2023-01-14

I did the Morning Offering and then got myself ready for the day. Today the quote from 103 comes from Chapter One and the section on how to listen:

How to listen

Communication is the word that describes the goal of coming into union with another person through the use of words. In such a sharing of our thoughts and feelings with another person we are seeking to give and receive helpful information about ourselves and an other self. In order for such communication to work there needs to be an alternation of speaking and listening. I am of the opinion that the more difficult half of this coming into union is the listening. The talking is the easy part. More often than not a person is more interested in being heard than in hearing. This usually manifests in the one listening not really listening when the other person is talking as much as they are fashioning a response to what the other person is saying as they are saying it. In a hustle and bustle world this is often utilized as the quickest means of getting the conversation completed so that one more item on the to-do list can be checked off as the next one is undertaken. Actually taking the time to let the spoken words sink in before responding might even be considered a little weird in our fast-paced modern world. Carla had some perceptive insights into the art of listening:

What comes through in correspondence or talking may or may not be a linear, straight-forward thing with a shallow bottom and clear meaning. Far more likely is a multi-layered piece of communication in which some questions and issues may be expressed while others remain unspoken and perhaps even unknown to the speaker. This is also the nature of the listening self, and each and every distortion and insecurity can baffle clear listening. How we hear people begins in a welter of our own unadmitted biases and progresses through patience, persistence and sheer learning experience and the ensuing humility. Carla L. Rueckert, A Wanderer’s Handbook, pg. 450

This very mindful process of engaging in communication with the emphasis on listening, as the avenue to greater clarity in communication, elevates a conversation to a spiritual practice. That is certainly antithetical to the practical demands of our modern culture, but I believe that it is possible that in our most important one-on-one communications it would be well worth the effort to utilize the listening ear more in order to enhance our coming into union with our much-valued other selves. Once again I would like share a beautiful quote from Carla on the value of listening:

The spiritually oriented listener, then, is listening in eternity, with the consciousness of the widest viewpoint, which is infinity, and yet she is also focusing on this one soul, this one thought process, this one area of concern and learning. It is a practice to delight the heart that yearns always to be better, to serve in a higher way, to become more pure, to honor the divinity in people more deeply. It is a nurturing method that is intangible, yet most keenly felt by the speaker. There is nothing like the feeling of finally being fully heard, or even heard at all. As with the exercise of all gifts, the listener becomes the learner of much. Beyond any understanding of the problems heard about, there is the process of resting more and more in the wordless clarity of silence to bring our minds and hearts to a more profound awareness of the self as a spiritual being. This is the greatest gift of silence: it gives us ourselves as it gives the speaker himself. Carla L. Rueckert, A Wanderer’s Handbook, pg. 452

In this quote Q’uo gives us the thought that our listening to others might be more spiritually advanced as a means of enhancing communication rather than attempting to be heard.

Earlier conversation before this channeled communication talked about the way people do not listen to each other but rather each have things they wish to say to the other, and this is, of course, a very prominent way in which clear communication is sabotaged. If you become aware of a situation in which your words are not being heard, then it is that you may ask yourself whether you wish to be heard or whether you wish to allow the other self to express that which that self wishes to express and assume a role of simply listening. In many instances the appropriate response we would say, metaphysically speaking, is simply to abandon the desire to be heard and become a sounding board that can hear what an other self is attempting to say. This yielding up of the inner agenda and the thing to say is a mark of spiritual maturity. It is an action very difficult to complete, for there is within each self a deep well of desire to be heard, to be heard by the self, and to be heard by those other selves which have meaning for the self. And yet many times the straightest and shortest distance to clear communication is to become silent, to release the desire to be heard and to accept, temporarily, a role of purely listening. Q’uo, December 5, 1999.

This morning I spent most of my time getting the house ready for our pubic channeling session that will begin at 1 pm this afternoon. I got all of the chairs set up in the living room for 15 people, and I got chairs five chairs ready in my bedroom where our channels will tune before beginning to channel. I also threw out all of the trash bags of kitty litter and uneaten food so their odors would not be present. Then I took a speed walk, got a bath, posted this Camelot Journal entry early, and had lunch.

From A Book of Days, channeled by Carla L. Rueckert:

January 14

Sleep’s Communion With Spirit

I am of the principle of divine love. I greet you in the full consciousness of that love which is the love of Jesus the Christ.

Once more the day’s star shines and the activities of a busy round begin. And each soul, vertical, dressed, equipped for the day, moves into the rhythms of that vertical activity which is called living the life.

May we suggest that it is most helpful to realize that that which has been yours during your sleep, during your period of horizontal relaxation, is most valuable. For upon your bed you do not strive. You do not struggle. You do not mourn or praise. But as one who dives into deep water, you are covered with the blessings which sleep brings. For sleep opens the door to the spirit’s communion with that spirit which we are.

Allow the vertical part of your life to carry the horizontal member which lies within the heart and mind. Allow the consciousness of peace and comfort to interpenetrate each activity. For those peaceful lessons learned upon the nightly bed may so inform the day that your life finds more and more value in its happenings.

You see, your life is only yours insofar as you perceive it, and it is your powers of perception that are clarified and strengthened by obtaining the peaceful spaciousness of water whilst bounding actively upon the currents of the air.

Might this combination of action and rest offer you enhanced realization of peace, now and ever. Amen.

I said the prayer at the Gaia Meditation tonight:

We come in the name of love and open our hearts, minds, and souls to send love, light, and healing energy to Mother Earth as she brings forth a new Earth in the fourth density. We ask that the infinite love, light and healing energy of the One Infinite Creator heal the hearts of all souls in pain on Earth tonight. May all souls on Earth feel our love, light, and healing energy in their hearts, their minds, and their souls. Amen.