Paul Sivert dedicates this entry to my fellow retreatants at Omega, especially Jim, Teresa, and Beltina; may your faith in prayer carry you to the light you seek and deserve, and especially to our teacher, Ed Zogby.

Insecurity and violence end when we experience an inner connection with divine energy within, a connection described by the mystics of all traditions. A sense of lightness – buoyancy – and the constant sensation of love are measures of this connection. If these measures are present, the connection is real. If not, it is only pretended.  (The message of the Mystic Insight #5 – The Celestine Prophecy)

That which I want and desire when unburdened from ego – bondage, can lead me to my true freedom. Far from a burden, God for (St) Ignatius, is the source of Joy and source of my freedom, source of my freedom as mine.  (From the course notes of Ed Zogby, S.J. – Soulmaking in the Christian Mystical Tradition, Omega, 1996)

“God is my source. I cannot see apart from Him.”  (Lesson #43 A Course in Miracles)

Economic changes in the United States. One of the questions he was addressing was, is the American dream dead? My response to that question was yes – thank goodness, because my belief is that the American dream was built on scarcity. I am not about scarcity and don’t want you to be about it. We need reconnect with abundance. When we lose our connection with the Creator through institutional programming, such as there is only one way to live and everyone else is damned, we begin to develop a scarcity consciousness. There is a limit on this and that – money, land, material possessions, and who gets to heaven. The abundance paradigm is radical departure of our thinking that everything is limited and it is being directed by others against us. Abundance consciousness is remembering our freedom, joy, love, and active responsibility to do the right thing for ourselves and others. It’s a consciousness living process that we must learn how to participate in.

The mystical process of connection to God forms a powerful relationship between the individual, spirit, and the worlds we are part of. Remembering and loving our spiritual bodies is a way to invite holiness into our lives. According to Mathew Fox, holiness consists in hospitality. Our creator “is a gracious and abundant, and generous host/hostess”.

Mysticism is a journey to God that brings love, joy, and freedom to the individual. The comparison to Shamanism is clear, for the Shaman knows how to journey. Shamans learn how and maintain a connection between different worlds. They have available to them spirit helpers which facilitate their need to access messages for themselves and others they serve. They are comfortable in talking with the spiritual representatives of the Divine Source, the Creator.

The way I see it, many many people have lost their connection with God. People come to me with the same question, “How do I get relief from this pain and experience a connection to Divine Spirit?” They want to know how to do it, what it feels like, and how to maintain it. So I offer the instruction they seek.

For so many others, their minds and hearts are closed, walled off from a connection with the source of power that sustains every aspect of our expanding universe. Religious institutions placed boundaries around us and delivered us rules to keep us in status quo. However in every religion there is the living experience of the mystic. Which is very much like the way of life for a Shaman. We want to expand our consciousness by remembering what has been lost.

My belief is that the mystical experience of direct communication with God has been lost by our decision to sin. For sin is any thought/action that constricts and limits our perception of spirit.

The Shaman practices abundance consciousness by knowing about energy, gaining control over their bodies – the mental, emotional, and physical. They communicate internally and externally at the same time. They know how to shift their consciousness and shamans are fighters. I encourage you to become fighters in remembering your spiritual connection or, perhaps more accurately stated, to rediscover the mystic which resides inside of you.

Can you find the abundant spirit of living force in this poem?

A BROOK IN THE CITY by Robert Frost

The farmhouse lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear
A number in. But what about the brook
That held the house as in an elbow crook?
I ask as one who know the brook, its strength
An impulse, having dipped a finger length
and made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearthstone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown
Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run–
And all for nothing it had ever done,
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under,
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.