Of
Rainbows and Other
Divine Rapport Technologies
[and
also a Reminder of a
Mother's
Undying Love]
|
|
How
might the Divine achieve 'converse' with those of us
who
suffer divinity-challenged consciousness?
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Fairly tempestuous winds seized the day after I
watched the thermometer outside my window reach 70. It
was January 7th. The
temperature plummeted as a storm front moved in, looking
more like tornadoes than anything else!
No weird green sky, thank goodness!
But most people would not be thinking about walking
or exercising outdoors in this!
I got in the car to run errands and hopefully to walk,
in spite of the fact, around 4.30.
It was fritzing enough to require slow wipers.
I drove to the Old Battleground side of the
local Country
Park, now of national park status, from the Revolutionary War.
When I got to the parking lot, there were only four
vehicles to be seen;
usually it is packed with something closer to 100 or more.
I put on a rain slicker and headed south for a couple
of blocks, then turned east to walk through the park.
Suddenly amid all the gusts and gray drizzle, the Sun
broke through and held its own till dipping out of view a
few minutes later, striping the charcoal
brown woods ahead with honey-thick orange-gold.
I kept looking back over my shoulder to see its
warming amber presence ‘just one more time’, hanging
right on the edge, before dropping out of sight.
The moody-to-menacing storm front appeared to be suddenly
breaking up by chunks into enlarging spaces of this intense
Maxfield-Parish gradation of light- to
deep-sky blue – even more Max-P than Maxfield Parish,
particularly westward.
I
could not take my eyes off this churning spectacle overhead. In the
meantime, while all this unfolded in the outer theatre of
the coming evening, inside I was having an earnest
‘conversation’ or more like a prayer or invocation,
thinking of all the magnificent divine presences that have
come to mean so much to me – I was naming them off
one-by-one, asking for their collective, Tribal support to
help with smoothing out my troubled personal life and at the
same time to smooth the way and do some spectacular
networking -- And Etc. -- to launch this web project so it could
become the powerful vehicle of Grace on this Earth I have
been long envisioning.
Not unlike this drama above, my life had been a
treacherous caldron of stress and uncertainty in the last
couple of years, as I stretched harder and harder to fulfill
this project’s objectives with no [at least] visible
support yet, while lately, letting virtually everything else
carry me to hell in a handbasket.
Thanks to friends and family, including some whom I
had never met [NEW friends / ‘family’ / angels on and
not on the Earth!], I suddenly was gifted some truly
extraordinary and unexpected spaciousness – and it
appeared, for the moment, I was prevented from going over
the edge altogether into homelessness and who-knows-what.
I had felt more and more, if I could not successfully
bring this work into being, I had nothing to live for, and I
was losing ground as my quest for help continued to be
ignored or overlooked by those whom I had approached for
this purpose.
So this Inward Conversation was being enacted as I
took one last loving
look over my shoulder to say “C’Ya later” to our Sun.
At just about this instant I had run out of my
familiar list of Divine Influences / Inspirations / Guides
and suddenly thought, “Oh, and the Original Creatrix from
whence came the all-dimensional ALL!” at which moment, I
had turned back to the east, and just
that quick: suddenly
a full-blown rainbow that took in about 40% of the sky had
materialized! It
was so shocking, so not there just a mere moment before, a
physical jolt ricocheted through me!
I had to almost lean backward to take it all in, and
it was an uninterrupted arc with hints of multiples in it,
so vibrant was it! How
could that possibly be, I marveled!
Surely it was among the strongest, most thrilling rainbows I had ever
seen, and it was gone again about a minute later.
It was like a giant archway of Promise, beckoning me
to enter with total trust and joyous anticipation!
It was unusual also in that the half sphere of light it
defined, the "doorway," was a distinct rose pink, but
not so outside the rainbow, as if it had soaked up all the
otherwise missing sunset reds that evening. The right half ‘nearest’ me had seemed to end in the
trees just ahead, appearing so close and livingly, it
looked 3-dimensional—I had never seen that effect before.
That one leg lingered, radiant with even stronger colors than the original rainbow, reminiscent of the
flaming “column” of light image that led Moses and the Hebrew
tribes during their epic journey through the desert.
I was riveted on the theatrical timing with “..Oh,
and the Original Creatrix!” simmering like a pot on a back
burner of the stove in that glorious stew of feeling/thought beyond words.
In the meantime, this cosmic drama fest kept
unfolding before me. I
was now passing by a large pond and could easily watch the
western sky. That
exquisite clarity and brilliance of the almost unnatural
blues of the sky now dominated in that direction.
All the clouds had been swept clear along the western
horizon, as if with a cosmic broom, and the broken clouds began a hand-span above
the distant treetops. In
one major portion of the western sky was a most unusual
cloud mass that made me think of embryo tornadoes developmentally
in stasis, and they were this inexpressibly bold yellow gold
that almost seemed to radiate its own light!
These surreal colors were hardly short of electric!
And then,
imagine, around and under them – the stretches of
cloud-free firmament in that gradation of striking blues, it was baffling!
It looked as if the time should be at least an hour
or more before sunset. Confused,
I was still scanning for what I knew was a Sun past seeing;
it wasn’t even visible in the treetops anymore.
There were no reds or oranges, yet the Sun had just
set.
There was nothing I could possibly do at that moment
but stop and stare into the heart of this dancing,
swoon-staggering Grandeur. And
all the time, that pot’s boiling … I
just do not have words for the Divine Presence that seemed
to be all around me, fully, responsively in converse, just
as quickly evaporating into shades of evening, leaving me
beyond thought, in the spell of wonderment, as my trajectory
now led back
toward the car.
The incomparable Human Being and poet Ranier Marie Rilke*
lived a life of such "soaring" moments. In
one instance he says,
I
come home from the soaring
in
which I lost myself.
I
was song, and the refrain which is god
is
still roaring in my ears.
Now
I am still
and
plain:
no
more words. ..
(So,
re: everything
this life is striving for …
you
think that was like a glorious shout of a YES??)
Rilke
acknowledges this, too, in his ever-amazing and
truer-than-true way:
The
hour is striking so close above me,
so
clear and sharp,
that
all my senses ring with it.
I
feel it now: there's a power in me
to
grasp and give shape to my world.
I
know that nothing has ever been real
without
my beholding it.
All
becoming has needed me.
My
looking ripens things
and
they come toward me, to meet and be met.
Wishing you swooning-staggering moments of Divine converse, of
rapturous rapport -- and rainbows just for you! Of
'Soaring' song and 'Roaring' refrain that waken you to Something
More and make it all worthwhile and crystal clear,
that carry you forward always into your greater, ripening
Destiny, ... to 'meet and be met' by the Glory of the
Realer-than-Real and Truer-than-True.
'Oh, and ... (in your own terms)', the stunningly unexpected
to stew over -- the Divine Play or Lila.
Oh! And .. the essential spaciousness in which
to feel safe and lovingly held with the Heart of Grace where
you can melt into peace and be "still and plain ... and no more
words."
So you can Ripen.
--
*
See the works of Rilke's also incomparable English translators -- Anita
Barrows and Joanna Macy! Their Rilke's Book
of Hours is the source of the poetry quoted above.]
~~~~~~~~~~
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PS:
More often and significantly than would randomly be
expected, things have seemed to manifest that
said to me my mother is dropping by to spin some of her LOVE
magic in my life. This
event took place on January 7, the day before her birthday
[and the day of David Spangler’s birthday – Happy
Birthday, David!]. I
had just finished writing this and was seeing where I had noted
the birth dates in my original notes,
thinking of Mom, and just happened to glance down at the
clock, which read 1:11 a.m., January 8.
Mom’s death date was 11/10, and far more frequently
and imposingly than should be the case, these numbers keep
popping up, which seem to be connected to 11/11 or multiples of 1’s – time,
dates, random numbers in the context of something before me.
Just a kind of ongoing inner tease of reminders of
LOVE that never dies. [Thank
you, Mom, and Happy Birthday!
Praying you a Divine Love and Life and Laughter Celebration like we
could never dare imagine here!]
Post-PS:
The contemplative focus of this day was based on Sri
Aurobindo's Divine "Consciousness Experiment," by
the way.
He invited people to participate with him and Mother Mirra
[aka Sweet Mother] in consciously aligning together to help
'pull down' this specific Divine "Original
Creator" Consciousness more fully
into the physical realm, which, in their experience, is what
It seeks to achieve at this evolutionary moment. I
highly recommend their works, as well as their Work,
superbly articulated by one of their disciples, Satprem
in the book, Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure in Consciousness. In essence, it seems to me, they are
suggesting in order to help "pull a little," one
must seek to be one-pointedly receptive and be willing to
surrender immersively into this Consciousness. This
Original Creatrix has been described by these two
individuals as simultaneously absolute stillness and
absolute motion -- rest and motion. Think about
that -- try to imagine both-and, at-one; absolute motion, such
as applied to purpose, is best and most efficiently achieved
through the at-one-ment of absolute stillness. And this
is the inherent nature of that which they each experienced as
this "Original Creator God." [They did not use
capital letters; I cannot not!]
The oldest
known Vedic text spoke of The Beginning in these
terms. Notice how similar this expression is to the
idea of the Void and the Word found in Western religious
texts. Connecting
the Dots... also introduces you to these Great
Souls and their Great Work. Part
1 concerns the general conception of furthering the
understanding of our evolving nature through seeking to
know what all our great religious / spiritual Exemplars,
Teachers, Healers, and otherwise individual Experiencers have
in common. By recognizing what most unifies them, we can
together take a turn on the spiral of Human understanding to
envision ever more fully and specifically our
evolutionary possibilities as a species .. that what
shines through their glory: "this be
us!"
Part
2 focuses briefly on the lives and goals and
experiences of these two people, along with a few other extraordinary exemplars, who we are
able to realize were "just" human beings like you
and me. They were compelled by certain experiences and
the deep questions born of their unfolding lives to
concentrate their efforts spiritually with no specific
religious predisposition to guide them. In other words,
without any religious bias, they simply honored their
questions and the need to know. But their objectives
were built from the beginning on what could benefit all of
humankind. What they learned from their corroborative
inner experiences and those of others became what they called
a "consciousness experiment" they felt was of
profound consequence and invited others to participate.
Interestingly, although they had an ashram and many devotees,
and the Mother oversaw their needs and community and [if and
as they sought it] their spiritual pathfinding, neither she
nor Aurobindo sought nor wanted disciples as such! But I
will leave it to you to discover more details of their
story. That is what you will find in Part
2. It was from them I learned to want to
"pull a little," to participate in their Experiment
toward the benefit of all of us and our beloved Earth.
Wow.
One last note: I thought I had finished this.
In closing down my computer, my eyes came to rest on what has
recently become the main thematic graphic to be found at the
top of the index
page, a [much played with] photograph of the Earth seen from
space. As you can see, it is definitely
dominated by electric blues and gold-yellow, etc. Not
quite this strong in my sunset sky of January 7th, 2009, but
not all that far removed either, certainly dazzlingly
brilliant for that early evening sky. The picture even
has intimations of rainbows in the blue rainbow-like stripes
molded to the slight curvature of the Earth and even the way the
colors relate across the 'arc' of the central land mass.
'Oh, and ..' not to overlook the other Star of that January
7th show -- the Sun itself, reflecting spectacularly upon the
face of the Earth! Needless to say, I feel the further tug of reinforced meaning, adding a rich
spice to that stew!
Many hours later: I'm editing this page, and it
occurs to me, looking at the index picture, gee, this looks
like a rainbow turned inside out!! .. which suddenly
reminds me of the comment my brother Robert made upon taking
in this website as a whole when he first saw it -- before
the photo in question was on the site. He said
teasingly, "Now I know what the inside of a rainbow must
look like!" What a delightful [pun intended]
perspective from a loving bro!
Okay, so this is still me processing this Rainbow Experience,
but another rainbowy context comes to mind that borders on my
original intention of that exquisite moment. Sri
Aurobindo himself said something that so struck my visual love
for color in all its glorious implications as a healing,
transformative element in our lives. Here it is as
Satprem wrote it. In his having given himself totally to
the quest for that which can most benefit Humanity as a whole,
Sri Aurobindo, with his considerable strengths and talents and
laser-focused commitment eventually ... "reached the
extreme overmental frontiers where 'great colored waves' fade
within white confines ...." I understood this to be
part of his initial attempt to describe his experience of the
Originator of All That Is. So, now look at that photo
and turn Aurobindo's image inside out!
Please understand, my hope in sharing with you what appears to
be my almost every miniscule thought, leaving no stone
unturned, is to give you the sense of a very normal process
toward the purpose of how we may come to terms with, benefit
from, and finally integrate these special moments and their
incalculable potential, from all our Experiences great and
small, into our lives to stretch and grow us into that
MORE that it means to be Human. It can
become, typically is a path of unfolding revelation unto that
ever-expanding result. It's as natural as breathing and
as individual as 'every each'. You are your
Journey. And we together, aware or not, are the
every-moment, every-thought, every-action of creation
ceaselessly evolving, from critical mass to critical mass, an
unbroken wonder of transforming Life.
You can see that the Experience itself, no matter how beyond
wondrous and spiritual and .. use your sublimest conceptions!
.. is nothing but another, well, experience, except insofar as
we derive value, meaning, and purpose from it's Call to Wake
Up. Any experience is fodder for this process, and it is
The
Process, the twists and turns of the journey
influenced by its presence in one's life, that is the REAL
ticket for growing our consciousness.
May
JOY and FAITH be your ever-present Guides!
