• The Emissaries • This is a special moment. We are in a beautiful clear space of unconditional love. Empty all that you’re holding onto and all that is holding onto you! You are a divine being made only of love—here to use that love to create beauty, connection, and wholeness in light. Honor your worth!
Humanity has already chosen love, and is so loved that all the galactic forces are now helping and assisting to elevate the Earth. This will unfold in extraordinary ways that will boggle the human imagination. The human heart is breaking…OPEN! Singing opens the channels of the heart. Prayer is surrender to a higher power. Breath is Spirit!
Seek joy in daily moments. Freedom comes through joy and laugher—laughter that is a complete surrender of the ego. Express joy! Smile! These open higher portals.
Your spirit knows it is eternal. You cannot fear what you laugh at from beyond the ego. Your human incarnation cannot go on forever, nor does it need to. Thus, do all the good works you can on Earth, while you are able. And be content; your spirit knows it is eternal and has every resource it needs.
The new Earth is underway—know that! Broadcast that! Be the light! There is more beauty than chaos. Celebrate the beauty. You are safe. See beauty…create beauty. Let the chaos go…. Together, we are the Builders!
About the Builders, Sunburst Founder Norman Paulsen wrote:
The Builders became the guardians and caretakers of the galaxies, caring for the evolution of all life-forms. They first visited this solar system at a remote period when the planets were still trying to achieve stable orbits around the newborn sun. They marked this solar system as one which might produce and support organic life forms. The Builders eventually returned and seeded planet Earth with a variety of organic plants and life forms. Returning periodically to check the growing organic gardens in this system, they strengthened where it was too weak, and discouraged where it was too strong. They helped balance out the forces of Mother’s nature…and will again!
• by Cain Carroll • Happiness is a changing feeling that comes and goes with circumstances that appear to coincide with it. Since circumstances are largely out of our control, and constantly in flux, our happiness is always waxing and waning. It swells when we feel good (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and declines when we don’t Nobody can feel happy ALL the time because conditions (internal or external) can never be controlled to that degree. Trying will make you crazy.
The problem is that social conditioning, especially in the U.S., has us believe that there is something wrong with us if we don’t don a permanent smile. Actually, it’s totally natural NOT to—the sky is not always sunny, flowers aren’t always blooming, and even cats and dogs get the blues. Without sadness, pain, dissatisfaction, broken heartedness, confusion, etc., we wouldn’t be human (and there certainly would not be some good art or music).
Feelings come and go like changing seasons. It’s our reluctance to fully appreciate all of them that makes us feel divided inside. We were taught to feel bad about not feeling good. We learned this from a neurotic culture that is pathologically addicted to unattainable ideals (flawless beauty, eternal youth, perfect happiness.
We can un-learn it! Like removing corrupter software from our CPU…”Delete program!”
When we are in harmony with our life we feel happy much of the time. But it’s also possible to be at peace when dissatisfaction, pain, loneliness, confusion, sadness, or any challenging feeling comes along for a visit. It requires that we simply let go of our resistance to feeling what we feel. In other words, if we can fully accept whatever comes without judgment, criticism, or the need to understand why, then we find a sense of ease opening up inside of us.
That way, we can be free to feel dissatisfied without being anxious about it. Feeling less anxious, we have less dissatisfaction. The whole thing unwinds itself.
Admittedly, this takes quite a bit of courage, and the willingness to get comfortable feeling uncomfortable. But if we do this repeatedly, moment after moment, day after day, our inner conflict melts like a chunk of ice into a flowing stream. We discover a basic joy and peace that is available to us all the time, even amid the changing tides of our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and circumstances.
• by Sean Fennell • We give ourselves over to the influence of the breathing Earth. Sleep, the shadow of the Earth, seeps into our skin, spreading throughout our limbs, dissolving our individual will into the thousand and one selves that compose it—cells, tissues and organs taking their prime directives from gravity and the wind, as residual bits of sunlight caught in the long tangle of nerves, wanders through the drifting landscape of our Earth-borne bodies, like deer moving across the forested valleys.
Where Spirit, nature and humans meet in oneness—in activity, as well as non-activity—I find my center. Permaculture is not just about growing gardens; it’s about growing infinite possibilities. It’s the marriage of the spiritual with the natural and social, and therefore, one of the highest expressions of co-creating with Spirit.
Everything belongs to Spirit; it’s designed, created, operated and maintained by Spirit. We humans are merely caretakers of this divine creation. As such, we are obligated to share all Spirit’s gifts fairly with others.
The basic principles of permaculture are Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. It’s at the intersection where these three practices converge that infinite possibilities exist. In meditation we strive to commune with Spirit inwardly; in permaculture we strive to connect with Spirit outwardly.
Acknowledging this fact, I’m faced with the questions: “What does permaculture look like at Sunburst?” and “What infinite possibilities can I co-create with Spirit moving forward—not only for the immediate future, but for generations to come?
We sleep, allowing gravity to hold us, allowing Earth, our larger body, to recalibrate our neurons, composting the keen encounters of our waking hours (the tensions, joys and terrors of our individual days), stirring them back as dreams into the sleeping substance of our muscles.
As we move forward, the future of Sunburst looks brighter than ever, for what can be greater than honoring our Divine Mother and Father, by loving and caretaking Mother Earth and all her creatures, utilizing her natural resources with utmost respect and care, loving others as we do ourselves, sharing the fruits of our labor and our God-given talents with passion and commitment?
In the vast, endless sea of eternity,
My body, mind and spirit with Thee,
In truth I strive to be the best I can be,
Better than none, but simply all I can be.
In silence amidst the inner worlds I dance,
Feeling Thy presence.
Oh the Divine Romance!
How can I contain this gift from Thee,
How can I let it flow unceasingly?
Awakening gladly to the Sun-kissed day,
Knowing love cannot be held, simply shared,
Given to Nature and to all brothers, sisters dear.
This gift, my offering, I humbly bear.
• by Dawn King • You may find yourself, as I do, feeling that this is a season of chaos. If not, you may find that happening soon as the busyness of the holiday season and its demands crescendoes. It’s a season in which we need to find a calm center within ourselves, or be out of harmony with Nature’s inward-moving season and our innermost selves.
We are all challenged to find contentment while living in a “universe that tends to disappoint.” (I’m borrowing a phrase from Jon Meacham, a current American historian). Discontent was the root cause for Gautama’s purposeful seat beneath the bodhi tree over 2,000 years ago. The search for truth, understanding of life, should goad each of us into quiet reflection until we have our needed awakening.
Buddha’s Four Noble Truths:
Suffering, pain and misery exist in life.
Suffering arises from attachment to desires.
Suffering ceases when attachment to desires ceases.
Freedom from suffering is possible by practicing the Eightfold Path.
Buddha’s Eightfold Path:
Right understanding
Right thought
Right speech
Right conduct
Right living
Right effort
Right mindfulness
Right concentration
Perhaps because I haven’t studied it, Buddha’s Eightfold Path seems a bit vague to me. What I have studied is Sunburst’s similar Eightfold Path, which focuses on living a balanced life.
Sunburst’s Eightfold Path:
Conscious study
Conscious work
Conscious recreation
Conscious nourishment
Conscious association
Conscious speech
Conscious conduct
Conscious meditation
Sunburst teachings include an understanding of Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, and probably Buddha’s Eightfold Path. The founder of Sunburst, Norman Paulsen, had a Buddhist minister for a father. Norman was also inspired to spell out 12 virtues, which he ascribed to the personality of our Creator. When we strive to incorporate these virtues into our own personality, we find more harmony with Nature and our own strong, calm inner life force.
Sunburst’s 12 Virtues:
Loyalty
Patience
Honesty
Perseverance
Compassion
Continence
Equanimity
Courage
Humility
Temperance
Charity
Faith
Sunburst reminds us to live an authentic life, true to the joyous, contented, awakened being we were created to be.
• by Valerie Joy King •
What wind blows through my soul
Causes my heart to kindle in flame?
Who waits in the darkened silence
To greet me on my journey home again?
Oh Ancient Ones, you carry the Light so true
You carry my soul all the way home.
In winged flight, this falcon knows no rest
But to see Him, but to know Him.
Oh my Father, you wee there
When the foundations of Sun and Earth were laid.
As wind and flame gathered in spiral dance
Moving closer and closer in divine union
The great pressure and friction bore fruit.
The spark was kindled!
In an explosion of light and consciousness
Another Sun of God was born
As you watched with hoary gaze
Oh my Father, Ancient of days.
You speak:
I am the Son of the Sun
I am the Divine Command of the Most High
I carry the energy and vibration of the eternal deep
I am the unmanifest God
As He begins His journey into Creation.
“A lesson will repeat itself until you learn it.” – Anonymous •
An Invitation to Introspection
From ancient Babylonian times, some Semitic societies have observed a time of repentance during the harvest season. It’s a time to search one’s heart and draw closer to God. For a month the shofar, a ram’s horn is blown each morning to awaken our spirits, inspiring us to search our souls, to ask for and grant forgiveness. This is also a time to visit the graves of loved ones, and to reflect on what we may reap from our past actions.
“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.” – Wayne Dyer
Rosh Hashanah
Can you believe it? Another New Year Celebration! This one is called Rosh Hashanah, celebrated this year on September 7. It begins the Jewish New Year, and a new moon, a new lunar month and year. In the area of ancient Egypt, with Semitic agricultural societies (mainly Jews and Arabs) this time of year marked a new beginning.
Last month our blog noted the Islamic version of this celebration with our article on compassion (August 9). Rosh Hashanah reminds us to be grateful, to be humble before our Creator, to forgive, and to realize there are consequences for our actions.
“I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.” – Carl Jung
