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Blessings for YOU Ezine This Weeks Quotations Inside you there's an artist you don't know about. He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight. - Rumi This is my Soul Poet It is love alone that leads to right action. What brings order in the world is to love and let love do what it will. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti This beautiful man is one of my greatest teachers You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. -- From the Prophet by Kahlil Gibran This Weeks Blessing The Blessing In Corrogue I am alone and all-one. This week’s ezine is a continuation of last week’s story entitled 'We Are All One'. This is a beautiful Chinese teaching story about the journey of the soul into healing and at-one-ment. Last week we met the Blind Rich Man and the Old Candy Peddler. The Blind Rich Man represents life identified with the ego that creates the sense of separateness in time. The Blind Rich Man is blindly identified with the body alone. The Candy Peddler is, by contrast, considered poor. Paradoxically he is poor of ego and therefore full of soul. He has lost the life of ‘little me’ and realized the wonder of the life as a no-body. He is a wise man. For those of you who want to read the first part of the analysis of this story Click Here The Blind Rich Man is in pain – as we are all in pain. We are, as the Buddha said, suffering. This is the first Noble Truth. Our life may be comfortable but without the knowing that we are living an illusion of separateness from Love we are truly blind. As long as we identify with the limitation of the body and ‘me’ and ‘mine’ we are suffering the illusion of separation from the One and All. So in this wonderful story 'We Are All One' the poor Candy Peddler decides to find the solution to the Rich Man’s blindness. He takes up the challenge of the hero’s journey. This is the challenge of going beyond the gates of social consciousness and religious and political dogma. He searches in the dark wood alone without really knowing how he will find the healing herb. The story tells us, When the old peddler heard the announcement he remembered something his mother had told him. She once told him of a magical herb that was good for the eyes. So he packed up his baskets and went back to the single room in which his family lived. The Candy Peddler hears the announcement of the Rich Man who is blind and in pain. When you hear the announcement you become a seeker. You hear the call of those who suffer including the suffering within yourself. This hearing begins when you experience a deep loss. You might lose a relationship, a job, or a loved one close to you. You might lose your sense of identity as a mother, father or your sense of self within a job role that you have been forced to leave. You hear the announcement of the Rich Blind man through the experience of pain. It is then that you might, for the first time, ask a vision question. Such a question might be, “Is this all there is?” or “Why me,” or “Who am I?” Such questioning is the beginning of the quest for Self. The Candy Peddler hears the announcement and
remembers something his mother had said. She once told him of
a magical herb that was good for the eyes. The Candy Peddler remembers there is a magical herb that his mother told him about. His mother is a woman of magic. She imparts the wisdom of healing to all her children. However, only some will remember because only some will listen. Some will only hear the words and not the magic beyond the words. The mother represents the magic of unconditional love. She represents the Divine Feminine that has been forgotten, and is still being forgotten, in the world of time. This forgetting of the Divine Feminine leaves us blind and in pain. So the Candy Peddler returns to his family in the one room where they live. This one room represents our body. He tells his wife of his plans and she scolds. The wife in this story represents our inner critic. This wife is the inner critic who we are married to and who we normally give in to. This is the ego that fears change and is interested in preserving the little self. The wife is concerned about what will happen to her while her husband has gone off on some crazy journey looking for some ‘magic’ herb. So the wife scolds. We all scold. We are our own worst critics. If we go into the healing place of our creative imagination we scold ourselves about how ridiculous we are. We scold ourselves that our dreams are unrealistic. We enter deep into the forgetting. We criticize our creative imagination forgetting that we live the illusion of separateness from Love. We are truly blind and thus we suffer. So the wife, like ourselves, stays in the one room being identified with the body. She wants to know what sense there is in some crazy hunt for magic that will heal our way of seeing. The wife, like many of us, considers any journey beyond the norm as ‘crazy.’ We are all like the wife who lives in the room of the body, wondering what we are going to eat tomorrow. The wife, like many of us, fears living in the moment. She wants security. She wants to know what is in the future and that she will be protected from change. Because she, like most of us, is identified with the body she consciously or unconsciously fears death. She does not hear the words of the wise telling her, “Give no thought for the morrow.” So we live in the one room of limitation called the body and we identify with form. We live in this form tied to the construct we call time that we think is real. We never consider that we might leave this form in order to know the unlimited and timeless. We enter the forgetting. We forget that the world beyond the identification with the body and time is the world of magic and miracle. It is the real living happily ever. It is beyond our dualist thinking and is the real marriage we all seek - the marriage of the opposites - the marriage of soul and matter. This is the greatest gift you can ever seek. This is the greatest gift you can ever bring into the world of form and time. This is the gift of knowing who you are and that you are Love. This is the real healing of the illusion that you are not All One. When you find this pearl of great price you will return from the Dark Wood as the hero/ine. You will give this gift of knowing who you are away. It is all that you can do. In giving this gift away you will not be diminished in anyway. Like the old Candy Peddler you will be in the marketplace of ego but you will give for the joy of giving. Love can do no other. Thus you will receive ten times what is given because this is the law of co-creation. This is the Law of Love beyond the limitation of identity with ego. In the story the old Candy Peddler gives the ego enough to sustain it. In this story, as in life, the ego needs to be acknowledged but not pandered to. The story continues: The next morning as soon as the soldiers opened the city gates the Candy Peddler was the first one to leave the city. This is often how it is. This is the first awakening. There is a new beginning. This is the first invitation. This new beginning can start on any morning or in any moment. It is a first step and the first real step. You are leaving the dead to bury their dead in the city of judgment and separateness. Rumi gives this invitation to leave the city of the dead and go beyond the boundary of ego when he says The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Open
Secret In this story the soldiers represent the senses and the city represents the collective ideas of the culture. We wake up and go beyond the senses into the sensational. The senses are to be honored but they are guardians. The senses stand guard at the gates of form. Beyond the city gates of social consciousness and the institutional mind of political and religious dogma, you are on your own. The next morning the Candy Peddler is the first to leave the city. There will come a time in all our lives when we are called to be the first ones to leave the city. You are called to go out into the Dark Wood alone. This is in order that you find the healing herb that will cure your blindness from the illusion that you are not All One. When you hear the call let no authority stand between you and the Dark Wood. You are called to take complete responsibility for healing your individual sense of separateness from Love. This is why so few of us venture into the Dark Wood. The ego fears to go beyond the limitation of social consciousness. It fears to realize that it is as no thing. It does not want to give up the life of `little me` so that you might come to know the real life. The life everlasting. So this beautiful Chinese teaching story 'We Are All One' continues to unfold. Next week I will take you into the Dark Wood. We will venture into the world beyond ego where those who would know who they are go. In this week’s reflection we have left the norm to venture beyond. Next week we go beyond the gates of the city. We leave the walled city of social consciousness behind. These are the walls of judgment. These are the walls we have all built around us and continue to build around us. These walls keep us safe but also keep us from the true healing. For real healing to happen, which is not the same as being cured, we have to venture beyond the walls of judgment and inner criticism. For the real healing to happen we have to Return to Love. When we go beyond the city gates we choose to feel the power of the creative imagination. This is our creative imagination that lives beyond the walled city of judgment. We choose to stop giving into the wife – our inner critic, who asks, “ If you go off on this crazy hunt, how are we supposed to eat?” In the story the city gates symbolize threshold places. Soldiers guard these gates. The soldiers are guardians of all our social conventions, moral laws, institutional regulations, labels, the should's, the musts, the barriers to self- esteem and the taboos that we identify as ‘me’ and ‘mine.’ You are the soldier at the gate. The voices of family, friends, clergy, politicians and gurus can be soldiers at your gates, too. The soldier is the one who is trained not to question but to keep the status quo and obey orders. The soldier will defend the norm to keep it under control in any way he or she needs. To go beyond the soldier at the gate is to ask a vision question and to commit to finding your one true voice. In this story, like all good stories, you are the one who guards the gate into your healing imagination. It is for you to cross the threshold into the Dark Wood of unknowing. Whatever this unknowing is, when you find it, it will manifest in co-creativity that is unique to you. You and the Beloved get to dance. You have to get up early before the noise of the city clamors around your ears. You have to get up at dawn while the ego is still sleepy and not so guarded. You get up at each new beginning and allow yourself to go beyond. Then you can know the Blessing is here and you are it. You will be the knowing of who you are and you will Return to Love Go to The Blessing of All One Part III - Click Here Got to The Blessing of All One Part I - Click Here From The Way of Blessings by Tony Cuckson
This Weeks Story This weeks story is entitled We Are All One This is the beautiful story this weeks and next weeks Blessing for YOU will center around. It is an everyman/woman story about the search for healing in this world of time. To read this story simply Click here In Corrogue This week in Corrogue is a meditation on micro-locality and acting globally. To go to In Corrogue Click Here Site News NEW SITE COMING SOON I am presently developing a new site dedicated to The Way of Storytelling. So I will let you know when this is up and running. Irish Blessings will begin to be dedicated solely to the inspiration of Irish Blessings. SOUND RECORDINGS OF BLESSINGS FOR YOU It has been suggested to me by one of my best friends in England that I record the weekly Blessings for YOU and make them downloadable as an MP3 file. This will allow you to listen to them at your leisure. I am presently looking into the technicalities of this and will keep you posted THE WAY OF DESIDERATA Coming soon to inspire and inform based on one of the worlds favorite and most inspirational poems The Way of Desiderata. In twelve parts a full outline of how to use this poem to lift and inspire the heart. Will include bonuses and other gifts Inspirational News Update As longtime readers of this ezine know my Soul Poet and Friend is the 12th Century mystic Jelaluddin Rumi. The men most responsible for his being known as the most widely read poet in the USA are Coleman Barks and Robert Bly. Each of these men has been an inspiration in my own life. In the news we hear so much about the possible conflict between the USA and Iran over nuclear proliferation. So I am delighted that this week the people of Iran honored two most wonderful men from the United States for their work in bringing the beauty of Rumi to the Western world. To read full article Click Here Inspirational Website of the Week I don`t always include a website of the week but this week I was informed about this site. This site has the wonderful title Enjoy Perfect Love To go to this site Click Here RECOMMENDED READING For Non USA Ezine Subscribers Click Here I recommend this book because it is one that inspires me. It is the book that contains the quote attributed to Nelson Mandela in his opening address to the Rainbow Nation. This quote actually belongs to Marianne Williamson. Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give Please help support this site and the work of this Anam Cara by making any Amazon purchase here. This allows me to give more time and value to what this site has to offer by way of healing. With thanks and Blessings. Delivered "FREE" to you each week to inspire and uplift the heart
Tony Cuckson is a Storyteller, Writer, Workshop leader and Anam cara (Soul Friend) . © Tony Cuckson 2004-2006
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