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Home -> Aaron -> ClassSeries -> 2009 -> Venture -> WeeklyWork
Venture Fourth Weekly Work
Week Five Sept 5, 2009
On to the topics:
patience this week, compassion starting Sept 6 and also into the week
of Sept 11,
Sept. 6: Compassion: I
paste here a compassion (karuna) meditation. I invite you to work
this week with the events of September 11, 2001, and a deepening of
the insight that there were only victims of these acts, some passive
and some active. Can there be equal compassion toward those who died
as passengers in planes or at their desks, and those whose ignorance
and suffering led them to these actions?
and then gratitude the
week of Sept. 18, Order the week of Sept 25, and on following the
progression in the book. The Course Guide has some details I
suggested earlier for your work with patience and compassion, and a
guided compassion meditation from Aaron.
Patience: on the bottom
of page 55 Morinis says, "Being able to call on patience...depends
on having cultivated your awareness of the telltale signs of
impatience so you can spot them right in the instant they begin to
stir."
What is the direct
experience of impatience? How and where is it experienced in the mind
and in the body? Without getting rid of impatience, can we open to
that which is inherently patient? My mother is very frightened right
now. She repeats the same questions many times. I watch the voice
that wants to say, "I just told you," and just breathe and answer
again. I'm finding compassion to be the best support for patience.
When I remember that this is a 92 year old woman who has been
fiercely independent, and how vulnerable she feels now, patience
comes much easier.
Look for the
connections in your won experience. Beside compassion, what else
supports patience?
Please continue to work
with the 7 branch prayer as seems appropriate. The prayer was a hand
out at the intensive and is attached to this email. Below is one of
my experiences with it, as I worked toward the release of a limiting
belief:
September 3, 2009:
After working with the entities this morning, I was resting in the
Current and asked for help to have insight about the shoulders and
the tortoise I experienced in the shamanic journeys last week. I have
been swimming with this tortoise daily. I began to see how I have
allowed a belief in being less than whole and belief in limitations
as a protection in this life. I saw this tendency many years ago with
deafness and I feel I released it around the deafness, but I
understand that it can still function in other areas.
I remembered a time at
about age 15 when I was one of the camp representatives (riders) for
the big inter-camp horse show. It was a big honor but also felt like
a huge responsibility as I realized I could win, but also that I was
riding against campers in riding camps, while I was in a more general
activity camp and rode only an hour or two each day. Yet many people
were telling me, "You can win" and I felt their expectations as a
burden. Two days before the show I injured one hand. It wasn't
broken; I could use it. It was sore enough to be an excuse if I
didn't win (in the end, I came in second). Looking back in
meditation, I can see there was some subconscious intention to that
injury. It's the old question, "What does this limitation protect
me from?"
I can see many times in
my life where I have chosen to co-create, or believe in a limitation
out of fear. I was able to move into a kind of ancient-tortoise
consciousness and see his desire to just live quietly, be left alone,
and not have to lead or be aggressive. He was big enough to be mostly
safe from predators, could just cruise the shallows and find food,
and live a quiet life. For whatever reason, he needed an excuse to
thusly choose.
I understand that the
shoulder pain comes from many causes. There is bone degeneration and
arthritis. There have been shoulder injuries. To what degree am I
holding to the belief that these are "permanent" and beyond
repair when I know almost anything can heal.
Shoulders may imply the
"carrying the world on your shoulders" idea. Do I feel I have to
carry others burdens? I don't think so. Am I afraid to reach out
for what I want? Again, I don't think so, but I do see a subtle
resistance to not reach too far, a subtle fear of the ego wanting
more than it should take.
Going deeper, what I see
as predominant is a discomfort with what may be called competitive
energy. Interesting, since I played many sports in high school and
college and enjoyed competition. But there's a difference between
competition and the related joyful competitive energy, and grasping
fear-based competition that doesn't stay fully open to others but
needs to prove itself. When I look for something I need to prove I
come up blank. So maybe this idea
of "need to prove oneself" is the habit energy, now free of old
karma but still stuck there, that needs to be attended.
I began to visualize the
healed shoulders and ask myself, how would this feel? Good!
I invited the tortoise to
release any pain, as I have while swimming this week, and to feel the
strength and unlimited movement of the shoulders. I also worked with
the 7 branch prayer, seeing the possibility of an habitual move to
limits as unwholesome to myself and to all. I went through the 7
branch prayer, holding the release of that habit of limitation as my
highest intention. I know I have more work to do with it.
Sept 4:
In what ways may I be holding the tension of Mom's situation in my
shoulders with an idea that I "should" be able to make everything
okay for her? I can feel a very subtle pull in the shoulders as I
just consider this. Again, work with the 7-branch prayer leads to
more sense of the possibility to release. The shoulders still need to
heal on a cellular level, which may be gradual; know their wholeness
on the ultimate level.
With love, barbara
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