I would like to quote some words by Carolyn Gruchy, recently posted in the Pulse of Spirit. She speaks of the constant availability of blessing to our own hearts.

We all have the ability to bring the sacred into our day-to-day living. I find the key to that is the heart. When my heart is open to the sacred, it comes through…. I believe that the sacred is present in every aspect of our humanity. The sacred is not separate from who we are. The sacred is always present, always accessible. We always have the opportunity to bring it, even in a small way, through how we are with one another; how we are in relationships, those we live with, those we work with; how we are in nature, how we open to the beauty of this living Earth; music, the arts. The sacred is at our fingertips. It is always available.

She knows what she is talking about and I totally agree. Are we paying attention to what is available to us?

I would like to introduce something that might seem a little different in context to the way Carolyn brought this message. This is a hymn sung by Sam Robson. It is a Christian hymn but it touches my heart every time because it says the same thing that Carolyn is saying in her words: that I have the opportunity to commune with the sacred in every moment. And I need to if I am going to live a conscious, sacred life. Every moment the sacred is available to come into me and through me and to be met in the world, in the natural world, in the people I am with and the things I am doing. It is available every moment. I ask you to move beyond these words as a Christian hymn and think about them in terms of the availability and the desire to commune with the sacred in every moment.

(A recording of the song “I Need Thee,” by Sam Robson, was played.)

Every hour, I need to know the sacred that is available. I need to know it is available and longing for communion with me. I need to have that experience of communion or my life will be in vain.

I have just returned from a trip to England, visiting sacred sites. I am so thankful they exist, to assist in reminding people that sacred things are still present on this earth. As I went to those sites I decided to open myself and be vulnerable: What am I feeling? What is happening here? Is this just a great story? Is my mind going to now convince me I’m feeling something? That happens. I have been in meetings and workshops, where someone will say, “Can you feel that?” And I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t want to speak out and say, “No, I don’t feel a thing.” That might make us both feel foolish. In England I decided to be open and feel what I felt and be open to the sacred that was present.

In many of the places that we went, I felt Beingness. There were two places we visited that each had nineteen stones in a circle. We could be in and out and around the circles and in touch with each of the nineteen stones. It felt very different in both those places. I felt the brotherhood and sisterhood of my life there, trustworthy, standing strong. I felt energy of sacred communion and feelings of longing. There are many times when we are feeling deep and disturbing things; things are happening in our life that we prefer would not. In the midst of those circles I felt companionship and something ancient in me and in the stones. I felt responsible to be as strong and wondered if I could be so enduring. Those stones have stayed upright all these years, in the place of receiving and bringing the sacred in the midst of a world that is very dysfunctional.

I was imagining that if something happened and all the parts of Sunrise Ranch disappeared except the Little Chapel, where we chant on Sundays, people could go in there and feel the sacredness that had been generated in that place over all these years. The substance of it stays because it is real and it is part of the design of what is coming down out of the invisible; it is providing a channel for something to continue to be revealed. And while this tour was somewhat about the stories of King Arthur—in the midst of it, for me, it was the story of a people wanting to be in integrity, wanting to be in, what might have been called at that time, chivalry. They, unfortunately, created rules and ways of being that did not serve them all that well, obviously—that reality is no longer here, whatever that was. But the intention, the intention to do it, still means something and can be felt.

I had the experience of it being palpable at some of these sites. As the song says, I need to be with Thee so that my life can be revealing the sacred and I can be available to be in communion. I am aware sometimes that I have ease in asking for the sacred to come into my life, and terrible ability to receive it when it comes. I need Thee; be with me, answer my prayers; here I am. I long for communion—but not so sure I really deserve it. Or it comes to me and I think, “Well, it is not supposed to look like that. When are you going to send me the perfect people? When is it going to feel safe? When is the working on all the issues that are in humanity that reside in me—when is that going to be done?” I need Thee to help me to keep my eyes open, help me to keep my heart open. I need to be able to go to a sacred site and trust that what I am feeling is intimately for me—and not only for me; but if I cannot accept that it is for me, I cannot actually share it with another person who is still living. It all stays in imagination.

I am looking out here at Roshana Ariel smiling at me and I am aware that she often plays music for us here. I always feel like she is playing for me, and if I am not available to receive her heartfelt magic through her flute, there is no communion between her and me. This living reality that she and I share is a fertile field for people to touch something that says there is another experience in the world available besides the insanity that is happening everywhere. All the sacred blessing that is coming down to us as human beings keeps manifesting through shadow ways in the human experience because there is no communion. There is a suppression of the meeting place. People do not believe—they do not think that it is possible to be worthy to receive it, to be in it, to deliver it, to love that deeply. And so it comes out wonky. We end up loving in funny ways, and we do not understand why the people in our life do not get it: “Can’t you tell I’m loving you?” It comes out in bizarre ownership and weird, possessive, demanding, unsacred ways. I know one of the greatest things I learned to do in my life was to say I was sorry, because I do know that the way I love sometimes comes out funny.

When I am in the position of openness to the sacred, and my love is coming out from that communion, I have a different experience. And if I am wise I ask the question: “Okay, what’s happening?” That phrase keeps me conscious. What just happened here? What is happening for me here now? This is the evolution of me into the new me of humanity, into the new human. That cannot happen if we are not paying attention to what is happening. The new has to be born. We need to be seeing that it is being born, we need to be bringing it, and I need to say it is real. It is real. No one can take it away from me, and no one can tell me that their sacred reality is more important or more sacred than mine. But the beauty of it is, my sacred reality and the revelation of it through me will blend and create more with another person who is doing it as well. It becomes magical, wholesome, there is the Roshana-and-Jane reality that people can touch and feel. Roshana is not the only one, even though she is pretty special. I can use her as an example because many of you have seen her play her flute and seen her passion. She has incredible discipline and she has an incredibly loving heart that comes through her music.

What is happening for you that you could be offering, that you are not sharing because you think it will not be received well? I would like all of you to consider whether or not you have a piece to bring here that would allow all of humanity to feel that blessing, the sacredness coming through you. We need you now. We need you. I need you.

Some of the sacred sites that we visited in England, obviously, were quite old—old especially compared to what has been around here in North America. Sometimes you stand in a cathedral and say, “How did they do that?” Really, how did they do that? You stand at Stonehenge and you know that you cannot figure that one out mentally. And then you listen to the little message on the recorder and they are saying, “Well, they brought those stones on a boat.” Really? What kind of boat could carry a stone like that down a little river? And then who is going to get it from the boat? I had a few opinions about that Stonehenge explanation. When you stand there, you sense this is a magical, amazing thing.

One of the disappointments in being there is that you can no longer go into the circle. They have ropes around it, and they have all these reasons: you are going to unsettle the ground, ruin all the stone faces. With humanity the way it is, I am sure it would have graffiti on it in no time. It just happens—people violate the sacred all the time. So I can appreciate that part. But when I was there, I thought, I want to go in! Not for selfish reasons—because I felt the call. I felt the call for communion from the Beings who are still holding sacred space there.

So here we are together with another possibility of openhearted consideration. I want to invite you to surrender even more to the possibility that you are fully loved by the Universe, so that when the blessings from the sacred are coming to you, you can fully receive them. Take advantage of communing with the sacred. You need the sacred and the sacred needs you. Because if you do not believe you are worthy of being loved by the Universe, all that comes to you will be judged. What you will do is either feel you are not worthy of it, or it should not look like that, or these are the wrong people. If you are fully loved, everything that is coming to you is for a blessing, a possibility, a wonder, a magical opportunity.

We are the ones today who can model this reality. We are the living stones. I wrote these words on one of the days when I was over in England, and I would like to share them:

All that is present is broken into bits and pieces as the clarity of the symbols of the past explode into the reality being born now
Release your grip
Rest your heart and mind
Watch the rise of wisdom and power transmute the substance of stars into the voices of angels

That is what I want to do. When I am open to receive the sacred in every moment, the present reality is broken into pieces to let transformation happen now. It requires releasing my grip, resting my heart and mind, and providing a landing place for the new. I am glad I get to do it with you.