So this is what it’s like
One moment fear
the next vastness.

Goals cease to be goals
Instead a star-filled night
fills me.

Star Woman
you are me now
as you are every one.

No fear
now love
no contraction    now immensity

I am a dark night full of stars

Yet this is no night,
only shining,
no stars without immense space.

This spot called Earth
one elegant teacher of each
jasmine flower

every scratch of
bird to its
flea bitten wing.

Stop, look how pink is sprayed through the rattan shade
as the copper sun
flowers in the west
open to a single hum
a golden bell
calling one
to velvet
silence.

Robin H. Lysne is a poet, author of three books and a professional medium and intuitive. Her writing has been published in North American Review, numerous anthologies including the Harvest from the Emerald Orchard and in two of her books; Dancing Up the Moon, and Heart Path. Visit her website at www.thecenterforthesoul.com.

Editor’s Note: “The Golden Bell” originally appeared in Heart Path.

Each morning as you do your meditation
Facing the rising sun in the east
You receive the distinct impression
You’re not alone in the silent room.
There are others present
Of an astral nature
With their circular hues
Dancing about this inner sanctum.
Which brings you comfort
Knowing you’ve created
Such a quiet ambiance
Drawing light body silhouettes.
Who augment an atmosphere
In its pristine innocence
Amplifying an effect
From a singular,
To a collective consciousness
Once initiated by one
Like a soft voice in the forest
Then becomes symphonic,
By those with a similar affinity
Adding their tones to a harmony
Attaching to a wind
To instill a meandering peace.
That winds its weaving way
Filling in the hollows
Such a flow once commenced
Will revolve on a cosmic axis.
You opened an airway
Through which sound and light
Found a channel to emerge
Along these lines sparkles inundate.
A ritual evolves to a tradition
A legacy with no limits
In you was so found
The means to release scintillations.
When merged with many vocal chords
So conveys a synchronistic harp
To expand, then elicit
To culminate in promising horizons.

Alex Chornyj is a reiki master teacher. Alex has been published in White Mountain Publications, Articulations, The Tower Journal, The Canadian Federation Of Poetry, online at www.artistsforabetterworld.org and in many Blog Talk Radio spoken word programs such as “Shaman’s Hand” and “Poetry Super Highway.”  Alex currently resides in Canada.

Heaven’s realm is not so far from you; experiencing its reality simply requires a shift in self-perception and a willingness by you carpenters, you creators of the human sort, to raise high the roof beam.

For eons, humans have existed in (and of) the belief in their separation from God, the Source of All Existence, rather than in their Oneness with It. Indeed, aspects of the belief as expressed for the past two millennia go so far as to purport that your very existence is “dirty,” that you are flawed by something called original sin. It is preached in places all over your globe that the only way “in” to the heavenly realms is by believing that one, and only one, of Earth’s many gloried teachers is the only child of God. The consequence, it is told, of not being a believer is exile from the realm of life into a living death, located somewhere within the fiery regions of the bowels of earth (which itself is just a waystation to be used, even exploited).

Over thousands of years, Truth has been distorted and bent by the will of those wishing to amass and wield power over others. One of the most damaging and destructive forces resulting from the separation belief, avarice, wears the false face of superiority and brims over with arrogance. Greed exists totally without thought for either one’s fellow human beings or their companion kingdoms.

Truth, so often distorted and bent, still remains. As the higher-reaching consciousness of many of Earth’s inhabitants continues to cast greater and greater light upon the fearful side of humanity, greed’s destruction and strength becomes more chaotic and visible. Such escalation is to be expected, given that it is in a fight to its death. Be assured, it will not survive in the times ahead. And while your generation will not likely see the end of the greed that has ruled much of your planet for eons, your great-grandchildren will be living in a time of Light, an era filled with love, compassion, and communion with all living things. Once more your planet and all its creations will exist in a state of true and grand harmony.

What each of you does everyday contributes to that coming era, everything you think and communicate and create is now, at this moment, helping to build that expression of total love, or At-One-ment. So just because you will not behold such beauty in your lifetime, do not think that your living at this moment in history has no bearing upon that time of the new Earth. In fact, if you are reading this message, then your living now has everything to do with what is to come, for your current generations are the wayshowers, midwives, carpenters, and architects of a new day. Those of you being the change are, in fact, creating the change, which is given life out of the shifts in your thinking and your ways of living and loving. As your consciousness moves to higher levels, you embrace At-One-ment first through genuine Self-ness and Self Love. Through this foundational shift away from the separation belief, you transmute the false, but deadly, energies of original sin to those of original love, the origin of your existence. In so doing, you raise high the roof beam, making way for “the bridegroom, taller far than any man.”*

Yes, you are indeed the architects of the energies giving rise to the new Earth where the old ways can no longer be supported. You are carpenters following the Soul’s blueprint to the fertile, fecund Ground of Being, which in truth you have never left, and to which you are innocently returning. Your inner healing, your inner “lightening” work, is the microcosm of the upcoming planetary macrocosm, in expression several generations hence. Likewise, the new Earth becomes the microcosm of the Great Macrocosm, the Heart of Love.

Know, then, that as you give birth to a healed human being, you create a healed planet, which amplifies and reflects the Mind of the Heart of God, accomplishing “the miracles of the One Thing.”** As above, so below; as below, so above.” Raise high the roof beam, carpenters!

Blessed Be.

*Sappho: Raise high the roof-beam, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man.

**Hermes Trismegistus: “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing.”

Amy Pierce is an ordained Minister in Integrative Healing with a Master’s degree in Applied Healing Arts. She is well known in North Carolina’s Triangle region for her holistic, ecumenical approach to spirit mind body healing through her teaching and writing, as well as her counseling ministries. Visit  www.authenticself.us or read Amy’s blog: In Spiritual Wonder.

Coral Beach, Grand Bahama Island

Early one Sunday morning in the early 1980′s, I was running up a steep hill on the Bahamian island of New Providence, in an area downtown, near the elegant Governor General’s house.  It was a beautiful day in mid-January and cool enough to be able to run at 10 am.  Along with forty or so members of a for-fun running club, I was racing along, intent on finding a trail laid out using flour.

To my left, was an old, gray, stone church.  On the outside of the structure, were white, slatted windows that swung out and were held in place by support rods.  As I pounded up and over the arc of the hill, I suddenly heard the refrain of a hymn carried by the breeze. It was unexpected and sung with such force, it flooded my senses, instantly carrying me to a place I seemed to recognize but had not visited for a long, long time.  In that moment, my legs wobbled beneath me, my heart opened and I began to cry, wondering why the hymn would move me so and what this could mean.

In the Sufi tradition, a moment like this is called, “Dhikr,” the chanting or singing of Divine names in order to initiate remembrance of God.  It is the practice of venturing away from worldly focus toward the inner call of the soul.  Although I did not realize it at the time, the power of the congregants singing was a beautiful gift which invited a ‘turning of the heart’ toward God. It was here, in this profound moment that my spiritual journey began.

Looking back, I came to understand that this moment marked the opening of an inner doorway that could never be closed again.  After that, my life suddenly began to take odd twists and turns until I was brought into the company of an Enlightened Master who gave Shaktipat initiation, the awakening of the spiritual energy.

Since then, there have been continuous turnings and openings of the heart which have had a three-fold effect: one an awakening to the awareness of the ‘Consciousness of Oneness’, two a deepening desire to do the inner work and three, a willingness to support and encourage others on their own inner journey.

Thich Nhat Hahn expresses this beautifully when he writes:

“You are me and I am you.

It is obvious that we are inter-are.

You cultivate the flower in yourself so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in my-self so that you do not have to suffer.

I support you, you support me.

I am here to bring you peace.

You are here to bring me joy.”

Knowing that we ‘inter-are’, there are simple Self Inquiry questions we can contemplate to connect us back to the heart, and back to the Truth of Oneness.  Here are a selection:

1.  Am I working with the energy of the heart or against it?

2.  Am I trusting the wisdom of the heart?  If not, why not?

3.  What inspires me and opens my heart?

4.  In this moment, how can I encourage and uplift my-self and others?

As you contemplate these questions, my wish for you is to continue to have the courage to do the inner work.  This work is the doorway to moving completely into Unity Consciousness.  It is deeply transformational and can grace each of us with the gift of being able to express the beauty and light of our hearts.  Then, we are able to uplift, inspire and encourage everyone and everything in our world.

A natural intuitive, writer, artist and transpersonal hypnotherapist, Julie works internationally offering a transformational ‘Living in Alignment’ online course and shares the details of a powerful and life-changing spiritual awakening in her book: An Awakened Life- A Journey of Transformation.  For details go to: An Awakened Life, Living in Alignment, and True Alignment.

I’m not the me
that I can see.
I am the I
behind my eye.

I’m not the me
that feels he’s free.
I am the I
who does not try.

I’m not the me
that seems to be.
I am the I
who does not die.

I am the one
in everyone.
I am the one
and only one.

Peter Bergquist earned a BA in English from Princeton University and an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Antioch University Los Angeles. He is married with two daughters and is currently teaching English, Film and Academic Decathlon in the Los Angeles Unified School District. His poems have been published online, in journals and chapbooks.

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is right around the corner.  I say the same thing every year, and still haven’t become accustomed to looking at the calendar in late December, realizing there are only a few days left.  I love this time though, an obvious point of reflection on the year gone by and consideration of the year to come.  What accomplishments deserve celebration?  What did I not quite finish that would be beneficial to wrap up?  What was my greatest joy this year?  Who came into my life and what have they taught me?  What am I hoping to do next year?

In mid 2009, I dreamed of Awaken Consciousness Magazine being a place where art integrates with personal transformation, a resource of inspiration and potentiality.  I am so grateful to YOU for helping to make that happen.  It’s an honor to have published such fantastic work, and I am humbled by your commitment to art, to growth, beauty and inspiration.

ACM is on break until the new year, but I hope you’ll visit again in January for more works that articulate and explore the Great Work, that of experiencing peace and joy, remembering our authentic source, our true self.

As always, I’d love to hear from you.  Email your comments or questions to me at editor@awakenconsciousness.com or post directly to the contributors through the comment log.  If you’re interested in subscribing to ACM, please scroll down to the bottom of this page and click “Sign me up.”

Many blessings to you and yours in this season of love and light.

Mindie Kniss

Like a knight preparing for dragons,
she arms herself for a day alone—
instead of a sword, a journal of handmade
paper and an antique fountain pen.
For provisions, a bottle of spring water.
As talismans a baby doll, half-hand
bitten off and raggedly glued, smiling
bear fetish, tarnished brass pendulum.
For outer illumination a candle,
hoping meditation will bring inner light.
No shield for protection from demons
she knows will arise from the midnight
of her soul, shadows which must be
faced —and embraced.
She retreats to her room for solitude,
closes the door to the world,
opens the door to her self.

SuzAnne C. Cole, former college English instructor, enjoys being a wife, mother, and grandmother, traveling, hiking, exploring her consciousness, and writing from a studio in the Texas Hill Country. She’s been both a juried and featured poet at the Houston Poetry Fest and once won a haiki contest in Japan.  Editor’s note: “Solitude” originally appeared in Sage of Consciousness.

at the Quaker Meeting House.
See us sitting. See the rows and rows
of dark wood benches. See the spring sun-
light prisming through the windows, linen
handkerchiefs fallen on the dark floor tiles.
Hear the expectant silence of apple trees,
buds about to pop, each in its pink or white time.

Now a baby papoosed on his daddy’s chest,
trills his tipsy giggle into the air.
Hmms, cackles, coos, gurgles, squawks,
squeals, he hatches sounds that have no spelling.
We grownups laugh our soprano/alto laugh,
our tenor laugh, our bass laugh, wrapping
the room in a kind of ‘stadium wave’ of love.

The father rises.
“This is Jonah,” he says. “Jonah wants to tell you
that he is very happy.” The father sits,

and

we

remember

what we’ve lost. That seemingly
impossible Faith. And, especially,
that unmitigated Joy,

born today

lost again today,

slipping through the sieves of consciousness,
new and old, inevitable, entwined,

as relentless as time, and as certain.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro is the author of a professional book, Second Childhood (Norton, 1988),  a poetry book, Players In The Dream, Dreamers In The Play (Plain View Press, 2007) and  two chapbooks: Your Third Wish, (Finishing Line, 2007); and The End Of The World, Announced On Wednesday (Pudding House, 2007). As a Quaker and a psychologist, her poetry often addresses the embedded topics of peace and violence, often by addressing one within the context of the other. A resident of Lexington, she was named Senior Poet Laureate of Massachusetts in 2006 and again in 2008.

Oneness / Home

Evolutionary enlightenist Andrew Cohen writes, “And that’s what the world so desperately needs: mature, enlightened human beings who are willing to wholeheartedly take responsibility for the entire process, forever – to participate in the creation of the conscious universe, with and as the very force that created it. That impulse is . . . your very own Authentic Self.”[i] Authentic Self is that Spark of Divine Fire, that initial God-individuation that is the Greatest/Highest Self; Authentic Self is Oneness with identity.

Built into each of us, sitting in our deepest heart, is a longing for connectedness. Sitting alongside the yearning is a belief and fear that we are ultimately alone.  The longing for connection is about Home, the Great Source of Being that many of us call God. The “good news” is to be found in the truth of the reality of Oneness – meaning that whether or not we know or experience it, we are literally One with All That Is.  Every tree and tank, every hellion and healer, every bully and baby, are One and cannot be separated from the Whole.

That we exist here on this duality planet as unique individuals by necessity means that there exist many distinctly differing paths to bring us Home.  What works for one will not necessarily work for another, and to me, this is part of the beauty and grace of Consciousness Itself, of Creator, of Home.  Eventually, we will come Home to the undifferentiated Oneness.  Yet we can also choose to come Home here and now as our Authentic Selves in form, which means that we must live and “behave as if the God in All Life matters”[ii].

The Keyword of the Times is “Change”

Huge changes are upon us.  Time seems to be speeding up, and the consequences of the conscious or unconscious choices we make show up almost immediately.  This instantaneous response lets us see that there’s no longer any room for doubting our authorship of the experiences we have.  It’s time to wake up to the fact that we, like the God Who made us in its image and likeness, are Holy Creators who must now take authority over both what we will make and what we have made.

We are all in the movement of Life together.  In fact, we ARE the movement, we ARE Life.  Whether we are completely unconscious of this truth, or at the edge flirting with the idea of conscious evolution, or already immersed in the soup and fully engaged in creating a life of deep, profound spiritual responsibility and integrity, the times are calling loudly to each of us to take our place at the table and consciously create a new world.

For the Sake Of

Why the urgency?  Because this Universe and our beloved Earth – a living, conscious Being – will no longer support our hiding behind the mask of separateness, another word for victim consciousness; we simply no longer have that luxury if humanity is to survive and thrive.  You and I must really “get it” that there is literally no separation between us – you are another me and I am another you – and that every choice, every action, and every belief affects the Whole.

For the good of All, for the sake of the Whole, and in service to the One, we must look at what it takes to embody Authentic Self so that we will choose to live and behave as if the God in All Life matters.  We must examine the ways and means of “healing the holdings of the heart” and look at how it is we create both the joy and suffering that we – and others – experience.  When we take such a level of self-responsibility to heal ourselves, we help heal the world by becoming a healing presence wherever we are.  From this embodied authenticity, we love each other back into our forgotten Wholeness by living as Authentic Self, that over-arching Aspect which has never left Home, and which holds the door wide open, waiting for us to remember who we are.

[ii] Phrase taken from the title of Machelle Small Wright’s book, Behaving As If the God in All Life Mattered, published by Perelandra Ltd.

Amy Pierce is an ordained Minister in Integrative Healing with a Master’s degree in Applied Healing Arts. She is well known in North Carolina’s Triangle region for her holistic, ecumenical approach to spirit mind body healing through her teaching and writing, as well as her counseling ministries. Visit  www.authenticself.us or read Amy’s blog: In Spiritual Wonder

I ceased putting off any longer all
that needs doing now?  Immediately
I set to recast the canvas of my life,
to paint anew each of the karmic

stains carried from lifetime to lifetime
accumulated now above palette
and paints.

Pure white shimmered around the perimeter
as I emptied each act, thought or deed gathered
from the myriad moments of eons
onto the empty slate.

To my surprise each splatter dried, casting
clues to unseen mysteries heretofore not
revealed.  Still, the picture painted did not
yet satisfy these eyes.

With brush raised, I begin to channel all
the masters: Van Gogh, Monet and even
Titian—

new hues dotted, stroked and spattered
as whole bits and chunks of karma
transformed until a beautiful panoramic view

unparalleled dropped me to my knees as
I settled on the scene of my life set before
me now.

What if I had finally solved the puzzle
of my self-created Zeno’s paradox to reveal
a continuum in space and time where I —
a motionless runner—

had always been?  Unvarnished now, I sit
waiting— beside the tender shoots of the
newly planted Bodhi Tree in my own
backyard.

Paul Goldman is a published ecstatic poet whose work can be found online at www.stonespiritlodge.com, www.kansaspoets.com, and www.artistshelpingthehomeless.org.  His poetry has been published in Evolving Magazine, Spirit Seeker and in various Midwest literary journals. A video segment of a recent poetry reading can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FTtW1bm7l8.