[Note: please consider the thoughts, perhaps re-reading and visualizing a few times. Then do as many of the exploration steps as you have time for.]
Thoughts
As I begin writing this message I feel a growing relaxation. My nature feels at home in the realm of the growth mysteries, so though I know I will be surprised by the results of my attention to them, paying attention is not a challenge. Paying attention to the mysteries and meanings of the inner intention to maintain was the most difficult which reveals something of my temperamental configuration. To grow feels like going to a party following the real work of to maintain. I share this to suggest that you notice which of the messages you can relax into with your attention and which ask you to push your attention past the resistance and confusion you feel. The Holy Nights are not bliss and not easy.
Our bodies grow by division and replication of the trillions of cells that hold our life. Cells divide to multiply! Cells replicate their content from the nucleus to the membrane - the center, the periphery and all that lives in between the two are replicated.
It gets more fascinating if we look at the initiating conception of stem cells - the ur-cells, or the archetypal cells that can take on any of the forms required for specific functions. Stem cells relate to the experience we have of being human - our humanity bears the vast, incomprehensible possibility to become anything yet we become an individual with a specific and limited destiny deed to fulfill. To grow as a human being means to limit and fulfill potential.
Healthy growth requires healthy limits. Unlimited growth is cancerous. Unlimited growth devours our resources and confuses our relationship to all our intentions. However, healthy limits do not imprison or retard. Healthy limits are flexible and allow us to stretch and surprise ourselves in creative ways.
My hair grows. My finger and toenails grow. I see this growth. My hair has also “grown” more gray and my nails have “grown” ridges and twists with age. To grow means to become, metamorphose and evolve. This is not just simple increasing by division and replication. Growth is complex.
When we look at the inner intention to grow we have much to consider (con-sidere - with the stars - there are so many stars to examine). These are some of the ways we grow:
we increase,
we expand,
we gain,
we fulfill,
we become,
we manifest,
we mature,
we evolve,
we metamorphose.
We reach and stretch into the heights, the depths and the widths of our own becoming.
We grow our capacities to think, to feel and to will. We grow our capacities to perceive and observe. We grow our capacities to know and love ourselves, to know and love others and to know and love the world around us. We grow more embodied with our earthly deeds and more light and transparent with our spiritual deeds.
We discover our inner potential and we find our inner limits through growth.
The Holy Nights are the time to recognize our growth and to prepare for growth.
1
What are your feelings about growth and limits? Happy? Scared? Sad? Angry?
2
What do you need to continue to grow?
3
What limits have you discovered? What potential?
4
Do you like limits? Do you respect them? Are you imprisoned in anyway?
5
Do you want to grow endlessly? Is that healthy? What aspects of your inner life need growth? Need limits?
6
Who helps you grow? Who helps you limit your growth in healthy ways? How do you support the growth of others?
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The Inner Christmas site came to my awareness by chance. I was excited to begin receiving the messages, and find them moving and profound. However...the depth of the inner exploration has stopped me in my tracks...I am still re-reading the message of the First Holy Night, and will need at least the month of January to process, examine and learn from it. These messages come at a time when my soul's light had very nearly been extinguished, though I wasn't aware...they are saviours. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAs a choleric, I much appreciated the reminder that too much growth is cancerous. I experienced the effects of this on my relationships with my family during my first year of teacher training. I have loved to learn boundaries, they keep me secure and they allow me to rest and trust that things are just as they should be.
ReplyDeleteIt is 9 am and I just read your message for the 6th Holy night (and day) and was warmed and encouraged by the synchronicity of it as I had just been meditating on the biology of the growth of the plant from seed to seed but then also the human, from sperm/egg union to growth to maturity and back to seed as my hair falls out and friends fall away and all gets more and more still. It is an interesting cycle-growth- and what came up, after my recent studies with sacred geometry, was that although the three comes up in geometry, in the human cycle, we go from two cells to four.......then to eight--not to 16 (not to the square) and not two to THREE and then to four. Just a funny intellectual exercise but interesting to me to contemplate that mystery. Is it always EVEN numbers in the human body? Can you tell that I teach 8th graders!?:)
ReplyDeleteAmazing insights!!! Thanks so much for sharing them with me!!!
ReplyDeleteI am accustomed to practicing a minimalist orientation to sensory pleasure as a way of putting boundaries to my growth and of creating the inner cave in which spiritual imagery can grow like crystals, in which the Christmas infant can be born, in which I find a center point of stillness and unity with what is "out there". But this year I have been a victim of an obsessive focus that has overgrown like a cancer. (Overdoing a health-conscious activity). These meditations have encouraged me to find the right balance, to "secrete" the excess; today I got out an old bag of clay, put half a cup of water in, and plan to attack it until I secrete and create the true meaning of my "healthy" obsession. I also plan to put definition to my finances. Money worries have been a weed that has taken over too much of me.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...When you asked the question: "Who helps you to grow? I was surprised with the strong inner response and reaction I received, "ME". Followed by an even stronger answer to the question, "Who helps you limit your growth in a helathy ways?", A strong inner rely, "ME". I realized that I support the growth of other's by being true to myself first and foremost. I realized that when I am trying to be all things to all people and place my own wants and needs aside that my giving is not clear and free but rather toxic. I am not serving anyone when I feel resentful, exausted and empty. "Love thy neighbour, as thy self", is such a simple request but one that will take my life time to master... Limits and growth, limits and growth a constant balancing act.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lynn for sharing your gift, it is so gratly appreciated and truly valued.
My friend sent me the link to Inner Christmas and so I am grateful to you both. I can see with clear eyes and feel with deep emotion just how much work I have to do to get to know my soulself. I left her behind so long ago. Sometimes it feels like a closed a door and walked away. When I opened this link I knew it was Divine timing. I'm in a cleansing process dealing with "issues", and this is another tool that will prompt me to go deeper. I wasn't ready until I became ready...
ReplyDeleteThank you,
D