Exploring Grace

A higher power can be an interior dimension of psyche, transcendent it's beyond what ego can muster or master. The transcendent is the more that cannot be grasped by intelligence, only by experience. It can be felt truly, but not fully understood intellectually.  It is like the love of favor, like the awe felt in nature.p. xv *

Recently my father gracefully passed away. Grace touches us when we allow our higher self to surrender from our ego-centric ways. It alters us taking us out of the ordinary and allowing us to behold the extra-ordinary.  It unites the opposites or moderates the extremes by its very example. Grace evolves us by its wise and seamless quality that bands together- separate parts become unified as one.

Grace is about being not about becoming: beholding rather than holding; responding not reacting; and being light not dense.  Rather than human doings, we are human beings.  It brings out the profound possibility within each of our souls.  A sense of liberation comes upon us as we accept the mystery with equanimity.  

Beyond description, grace is a phenomenon that happens beyond the ordinary.  A blessing outside our individual selves.  This amazing form of virtue fosters awe, wonder and flow. However, grace is like art in that it defies simple language and words. Such things as poetry and direct experience best conveys this graceful spirit of possibility. 

This mystical quality brings a spaciousness as if you looking at the milky way or Northern lights. Cultivated through good will, appreciation, mindfulness and other illuminating things, grace is resilient, sincere and heart felt.  Complimented by coincidence, grace stimulates a freshness.  It entertains something new in each moment resulting in a form of divine higher presence. 

This phenomena inspires others and benefits us by its nature. This divine power that magically flows. It awakens, and transforms. Grace happens in special conditions.  When there is compassion, calmness, kindness, generosity, respect, and other virtuous states grace tends to be close by.

Grace allows us to tap the larger spiritual possibilities.  It transmutes us from the ordinary ego self to a higher place of unconditional and unlimited opportunities filled with positive transformation. 

Imperfection and inadequacy no longer are curses yet are transformed into a sense of loving kindness.  It frees our inner chains that we have imprison ourselves with.  Short-comings become reversed into strengths.  Grace is synthesis of the positive with negative. It is like the rainbow that happens after a intense storm.  It combines the sum of the parts into an integrated whole.   Grace provides a peak experience to celebrate there is heaven right now on earth.

It is conceivable that by intense effort a person may catch a fleeting glimpse of his own wholeness accompanied by the feeling of grace, which characterizes this experience. - Carl Jung

* The Power of Grace- David Richo, Shamabhala Press,  2014

       

Earth is Our Best Friend

Move H from Heart, place at the end

It spells earth, your best friend

Listen to the birth high above

Dolphins singing of deep love

Rock, air, fire and rain connect

We are all related one divine effect

Illuminated play with rays cycling

All souls unite, a great recycling

Optimize kindness first letters, OK

Meanness and fear bring us dismay

If your mood begins to decline

Recharge yourself and fully align

Stand with your back to a tree

Its pure energy will set you free 

Embody this grace and be still 

Engage yourself with this skill

Quiet your thinking, hear your breath

Allow your spirit go beyond death

There is no beginning or an end

All things unite in a timeless band

Darkness your foe and light a buddy

Kiss the soil even if it’s muddy

Laugh and love we are one

A cosmic dance and have fun

Circle around the healing medicine wheel

Feel the star-shine and its cosmic appeal

Add up the beneficial ways that respect

Subtract your suffering, do not expect

It’s a inside game of showing gratitude

Expanding yourself with a higher attitude

Increase acceptance, lessen any resistance

Expand your awe of graceful existence 

Move H from Heart, place at the end

It spells earth, your best friend

Listen to the birth high above

Dolphins singing of deep love