacus: alive or dead. That or face the awful prospect of crucifixion.

Then something wonderful happened. The legend goes that as he stood to identify himself and save his fellows, every man stood with him and proclaimed himself to be Spartacus and so thwarting the intention of Rome one last time.

Spartacus was saved from being singled out and paraded in humiliating triumph through the streets of Rome before being gruesomely executed. This one last act of defiance did not alas, save his life or the lives of his fellows. Along the Appian way, all the way back to Rome at regular intervals the army of Spartacus was crucified as an object lesson to anyone else who dared to rise up.

On the surface this sounds like a bad end to a good beginning, but the rebellion of Spartacus did not end there. It sparked an idea that challenged the thinking of the known world at that time that human beings, no matter the state of their present existence are inherently free.

That all that separates us from the existence of slavery is the quality of our thinking. In the words of Spartacus himself “If one man says I won’t, then Rome begins to tremble”. If many embrace the idea, then what can stop them?

Yes but, I hear you say, look what happened in the end, and you are right. Look what happened in the end … the practice of slavery was outlawed. No matter that it took another two thousand odd years to finally bring to fruition what was begun by Spartacus and those like him through the centuries. We got there in the end. Also … imagine if the Silesian Pirates had put away their greed and kept their promise. Think of the precedent set then. Wonder at the new course of history then and the potentialities that open up.

So slavery was abolished so what has this got to do with me … I hear the whisper across cyberspace. It has everything to do with you. Slavery might be legally abolished but it is still practiced by you and me every day of our lives.

It exists still because we allow it to linger. We allow ourselves to be controlled by many, many things. We allow corruption to taint and control our government; we allow crime to dictate our lifestyles – muggings, hi-jackings, rapes, murders, violent robberies, child molestations and worse; we tacitly condone racism, sexism, ageism and many other discriminating isms; we grumble over the increase of petrol, bread and other necessities yet do nothing more; we allow others to control our lives for their benefit, and by doing nothing, we tacitly give them permission to do it again and worse.

I know that I run the risk of preaching and that the problems we face are not as simple to solve as we would like, and that a collective, concerted and cohesive effort is sorely needed, but the problem originates within our very selves.

By accepting the status quo in our lives, we condone and exacerbate the problem. By accepting at face value the problems, limitations and constraints that seem to wall us in, we allow them to persist. To change the world, we must first change our own lives. To change our own lives we must change our thinking.

At the root of the problem is fear. Fear ultimately of being found out. Of having our sabotaging beliefs about ourselves, the world and our capacity to act meaningfully in the world confirmed if we do act.

So, day after day, year after year, nothing really changes…

Child of God

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves; “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

 

Your playing small doesn’t save the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine as children do.

We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It is not in some of us, it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same.

As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

{Marianne Williamson}