Welcome to another fortunate Friday in jolly July. Welcome to our meditation for the well-being of all life on earth. Welcome to Earth Send. Welcome, friends, welcome, dabblers, welcome newcomers.
Today is a new stimulus to centre in sanity, unity and harmony and to broadcast these fine, high qualities into the spaces we move in, into our thinking, into our resource management and into our relationships.
We are sending good thoughts to all who asked for spiritual assistance.
We are sending reiki to each other, blessing each other’s healing and self-care journeys. May our gratitude, contentment and creativity branch out.
We are sending reiki to all who requested it in private and in our group.
Feedback to our group healing is much appreciated. It lets us know how we can be more useful. And, we are here for your good news, too, grateful about your relief, progress and positive news of every kind!
Our Fridays together are a refuge in the sangha (peer group) and a refuge in the dharma (right conduct). May the reiki you are receiving soothe you in distress, clear up confusion, strengthen your proactive renewal, your acts of love, and all the good that you are committing to. May it raise the quality of your life. May it ready you for the life that you aspire to. And, if you are lucky enough to be living the life of your dreams, may it give you more and more and more(!) to cherish.
The universal life energy has its own intelligence: it supplies what is needed, in the right dose. We let it do its thing. Our intellects like to analyze, catalog, define and make neat systems from all observations, but reiki works in a holistic, connective way that our minds have not fully comprehended yet, but can witness, describe, and be in awe about.
Becoming honest about your here and now and what your next steps are and becoming grateful about the good conditions in your existence – that you are supported, advancing and creating a future – are signs of spiritual progress. People who work on themselves and connect with a power greater than themselves can be recognized by their resourcefulness and their gratitude.
Choose with care who gets to influence you. Of course, noone is perfect and has the perfect attitude in every situation. But when you notice more interest in the flaws of others than in the correction of their own character, poor self-control and an almost competitive airing of vexations, think again if you want to be stung, ahem, misled and desensitized in that way.
A lot of people mistake fault-finding for competence, chronic irritation for knowledge, tongue lashing for ownership of a big vision, or of the truth. Yet all these behaviours tell us that the psyche is not in a state of health. And whatever anti-spiritual and esoteric beliefs the psyche has made itself ill with, you don’t have to volunteer to be the next who gets infected with those beliefs, behaviours, and that level of irresponsibility. I am sorry to say that it is not only run-of-the-mill grouches who exhibit these traits, a lot of visible advisors and new agers who earn a good living from their students and followers engage in it publicly.
I have a sturdy interest in reminding you that you are worthy of better teachers and of better influences!
It is easy for me to say. So why don’t you give other, more original, ideas a shot?
This year, I kept encouraging you to designate a few sectors where you expect a boost in results, to give words to a theme or to the merit that you want to practise, to create a dream board, and to keep memos of the motto you are training in in spots where you pass by often… So if by now you have crafted a vision of your goals for an allotted time, you have written down what you want to manifest, go over your lists, your goal map, your vision board and the reminders of your aim this weekend.
Refine and polish a few details, if needed. Acknowledge yourself for moving in the direction of your delight.
If you feel that you are falling short: break up your goals into manageable, smaller goals and remind yourself that micro movements count, that you are closer to where you are going than you were 6 months ago.
You are also closer to where you want to be than the person who did not write down, draw, craft or admit their goals.
By showing yourself your heart’s desire again and again, you are soaking in the reality that you are going to establish.
Recall all the beautiful mantras and song lyrics that altered your mood and, by repetition, your consciousness; recall the books that opened up your horizon of what was possible for you and that altered your trajectory. If other people’s articulations of inspiration could affect you, what can your articulation of inspiration do for you? How much more will your heart energy, your imagination and your own tailor-made thrill do for you?
Here is where people chime in often. “I wish I had known about how I could apply the mind 20 years ago! I wish I had started envisioning what I wanted for me much earlier!”
Well, twenty years ago, you were not who you are today. Let’s face it, you had a few illusions then. You had obstacles to dissolve, karmic glue to clean up. Perhaps you had a taste for things that had to run their course. You were disorganized or easily overpowered. You had no clues about setting boundaries and how you could request something meaningful to you. You had vague preferences and unformed convictions… Or, you were reactive, agitational, unable to introspect and slow down. Your days had no structure. You used calendars begrudgingly. You could not fathom that scheduling was the key to pretty much everything you could ever want. And so on… Without your experiences as they were, your well-being and your inner life would not be a priority today. So what occurred twenty years ago, or “back when”, can not be undone, and it brought you to the path.
In the recent Earth Send invitations, I made a point about placing yourself into the centre of your manifestations. You as you are right now, with all the conditions you are living in and want to update, all the measurables that you can not detach from, your de facto gifts, druthers and anticipations.
To have someone else flash a repertoire of possible futures to you – me included, by the way – can be engaging and stimulating.
But things start rolling, and get exciting, when you discover what suits and pleases you.
Roadmaps are of more value to a traveler than they are to a reader. My talk about manifesting is more interesting to those in the process of manifesting. As you take your steps, you will find out why.
So just for today, we recall the five reiki precepts. We will not worry. We will not anger. We will work honestly in our paid and unpaid work. We will honour all who raised us with love and into lifelong learners. We will savour the fortunate conditions that are available to us. And we will affirm basic goodness.
We are also connecting with the land that we move on and grow food in and with its history of cultivators, growers, herbalists and enthusiasts. I live on Anishinabe Algonquin territory. Just for today, I am grateful to the First Nations, the Metis, the newcomers who brought the wisdom of their ancestors from all continents and all who fed the soil and kept it high quality for us who pour our love into it today.
The insights that “Everything starts on my turf” and “Everything starts with me and in my home” are useful to all who are going to declutter, prune, compost, donate, clean up and redecorate their property this month. I have it on my agenda. It is time.
Sociology and contemporary psychology avoid categorical concepts like good and evil, or the battle of good versus evil, but both disciplines acknowledge, within a social context, that some environments are warm and auspicious and others are unsavoury and teaching hard lessons.
What all wisdom traditions and the multicultural common ground of all regions and most religions and savvy educators and counsellors and experts on organization and Feng Shui masters and folk medicine and the social sciences agree on is that clean environments attract good will, calm, approval, investments, prosperity, local identity and pride; while neglected and vandalized environments attract negative energies, low morale and conflict.
A good rule of thumb for you to remember is that angels enter spaces that are neat, free of dust, spruced up and welcoming. And that health enters into spaces that are tidy and airy. Health also comes into bodies that have been purified, cleaned and de-stressed.
Let me skim over the opposite and who feels particularly comfortable in chaos, impelled to bring more of the same to it. I am sure you observed enough on your own.
In the 20th century, schools of thought emerged that questioned our nonverbal regard for tidiness and prompt sympathy for hygienic and wholesome settings. It was good to discuss that the indispensable work of cleaners is undervalued, both financially and status-wise.
Then, some thinkers argued that perhaps we should rebel against all social norms. That computation failed. The unconscious mind can not be messed with.
I want to give you a few points to ponder:
Neighbourhoods marked by neglect and indifference are the most likely to attract crime.
Women who go out poorly groomed do not get paid what they are worth, and they attract disagreeable, rotten, violent men.
It is 2023, and for some reason, a woman’s “standards”, “respectability” and worth are still being communicated through her presentability.
The other side of the coin is indisputable, though: self-respect broadcasts through hygiene, some interest in how we come across, and beautification, too.
As an educator, I watched clients get hired and find love and get a promotion after a make-over. They deserved good things before, too. But it was clear that they radiated confidence after they made themselves look well-cared for, expecting good treatment, ready for some amazing hours ahead of them.
I did not make up those mores. And I am not sharing these observations to cause heavy emotions and to stir up idealistic views and defiance. I want to shed light, and I invite you to think with your whole, synergistic brain that includes your life’s wisdom.
Read into it… Make up your mind… As I preen my gardens and clean my home.
My elders would be proud of my evolution. I mentioned before that I used to be too tolerant about chaos for too long. I am glad that I changed. It feels saner to approve of order.
On 15 August, we observe the anniversary of Mikao Usui’s birth. Get ready for a beautiful celebration.
I bow to the shared field of goodness and love. I bow to the universal life energy. I bow to blessings. I humbly receive.
May this Friday be a fragrant and memorable day of your life.
14 July 2023
Nanda Jurela 