Winter Solstice: Be the Love. Be the Change.

Share your gift with the world.

Photo by Aaron Burden@Unsplash

I belong to no religion. My religion is love. Every heart is my temple. ~ Rumi

We do book swaps at our Sovereign Beings potluck meetings when we gather at Rosie’s farmhouse. Someone brings a book they’d like to pass along, and whoever feels drawn to it takes it home. At a recent get together, Jim brought a little gem of a book to share with the group entitled Notes to Myself. It wasn't a new book, having been copyrighted in 1970, but Jim felt that the wisdom in it was timeless, and especially applicable now, in such tumultuous times. He’d stumbled on a copy recently and offered it to the group. This small paperback book with yellowing pages contained short passages with lots of empty space and simple drawings of leaves scattered across each page. Inspired by Jim’s description, and the need for easy-on-the-mind bedtime reading, I brought it home. 

My life work could well be love. ~ Hugh Prather

Transcribed from a yellow legal pad, Hugh Prather’s honest reflections on his struggle to be human, shed light on how we can better navigate life and love.  He reminds readers that we have the ability to generate the love we seek simply by being more present to love in ordinary encounters. Many reviewers of the book consider it to be an old friend that they’ve reread dozens of times. Others suggest reading it as if you had written it yourself. In simple language Prather reminds us that love is a state of being, not something we can get. His reflections on love mirror Ghandi’s oft-quoted advice: Be the change you wish to see.

How do I get love? I have it. I must drop my definitions of love. Love is not saying nice things to people or smiling or doing good deeds. 

Love is love. Don’t strive for love, be it. ~ Hugh Prather

It’s fairly common for someone in a life coaching session to reveal to me a deep and primal desire: I just want to be loved! Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, they’ve wandered through life not knowing that the love they seek is within them and that they already have the power to access it. What seems to be lacking out there is really a misunderstanding about the preciousness of what’s inside. The life-altering paradox that Hugh Prather so eloquently describes is as profound as it is counterintuitive: by giving what I want, I realize that I have what I thought I lacked before.

“All I want is to be loved…” 

Wanting to be loved, to be lovable, is not really a desire for how I want to be, but for how I want others to be.

 “I need your heart and your eyes and your ears and your touch and your words. I want you to see me and hear me and feel me and speak to me and love me.” 

But by giving what I want, I realize that I have what I thought I lacked before.

 ~ Hugh Prather

By shifting attention away from what appears to be a lack of love and instead directing attention towards actively loving others, we experience the love we thought we lacked. Loving is under our control, while rearranging outer circumstances to meet our expectations of love is not. Each encounter with another man, woman or child is an opportunity to practice being present with another soul while maintaining an inner state of love and acceptance. The more we practice, the easier it is to generate and experience continually the loving state of being we desire. 

The present moment holds infinite riches, beyond your wildest dreams. Jean-Pierre de Caussade

This spiritual shift in attitude is described in another small but powerful book, the Sacrament of the Present Moment, a three hundred-year-old classic of spiritual guidance and enlightenment by Jean-Pierre de Caussade that explains that we are extensions of Source energy, temporarily incarnated in physical form, therefore every moment in the presence of another is intrinsically sacred. Hugh Prather is referring to our sacred essence when he reminds us of the something we leave behind in each encounter, large and small. He calls this trail we leave behind us our gift to the world.

People in cars passing by my car, people passing by me in the street, someone leaving a shop as I enter, Gayle coming through the door from work, Willie getting his mail as I get mine, and with each one of these little brushings-against, and with each one of these encounters big and small, I leave something behind. If I can feel what I pick up from them, certainly on some level, they can feel my state also. What then is the trail behind me composed of? Does not this “gift to the world” by its very enormity outweigh all others? ~ Hugh Prather

We are all connected and can pick up on each other’s energy in our daily brushings-against. Prather suggests we contemplate the composition of the trail we leave behind us, as our attitudes and energy profoundly affect others. By becoming more self aware, we awaken to opportunities to generate more love and less strife. A lack of such awareness explains how otherwise good and loving people thoughtlessly dismiss or demonize others with the use of a label to justify their ostracism: Well, he’s a Republican/Democrat, provaxxer/antivaxxer, bigot/misogynist/homophobe, conspiracy theorist/science denier, etc.  By labeling others as wrong, bad or evil, we justify our right to exclude them and thereby reinforce the illusion of separation. When we view the world through a lens of duality, right/wrong, good/bad, virtuous/evil, it’s easy to find ourselves obsessing and ruminating on just how wrong someone or something is. Ultimately, it is this us v them thinking that dooms us to perpetual war. 

All my life I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. 

I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself. ~ Hugh Prather

We can transcend duality thinking by making a conscious choice to see a broader context while simultaneously refraining from judging, labeling or criticizing anyone. Obviously, that’s easier said than done, and why we need constant reminders to rise above duality. In our competitive culture we’ve had so much practice thinking dualistically, it seems foreign to think any other way. In our Sovereign Beings meetings, our friend Abby helps us redirect our discussions to that which we desire to manifest rather than excessively criticizing the things we see that are out of alignment with integrity. She inspires us to shift our focus to being the change we wish to see rather than giving energy to dark forces that benefit by keeping us separate. In a recent group text inviting us to take action and vote on a public referendum supporting health freedom, she reminded us: 

While you’re voting, send love to all the people involved. It’s easy to criticize them, fear them, hate them, but it’s more powerful to love them. Be the change you wish to see in the world. Model love and acceptance of those who think differently. They’re in fear/separation. Rise above and remember we’re all Source.

Really, Abby issued the Sovereign Beings a spiritual challenge: To remember that we’re all Source, and therefore, release the need to label those with whom we disagree as bad/wrong/evil. She advised us to maintain our clarity of purpose and take action toward our desired outcomes without resorting to warlike thinking. Her reminder about rising above by adopting the broader view helps us to be the change we wish to see. We can acknowledge and seek change in systems and situations that are out of integrity, while simultaneously maintaining an inner state of love and acceptance. 

It is not that there are no accidents, evil, deformity, pettiness, hatred. It’s that there is a broader view. Evil exists in the part. Perfection exists in the whole. Sin is seeing nearsightedly. And I can choose this broader view--not that I always will--but I always can. ~ Hugh Prather

At the Winter Solstice, it’s traditional to review the year past and release what no longer serves our highest good and to set intentions for the coming year. I pass on Abby’s challenge to you and pray that you will practice sending love to those with whom you disagree. When you’re tempted to label and dismiss someone as a ___________, pause. Recognize it as an opportunity to become the love you wish to see in the world and offer up a silent prayer: 

Bless them, change me. 

By removing your attention from the faults of others and instead focusing it on cultivating a stable inner state of love and acceptance, you become the love that you are. It takes practice and conscious intent, but by reflecting your love outward, you will experience the happiness that comes with maintaining an inner state of abundant love. As our Sovereign Beings organizer and nurturer-in-chief Marcelle likes to say, you can choose to live happily ever after right now!

Love unites the part with the whole. Love unites me with the world and with myself. My life work could well be love. Love is the universe complete. Detachment is the universe divided. Detachment divides me from myself and from others. Love is the vision that can see all as one and one as all. ~ Hugh Prather

Here are the first four articles in the series in case you missed them: Shout Out to Sensitive Souls, From Sensitive to Sovereign, Circle of Sovereigns

If you are struggling, please reach out. Solutions arise when you ask for help. Even very strong people know they need added support sometimes, and smart people know they benefit from having a neutral sounding board. Contact me at revkatiegrace@gmail.com.

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If I had only…

forgotten future greatness 

and looked at the green things and the buildings 

and reached out to those around me 

and smelled the air 

and ignored the forms 

and the self-styled obligations 

and heard the rain on the roof 

and put my arms around my wife…

and it's not too late. ~Hugh Prather