The Power of Care

We are in a paradigm shift. To shift from a debt-based monetary system (with compound interest), so much influenced by greed and selfishness, to a possible monetary system based on energy (maybe from the sun), based on our sharing heart and abundance, is a huge shift. There is nothing to say that we cannot do this.

In order to help us make this shift, I want to say more about the power of care and look more deeply at the concepts of care-first and money-first. I really have found that care is like a threshold to money, meaning that our money world needs to be touched by care and then money can be a means to assist our economic world to be transformed into a very constructive world.

Care is like a beacon of light. Wherever we apply it, things heal.

We can form all the concepts we want about how to run a new economy and create the financial world we want, but without the application of care for ourselves, for each other, and for our planet, we have no foundation. Care is like a beacon of light. Wherever we apply it, things heal.

This care also applies itself to ourselves. When we apply care-first to ourselves, we acknowledge and support ourselves and make sure that we are well. This is something we can very easily forget. I sometimes call it angel’s disease: many people with open hearts are like angels. They find it so easy to care for others, but much more difficult to care for themselves, as if it is a blind spot.

CODE: 220402 RRP: £12.49 : £6.99 You save: £5.50 (44%)

Because we are the beginning of our actions, we need that care to be applied to ourselves. What is the quality of our action going to be if we are not well? And of course how we treat ourselves is often how we will treat others.

How do we listen to that care for ourselves, for each other and for our planet? Care is in a certain sense an unfamiliar energy in our culture. It can look like it is very familiar to us all because to care for each other seems to be such a natural expression in ourselves. We so easily care for our children, family, and friends. But there are so many places and areas in our culture where care is not applied, and there it looks like we do not know what it is to care or what care is.

I said in the beginning of the book that the relationship between money and care is very important. In our dealings with money we are constantly challenged in that care. There is a field of constant tension between our moeny-first and care-first attitudes inside each of us, which creates either a money-first or care-first world and economy.

THE POWER OF CARE

Let’s look at money-first and care-first
in the light of manifesting what we need. Both are intimately connected to how we survive and make a living.
Because money is the provider of so many things, we need it. Our common sense sees that and the main path we take is to work for that money.

In that sense very often we put money first, because we need it so badly. Everyone knows that this doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness, especially if we are not happy in the work that we do. In care-first, we manifest all that we need through care. Care is a very powerful reality.

Most people in this world live by the premise that in order to eat, sleep, and drink we need money and do not question this premise. This often results in an unconscious anger and frustration and also a feeling of being victimized by a world we are a part of and born into, but cannot change.

This is what the world is like and we’d better make the best of what we have, not realizing that there are other options and that we have the power to create the world we want.

I came to realize that this is the premise of the world of money-first and that there is another option, which is that we can begin to love and experience the power of that love. This led me to the concept of care-first; care, of course, being love in action.

I understood the following thing: Money-first holds the premise that we need the money first and then we can have what we want. Money is the provider here and we need to put our focus on the money.

The premise of care-first is that care holds the power and is the provider and we need to focus on the care for our well-being, survival, and money.

The care creates the money The money serves the care. The source provides. We can create all our finances by the action of love alone.

This is a simple shift in our heart, soul, and mind. The care becomes the opener of the way and guides us along a very different path. We are guided by the care for ourselves, each other, and our planet Earth, which really is being guided by love. Love and care as the movers of our economic behavior.

From Dare to Care, © 2012 by Louis Bohtlingk 

Life as a spiral

Often I’m momentarily aware of life as a spiral. We step out into every day, imagining we are striding steadily forwards (or shuffling unsteadily onwards during more difficult times), only to discover a similar view comes into sight, as life comes back round to a point that we seem to recognise. It looks familiar. We have been here before. Did we get stuck treading water? Were we getting ‘nowhere’? Did we slip back to this place? But wait, no, it is not quite the same place, and we are not quite in the same place. It appears so familiar but as we round a corner and look back, we see that in fact we have come a long way. We are not back at the same place on a circle. We are on a new octave of a spiral.

Spirals at the London Book Fair

Last week I went to London Book Fair with Geoff and Ann’s son Sam, to see what gems we could find for Cygnus Review. The exhibition centre was buzzing with excitement as everyone in the world of publishing converged on Earl’s Court to see what new books are coming out. What are the latest ideas and memoirs to come into print and enter our zeitgeist?

Everyone was scrolling on their ipad (but what’s the difference really between this genius electronic tablet and the stone tablet we’d have had under our arm a few thousand years ago!) Digital publishing has simply joined the flow as another slipstream for ideas.

Sam is a charming young man who is quite possibly the hardest working person you could ever meet – he does the work of three people, exceptionally well. We were there to bring the best books we can find* to the Cygnus community (finding them before they’ve been written).

We had meetings with a different publisher every half-an-hour for the three days of the book fair. What was palpable everywhere we went was the deep affection for Ann and Geoff. Everyone sent their love. And truly you couldn’t meet lovelier people than Ann and Geoff, and Sam.

The zeitgeist is catching up

Now for someone who loves books, this event is a treat. But what struck me about it, was that the ideas are catching up. The zeitgeist is catching up.

Findhorn Press and Green Books were years ahead of their time, and sometimes perhaps they were ‘way out there’ when they started out, with their ideas on ecology or treading gently on the planet. Yet now the biggest and the most mainstream publishers are catching up with these ideas.

The themes of green ecology, of future economics of care, of natural health and healing, are now fully in the mainstream – thanks partly to the thought waves of Cygnus readers for years, who have been treading lightly on the earth. Books on angels and animal communicating are now published alongside cookery and gardening andpolitical biographies by all the publishing houses. The mainstream has caught up.

The spiritual philosophy of Mindfulness is shared in business as openly as it is inmeditation retreats. Knitting and vintage crafts are enjoying a revival on a huge scale and along with appetite for home grown veg and beekeeping. Psychology, psychotherapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are modes of positive thinking, self-help tools prescribed for rising above situations and as ways to recover from adversity, doubt or illness.

Highlights of our May issue

So many familiar faces were at the book fair, and so many familiar books that we all know and love. Deepak Chopra continues to bring his pioneering body-mind-consciousness to help us to become aware of our cellular renewal and our synchronicity with our own destiny. If his message sounds simpler these days that’s because we understand it better now, as he calls us to become aware of our Self Power.

Patrick Holford has motivated us all to be aware of how we nourish our bodies, minds and brain chemistry. In his latest book, The 10 Secrets of Healthy Ageing, he empowers us with the tools of rejuvenation and nutritional health.

Life isn’t always a breeze and whenever we are burdened there is a spiritual message to help uplift us again. Eckhart Tolle has helped us to quieten the nagging doubts of the “pain body” of emotional baggage we carry around. His CD of meditative music helps to still the mind and take us deeper into the spaciousness of the Now.

In the latest issue of the Cygnus Review, Claire Nahmad introduces us to the Kick-Ass Angels, and in this book she is not focusing for once, on ‘love and light’ (denying the shadow). She offers the means to recognise the fog of darkness and gloom as a pervasive influence, which Ann identified as a thought-form which creates illness, in a previous message to Cygnus members. Claire Nahmad’s book offers an explanation of this and she describes the roles of a team of angels working alongside the Archangel Michael who can be called on to help us deal with this fug, to dispel the misleading mindset which would lead humanity astray from its light.

We can lighten our own load and that of others around us as we lighten our whole being. It’s a little reminder that we all need from time to time.

Hope, redemption and gratitude remain our biggest uplift, while the psychology or neuroscience of time-slip physics is one of the most intriguing complexities. Anthony Peake has a gift for making complicated science sound so simple that it makes total sense. You will never see things the same way after reading his mind-opening book about time. Is it all in our mind?

We are all lighting lamps

While the devoted membership of Cygnus Books has been joining with Ann and Geoff in lighting a candle in the darkness, for all these years, we have all been lighting lamps of inspiration in others. There has been a steady groundswell of interest all around us, an assimilation of these ideas into the general zeitgeist, until look – the hundredth monkey was born, almost without our noticing!

The Hopi message was that We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For. Well, we’re here and it’s now. Stay together on this, stay with us. The books we offer at Cygnus will keep on lighting lamps, and illuminating a pathway. Let’s keep on walking steadily onwards, humming a little. It looks familiar but look – look how far we have all come.

With love from all of us at Cygnus,
Carolyn Burdet, Editor

Dear Friends,

We sometimes like turning cherished concepts on their head and then having a fresh look at them. You can learn a lot that way. In this article, we thought we’d consider a concept that’s central to our philosophy – the concept of the Higher Self – and take a look at it from the other end of the telescope – the Higher Self’s end – to see if we can discover something useful that we didn’t know before.

It’s commonly said – at least in holistic circles – that we need to listen to our Higher Self and allow ourselves to be guided by that higher power within our own microcosmic field; and that pretty much all the problems that flesh is heir to, come down to a failure to heed the voice of wisdom arising from our own innermost depths. We think of our Higher Self (or Christ Self) as, well, ‘higher’, don’t we? Our own personal hologram of the Godhead. Complete where we are partial; perfect where we are imperfect; strong where we are weak; wise where we are foolish; all-seeing where we are, it has to be said, all-groping a lot of the time. And of course all that is true.

A new type of being

However, we were reflecting on this a few months ago when we had a sudden flash of awareness which, if you put it into words, would have sounded something like this: ‘Hey, hey, hey! Wait a minute. I need you just as much as you need me.’ And that hit us right between the eyes. ‘My Higher Self needs me?’ ‘Why? How? What for?’

What is this ‘me’ that our Higher Self needs? It is a mind-body system, a conscious presence on the physical plane – a plane on which, owing to its greater density, the law of ‘like attracts like’ is not so immediately perceptible as it is on ‘higher’ planes, thus making possible the experience of a far greater range of contrasts, with all the pains and also the exquisite joys these can entail.

And why would our Higher Self want such an instrumentarium? Because of the stupendous opportunity for growth, learning and creativity that such an experience of contrasts can provide. Because this opportunity of existence on the material plane provides a unique means to create a totally new type of divine being – a being that can express itself with equal fluidity and harmony on all levels of vibration, from the lowest to the highest; a being that can move from the experience of individuality to the experience of unity and back again with ease, as the occasion demands. And most importantly, a being who can carry the divine energies and blessings of the higher, more subtle planes right through into matter, without obstruction.

The great adventure

Can we really participate in that as equals? Are we really providing our Higher Self with such a magnificent, irreplaceable opportunity? Well, yes and no. Yes, in that we are here on Earth, and we are connected, however unconsciously, with our Higher Self. No, in that our lack of understanding often means that we get in the way of the process. So imagine how much more effectively we could participate in the evolution of this new type of being, if we really understood what we are doing, and did it with maximum consciousness and intent. We used to talk about becoming the servant of our Higher Self, rather than trying – as egos often do – to become the boss of our microcosmic system. But after that ‘Hey, hey, hey’ moment mentioned above, we started to see ourselves more as co-creators, collaborators in the great adventure of building of a new bodily Temple in which the higher and the lower are intertwined as one. So, from our new perspective, the human adventure looks more like a three-legged race (with two equals cooperating), and less like a formula one race (with a driver and a car).

Looking at ourselves from the angle of our Higher Self, we can see that all our foibles, the whole gamut of our character, all our desires and all our conditioning can be valuable, useful and lovable. Indeed, if we look back over our past with clear eyes, we’ll be able to see how very many times our foibles and faults really have been useful in the greater scheme of things! So we do not need to feel trapped inside our so-called lower nature, as if in a strait-jacket, for when we see it from this higher perspective, it can clothe us much more loosely, like a coat that we can put on or take off at will. The important thing is just to see ourselves as we really are!

The royal ‘we’

So try feeling your Higher Self as your friend, rather than just as your guide; your friend who needs you just as much as you need him/her. How does that feel? How does it make you feel about yourself? Do you notice how much lighter you feel, how much more confident, how much more safe, loved and free? You are a hero, every bit as much as your Higher Self, and your Higher Self celebrates you as such. It’s no small thing to pioneer this new way of being in matter! And, should you find yourself in dark times, where every bit of your heroism needs to be brought to bear, know that your Higher Self is right there with you, and with your cooperation will turn all things – as it always does – to the absolute, perfect Good. When you know this, it happens even faster.

So, to sum up, there is no need to walk behind your Higher Self at a respectful distance. You can walk side by side, with your head held high, and in that way discover what it means to be a ‘Friend of God’.

With all our love,

Ann, Geoff and the Cygnus Team

CODE: 220513 RRP: £10.99 : £7.25 You save: £3.74 (34%)

‘I feel incredible! I’m so free and light. No more pain. My surroundings are moving away from me. I don’t feel fear any more …’

After fighting cancer for four years, my body was overwhelmed by the malignant cells and my organs began shutting down. Although I was in a coma I was acutely aware of everything happening around me, including the sense of emergency and emotional frenzy of my family as they rushed me to hospital.

‘It’s too late to save her.’

‘Who is the doctor talking about?’ I thought. ‘I’ve never felt better in my life!’

I wanted to hug my mother and comfort her. ‘Don’t cry, I’m fine. Look, I can move around without my wheelchair. After four agonising years, I’m healed! I feel so beautifully peaceful and calm.’

I then understood that even if my physical body stopped, everything is still perfect in the greater tapestry of life, for we never truly die.

Fear of dying
During my Near Death Experience I experienced so much clarity. It may come across sounding as though those who don’t recover or who still have cancer or other illness are in some way lesser than those who heal. This is not true! Anyone who hasn’t healed is a magnificent person. The reasons for their illness lie in their personal journey.

We come into this life knowing our magnificence but this gets eroded (in some of us).

This starts subtly with little anxieties about not being liked or not being good enough. I feared disapproval. I was a people pleaser; and in the process I lost myself. I was completely disconnected from who I was or what I wanted, because everything I did was to win approval. If anyone had asked me what I wanted in life I would not have known.

The most frequent question people ask me is why I think I got cancer. The answer in one word is: fear. I was afraid of failing, being disliked, letting people down, not being good enough. I feared illness, cancer and treatment for cancer. I was afraid of living, and I was afraid of dying. Then I was diagnosed with cancer.

Faith healing and forgiveness
I went through the motions of doing everything I could, but in the back of my mind I believed I wasn’t going to make it. Even though I seemed to be fighting my disease, I believed that cancer was a death sentence. I opted for alternative healing because I felt with conventional medicine I was doomed.

I tried faith healing, praying, meditation on mountain tops, yoga, ayurveda, chakra balancing, energy healing, and I worked on forgiveness therapy. I travelled through India and China meeting Buddhist monks, Indian yogis and enlightened masters, hoping they would help me find answers that would lead to healing. I tried a vegan diet and I read every book I could about cancer.

Despite all this my cancer got worse. My mind was in total confusion; I continued to lose myself, trying everything to stay alive while my body continued to disintegrate. My body stopped absorbing nutrients and my muscles wasted away until I couldn’t walk any more; a wheelchair was my only form of mobility.

I attended spiritual healing groups and was told that this was my choice. I can’t begin to describe the terror I was experiencing day after day. I’d been trying so hard to do all the forgiving, cleansing, healing, praying, and meditating that I could.

After cancer had ravaged my body for four years I was too weak to hold on. The next step was death. That’s when I went into a coma, my organs shut down and I began plunging towards death.

Coming back – coming home
I didn’t feel I needed to do anything in particular to enter the other realm, pray, chant, use mantras or forgiveness. Moving on was closer to doing absolutely nothing.

The realm I experienced allowed me to see my own power and magnificence, undistorted by fear. I became aware of greater power I had access to.

I understood I was dying because of all my fears. I understood that cancer wasn’t a punishment. It was just my own energy manifesting as cancer because my fears weren’t allowing me to express myself as the magnificent force I was meant to be. This understanding made me realise I no longer had anything to fear. I made a powerful choice – to come back.

I came back with the understanding that heaven truly is a state and not a place, and I’ve found that bliss has followed me here to Earth. I know this sounds really strange, but I even feel that our ‘true home’ is also only a way of being and not a location. Right now, I feel that I’m home. I have no desire to be anywhere else. It makes no difference to me now whether I’m here or in the other realm. It’s all just different parts of the experience of our greater, expanded, infinite, magnificent self. Our real home is within each of us and follows us wherever we go.

Why we are here
If every single person suddenly became aware of their true perfection and magnificence – let’s say that everyone on the planet had a spiritually transformative experience – our manifest world would change to reflect that new state. People would be more self-empowered and far less fearful and competitive, which would lead to more tolerance for each other. Crime rates would drop dramatically. Our immune systems would be stronger from less stress and fear, so there would be fewer illnesses. Priorities would change because we’d no longer be driven by greed, which is another facet of fear. Children would grow up being love – being stronger, healthier and more trusting. They’d live on a planet that naturally supports this way of life rather than in a place that’s hostile to it.

Despite this vision, I don’t feel the need to change anyone else, let alone the world. Going out and altering things suggests I judge them to be wrong, therefore I need to fix them to match my own vision or ideaology. Instead, everything is as it should be at this point in time. I know my only work is to be. My job here is to be myself – an expression of the love that I am – and to see the perfection in myself, others, and the world around me as I continue to live in the physical plane. That’s all that any of us needs to be.

My most important message
If there were one message or lesson from my NDE that I wish everyone could know and understand, something that I wish I could shout out from the rooftops, it would be this: I would want you to know that every part of you is magnificent – your ego, intellect, body and spirit. It’s who you are – a beautiful product of this Universe’s creation. Every aspect of you is perfect. There’s nothing to let go, nothing to forgive, nothing to attain. You already are everything you need to be. It can seem so complicated, but it’s not.

If a religion makes you feel lesser than its deities, then you’ve either misinterpreted it or it’s not doing a good job of teaching you the truth. If a guru, teacher or master makes you feel that you aren’t ‘yet’ enlightened and still have more to ‘learn’, ‘release’, or ‘let go of’ before getting there, then they’re not doing a good job of teaching you who you truly are, or you’re misunderstanding them.
Remind everyone close to you to be themselves, and tell them that you love them just the way they are! They’re perfect and so are you. There’s nothing not to love. Most suffering stems from feeling ‘less than’. You aren’t less than anything or anyone! You are complete.

The only thing you need to learn is that you already are what you’re seeking to attain. Just experess your uniqueness fearlessly, with abandon! That’s why you’re made the way you are, and that’s why you’re here in the physical world.

From Dying to be Me, © 2012 by Anita Moorjani, published by Hay House.

DYING TO BE ME
Anita Moorjani
In this inspirational memoir, Anita Moorjani relates how, after fighting cancer for four years, her body was overwhelmed and began shutting down. As her organs failed, she went into an extraordinary near-death experience, where she realised her inherent worth… and the actual cause of her disease. On regaining consciousness, Anita’s condition improved so rapidly that she was released from hospital within weeks, without a trace of cancer in her body, defying medical knowledge. She had the realisation that there are miracles in the Universe that she had never even imagined. In Dying to Be Me, Anita shares all she has learned about illness, healing, fear, being love, and the true magnificence of each and every human being. This book sings that we are spiritual beings having a human experience … and that we are all One.

208pp, 152mm x 228mm, softback, 2012, RRP £10.99
Code: 220513 Cygnus Prices: 1 copy £7.25
2 or more copies £6.75 each

CODE: 220402 RRP: £12.49 : £6.99 You save: £5.50 (44%)

Esotericists describe money as ‘concretised energy’. It is energy vibrating very slowly and is neither good nor evil.
Practitioners of white magic will recognise the theme: It is our relationship with money that defines our values and our actions in relation to money that define ourselves.

Confronting our financial insecurities
Money exhorts reactions. It can be a force for good, a flow of liquid golden light that can facilitate and heal, but it is often the concretised energy that defines the attachments and illusions we accept as real. Claire Rayner, who grew up in poverty, once said that it is more frightening than being hungry, cold and having no stable home. There is something obscene about real poverty.

Sometimes, however, we are irrationally fearful of being poor and this fear mistakenly drives our materialism. Dare to Care is about confronting our own irrational insecurities about not having enough money and reframing our work with what can be a difficult energy. We can transform money into a golden liquid energy that can flow where it is needed in the world. It doesn’t have to be trapped in form like concrete.

In her Foreword Hazel Henderson, a social and economic pioneer for four decades, starts this book off with a bang. She describes how she has avoided the vain trap of forming a grand institute with big offices and worked over her garage all these years, becoming ‘… a strand of cultural DNA, a living, stable molecule of information that does not grow, but replicates itself.’ She sees economics as ‘truly a dysfunctional strand of cultural DNA, replicating misinformation in our body politic, which needed teasing out and correcting…’ This she has done, exposing the myth of perpetual economic growth in a world of finite resources, introducing systems thinking and concepts like social responsibility and the ‘love economy’ to the financial realms.

She describes a cake of four layers. The two top layers are of total productivity, the private and public sectors, and they rest on two lower layers ignored by economists: the ‘Love Economy’ of unpaid work, and Nature’s Productivity (topography, climate, agriculture and the basic productivity of ecosystems).

A care-based economy
Louis Bohtlingk takes these ideas and develops a framework to help us work together to resolve our global financial and economic crisis. This isn’t a book about manifesting personal abundance (i.e. visualizing more cash in your life) but a resource manual. It sets out to: Help people work in vocations they love; provide the basic human rights of a home, food, education and healthcare for everyone in the world, not just for the privileged few; to embrace the concept of a global financial commons, a place where we establish a conscience about the effect of financial transactions on the well-being of people, our communities and the Earth and are held accountable for those actions (even through regulation); to establish the right set up of our monetary system, whether we decide to use the currencies we have or create new ones (complementary systems). This explores the debt-based system we have with its compound interest and its (dis)functionality.

The critical aim of the book is to question our sense of financial insecurity – our money first, care second values. The majority of us are millionaires in the eyes of the developing world so why are we so obsessed with money? Our money crisis is a crisis of consciousness. We are called to use money in service of the well-being of people and the Earth, to ‘dare to care’ first, worry about our personal wealth second. By doing so we will transform our fear based financial systems, attract the energies of the ‘love economy’ and preserve nature’s abundance.
It is no accident that Cygnus has published a special book club edition of this book for you all. For over two decades Ann and Geoff Napier have bravely challenged the economic status quo with their work, promoting gentle, empowering and spiritually expanding ways of living. Financial gain has always been a very low priority.

Serving the greater good
I know from my own work that the message of this book is true. If we serve the greater good, money is transformed from concrete to liquid gold so that it can flow where it is so desperately needed. Now is the time for us to reframe our attitudes to money and material gain to relieve the terrible suffering of the people in our ‘two thirds’ world and to enable us to live within our ecological limits. We have to change the dominant cultural narrative that unending economic growth is possible and that our society’s wellbeing is based primarily on material wealth. After we have catered for our basic needs, these beliefs are simply not true. Change the narrative and we can redesign our financial systems to serve the world, not plunder it.

Maddy Harland is the co-founder and editor of Permaculture Magazine – inspiration for sustainable living – exploring practical and inspirational solutions for a better world. www.permaculture.co.uk

DARE TO CARE
Louis Bohtlingk
The message of this book could not be more appropriate or timely. Louis Bohtlingk offers an inspiringly simple yet far-reaching idea for transforming our economy and the world of finance so that it supports, rather than undermines, our human needs and those of our planet. He suggests that, by changing the way we think and feel about money, transforming our approach from a money-first to a care-first attitude, we can all help to create a better world in which greed and fear no longer dominate our financial decisions, and caring and compassion become our primary guides when making money-related choices. Bohtlingk shares his vision for a love-based economy and a care-first world, using examples of businesses, organizations, communities, and individuals who have made this approach work for them and those they serve. Through Dare to Care you will come to view finance and economics from a new perspective, one which urges you to reorganize your approach to money and so become empowered to act and achieve a care-first worldview.
228pp, 152mm x 229mm, softback, 2012, RRP £12.49
Code: 220402 Cygnus Prices: 1 copy £6.99
2 or more copies £6.49 each

CODE: 220520 RRP: £12.99 : £7.99 You save: £5.00 (38%)

Life brings challenges. Is life simply a random series of events that keeps us off balance and barely able to cope, or is there a reason for this? Spirituality says the reason that challenges arise is to make you more aware of your inner purpose.

Three levels of awareness
If this is true, there should be a spiritual answer to every problem. The answer doesn’t lie at the level of the problem, even though most people focus their energies at this level. The spiritual solution lies beyond. When you take your awareness outside the place where struggle is ever-present, two things happen: your awareness expands, and with that, new answers begin to appear. When our awareness expands, we can see that events are not random. A larger purpose is trying to unfold through you.
Every time a challenge comes your way there are three levels of awareness.

Level 1 is contracted awareness. No matter how hard I work at something, no matter how hard I try, everything in my life seems stuck. No matter how I reach out for others, no matter how much I meditate or contribute. This is the level of the problem. There is an underlying anxiety and fear of failure. You can tell if you are at this level because as you struggle to get free of the problem you become trapped by it. One example of contracted awareness is complete denial of ‘higher’ reality.

Level 2 is expanded awareness. This is the level where solutions begin to appear. Your vision extends beyond the conflict, giving you more clarity. For most people this level of awareness isn’t available because their first reaction to a problem is to see it as a crisis. They contract and become wary. If you allow yourself to expand, you meet fears realistically. With more clarity you no longer feel confused or conflicted. With expansion unseen forces come to your aid. More people connect with you, and you allow them more input. You can tell you have reached this level of awareness when you no longer feel stuck.

Level 3 is pure awareness. At this level no problems exist, every challenge is a creative opportunity. You feel aligned with the forces of nature. What makes this possible is awareness, that can expand without limits. At every moment pure awareness is in contact with you, sending creative impulses. When you are open to these answers, the is no conflict, no struggle. The next thing you want is the best thing that could happen. You view the world with compassion and you feel safe. Your desires reach fulfilment spontaneously. This is a state of unity with everything in existence. You can tell you are in contact with pure awareness if you feel truly yourself, in a state of peace and freedom.

Awareness isn’t passive
The way you perceive a problem will inevitably blend with how you try to solve it. You respond to a situation through various aspects of awareness. If you are able to examine your state of awareness, five aspects emerge: your perceptions, beliefs, assumptions, expectations, feelings.

When someone is self aware, you can ask them about what their assumptions are, what they expect from you, how their core beliefs are affecting the situation, and you won’t get a defensive reaction. You’ll be told the truth. When you base your life on the reality of the soul, and take the level of the soul to be the basis of life, spirituality becomes an active principle. The soul is awakened.
However, a mind blocked by anxiety or worry isn’t able to experience expanded awareness.

For countless people life feels like that. Feelings of numbness or depression can make life seem to stop; so can sudden loss or failure. But the potential to heal is never worn away completely.

Change and transformation are your birthright, guaranteed by the indestructible basis of life. Life is in a continual process of change. Even when we are feeling stuck, our cells are still processing the basic materials of life continuously.

Each of us is entangled in a world view we call real. There is no separation between a thought, and the body’s reaction to it as it receives messages from the brain, and an action. So when you speak and act you are causing a ripple that is felt in the flow of life. Genes are not nouns, they are verbs. Your life at the moment is a process that involves thoughts, feelings, brain chemicals, the body’s responses, information, social interactions, relationships and ecology. Because pure awareness lies at the basis of everything the most powerful way to change your life is to begin with your awareness.

From Self Power, © 2012 by Deepak Chopra, published by Rider.

SELF POWER: SPIRITUAL SOLUTIONS TO LIFE’S GREAT CHALLENGES
Deepak Chopra
In challenging times it can seem as if we have very little control over our lives. Yet with expanded awareness we can shift beyond feeling stuck or despairing, to face each day with new hope. We can find the resources within us to access our inner power and take practical steps to reshape our life with greater love and confidence. With this new expanded awareness we will see that we are still in charge of our destiny. As the stuckness shifts we attract helpful solutions to us. Self Power is a fluent, inspired offering from Deepak Chopra who stands out as one of the leading thinkers in the world on the healing of mind body and soul. His latest book is a gift, combining his compassion for our mundane worries with inspiration for living with a spiritual awareness of life that expands our options and changes our reality.
224pp, 134mm x 214mm, softback,
2012, RRP £12.99
Code: 220520 Cygnus Prices: 1 copy £7.99
2 or more copies £7.49 each

CODE: 220211 RRP: £10.99 : £6.99 You save: £4.00 (36%)

The kick-ass angels are coming! We have fallen asleep in a too-bland, fuzzy, wish-fulfilling dream of angels, and we need to wake up.

Putting a few things straight
Kick-ass angels are not negative in any way; they desire only our progress and our awakening. They are not bullies or tyrants. Under no circumstances do they champion soul destruction, ungraciousness and contempt for sensitivity and finer feelings. They do not assume a critical or judgmental stance. They are not punitive, they do not chastise, they do not in any way use severity inappropriately – but they are kick-ass angels!

They are to do with releasing loving, positive free flow into negativity and devotedly nurtured old complexes. They are to do with cleansing, exorcism on many subtle levels, casting out fears and self-imposed limitations, changing stifling psychic air, identifying and challenging addictions and ingrained habits, and letting the winds of the spirit blow freely, like a bracing mountain breeze.

When we find ourselves suffering from subtle lethargy, stultification, blockages and stuck situations; when we seem unable to make progress and repeatedly encounter the same set of problems and circumstances; when our eye slips off the ball concerning our higher aspirations, we need to bring in the kick-ass angels.

When we feel our backs are against the wall, or that we are sinking in a steadily encroaching sea of inevitability, we call on the kick-ass angels.

When we snuggle into self-complacency and our spiritual vision becomes shallow; when materialism and triviality threaten to hijack it, we can by prior arrangement give the kick-ass angels the go-ahead to intervene. When we feel resigned and hopeless, and the vital spark of our true self is dim and feebly flickering, it is time to summon the kick-ass angels.

Dragon essence – flame of spirit
Kick-ass angels are connected with our dragon essence. This sacred serpent essence is the magical flame of spirit that lies buried in our depths, in our soul. It is the sun within us. It breathes forth fire, and is a creature that lives and moves and has its being in the light. It is our purest, highest essence – the dragon essence within. It is our light body, our light being. It transforms us and our world.
It is connected to the kundalini energy that eastern adepts see as a coiled golden serpent dwelling in the chakra or power centre at the base of the spine. But it is not this sacred kundalini force we call on in order to connect to our dragon essence. Our higher and true dragon consciousness dwells as a flame in the heart. Summoning the kundalini serpent is dangerous and can lead to disastrous consequences. It can drive a soul mad, or apply the bellows of violence and aggression to its dimensions. The kundalini can all too easily feed itself into the belly of the lower dragon with its hideous rampaging strength arising from the forces of materialism. This lower dragon ever seeks to lock human beings in its coils and drag them off to its stinking lair. It is the dragon that St George, Archangel Michael, and other great guardians, are portrayed as ‘slaying’, or, more accurately, piercing through with spiritual consciousness so that it becomes transformed and offers up its imprisoned victims as well as releasing its own unique light.

After we become consummate with our true dragon consciousness, the kundalini looks after itself, and is stimulated naturally and safely.

Becoming the Pendragon
When we call on the kick-ass angels, we call on our true dragon essence to arise and irradiate our consciousness. We become the Pendragon, literally the ‘head dragon’, which has three meanings.

The first is that our dragon essence has become our king or queen, our supreme ruler within. The second is that our dragon essence has risen from its throne in our heart to our head, to throw off supernal radiance from those two centres – the heart and the head – so that there is no misunderstanding or disconnection between them. They work and act in supreme harmony. The third is that the dragon of light within our deepest soul, in claiming its true inheritance as leader and inspirer and elected authority, has gloriously overcome the usurping dragon of the elemental forces. This is the lower saurian, the reptilian worm of wrath, who seeks to tyrannically oppress us and keep us in chains of enslavement in matter.

The kick-ass angels are those that foster, encourage and facilitate this process of overcoming the lower saurian. They are angels of the sacred light, of the golden serpent essence. They are the awakeners of the stars of measureless radiance that dwell deep within us.
Encountering these life-transforming angels of dynamic spiritual force allows us to locate our ‘prison cells’ and overturn the sentences we have, often unwittingly, imposed upon ourselves. They fathom our darkest, most fetid dungeons and unbind the aspects of us that dwell there, heavily manacled, in chains. They are unafraid of the gravest, unspoken, most horrifying secrets we may have buried in lonely places of denial and sad isolation.

Angels of resolution
The kick-ass angels are angels of resurrection, revolution and resolution. They are a burst of life everlasting. Their potency is in their wake-up call, for, as they themselves have intimated, the kick-ass angels are angels of awakening.

We need their help in our daily lives and our personal lives. We need their help to fulfil our potential. We need their help in realising our spiritual selves. And we need their help collectively at this point in our history. Without the aid of the kick-ass angels, the transformation of the future cannot begin.

The kick-ass angels stand ready to transform sentimentality into a true heart-piercing by the sacred lance, to sweep aside banality and offer instead the light of direct energetic transformation via our encounters with angels. They bring us the power of will to sacrifice indulgence of the lower mind in favour of a higher aspiration, and to become a receptacle for the spiritual and angelic consciousness that is our birthright.

From Kick-Ass Angels, © 2012 by Claire Nahmad, published by Watkins.

KICK-ASS ANGELS
Claire Nahmad
When life is not all sweetness and light, and when we come up against internal obstacles and blind spots that do not respond to our efforts to remove them, we can call on the clarity and perseverance of the kick-ass angels to instil in us courage, integrity and endurance, to guide our way through the confusion of darkness and misinformation in power around the globe. The emphasis with kick-ass angels is on motivation, action, removing obstacles within us, exorcising our fears and demons, so that we can make personal progress. Writing in a way that spans Zoroastrian philosophy on the roles of angels with biblical, mythical and historical allegory about the Emerald tablet and spiritual alchemy, Claire Nahmad suggests how to use our integrity to see the truth. She reminds us that when the going gets tough we can call on the kick-ass angels as light bringers to dispel shadows and pulsate love.
256pp, 134mm x 214mm, softback,
2012, RRP £10.99
Code: 220211 Cygnus Prices: 1 copy £6.99
2 or more copies £6.49 each

CODE: 220529 RRP: £9.99 : £6.75 You save: £3.24 (32%)

On the afternoon of Sunday 21 November 2010, I was sitting in my study, having just finished tying my shoelaces, and was preparing to go outside when I heard a scream.

It was my wife, Penny, who was upstairs. I just had time to think: ‘Oh, bloody hell, another spider crisis!’ (Penny hates spiders and is prone to a spontaneous scream if she sees one.)

The penny drops
But this scream sounded different. I got up from my chair and went to the foot of the stairs. I have just measured this distance and it is about four metres. As I arrived, I saw Penny, literally in mid-air, falling down the stairs. I positioned my body to catch her in my arms. I even had time to angle her body so that her head did not smash against the door frame. She had fallen about two metres, at speed, head first. Had I not been in that exact position I have no doubt she would have hit the wall at the bottom of the stairs and broken her neck or cracked her skull. We are both sure she would have been killed.

We were both in a state of shock and Penny was clearly quite traumatized by it all. After we calmed down (I have never experienced such a rush of adrenaline) we looked at each other and realized that what had just happened was impossible. Let’s break it down:
Penny trips on the stairs and launches into space. As she does so she screams. I am in the study four metres away when I hear her scream as she starts to fall. My brain processes the sound waves that travelled from Penny to my ears. These are then converted into electrical impulses that are presented to my conscious awareness. I have ‘time’ to think that this is probably Penny encountering a spider in the upstairs bathroom. The sound of her voice tells me that this is not the case. I get up and go to the foot of the stairs. I recall not being in a great hurry as my intention was to call up the stairs and ask if she was okay. I get to the foot of the stairs to see Penny in mid-air, flying down the staircase. I have time to evaluate the trajectory of her fall and catch her in such a way that her head does not hit the protruding door frame to my right. I also position my body so that Penny’s momentum does not knock me over and push me backwards into the wall (thus injuring both of us).

A complete impossibility
I was so intrigued by this that I took my video camera and I timed how long it would take for me to react to a sound from a sitting position in my study and get to the foot of the stairs. The video runs for four seconds. In my opinion there was no possible way that I could have crossed the distance any quicker. This suggests that either Penny was ‘in flight’ for nearly four seconds or something very strange took place with regard to time on that potentially fateful afternoon. In some yet-unexplained way I was able to expand time or shrink space, or possibly even both. The distance between my chair in the study and the foot of the stairs cannot be traversed faster than four seconds and yet I was at the foot of the stairs watching Penny in mid-air. In other words, at the point when she had just started to fall, my mind had managed, in some amazing way, to do the impossible. It had affected the flow of time itself.

What took place that afternoon? Clearly, I seemed to enter some form of altered state of consciousness in which I was able to warp time or space, or both. To say that this was a subjective experience is simply incorrect. I managed to cross a distance in a time scale that was simply impossible. Is this evidence that time perception is far from fully understood by modern science?

The adventure of discovery
It is clear that there are many different times. There is, as we know all too well, ‘clock time’. But is this really time? I have often experienced that sensation of ‘nowness’ – an immediate feeling that time is an illusion and that in reality there is no time, just a permanent ‘now’. For me, these incidents happen not only if I see something of great beauty, like the sun setting over the sea at Santorini, but also when I receive bad news or when I have an accident. During times of physical pain, time seems to lose all meaning.
So what exactly is time and how can we really understand its true nature? The Labyrinth of Time is my attempt to bring together possible answers to this question. I review the philosophy, the physics and the neurology of temporal flow and then I turn to the subjective experiences of time. I discuss evidence that under certain circumstances people can precognize things yet to happen, visit the past, journey into the future, slow time down and even speed it up. I visit the furthest reaches of human understanding and discuss how such ideas have stimulated some of the greatest writers, poets and film-makers. By the end of the journey, we should know a great deal more about time. Whether we will be any closer to understanding what it is may be open to debate. However, if you enjoy the adventure half as much as I have then we will have at least not wasted too much of that most precious of commodities – time itself.

From The Labyrinth of Time, © 2012 by Anthony Peake, published by Arcturus.

THE LABYRINTH OF TIME Anthony Peake
In The Labyrinth of Time Anthony Peake explores the relationship between consciousness and reality and in the process puts forward an amazing hypothesis that can explain many enigmatic phenomena, including déjà vu, precognition, near-death experience and altered states. Central to Peake’s hypothesis is a new understanding of the nature of time and a radical updating of the theories of two of the twentieth century’s most original thinkers, Peter Ouspensky and J W Dunne. Peake then looks at the concepts of time and how they have shaped our thinking as individuals through the prism of science, philosophy and literature. Featuring a cutting-edge account of modern time theory, covering ‘time-slips’, precognitive dreams and the elasticity of time during moments of extreme stress, near-death experience and certain stages of hypnotic trance. The Labyrinth of Time is as compelling and persuasive as Peake’s groundbreaking Is There Life After Death? [200921, £4.20] and The Daemon [201009, £4.20].

The Dark Goddess stirs her coils in the blackness of the deepest dark and send forth her handmaiden, the Wise Woman, to walk with all women on their journey of the Change. This is what the Wise Woman whispers in your heart:

CODE: 220422 RRP: £7.99 Cygnus Price: £5.99 You save: £2.00 (25%)

There you are – being in the community, caring for others, indulging in hobbies and crafts, laughing and crying with friends, engaging in domesticity, earning money to keep hearth and home together, moving with the ups and downs of life, ebbing and flowing on the tide of Doing.

You notice a change in your behaviour or mindset. Something happens to make you look again. Your spiritual centre of gravity is shifting out of the familiar to shadowy realms. What has always worked no longer seems to work as well. The nourishment from personal interactions seems unfulfilling. Activities that once fired you with passion are beginning to leave you arid and dry. Your life no longer nourishes you. You are missing a sense of connection. It may be an emotional quagmire, a practical challenge, a cognitive mish-mash, or a spiritual crisis. Destiny is calling you. You are moonstruck woman. This is the time of dark blood – the time of menopause.

You feel pinpricks of fear. What is this? What is happening? What is life about for you if this or that, him or her, no longer seem to give meaning to your life? There is fragmentation, as parts of your life seem to fall away. There is a desire to run into the past and hide behind memories of the familiar. You pretend all is well as your inner landscape shifts beneath the feet of your daily life. You pretend to hold things together to avoid falling into some kind of spiritual abyss. You lean on psychological and physical compulsions. You ignore the call, throwing yourself into a frenzy of activities that hold little meaning in their illusion of safety as you slip towards the unknown

All is the same. ALL IS WELL. If you shout loud enough, you believe you can drown out the voices – the fear and the loneliness as you move into what seems to be permanent night. Your distress is the beginning of your journey back to Self through the landscape of menopause.

I am your Wise Woman, your internal teacher. I will guide you through this transformative journey, as you begin to seek the knowledge that is within you. I will be present in your deepest despair, I will nurture you in the dark, as you descend into the shadow of your psyche. I will connect you to the awakening of your power and your creative fire.

As you walk through this symbolic inner world, you will interact with others in your daily life – both people you know and people you don’t know – who can help you face the unknown. Day by day, you move towards your first rite of passage. You meet the symbolic guardians of your inner dimensions. They will try to prevent your entry to the realms of self-discovery. At work or in your private life, these guardians will appear as well-meaning people who press your buttons of self-doubt.

You will face them with courage and pass through the inner gate, a mindset activity, which may be reflected in the outside world through challenging life circumstances. You have committed yourself to finding out your authentic nature and what your life needs to be. Crossing the threshold is your first step into the scared realm of the Dark Goddess, which will take you to the source of all mysteries. I, your Wise Woman, will teach you how to experience yourself profoundly, how to be creative, assertive, intuitive, and sexual. You will face tests in your life, meeting foes and trusted companions along the road.

In a symbolic sense, you are journeying deep into the forest to regain your power and wholeness. The country you travel through is hazardous, dark, and filled with the unknown. You may experience work challenges, health issues, family difficulties, limited finances, and loss of purpose or relationship problems.

How you relate to yourself and express your potential will change. New people will cross your path, and you will be exposed to fresh ideas. You will renew your relationship with nature and the subtle dimensions of mind and spirit. With each new difficulty you embrace, you will develop inner strength, greater knowledge, and increased power for what lies ahead. You will collect more support from companions who will be useful in your purpose as you approach the most dangerous place of all – the innermost cavern of your being. Deeper into the forest and down into the underworld you travel.

Here is the nucleus of your journey – the inner sanctum of the Dark Goddess. You are approaching a time for solitude in this inner realm. You find your nemesis in the uterine-like cave where the Dark Goddess resides. The Dark Goddess is the symbolic initiator of menopause. She lives at your core. She is the midwife of your soul. She will guide you into a new way of living through a symbolic rebirth. She will move you through the cauldron of destruction of all that you no longer need to a place of authentic clarity.

 * * * * * * *

The Dark Goddess is the High Priestess of Death and Regeneration. In the role of midwife, she has assisted in your rebirth to a new way of being. It is over, and the Dark Goddess blesses you and gives you the greatest treasure of all: your soul. Symbolically, you wear nothing but the all-encompassing deepest purple cloak, which represents the gateway between matter and spirit, as you begin to take your true place in the reality of your daily living.

Nature is your balm. Your spirit is fed by the earth. A stream that begins from deep within the earth’s core releases its coolness into the cave and beyond. It will lead you out of the underworld to the land above with soul intact and in a transformed state. Now you need to bring yourself back to your daily life. Be aware. Old shadows murmur their seductive ways. Worn ideas and meaningless ways of doing things whisper their call to you.

* * * * * * *

I am your Wise Woman through the menopause years and beyond, until your physical body passes from this dimension of consciousness to the next. I will always walk by your side. May the blessing of the Dark Goddess be with you throughout all time.

From Natural Wellness Strategies for the Menopause Years, ©2012 by Laurel Alexander, published by Findhorn.

Mystics throughout the ages have often taught that it is possible to speed up the natural process of evolution of the human soul. Why would one want to do that? If evolution is natural, why interfere with the process? Well, it’s not so much an interference as an exponential development, and we think you’ll see how this works if you understand that the process of human evolution is really the process of universal love – of the combined forces of compassion, joy, appreciation, gratitude, nurturing and service – unfolding to such an extent in our minds, hearts, bodies and lives that ultimately everything is subsumed by it. Well, when that kind of love starts to bloom in us, as we move beyond personal, conditional love, it is not going to want to wait around! It is going to want to give itself, to alleviate suffering, to nurture the souls of others and to shed a light for them to see by. The conscious choice to become an instrument of universal love, to ‘love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves’, even to the extent of being willing to ‘lay down our life for our friends’, is what triggers the process of accelerated evolution. Once we reach that point, it is as if we pass through a door, on the other side of which life gets, well… interesting.

Why? Because universal love pulls us – with a force equal to our desire to serve it – out of our conditioning, out of the sad lies we tell ourselves, out of everything that binds us and prevents us from being free, whole and true. And that can, at times, feel exactly like being dragged through a large number of hedges backwards. Persecution, rejection, loneliness, illness, confusion, heartbreak and slander are then even more likely to be on your life’s menu than formerly, as the power of love unfolding in you takes you beyond not only your own limitations, but also the limits set by the social group, culture and nation to which you belong. Does a plant feel pain as it breaks through the dark soil into the light and air above? We don’t know, but humans certainly do. Clearly then, we could make life much easier for ourselves if we understood what was going on and could cooperate with it.

Which brings us to that well-known story about the house built on sand, which falls down, versus the house built on rock, which does not. For sure there are many layers of meaning to this story, but we would like to focus on one in particular. What is the best foundation for love, the one which will ensure that our structures are built straight and true, and do not fall down? It is the ability to love ourselves, to feel and accept the love of others and of the divine, and to see the divine perfection of all things – not just outside ourselves, but inside ourselves.

The fabric of divine perfection

When people have near-death experiences, these very often involve a profound experience of how very much they are loved, and how everything they ever did, however much they are ashamed of it, is woven beautifully into the fabric of divine perfection.

This immersion in divine love can sometimes have such a far-reaching effect on them that they are completely freed of the physical ailments that caused them to ‘die’ in the first place, and they live out the remainder of their lives with far greater wisdom, confidence and love. So we can say that, when we are born into the afterlife (we prefer the idea of being born to the idea of ‘dying’, because death is an illusion really), perfect love and care are absolutely there for us, and the only question is whether we will be able to perceive it.

But what happens when we are born into life on Earth? Well, in the West at least, it is not unlikely that we will be born to parents who, because they were not loved properly as children themselves, do not know how to unconditionally love their own offspring. And this can result in the child growing up with what can only be described as a ‘hollow’ feeling – the feeling of not being lovable, of not being worthy of love, and of not being able to receive the love of others. If you have that feeling yourself, you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. Such people – and there are many of us – often feel tormented by guilt, loneliness and depression, not to mention ill-health. And while they may be very loving, caring people, their love is never free of that slightly ‘hollow’, brittle quality, and despite their best intentions, their love may often miss the mark.

And then there are the huge numbers of people who grow up so damaged by lack of love that they develop a thick shell which is almost impossible to penetrate, and their innate wisdom is totally occluded. Is it any wonder then, that in our society, so much is driven by harsh materialism, greed and selfishness? And can you imagine how very different our world would be if every child was welcomed and surrounded by true, unconditional love?

As it is though, by the simple means of bringing children up in a way that does not respect the beauty and purity of their souls, and making them feel guilty and incomplete instead, adversarial forces have enslaved humanity and kept us from our birthright, which is wholeness. And for anyone who, moved by love, has passed through the door mentioned above, the spiritual path is made much more difficult than it really needs to be.

Being free of our ballast

Is there any way we can free ourselves of the ballast we are burdened with by our upbringing? Is there any way we can be released from those feelings of unworthiness and guilt that make us hide from love, even while we strive to give it to others? Is there any way our hollowness can be filled without actually having a near-death experience?

Of course there are lots of ways, but first and foremost is to recognise, as Mikael always says to his patients: ‘It’s not your fault!’ And nor is it your parents’ fault, or your parents’ parents. It’s simply an unhelpful pattern that has been handed down for so long that more healthful ways of loving have been forgotten about.

Here’s another way. You can talk to God and listen to what She says back to you. Everyone has the innate ability to do this, even if they aren’t aware of it, and in times gone by it was a much more common practice, which is why those ancient spiritual texts in the form of dialogues between a deity and a mortal, such as the Book of Thoth, were written.

To help you, here’s such a conversation, and you’ll find many more in Be Still and Know I Am God, which Cygnus has just published.

Seeker: I see that both the love and the wisdom in me are undermined by feelings of unlovableness, unworthiness and guilt. Please heal me of this. Please help me to feel your love and know my own perfection.

God: My dear friend, know that I love you just as you are, that there is not one part of you in which I do not rejoice. Be secure in the knowledge that the love in you is drawing you towards Me as surely as a magnet draws iron. You can never fall out of My hand. My love is sufficient for you.

Seeker: Dear God, I know this, but oftentimes I do not feel it. Is there a remedy?

God: Of course. I would never leave you without help. Go out into the natural world and you will see that I have surrounded you with an infinitude of mirrors to remind you of your true nature at every turn. Do you see a beautiful flower? Know that it is a reflection of the beauty inside you. A soaring, graceful tree? Know that it reflects your own soul’s grace, and the height of your aspirations towards Me. A blackbird singing? A reminder of your own soul’s harmony and music. A flowing river? Your love flows and quenches thirst in just the same way. A cloud? Simply a reminder that even your blemishes serve a perfect purpose in My plan, and are therefore every bit as lovable as the rest of you.

Seeker: What about when I cannot go outdoors? I feel the need for constant reminders of your truth. Nothing less will enable me to dissolve the habit of not loving myself.

God: It’s simple. Beauty and joy are expressions of Me. Therefore surround yourself as much as you can with beauty, and whatever gives you joy. Notice them. Savour them. Even in tiny things. And above all recognise that beauty in all its forms reflects and awakens the beauty inside you and in every human being. You are whole and complete, and everything you have ever done, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, is an accepted and loved part of My plan. Recognize yourself in all your glory. Then go out into the world and love Me, your neighbour and yourself with uninhibited passion. And be free.

Seeker: What about people? How do I receive their love when they seek to give it to me? I am often just a little bit afraid to do this, and hold back when I could be open-hearted.

God: Don’t worry. Your fear is okay, and you are okay. Just knowing this will help you move past all that holds you back. Be spontaneous. Remind yourself that the beauty you see in others exists in you in equal measure. Then it will not be difficult to accept the love of others. And when they offer to help you, just say ‘yes’.

Seeker: But I have noticed that I often just say ‘no’, or run away, even when I would like to do the opposite. I am so afraid of being hurt.

God: I understand. But you are confusing genuine love with perfect love. Genuine love doesn’t have to be perfect. You can easily sense if someone’s love for you is genuine or not. Even a baby can do that! And that should be your only question. If you feel the love of another is genuine, welcome it. It may not be perfect, as indeed yours may not, either, but those very imperfections will provide growth experiences for you both.

So don’t be afraid to welcome any genuine impulse towards love. Vulnerability, openness and trust are essential for My love to flow freely in you. And why would you be afraid anyway? Are you so small and weak? Who gave you that idea? It wasn’t Me! Remember your original wholeness and purity, and you will have no need to fear vulnerability. Then try to keep in mind, when people approach you in a truly loving way, that you don’t want to run away. You want to be loved, and you want to receive the love they are offering. Love, being Light, will shine into your dark places and may well make you feel uncomfortable, at least to start with. But don’t be afraid of that feeling. Just allow it, and it will pass. Hold fast to Love, and Love itself will transform you.

* * * * *

Finally, here is an exercise you can do to remind yourself of your true nature and of the fact that you are not only loved, but eminently lovable. It’s a good idea to do it every day. Look at yourself in a mirror, see yourself with clear eyes and say (and most importantly, feel):

‘I know you. I love you.’ 

And wait until the feeling of that love has completely penetrated your heart and mind.

That way, slowly but surely, you will be able to systematically undo any loveless conditioning that affected you during childhood, and the firm foundation for the rest of your spiritual growth will have been laid. Let’s do it together.

With much love from Ann, Mikael, Geoff and the Cygnus Team

Mikael Nordfors can be contacted via www.medicdebate.org

He has also written a piece of music, called ‘You Are Wonderful’, which you may find is another excellent tool for remembering the divine Love in which every particle of your being is, in fact, bathed. You can download it free from www.last.fm