Article Highlights:

• Are you a Pillar to Post person?
• When “practice” becomes integrated

You can read about my brand new session in full here, it’s discounted $30. Or scroll to the end of this article for a brief description of all the sessions I offer.

Dear Spiritual Practitioner,

From time to time – including this morning – someone asks me what my daily spiritual practice is. Or they might ask what my day looks like spiritually, or what my favorite spiritual practice is, or my most successful one.

It’s an interesting topic to ponder and of course the answer has varied over time as my spiritual life and practice has changed and developed. It’s the same for you, I’m sure.

This morning, in reply to the recent query about this, I had an interesting thought I decided would be fun to share here to spark your own answers to this question. I’ll keep my answer short and sweet today so you can carry on further in your own reflection, and less in mine.

Today’s answer for me is this, “There’s one spiritual approach or practice that’s lasted over the longest time regardless of other techniques changing. I would say it’s my most successful one – the one that has netted me the best results and consistent spiritual growth over the years. My key words for it are “Pillar to Post.”

Essentially it’s a determined practice NOT to let the day be one of rushing from Pillar to Post. Noticing this happening, I’d say mentally or aloud, “Pillar to Post” and pull back, pause, take a breath or maybe a break of minutes or more. In that breath or pause or moment all I do is remember who I am and why I’m here.

I’m light and life on-going, currently expressing in physical form, for the purpose of remembering this and letting that have real physical expression in my human life. In the past I’ve used different fun techniques to interrupt my Pillar to Post tendencies such as setting reminders every hour etc.

These days, however, it has a constancy of its own and brings itself forward many times a day, even many times an hour. It has less of a flavor of remembering and more of a flavor of noticing my longing for it.

The result of this is that I don’t have to make myself interrupt Pillar to Post all the time in the old way. When it’s happening now, I feel my yearning for deeper connection and opening and I move into that. A heart opening occurs then, I often sigh and sit down and close my eyes.

I feel my real connection. I let myself stop what I’m doing and do what I yearn to – not as a commitment or a practice – but because I long to! And I let it be short. Long periods are not necessary. They’re not even as effective. Numerous short periods throughout the day feed my soul continually and beautifully.

What began as a concerted spiritual practice of interrupting the grip of distractions to have short periods of connection has flowered and borne fruit, becoming a natural movement and rhythm in my life. (more…)

You can read about my brand new session in full here, it’s discounted $30. Or scroll to the end of this article for a brief description of all the sessions I offer.
A beautiful Heart of Love message came for us today.  It took me to a very deep and beautiful place.  I’ll join you there, in the special grace of it.
~ XOMayet

A Message From the Heart of Love
Gather In the Grace of Coming Through

Beloved One,

Join us now – if just for this brief time – for a very special kind of moment.  There is an experience that humanity shares from time to time – whether individually or culturally – that has a rare quality of beauty, peace and goodness.  

It is felt when extreme crisis has come and tested human resources to the limit.  When it is underway or while it is passing something precious occurs.  At such a time, life is rendered, all that is extraneous is set aside.  What matters less has necessarily been released and what matters most is often all that remains.

Many things become clear when lifequakes such as death, birth, war, flood, pandemic – intensities of all kinds –  shake your existence to the core.  It is often said that humanity is at it’s best at such times.  You know of what we speak, yes?

Let us be in the feeling of such a moment here now.  Crisis has passed, there may be aftershocks still ahead but there is new strength and solidarity.  In many instances people have drawn closer together, have gained greater appreciation for shared warmth and support.  Much that doesn’t matter has been stripped away.  Needed change has begun.  Greater progress is being made than you fully allow yourself to know.

The Light of the experience is now seen more clearly.  At the end of the tunnel, you would say.  But we would say, the Light was always there, the shadow simply made it more obvious.  Seeing the Light in all of life more clearly is part of the grace of coming through.

There is, importantly, also a peace and calm that – like the Light – is felt more clearly at such a time.  There is relief.  Gratitude is heightened for the small blessings, kindness is more valued, compassion is more present, yes?  

Recall such times in your life, dearest, for you have had many.  Remember the feelings we point to, feel into this right now, into the accumulation of your experiences of this.  Surround yourself with this grace.  

Let us be together in that feeling, expanding it.  There is a holiness to it, a shimmer, a certain quality of light.  And though one might be tired or wounded or discouraged or even still challenged, there is also a freshness.  It is like the air after a cleansing storm, the feeling of sun striking the raindrops into a thousand sparkling prisms before your eyes.

Gather your many moments of this feeling, knitting them together here.  Take from those moments and times not the hardship now passed, but that sacred grace that attends such.  That feeling is precious and can be extended.  There is hope in all those moments, strength, beauty, peace. That can be accessed at anytime.

Feel this with us now.  Deeply know it is there, relax into it, trust it, be nourished by it.  And let us expand it here together to take into your day, to share with your world.  It is the grace of coming through.  You, dearest, and your fellow humans are coming through, beautifully.  You have come through before so very many times, you are coming through now.  And all is well.  All is well. (more…)

Article Highlights:

• Getting it straight about Love
• The effortlessness of Unconditional Love
• Satisfying the longing

You can read about my up-coming 4-month course here.

You can read about my brand new session in full here, it’s discounted $30. Or scroll to the end of this article for a brief description of all the sessions I offer.

Dear lover of Love,

We all know that unconditional love is The Thing, right? We all probably aspire to giving unconditional love. We all probably think we should do that all the time. We may secretly criticize ourselves for not doing that well enough.

We have many ideas about this, most of them less than fully conscious, many probably untrue. We’ve learned about unconditionality over lifetimes from this or that spiritual teacher or author or belief system. Because most belief systems have dictates and teachings about unconditional love, don’t they?

These range from “turn the other cheek” to “love thy neighbor,” to the idea that unconditional love is part and parcel of enlightenment. And the idea that if you don’t feel unconditional love, you aren’t there yet. Hmmm.

What is true – and what isn’t – about unconditional love? I wrote an article here a while back in which I shared a young memory of seeing someone with a small baby in church, gazing so lovingly into the child’s face with utter devotion. What I remembered was my own recognition of that as a “bigger” love. And I remembered my longing to have that directed at me.

It’s a longing every human shares, one that never fully leaves us and for most is not fully satisfied either. And my guess is that within all the songs and poems about it, all the attempts at love, the root is probably our longing for unconditional love – a steadier, deeper, more pure experience of loving and being loved.

Early in a relationship, we may feel unconditionally loved by our partner, we may feel unconditionally loving toward them. When our children are young we may find it easier to love them unconditionally.

However, as relationships progress, as young humans grow, as people fulfill fewer of our expectations, we begin to see that… well.. love is complicated when it comes to unconditionality.

This is discouraging, isn’t it? Perhaps confusing too. Time and again it seems unconditional love fails us, or we fail it. And with that, our relationships often fail to satisfy our hopes and expectations for love.

This is difficult for all human beings, but perhaps especially for people who are spiritually inclined. We feel we, or others, should surely be making more progress in this by now. What is missing In this equation? How do we get there?

For me, the journey toward unconditional loving has been nothing I’d imagined it to be. So much so that in the beginning I didn’t even realize that was what was happening! Today I want to share what it’s really been like because a clearer understanding of this has been a game changer for me.

We all know by now that Love is the essence of all things. Thinking about that, one soon realizes it means that unconditional love is itself. Not something else to be acquired or arrived at by our effort. It is that which flows through all things. It need not, therefore, be sought out or achieved. Because it is already here, there, and everywhere.

It need not be sought because unconditional Love is always seeking us, finding us.

As we grow in light, in spirit, as we progress on our paths, it is increasingly more obvious in our field. It becomes more expressive in our actions. This happens automatically, naturally. So naturally that, as I said, I didn’t recognize it by its name in the beginning.

Many years ago now, the first signal I had that unconditional love was growing in me was when I looked at someone who seemed utterly unlikeable and without warning saw such beauty in his face that it seemed my heart would burst for love of him. I felt so surprised!

Then a little later, I had a feeling that someone was talking behind my back, I strongly felt someone didn’t like me. I was perplexed until, in a moment of illumination, I remember that I’d gossiped to a friend about someone.

What I realized in this moment was life-changing for me. I’d unfairly criticized another and I couldn’t distinguish how that felt to me from how it would have felt to them if they had known. I felt like I had done it unto me. I felt as though someone were talking behind my back, I felt someone didn’t like me instead of the other way around. (more…)