In my coming 90th year, I go back to my 21-year-old self sitting on the fire escape in New York on West 13th Street and looking briefly at the sun. The thought came to me: The sun shines but IT DIDN’T HAVE TO!!! Existence is the primal YES!
It has to come before a ‘no’ can attempt to deny it.
Today, I realize that with my bicameral brain, it is virtually impossible, given the starry universe, to come to any cause-and-effect solution. The Big Bang must have had an origin, as well. Thus I am resigned to humility and repeat the Vast Certainty will have to do until I have a higher organ of perception! Perhaps that is the heart . . . ?
What touches me deeply is that humanity all over the world has wrestled with these problems. For many of us in the Western world, the Torah and the Old Testament are full of such questions, and so also have the indigenous people struggled with them. The Eastern civilizations, the Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, and Zoroastrians, all have their creation versions, and I do not doubt that a handful of enlightened beings know the truth but on another level.
Thus, I suppose, a certain humility is required until we cross over.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I remember that question being brought up by the red-haired country priest in my German Swiss school in Appenzell exactly 80 years ago (as of tomorrow). I was 10 at the time. My response was that it might have been laid by a hen that wasn’t yet a hen, which immediately begged the question of evolution! With a sigh, I gave up, and I am back to the fire escape on West 13th Street!
As today is the last day of this year 2011 and tomorrow is New Year’s Day, I woke with the word GRACE on my mind. This word is full of polyvalent meanings – the Oxford Dictionary lists 14! I am choosing the 9th:
(Theol.) Unmerited favour of God, divine regenerating inspiring and strengthening influence; (state of ~ ) condition of being so influenced; (fall from ~) lapse into sin or disgrace, etc.
This word, of course, is the source of gratitude. So we receive grace when we say grace! The Lat. origin is simply gratus, meaning thanks!
This brings me to the point I am trying to make: gratitude is the antidote to the fear most likely generated about the Mayan ‘prophecies” that the world is coming to an end in 2012! If Y2K is any example, we should remember not to panic!
The truth of the matter is that it is the astronomical end of the Age of Pisces, as the Point of the Vernal Equinox, aligned with the first visible star in the constellation of Aquarius, signals the beginning of the Age of Aquarius! This Age will last approx. 2,000 years. (The confusion prior to the astronomy involved, was that in 200 BC when Hippolytus proposed the succession of Ages, he didn’t know exactly which degree to begin.)
So to sum up, the Grace we need to feel and accept is the following : Simply expressed.
CATS WILL GO ON HAVING KITTENS!!!
There will be events, no doubt, that will tax our faith, but it pays to remember that we are not in the ultimate charge of existence itself. We need to be grateful for our existing in the first place! What needs to be ended is our ignorant insistence on fighting and killing, often in the name of this religion or that one, and the materialism of evil, greedy, and criminal behavior. The hope lies potentially in the balance of the opposite constellation sign to Aquarius: LEO! This, on Earth, is ruled by the Sun, as is every physical heart that gives us not only life but the capacity to
LOVE!
We need to remember what Christ and other Teachers taught us:
A new commandment do I give you: Love one another as I have loved you.
lovingly,
ao
Sunday, January 1, 2012
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6 comments:
I wish I could give you a hug and kiss you on the cheek and wish you a happy New Year and thank you for stretching my thoughts out a bit more with every post. bless you!
Posting that to my FB page and sending to others. You are awesome, Alice. Grateful for your being born.
Jon
Tank you very much
could not have come at a better time this paper .... grzie one thousand .....
I. Wish you a happy new year and a very happy Age of Aquarius.... Danny
Alice, I dearly love your words and the depth of your thoughts! I am so glad you are here. Happiest of New Years to you! Lynne
Coming late to this entry, and a wonderful one it is. Too many in these days of pure materialism believe in the omnipotence of the Self - that there IS nothing outside the ego and nothing to be grateful to. I often feel alone in the Quest and the practise until I come here and am reminded; I am not alone. There are great teachers and gnostics in the world still, but as it has always been, in the minority. Thank you for this blog and all your wisdom. And Happy New Year!
much love, Cat
Thank you, as always, Alice O. for your thoughtful words that mean so much and ring so true!!!
Happy New Year,
Lilith in Monterey California
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