This morning I found an important reminder in both Unity’s Daily Word message for today as well as in Mark Nepo’s thoughts for this day in his “The BOOK Of AWAKENING.” And it’s interesting how they both address the same Truth—that we need to embrace all of who we are [and what we see in others], both what is hidden and what shows up in our best moments when we are living in the present moment and are expressing our spiritual divinity, guided by God’s Grace. That’s what this blog is about.
Mark Nepo bases his message on a short poem of John Keats which speaks of Truth and Beauty and Mark raises the question for us, “Are they the same?” His answer is, “No!” and then goes on to say that “…one cleanses the wound, while the other heals the wound…Beauty, wherever we find it, is the salve that keeps us vital and fresh. But Truth, in its uncompromised and naked story, no matter how harsh, has a Beauty all its own that is cleansing.”
What he’s telling us (what he’s telling me) is we need to own those aspects of ourselves, our hidden past, our fears and all those shadow thoughts and feelings that block us from seeing and being who we truly are. We need to let Light shine on them so we can see them from a higher perspective, one that doesn’t judge or compare or feel the need to fix, run and hide or defend and attack.
He points why it’s so important that we remember things like the Holocaust (and I would add the bombing of Hiroshima and the Japanese concentration camps in the U.S.) and why we need to bear witness to our own naked stories. In bringing them to light for a brief time and then quickly burying them, essentially disowning them once again, we run the risk of forgetting. And what we hide eventually becomes out-pictured into the world around us yet again and again, and we’re back into pointing fingers in our disconnection with our own spiritual nature.
It’s not that we need to keep telling our stories, once we’ve raised them into the Light and learned what they are showing us about ourselves. We don’t. But we do need to be able to recall how it was, how we were showing up and why, and then experience gratitude for the lesson. These remembrances also enable us to have compassion and understanding for others when we sense they may be grappling with their own shadow beliefs and feelings. We can hold them in the Light and reflect Love back to them until they find it for themselves.
And today’s Daily Word speaks to the idea of embracing what is, exactly as it is. Acceptance, in a word. That when “I relax into acceptance, I look around and acknowledge what I see, knowing there is a deeper Truth at work underneath appearances.”
And, for me, just writing and verbalizing that fact leaves me feeling very much connected with the Truth of who I AM and who YOU ARE.
Love & Light, Steven