A tautology.

What animates the world and the life within it? I’ve always heard reference made to something called the Life Force, the energy that accompanies all manifestations of life and is credited as the cause or source of everything in the manifest world, without which the atoms would quickly devolve into disorganization and ultimately … what? Disappearance. Poof! All gone.

Does this line of thinking scare you?

The world seems solid to us, in our bodies designed to perceive it that way. We occupy a narrow band of reality, and because we are designed to perceive nothing else, we have a genuine adventure in this realm, utterly deceived regarding the true nature of reality inside of our physical bodies.

But to return to my original thought, I have read that this animating force is both source and substance of our world. As an energy worker I am familiar with the human energy field. It seems to be the energy is all sourced from a unity.

When I work with energy for healing purposes, I notice the pure core of this energy is Love. With a capital “L.” I intuit this energy is, if not identical then at least related to the animating “life force.”

What if God (creator, universal intelligence, etc.) is, as the song suggests, Love? The Life Force? The animator of everything?

What then might be the animating force of lovelessness, or depravity, or violence? So what’s the deal? Does Creator have, like us a dark side?

I have encountered the theory that all evil is manifesting an absence of Love. If God is Love we have determined that some part of creation is essentially Godless. Does this trouble you? It does me.

Or perhaps as I was taught in childhood God created evil (Satan) to test us. Or …?

Perhaps God allows that Godlessness which we humans create inside of our perceived separation from God, our sense of being flawed and our feelings of abandonment.

Well that sounds consistent with my experience.

So what do we have here? God’s little research facility off in a remote corner of empty space.

So maybe I says, it’s not designed just to punish us, but to purify us by burning our own egos away in the fires of life and death.

Wow, you said that!

You know it, Bucko. And do you know what he says then?

What? What did he say then?

Why then he says it’s not that neither. He says it’s all just a big exploration. And we’re all just explorers, you know?

You mean like spillunkers?

Yeah like that there you said. But it’s in a bigger way.

Oh you mean like astronauts!

No, no. It ain’t nothin like that. Nothin’ at all like fucking astronauts, and I don’t know why I talk to the likes of you. You don’t understand nothin’!

Well what’s it like then? What are we supposed to be exploring, anyway? What are we lookin’ for? Huh? You tell me that!

We ain’t lookin’ for nothin’. Not exactly. More like tryin’ it out to see if we can make it work for us?

Oh I get it: you mean like we’re the alien invaders and we’ve taken over the bodies of these primitive terrestrial savages and, and…

You’re worse than he was.

Just explorin’ those possibilities.

What I believe is possible and equitable establishes the boundaries of what is possiblefor my life to achieve or simply enjoy.

Nothing will emerge organically lest I believe it is meant to occur and claim wholeheartedly my personal role in it.

Come sit by me and let’s ponder some of the ancient mysteries.

Concern about reputation is a distraction. Looking good and trying not to look bad can consume you, leaving nothing for service.

Coming out of a long fog wherein at times my will to live faltered, I staggered around lost for several days. Taking my bearings, I have begun to fill in my new landscape. Like a kid with a new box of crayons and a brand new book of grown-up-gorgeous drawings to color, I don’t know where or how to start.

But wait, I do know. It’s not a lack of know-how that holds me back . Too bad! That would be the easiest to fix. Not a lack of wanting either.

No, it’s simply a lack of energy. I’m pooped.

Yes well … with good reason. No blame. Except the voice in my own head. She wants me up and at it. No excuses. Lazy is a four letter word at our house.

Oh shut up!

So I was thinking about what direction to take in this next phase of my life. I told the Universe I needed a new project, and Voila! Michael calls and asks me to work on a draft script he has written.

Then I open some messages and find a new Reiki student. TheUniverse never keeps me waiting long for what I want or need.

My parents worked hard. So I did too. I didn’t start to rethink my parents’s values in a deep way until my career and health both started winding down, and failing.

Less money and more medical expenses: the American Dream too has aged I suppose, as it devours its own tail, never sure it is filled or for how long.

Angry penguins shut me up tight in the second semester of Fourth Grade. I had spent the first semester in a special program for advanced readers. It was an open classroom. I loved the freedom. The teacher said, “Se already know you can read so do whatever you feel like doing.”

My father said I was becoming opinionated and outspoken, and he wasn’t having any of it. Right into Catholic School I went. The nuns had explicit permission to hit me. He wanted me shut up.

They delivered with a vengeance. These penguins are genuinely pissed off people. Or so it seemed to me. They beat me up daily until they had worn me down and I surrendered.

I didn’t start talking again until I was 23. Effing penguins!

Practice. My guides have thus far weighed in with the suggestion that I practice compassion. After all, this is natural law is it not?

Without practice, my hard won compassion would wither and die. I’m trying a couple of affirmations. “My body is strong and ready to go.” “I have fulfilled all my promises for this life time. I am free and clear.”

First and by far of first importance and the immediate issue, is declaring all contracts for this lifetime complete and satisfied in full. Done.

My guides told me I could leave any time because I have done what I came into this life to do.

When you read my blog, you are getting the truth as I know it. So if you think only crazy people have guides, and that we only live once then you can stop reading right now cause in your book, I’m crazy.

I’ve just been through an ordeal. I’m tired and a little cranky. True. True.

But I must digress. (This whole thing is a digression.)

One of the few really good breaks we get here on Earth is the magnetism. The gravity is heavy. My friends call the surface of Earth “The Density.” For us it’s oppressive. Our comfort zone is spirit, and we are blessedly drawn to each other so we don’t have to stumble around down here all alone.

So, if you’re still reading, this business about contracts has long perplexed me. I have it from many sources, but no personal direct experience as yet. So I don’t know but I suspect we enter into contracts for each life.

So what I sense most strongly is that I intended to learn compassion in this lifetime. I am addressing a deficiency revealed in a previous life. That deficiency was a lack of compassion. I was a selfish shit. I actually remember that much of that life.

Well all of you all on the other side, I am declaring here and now that you can stop sending me the pain and suffering lessons. Book closed. Lessons learned. This life has seen me become a healer. It’s not my most notable life, but it’s brought me to this point.

Nowadays I ponder what it means to be a Bodhisattva. I am still too selfish I think. If I didn’t have to be here? I can’t imagine volunteering.

Still even now I stay out of love for my family, compassion for them. My remaining attachments in life are relationships.

What I do know is that I love all sentient creatures. This is a generalization based on the experience of being able to love every person I have made eye contact with. That I learned in a Landmark seminar known as the Advanced Course. But let’s leave considerations of the next life aside for now.

I stand at an intersection. Many ways to go. And I can choose. I really don’t want to leave. But this path I’m on is hard. Sure I chose it. And walked it. And it has changed me.

Because I have changed, I have earned the freedom to change my life path and I am doing it right now. I claim authorship of my life. My body is healthy and in working order.

At the Providence facilities, mainly Sacred Heart Hospital you are treated like a child of God. From my perspective as a suffering patient, the staff at Sacred Heart are all and every one Angels.

The quality of care delivered, seems to circle steadfastly around a nucleus comprised of identity and values.

The identity or being-ness at Sacred Heart is altruistic, genuinely generous. The over-riding value is Love. Sacred Heart is a religious mission, a mission primarily of Charity. They lead with their hearts, like I imagine Mother Teresa would have done.

Heart first, like Pope Francis. That’s why everybody calls it “The Heart.”