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Compost to Christ

I call the period between Thanksgiving and Winter Solstice the "season of stink". First, we are expected to be thankful while having to face our challenging blood family on Thanksgiving. Then, we are expected to shop till we drop, when really our instincts are telling us to go within and hibernate. I am purposely complaining in an unenlightened way to portray this time of the year that we embrace our greatest darkness, our unconscious patterns that we have yet to get free of. And, this temporary stinking time is actually a good thing!

In the garden, Wintertime is when the most old and decaying matter is on the ground–wet and rotting. Does nature sweep it up? No! Most of us humans call it uncouth, as we rake it up, bag it in plastic to be deposited so deep into the earth that it will take hundreds of years to break down. Others pay to have a “mow, blow, and go crew” run their air and noise polluters to blow away the leaves and topsoil until the soil becomes hard and lifeless, and then wonder why their plants and trees are diseased. The topsoil (humus) is full of microorganisms that nourish plant life. It is sustained by the breaking down of dead biomass. The dead is a vital part of life. And, nothing makes plants grow like Manure!

By facing and embracing what stinks in our lives we are going to become the most motivated to live our greater potential in 2011. Have the courage to take a whiff of your stinking human issues. Can you own how you created them without scolding yourself? Trust your Winter season; your opportunities to slow down. Sit or lie down in your soft nest of dead leaves. Contemplate your life and feel your heaviness. Trust these low feelings will eventually move you to new heights in time. We are like trees; we cannot go higher without our roots going deeper.

You do not have to run yourself into the ground and catch a cold. You can collapse into your cocoon of your musty depths now, and trust your mysterious metamorphosis, perhaps the change you have waited lifetimes for. It seems to me that a main reason why most people don’t follow through with their New Year’s resolutions is because they skipped feeling their feelings of where they are now. We can try to deny our challenges to avoid our feelings via staying too busy or any number of addictions. One popular addiction is to judge others for what we refuse to own in ourselves. Another way of denial is through what is called the Spiritual Bypass, or being attached to detachment. We say “Oh, I am fine... All is love and light” while we are really bouncing checks, or feeling deeply reactive inside over a long standing challenge that we have yet to resolve.

How does it feel to be seemingly stuck in a perpetually old pattern of not living up to your greater potential? What are the consequences of your lesser choices? Having limitless potential, we can all do better. Yet, doing better does not necessary translate to doing more, especially this time of year. The recommendation here is to get more present to all that you are - by embracing everything that comes up with compassion. It is important to have a sobering evaluation of your life without adding self judgment on to it. In a space of self forgiveness certain heavy feelings can come up, for perhaps, the last time. Breathe fully into the condition of your life now. Feel the heat of your situation build a fire beneath your rear. From this place, your new life choices will have real power behind them. Your motive will be so strong, you will not be able to stop yourself from following through!

I recently did a day long meditation with Unity of Marin at the Santa Sabina Retreat Center in San Rafael. What a gift to be present to all my feelings, to journal, and be open to Spirit. I will also note here that lately I have been desiring a stronger personal relationship with the divine - as though I have a divine father and mother who truly love me. Bakti Yoga is a method of Self realization that is about intensely loving God--opening the door wide for one to feel God's love returned. With a heaviness in my heart, I decided to take a hike and then had the following experience: Hiking up the mountain, I notice, about a 100 yards off the trail, what appear to be maybe a hundred or so birds fluttering about in a couple of trees. I try to make out their species, but they are a little too far to tell.

I continue on my hike as deep feelings come up around my losses... My mother, my Yoga business, then my wife. I stopped from time to time to sit or lie down on the forest floor to rest, meditate, and talk to God, as the tall trees seem to be watching over me and listening. A new verse came for one of my songs: “Deep within my love, my heart is free as a dove! Awaken, Children of the love.”

Returning back down the mountain, suddenly the sky is full of that giant flock of birds swiftly moving in unison my way! Turning just before my wide eyes, I can almost feel the wind of their many wings. Apparently they came to show me they are doves! I felt so choked up inside, beyond words. I felt it in my bones God was speaking to me. The message is something like: "We acknowledge your path of inner peace you are experiencing in your meditations, and now your freedom to fly with your spiritual friends is close at hand."

Thank you for reading my experience. I invite you to have the courage to slow down and feel the stinky ground of your being. Make it a priority to meditate 5 to 10 minutes 3 to 5 times a day... Not to leave your body, but to embrace everything you are feeling, and allow your Higher Power to commune with you as though you are profoundly loved..... Because you are!

In space, stinky gas and debris of an ancient fragmented past becomes attracted to each other until the collective gravitation becomes so great that a magnificent star like our mighty Sun is born. By embracing EVERYTHING with our loving, we are stars in the making. Learn to acknowledge, accept, and appreciate the debris of every heavy pattern, relationship and experience as fuel for your light becoming even brighter. Use everything for your homecoming and just when the gravity of your situation becomes overwhelming feel yourself explode into oneness. Its all God inviting you to claim your divinity! Christ Blessings to you! JOA.

Joa Marcu © 2010