The Deep Hearts Core – Spiritual Direction for Difficult Times

Some people say

They’ve had enough of

Silly love songs.

-         Paul McCartney, Just Another Silly Love Song

Let this Irish storyteller suggest a time when people could really say they’ve had enough of ‘silly love songs.’  It’s when they are dead.  Before such time ‘silly’ loves songs may very well be silly but still they are attempts at the invitation to Love.

Some songs you will always remember.  Such a song for me is “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by Lennon and McCartney. Actually, it’s a Paul McCartney song and a song that is one of this Irish storyteller’s ‘silly love songs.’

This Irish storyteller was around fourteen years of age when this silly love song became anything but silly.  It became an invitation to what felt like unconditional love, an invitation to feel wanted in a way that I never felt before.

She was fourteen years old as well.  She was blonde and very pretty.  She was not exactly the girl next door but she did life at No. 27 whereas I lived at No. 1.  That was thirteen doors apart. Thirteen might be considered an unlucky number for some but not for this Irish storyteller.  Not on the night of the Boy’s Club Bop when The Beatles’ song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was played.

I was dressed in a bright orange shirt and wore striped hipsters.  Today I wouldn’t be seen dead in that sort of thing but at the time I was wearing them I felt dead.  All the colour was on the outside.  I was living an existence of grey like a “lonely painter living in a box of paints” to quote a Joni Mitchell song of similar vintage. But all the colours had been mixed up and turned to mud.

It came out of the blue as wonder often does.  At fourteen you know nothing about what it is to cross a threshold place where in the eyes of another you look drop dead gorgeous even in orange.  I knew nothing of kisses or kissing but this kiss opened me up and prepared the way for something even in my wildest dreams I could not even imagine if I tried.

The great Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh talks about such an experience in another song/poem called Raglan Road. It is when “first you knew.” It is when, metaphorically speaking, all the lights go on and the house can never be quite dark again.

You know that you are ensnared.  It is not quite like being caught in a trap or if it is you want to go back and give yourself up.  You are being called along the enchanted way and what an enchantment!

Is any of this just ‘silly?’  It is when you defend against it and the blue of wonder becomes the blue of not so silly love songs but sad songs of regret that begin to harden the heart.  Then the enchanted way becomes a far off place covered in thorn and briar.  The more that such silly love songs are considered silly the thicker become the briars.  Silly then turns to sorrow and you go to sleep awaiting a kiss that will reawaken the enchantment within you.

I held her hand.  She kept inviting this holding and I fell deeper and deeper into enchantment.  Her ” hair wove a spell” and her kiss did the rest.   The young man of fourteen who was dead was raised in more ways than one.  This you might say is just a sentimental remembrance. Not for this Irish storyteller and I suspect not for those of you who have been along the enchanted way.

There is plenty out there in this world of time and space and form to be cynical about.  Cynicism is a practice of burying the suppressed ghost of Love.  Only Love cannot be buried because it never was born and has never died.  You are the one who chooses to live in a box of paints without the colour of silly love songs.  This is your choice.  It is not an easy choice.  When you die to Love you find there is no such thing as death.  This is a living paradox.

Patrick Kavanagh warns in Raglan Road that there is a danger.  There is the possibility it will all come to grief and that what will happen is that you end up with ghosts of memory of what might have been – the ghost of regret.

For those of us who have risked the danger of the enchanted way we will live with ghosts.  Only these are not hungry ghosts of memory but moments of remembrance.  They remind you what it is to be a being created by a force that created you for the wonder of Love.

I held her hand.  She held mine.  For all sorts of ghostly reasons the enchantment did not become the full expression of what the mystic Alan Watts calls in Man and Woman ‘flowery combat. It did, however, add colour to this lonely painter.  I had ventured along the enchanted way and in some ways came to grief.  Only I never grieve the experience.  If that was danger then take me to the edge and I will gladly jump!

This writer is still in love with silly love songs.  Now the kisses come in different ways.  Still there is the danger and still there is the enchantment.  One is not available without the other.  Enchantment comes out of the blue but is anything but blue.  My Silly Love Song Love now is long dead.  He danced 20,000 plus silly love songs that are still dancing.  This is Jelalludin Rumi, the dance of the Beloved.

” I Wanna Hold Your Hand” is one of this Irish storyteller’s  silly love songs. He is better by far for such a silly love song.  Be aware of silly.  Play a heart song.  Come along the enchanted way.  It is dangerous but then so is dying without ever really having lived and loved.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0

No Comments »

Exercise caution in your business affairs:

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is.

Many persons strive for high ideals

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

- Max Ehrmann

The above quotation is taken from one of this storyteller’s favourite poems. Desiderata translates as ” a list of desires.” It was at one time a favourite piece of poetry during the 1960s, a sort of anthem of those who were known as the ‘hippie’ generation.

 One of this poem’s invitations is to build a firm foundation upon the rock of the timeless intelligence of Love rather than the shifting sands of ego enhancement.

We see the shifting sands of time at work in this present economic climate.  What many people have invested their lives and their energy in has fallen to pieces, shrunken or come to nothing.  All the promises of how it might have been are scattered on the ground.

The only constant has been the universal law of change.  Only such a change appears to come nowadays more and more swiftly.  The sands of time are shifting more and more quickly.  This induces fear, which turns to panic.  We are witnessing this in the financial markets of the world with its shift having impact on jobs and living conditions for millions of people.

This storyteller invites you to build a life foundation on a foundation that does not shift.  This does not mean that you won’t lose your job, your home, your career prospects or credit rating that you have spent years investing time and money in.  It will mean that you can stay calm and focused in turning such crisis into opportunity.

The rock upon which to build a life of purpose, passion and prosperity is the rock of the Timeless.  It is not one you will find in your goal setting manuals.  You will not have been taught this at school.  Your religious teacher (if you have one) might invite you to do this but they will cloak this invitation in so many preconditions that it seems impossible to get through the door.

When you build your house upon the rock of the Timeless that is in the Land of the Forever Young you have to build the foundations so that they do not shift.  This means they do not shift in times of adversity when it feels as if the earth is quaking underneath us all.

Imagine you are laying four corners on this rock that will not move.  It will not move provided these foundation stones are made by the Tuatha de Danaan.  Each of the foundation stone is laid by a question.  Depending on how your answer will mean the difference between building a life on the changing sands of time or on the rock of the presence of the Timeless.

There is a foundational question that will form the cornerstone of your life’s journey.  Spend time with this question.  It is in itself an aspect of the quest.  You are the only one who really knows the answer.  It is a question that all wisdom teachers invite you to answer. 

It has to become a question that you live.  It has to become what Les Kaye of The Zen of Work, calls the real quest -I -on. In times of crisis this is the question that is being asked of you.

This foundation is not built overnight.  Your heart knows the answer but you have been taught not to have faith in this guidance system that is your connection to universal intelligence.  If you are sincere in wishing to build a foundation beyond the shifting sands of time then do three things in order to show a sign of commitment to your heart quest.

• 1. Invest in a journal in which to invite the awareness of your heart
• 2. Email this writer for the foundational questions (and answer)
• 3. Reflect on this question with sincerity until you live it.

If you are prepared to do this then you will be invited to build a house of purpose, passion and prosperity on solid ground beyond the shifting sands of time.  This house is called The Anamcara Experience.

• 0
• 0

1 Comment »

Here are some resolutions that will upgrade your sense of its being “a wonderful life.” Practice these each day and you life situation will feel full of both presents and presence.

 1. Download the latest virus checker

You have a virus. We all have this virus. It is called separation from Love.  This virus is not easily recognised because it is termed normal.  It is recognised by the absence of joy and wonder.  Symptoms of infection include negative self-talk, time poverty, low self-esteem and constant ‘doing’ in your life.  This virus checker is available free from Open Mind Software.

 2. Defragment the disk regularly

Defrag on a regular basis. Trying to be in two places at once indicates an un-defragged mental life and not archiving past hurts through forgiveness. Up load a useful piece of software called whole heartedness and register your heart for regular updates.

 3. Move Beyond the Binary System

There is an operating system that most people use that is very limited. It is a binary system called Good and Bad.  An international company called Self-Doubt Unlimited produces it. This company suppresses your awareness of the upgrade from a company named Inner Wisdom.  This upgrade takes you to a whole new dimension and is available from a company called In Tune With the Infinite.

 4. Maintain a Proper Firewall

In the binary operating experience you will get burnt out unless you maintain a proper firewall.  A company called Universal Values publishes the best firewalls.  They have a choice of appropriate products including Integrity, Compassion and Service to Others.  This ensures that you have clear boundaries and do not get all fired up about people who hack you off. Go to http://www.anamacaraexperience.org and register for updates for inspiration and clarity and 7 Ways to a Wonderful Life.

 5. Get a Decent Monitor

A monitor is a way of seeing. It is also a way of paying attention.  Monitor your thoughts for indications of any viruses that have your feeling separate from Love.  Monitor the way that you express or do not express kindness to yourself and others.  Monitor the state of well-being and your ability to see through the darkness to the light within that illuminates all.  Learn to see through hearts.  Good monitors are available from a company called Intuition.

 6. Before You Switch On

First thing each morning make sure you are plugged into the Universal Intelligence that created you for the purpose of Love in Form.  Make sure that the energy supply is monitored for surges of self-aggrandisement, self-pity and other powerful negative attitudes.  Plug into the supply of right intention. A Universal Supplier of energy called “The Highest Good for All monitors right intention.” Sign up and get moment-to-moment updates. Bonus features include a sense of wonder and joyful intent.

 7. Upload the shareware program Love

This program has no known virus threats except that it changes the binary program from the ‘good vs. bad’ to beyond limited ideas of opposites. The price for this program is that you trade the lead of self-doubt for the gold of self-awareness. Support is free provided you allow it and it lasts for eternity.

With these upgrades and downloads there will be an upsurge in energy and few situations will load down your life.  With regular monitoring your system will become immune to hackers, viruses of self-doubt and those feelings of never being quite good enough.

This will give you new windows on the world. In this way you can activate the start up button and know that both you and your computer are really switched on.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0

No Comments »

Give bread. Give wine

Feast on your life…

Derek Walcott, Love After Love

You are invited to live.  You will say that you are already alive. Wisdom teachers will tell you that you are the dead following the dead.  They get into trouble for this. The ego is not flattered but offended. This storyteller is not flattered.

How do you feast on your life?   You give it away with passion.  You cannot give it away without passion.  You cannot turn up at the banquet with a lukewarm attitude.  To feast on your life requires that you engage with consummation rather than consumption.

When you spend your time in consumption you tend to get burnt out rather than burned up.  There is a difference.  The fire that will allow you to feast on your life is the fire of passion allied to service.  This is service in and for the sake of Love.

It is more than the law of attraction it is attraction itself.  It is not the law of attraction in service of ‘little me’ who come to it with a shopping list filled with things to get.  It is the experience, to quote St. John of the Cross, of “the living flame of Love.”  It is the experience of being burned alive by Love.

This sounds horrid!  It is to the ego. The ego wants to serve itself.  It does not want to be consumed by Love and so it creates for you a banquet where all the hungry ghosts of a life not aflame with passion appear.  What then happens is not consummation but consumption.  Ghosts of passions unlived literarily eat you up from the inside.

The story of the talents in the Bible is the story of passion. The Master who is creation gets angry when the talent is buried.  This anger is the fire of passion.   It is not destructive. It is telling us something is out of kilter.  It is compassion inviting you to wake up and expand into fulfilment.

Creation is not lukewarm.  It created you because it is passionate about creation and you are its child.  This passion does not cease.  This passion is not born and thus never dies.  It only changed form.  It knows what it intended you to be, do and have.  It is intelligent beyond your limited sense of intellectual knowing.  It can in one moment change your whole outlook on the world.  It can raise you from the dead and a life of lukewarm existence.

Creation gives. It is always giving.  We resist this giving because it does not quite fit.  We are created to be a yoga teacher and we become an accountant. This was this storyteller’s experience earlier in his lifetime.  We are created for the purpose of giving away who we are created to be.  This is expensive and it goes on forever.  You think you don’t last but you simply change form.  Passion breaks boundaries to take you into the boundless.

There is an unattributed story that circulates.

” A man visits heaven and hell.  In each place there is a table filled with the most beautiful food.  Hell looks like heaven and heaven looks exactly like hell.  Only in hell everyone is starving while in heaven everyone looks happy and contented with a full belly.  When the man asks God why everything in heaven and hell appear the same yet different God ‘answers.’ In heaven everyone is feeding while in hell they are all feeding themselves.”

Here you have a wisdom story. The difference between the two is consumption and consummation. Consummation involves passion for life.  It involves anger used in the service of creation rather than destruction.

In The Ultimate Anti-Career Guide the wonderful Rick Jarrow asks people what they are passionate bout.  If they don’t know what that is he then asks them what makes them angry.  What are you angry about?

Or do you avoid such questions?

Life will ask such questions of you.  This is not a punishment.  It is an invitation to the feast.  If you resist it you will feel uneasy.  If you put away this unease then it will come again.  Only now there is deeper resistance.  This resistance is mirrored in the body.  The body never lies.  You, in your resistance put on psychosomatic armour. Nothing gets in or out.

In 7 Ways to a Wonderful Life this is why we emphasise passion.  The lukewarm life is not for passion but for comfort.  It is a life of self-interest rather than the expansive invitation of interest (turning to Love) in Self (yes, with a capital S.)

Ask yourself this question:

What am I passionate about?

When you ask this be aware of how you feel.  Do you feel alive with passion that wants to give itself away through you? Do not feel guilty if you don’t.  You came into this world of form as an expression of the passion of the Divine for its ability to create.  Very soon you learned that being passionate was not terribly popular.  It still is not.  It goes against the norm.  The norm is lukewarm at best.

Still and all it is a great question and a great invitation.  Ask it everyday with the intention that you use it to feed the hungry in whatever way that speaks to you and you have the ticket to the banquet where you give wine and give bread and you feast on your life.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0

1 Comment »

As the Anamcara Experience invitation to divine purpose unfolds in form as a website, this storyteller has been increasingly attracting energies unleashed by attachment to language.

What this storyteller writes about is not always popular.  It never has been popular but thankfully that seems to be changing.  When you begin to live the invitation to Divine Purpose you can expect to be visited by those energies of what I call the Moneychangers in the Temple of the Divine.

These are those writing to me telling that the language of invitation to divine purpose is their language.  They write threatening to pull this site down because I use the language of divine invitation that belongs to them.  These are individuals who use the language of sacred unity to change the currency of your life situation rather than unfold the radiance of the Divine with you.  They know the language. They know the law but they are not the spiritual knowing of the Divine invitation.

They use exactly the same words as I am using here.  Only to use a Biblical metaphor, they are pouring old wine into new wine skins.  What does this metaphor actually mean?  Let this storyteller invite an understanding of this beautiful metaphor in this way.

Jesus of Nazareth was probably the greatest of all storytellers.  These stories eventually got him murdered under the law. The language of Divine Purpose is still being murdered under the law of old wine, the ‘mine, mine, mine’ law that is so prevalent in many modern divine purpose invitations.

In this metaphor you as a living form of the formless are the new wine skin.  The Divine is, as the beautiful tradition of the Sufis tells us, the Wine Pourer.  The Divine gets us drunk on Love.  Not the sentimental love of popular song, but the direct experience of Oneness when you as the dewdrop merge with the ocean, when you are no longer loving but Love itself.

The Divine created you for the purpose of Love.  This is forever new.  You don’t get it if you get it.  You don’t get it by going after it, except that you won’t get it without going after it.  You are like someone trying to bite his or her own teeth, the fish in the ocean looking for water.  The unveiling of your Divine purpose is a revelation.  It is an absence. You are required to be absent while present.

This is unpopular language and an unpopular invitation. The ego does not like not being invited along to the party. What would happen to our precious sense of self if we all gave up the illusion of separateness from Love?  It looks and feels like we would become nobody.  In our go-getting, self-improving, goal setting culture this invitation is anything but popular.

So, as this invitation to divine purpose that is the Anamcara Experience unfolds, I receive emails from moneychangers in the Temple of the Divine.  In this sacred space they are shouting a mantra of narcissism.  ‘Mine, mine, mine!’ Let’s be fair here. A writer, a speaker and a teacher who invests time, money and energy in creating a product, a book or course for example, is entitled to be heard for that invitation they have manifested in form from the formless.

This storyteller has no problem with this.  I ask that what I write to honoured as the invitation it is. I am not asking you to agree with it.  Most people, including very dear and old friends, don’t want to hear such an invitation.  Still and all, I have one long ally.  It is to the revelation that I was graced when I was around twenty-seven years old.  This revelation is not mine. It does not belong to ‘me.’ It was lost because I claimed the power and the beauty of it for myself.

The perfume of that revelation remains in this writing.  It is not always popular.  It gets up the noses of those who embrace the smell of the separateness from Love and bottle that as the perfume.  Yet another kind of old wine in a new skin. These are the moneychangers who claim to change your life with the emphasis on ‘your’ life.  This is not an invitation to the radical revelation that blows your sense of self out of the water.

Divine purpose begins with the opening of the heart chakra.  This is the conduit through which the power of the Divine works its purpose.  This heart is not yours.  You give it to Love so that the work of Love can be done through you.  Anything below this chakra can be considered ground preparation for the seed of Love to begin to flower in form.

The language of the Divine tends this seed.  It does not belong to you or me or to anyone else. Honour it and give it away.  That is why you are here.  You are here to serve the revelation of Love in form.  Until that revelation lives in your heart you are a moneychanger in the Temple of the Divine.  The Divine never loses but you do.  Your wealth is in the language you use to serve that which is creating you in every moment from the force of Love.  This lasts forever.  This is the real invitation to Divine purpose.  Any lesser invitation is stealing your birthright to, as Gangaji so beautifully puts it,  the diamond in your very own pocket.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0

No Comments »

Come out of the circle of time

into the circle of Love.

-         Rumi

What if you were not who you think you are and you went through life living an illusion?  What if you were not the only one?  What if the illusion continued only because everyone lived the same illusion and believed it was real?  What if we were all naked behaving like we wore Emperor’s clothing?

What if someone came along who knew that everyone was living this illusion and simply said so?  What do you think would happen then?  You would probably do what many people do.  You would continue with the illusion and go one your not so merry way and live not so happily ever after.

What would be the one thing that might make you want to live beyond this illusion?  It might be the experience of suffering.  If you suffer enough you might ask the question, “Is this all there is? Is my life worth anything?”  It is this sort of question that gets you turned on.

This is not our usual understanding of what it means to be turned on.  The experience of being turned on is what is known in the story of the Hero’s Journey as The Call.  This is The Call to fully express your unique way of being in form.  It is a unique question.

When you begin to become a questor it is not the answer that turns you on but the initial question.  Wisdom teachings say that the quality of one’s character is known by the questions being asked.

Certain kinds of question lead you on the adventure of what it is to feel Divine within form.  Other questions lead you deep into the prison of time.  You might be comfortable.  You might be called successful.  Yet if you think that who you are is this body living in time, space and form, you are living the illusion of one world.  The world of separateness.

Ralph Waldo Trine writes beautifully about this in his book In Tune with the Infinite. This is what an Anam Cara invites you to tune into.  Only before that can happen you have to get switch on.  Getting switch on means you get passionate with the intention that this passion aligned to the Infinite blossom into compassion.

Most, if not all of us, will suffer in some way in this world.  Suffering can lead to breaking the chains of the illusion of the separate self.  If this happens, and it does happen, then suffering is seen for what it is.  It is not a punishment.  It becomes an invitation to transcendence.  What is worse is suffering that has no meaning.  Who give it meaning?  You do.

To turn on you need to ask a real question and commit to living it.  This is the question. What am I passionate about? Now you can live this question and you will miss.  This is because there is a second, companion question.  This question is the second question. How am I going to serve? Put together they begin to look like this: How am I going to use my passion to serve humanity?

I will guarantee you that if you commit to learning to live and Love this invitation that you will get switched on and tuned in.  The illusion that you are separate from Love will begin to dissolve.

Do you know what you are passionate about? Do you care enough to find out?

What makes you feel angry?  That is a pointer but not an excuse to act irresponsibly. Anger is no excuse.

Most people want an easy life rather than a passionate one.  Passion does not mean being fiery all the time.  It is the full flow of emotional response in tune with the Infinite.  It becomes compassion in Buddhist terms and Love in Christian terms.  When it is available you know what to serve and how to give yourself away.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0

No Comments »