Article Highlights:

• The joy of vigil
• Vigilance is bliss itself

Dear Vigilant One,

While working with a client recently I received a message that offers a profoundly new understanding about Holy Vigil. With so much upheaval in the world, the idea of holding vigil has great potential for good just now, as a spiritual work for our lives and our world.

Vigilance and vigil have become greatly misunderstood over time. Vigilance comes from the root “vigil.”  Holding vigil is a sacred act and being vigilant is as well.  Holding vigil and being vigilant are holy actions done gently, peacefully, in quietude. Holding, within us, to what is most true.  To our truest nature.  

Another way to think of surrender is to understand it as holding vigil.  By seating ourselves at the flame of truth in us – with constancy – we hold vigil to the truth of who we are.  This is the real meaning of vigilance.  To continually surrender to the Light and Truth we are.

We have had another connotation for the word vigilance… a somewhat negative one… meaning excessive and often strident effort.  What we have called vigilance has merely been hyper-monitoring of the altered ego. Usually out of fear about losing something or the need to guard against something.  The original intent of the word has been lost.  This misunderstanding removes the sacred from the original intent of the words.

Both vigil and vigilance are important words to reclaim as a way of beginning to restore the language of the sacred for our own use.  So many sacred words have been high-jacked with ideas and usage that gradually leads to negative connotations.  

In this way we have lost much of the language of the sacred which results in the sacred becoming harder to discuss or think about or bring ourselves to.  This is a considerable loss and we would do well to notice and to begin to reclaim sacred words that have been removed in this way.

Vigil – such an important concept, spiritually.  Holding vigil to what?  Where? Why?  To the truth of our nature that is known by our Soul .  To gather around the flame of truth residing in our heart.  To reside there.

We might indeed ask, Why is vigil an important spiritual concept? As long as there is any belief that we are separate from God, from one another or from wisdom, harmony, peace, then our purpose is to hold vigil regarding the real truth of this.  

We are not separate or abandoned by that which is God.  We could never be for we are one with God.  We are that Light, that Beauty, that Wisdom.  And so we sit in vigil around the flame of truth, at the heart’s hearth, holding space, allowing it to illuminate our existence here.

The idea that vigilance is onerous comes from using it as a spiritual practice… all those lives in monasteries, ashrams and isms.  All that striving.  We are among those who lowered the frequency and meaning regarding vigil and vigilance with our excessive striving.  Isn’t that funny?

Real vigilance has a purity to it.  Pure vigilance is an effortless surrender, not a doing.  We are not doing vigilance.  We are surrendering consistently, constantly.  That is vigilance.  The action of vigilance, is surrender not effort. Surrender is the essence of Holy Vigil.

In vigil, we are not encountering patterns, events, objects and others.  When we go within, vigilantly, to see what is really there, it is not with effort or guilt.  It is not to find fault or room for improvement. It is not to find anything.

There are no objects, no events, no others in pure vigil.  There is only the all-encompassing life we are.  The rest is all surrendered at the door of Holy Vigil.  It is such a relief, such true freedom, to sit in Sacred Vigil.  Inexpressible relief!

In that place, we are not an individuals surrendering this habit or that thought or pattern.  We are not the individual petitioner beseeching the sky.  We are the sky itself, observing the experience of being individual.  Can you feel this?  That is the purpose and nature of self-inquiry that leads to surrender.  It is the return to this surrender that is vigil.

To be vigilant means to be spiritually constant – in physical form – as long as there is separation.  As long as life includes the ticking off and winding down of our desires, as long as we are experiencing ego, as long as there is breath in the body we continue in vigilantly holding this quiet, gentle vigil of light and truth for the world.  Sacred Vigil – that is what it means to be a light carrier.  Isn’t that beautiful?

Vigilance is pure joy!  It is the ultimate freedom, it is one of life’s greatest blessings and is bliss itself.  

Constant surrender is your true nature, becoming one with God again and again and again.  

That is what the saints have known, the constancy of this vigil.  The vigilance that is awake to what is Ever-Present. (more…)

Article Highlights:

• Seeing the patterns
• Connecting the dots in your life
• Making your own life images

Dear Life-Puzzler,

Remember those connect-the-dots puzzles you enjoyed when you were young? I loved those – you connected the lines and then colored in the image they made. I would beg for books of them. I loved it when I could guess what they were ahead of time, but I also loved it when it remained a mystery and the anticipation of knowing built up as I went.

Google them and you’ll see they are still a thing; there are even very complex ones for adults. I remember that New Yorker used to do dot to dot jokes sometimes. Usually the image the joke would create was fairly obvious and that was part of the joke. I particularly recall one that had dots without either numbers or a caption. That’s the one I selected for today’s image. Notice that it has the feeling of having a discernible pattern. Which is part of the joke.

As mentioned, one of the things I enjoyed about dot to dot puzzles was seeing if I could guess what they were before I started to draw the lines from number to number. I usually could – I found that by staring with soft focus at the dots I could see a pattern and if I felt into that pattern I would start to get a sense of what it formed.

I then began to notice there was a feeling I had when I first started to get an inkling of what a particular puzzle was. I liked that feeling, it felt like a trail or path appearing, one to follow. It seemed I could set my foot on that path in a light or delicate way and, in following it, it would often open to a discovery. That’s probably my first conscious remembrance of following intuition. Though I didn’t know it was that at the time, of course.

There were other fun things I did with my dot-to-dot pages. If I thought the image was a bird, for instance, I liked to start the drawing out of order, perhaps with number 17 instead of 1, to see if I could arrive at the bird in the picture in a different way – essentially, in a non-linear way. I enjoyed that too.

At some point, I started thinking about the people who made these dot-to dot pictures. Could I make my own, I wondered? So I started doing that, experimenting with the pattern of dots needed to create a cow or flower or house so I could draw it from one dot to another without lifting my pencil.

I even created random pages of dots and then tried to create images and scenes by connecting dots. That’s what made the New Yorker joke so funny to me when I saw it years later.

Making my own puzzles lead me to look for the patterns that created the shapes and forms of things around me. From there, I grew in my ability to see the connections between things and people and – as I matured – between thoughts and ideas, actions and consequences, between questions and their answers, between problems and their solutions.

In a way, life is one big dot to dot puzzle, isn’t it? We follow from one thing to another, sometimes feeling we know what the big picture is, sometimes not. Sometimes attempting to create one picture but ending with another. In effect, though, we lay down lots of dots along the way, creating our picture as we go. Interesting.

I still enjoy pondering connections, there’s a lot to enjoy there, I’d say. And to benefit from. Connecting the dots is probably my go to problem-solving tool. It’s also one of the best exercises for seeing the unseen worlds. Or for bringing something into physical form. It is a very interesting thing to ponder, wouldn’t you say?

As we near the end of a year, I find it useful to create a pattern of dots by jotting down a few key moments and aspects about the year and then considering what overall pattern I see in the connections between them.

I also like to do this around a challenge – like my teeth saga for instance – or regarding a period of years, such as my 12 year WalkAbout. Looking back in this way, I glean understanding and perspective I don’t gain as easily otherwise.

So here I am, pondering away about this as we enter the last month of 2023. Perhaps you’d like to join me by pondering the shape and form and meaning of the pattern that was 2023 for you.

To happy pondering,
~ 💖 Mayet Leilani

I wanted to thank you for being with me for my surgery. I could tell so many of you were holding me in your hearts, it felt wonderful. As a single person not having someone automatically assumed to be the in-house support cast, it was for that feeling of having support that I mentioned it to you. Your response was beautiful and I did feel such a luxury of support.

Things went very well, and the results were all so great and the healing’s going so well that I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. So again, heartfelt thanks and know your prayers and energy have led to a very happy dentist, surgeon and patient – all of us amazed at how well it’s going. There were a number of dicey moments and a few potential bad outcomes due to my particular situation but not only did they not happen, things have exceeded their expectations. This was due to you, I feel, so take a little credit for your prayers and intentions, your energy and love – they mattered.

The entire experience ended a saga that began when I was 13 and hounded me throughout my most of life. Naturally, I learned a great deal, became a better healer myself. Naturally I looked at every emotional pattern, released things, received lots of healings from wonderful energy healers and dentists, discovered family patterns, worked with my ancestors (the problems are historic, rife, in my family too,) faced fears, left things behind, stepped up, grew, set intentions, said affirmations, did visualizations and burned old stuff up on countless bit of paper in ceremonial fires. Like you would, like people such as ourselves do about such things.

I had numerous miracles along the way and successes, but a lot of focus has been placed on this in my life. Imagine how great it is to be done with that now! To have done it well, to be complete with it. If you can really imagine that gladness, you’ll understand why I’m dancing in the streets, lol. WaaaahOOO. What freedom!

I just wanted you to be able to share this joy with me too 😃 and my big problem-free smile. God bless everything it has been and every person who helped along the way. A hundred Namaste’s. And a thousand more. It is soOoo great to finish a long journey, isn’t it?

🙏🏽 💖 Mayet