5-9-11 Knowing Love

Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation?
What do you know of Love except the name? ~Rumi

 5-9-11  Knowing Love

This weekend has been a reflection on Knowing Love and Favor.......

Friday I worked from home which is something that always makes me happy. I get to sleep in a little and work in my PJ's half the day. (or all the day if I want to). Some one wrote me from reading this blog where I posted it in Chicago and wanted to buy some Spiritstones from me, so I told him $10 for three of them and what intention did he want them charged with? He said he wanted to get love and favor among all people, then he wrote back and said and also I forgot the most important part, to have favor with God. I told him I will put that intention in them for the people but for God he doesn't have to ask for that because it is always there and never is taken away. He also asked if he could wear them as a necklace and I told him sure, he just needs to get some soft wire and make a "cage" for the stone and put it on a chain or a rope. Later that day Jeremy wanted me to pick him up and when I told him that I had to go to the UPS store first he said I should go to the Post Office its cheaper and when I explained it's only open when I am at work he offered to go for me next time.

Saturday morning I wrote to Mike to check in on if they settled on a price for the rent to own. He called me and said they did but then she decided that she doesn't want to do a rent to own, she is concerned about having to pay taxes on the rental income. I felt like a vice was squeezing my heart, I was in shock.... I told him I don't know how many times I can have the rug pulled out from under me! He said well do you want to start looking at apartments? Then something came over me and I told him NO lets not give up, talk to them, offer a bit more offer for me to pay in cash, lets see what we can do I am not ready to give up on this one so he said he would do what he could and let me know. We hung up and the disappointment was awful....I called Mary for her to pray and to try and contact my guides. While we were talking it just came to me, this is a test of your faith Cassie, just hold on....and because I had somewhere to be soon I hung up. I got in my car and headed out for the event I was going to, a Butterfly Release with the Motherless Daughters Group, I prayed to God all the way there and I asked my Mom and my Grandma to go and speak to God for me since they were up there with him. I also asked God are you pulling this back because I was having second thoughts about Randy again? I will do whatever you ask of me I said anything whatever your will is.......I did in that moment feel like he said to  me will you just love Randy without asking anything of him in return? , it wasn't a strong message, and I was wrapped in fear and panic at that moment but again I prayed that I would do whatever he asked of me so long as the message was loud and clear...

The Butterfly Release was a wonderful distraction, I managed to get the house problem off my mind for the afternoon. There were about 45 of us, all women who had lost their mothers. We gathered at monument square and Susan passed out butterflies to each of us, she said a few words and then we opened up our envelopes. At first my butterfly didn't want to take off but then she did and flew up among the trees, then she came back and sat on the grass for a bit. After everyone let their butterfly's go there were some extras, I was one of the lucky ones who got an extra one and the second one I sent up to my grandma. I did a little more crying, this grieving process really is a process.....I wish most of all that I had gotten closer to my Mom when she was here, that I had told her I love her when she said it to me when I called. But my relationship with her was a tough one, full of good moments and just as often really hurtful moments. My relationship with her growing up has a great deal to do with my fear of love today. I want to be loved so badly but when I get close to love I just want to run away from it because it has stung and hurt me so many times. So I do the dance, allowing myself to feel it and then backing off again from it. I am hoping now, after death, I can finish the healing of the painful parts of my relationship with my mother and remember only the good parts........ After the release we all went to lunch at Old Man Raffertys and talked and got to know each other more, lending comfort to one another and by the time I started driving home I was exhausted and laid down about 5pm when I got home and slept till 8pm. Below see a picture of one of the butterfly's as the envelope was opened.

I slept deeply and dreamed of a home, a home I was considering living in but wasn't sure that I wanted. It seemed to be a small apartment but once you got inside you could see the basement had been recently re-done and was not only spacious but very beautiful, it seemed to go on and on and I kept exploring it noting what a lovely foundation had been restored. I woke up and pondered on this, know that in dreams houses represent your life, I guess in a way I have worked on my own foundation this past year, rebuilding it, making it solid, fixing the cracks and giving it new paint. And the foundation I have made for myself is a big one, that has lots of room for all to come to and find shelter. I can build on this foundation and trust it to be a sturdy one...

Sunday I went to Mass and ran into a friend and asked he how she has been, oh awful was her reply, and ran off a litany of recent woes, ending with I feel like I have been living under a dark cloud and I don't understand it I am a good person I do good works for others and I don't know why God is allowing me to suffer so much lately. I can relate I told her, I so can relate. I reflected through the service on how so many people I know are going through very hard times, and these are good people who live good lives and do so much for others. How can we sit here and think that God loves us when he isn't giving us what we want and need I thought? Then I did some reflecting on Love itself and relationships, what IS being loved anyway? If I want someone to love me, what is it that I expect of them to show to me that they love me? How do I know that I am loved? On pondering that I thought about well when I love someone how does that manifest? I know that my sons if they want to know that I love them may think that I should help them find a job or buy them the video game they want or maybe event tell them what a great person they are. But I know that while love does manifest to them in that way sometimes it also can sometimes mean that I make them go get that job on their own, I don't indulge every request as it will spoilt them, and sometimes love is saying you should examine that behavior and see where you can improve...

Wow I was onto something here I thought.......so how does this interpret as how I perceive God's love for me? Why didn't he wave that magic wand of his and get me that promotion that I wanted? That house that I wanted? The romantic relationship that I wanted? And why am I going through so many struggles and hard times? Could it be perhaps that God wants me to find a way to get these things for MYSELF? To do the work that is needed to find my own way on my own path? Again life is about the journey, and if I got everything I wanted when I asked for it it wouldn't mean as much to me. And that fear of love that I have, really the only way that love has ever hurt me really was when it didn't live up the expectations that I had of it. Sure my mom had hurt me many times when she didn't treat me as good as I wanted her to, when she wasn't always there for me , when she didn't always say the nicest of things to me or about me, but that was her humanness. Same with Randy, I didn't think he loved me because he didn't buy me things, because he wanted to be out riding his motorcycle instead of watching a movie with me, or because he didn't call me or come over as much as I wanted. And now I am questioning God's love for me because he didn't get me a new house to live in or a closed deal on mine, or a man to love me or a promotion at work. But none of those things are really love, love and favor in its simplest of forms is just liking and accepting a person just the way that they are, appreciating them, and wishing only for them to be happy. Not being responsible for their happiness but rather just wishing for them to find it for themselves. In my Spiritual group someone posted the below poem by Rumi and I pondered also on it all day......and I come up with the idea that Love just IS, its not something you can measure or weigh or judge it just IS. Just because someone loves you does not obligate them to be or do or say anything because if we try to harness it, shape it to what we desire of it then it will break away and go on its own path as readily as the sea itself does........

Today I want you to ponder on this one.. Its a hard one and I am still working on it myself........but today think about Love and the times you felt love hurt you, let you down or wasn't there for you, wasn't strong enough for you .......are you running away from Love because you fear drowning in something that won't save you? Or are you ready to drown who you thought you were and what you think you need and just know it the way that it is?........

With Love and in the Light, Cassie

SEA OF LOVE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn57CdH52qY

Some Rumi:

Subtle degrees
of domination and servitude
are what you know as love.

...but Love is different;
It arrives complete
just there
like the moon in the window.

like the sun
of neither east nor west
nor of anyplace.
when that Sun arrives
east and west arrive.

desire only that
of which you have no hope
seek only that
of which you have no clue.
Love is the sea of not-being
and there, intellect drowns.

this is not the Oxus River
or some little creek.
this is the shoreless sea.
here, swimming ends always in drowning.

a journey to the sea
is horses and fodder and contrivance
but at land’s end
the footsteps vanish.

you lift up your robe
so as not to wet the hem;
come! drown in this sea
a thousand times!

the moon passes over
the ocean of non-being.
droplets of spray tear loose
and fall back on the cresting waves.

a million galaxies
are a little scum
on this shoreless sea.