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A common theme these days among those I mentor is worry about the future. At this moment in time on the planet and with the arrival of the corona virus last year, many are feeling  ungrounded, unstable, fearful, and uncertain about the future. Thoughts come up such as “Will I ever be able to manifest that soul mate for whom I long so deeply?”; and, “will I be stuck in this rut of a job forever or will I ever able to realize my dreams…?”; and lurking in the background is “will this pandemic ever end so that can we can get back to normal?!”

The truth is there is never a good reason to worry about the future, as we are actively creating it by the choices we make moment to moment. As spiritual teacher Ram Dass has famously advised Be Here Now! When we are able to quiet the mind with its ruminations about the past or anxiety about the future, we enter a portal of timelessness. It is the entrance into our soul’s wisdom and the guidance that serves its evolution and highest dharma. But thought forms about the past or about the future create a veil blocking this intuitive knowledge from reaching us, often breeding anxiety or even depression.

In a recent Leslie Jamison article in The Atlantic magazine about men in prison who create art, researcher Nicole R. Fleetwood talks about the lesson that abstract artist Jared Owen learned while incarcerated.

“To fixate on the past or to focus on the time remaining on his sentence was to succumb to rage and depression. Such thoughts would make him angry about the years spent away from his two sons, both very young when he went away.”

But through his art Owen was able to hone a practice of staying present and tap into his creative impulse, which was both therapeutic and inspirational; and through his pain he discovered that when the mind is quiet and our intention is in simply being present with what is, each moment and deed is aligned with our soul purpose. In his case creating beautiful abstract art. As we practice this new mode of being we begin to perceive spirit’s invisible hand at work behind the scenes as wonderful life-enhancing synchronicities become commonplace. In time an unshakable faith in the support of the invisible realms allows the soul’s wisdom to direct our life through inspiration, intuition and direct knowing. We enter the realm of the miraculous, where time stops and the inevitability of our evolution becomes manifest. We are at peace and at one with the Creator.

Early 20th century mystic and poet Edward Carpenter eloquently describes this place in this poem. May you find your way Here…

The Central Calm

Drawing back for a moment from Time, and its superficial claims and conclusions,
Realising for a moment the artistic nature of the utterance of the Universe:

That all is for expression, and that for this end commencement and finale, first evolved and latest evolved, are equally important;

That Progress is a word which may be applied to any world-movement or individual career in the same sense as it may be applied to the performance of a musical work,
Which progresses to its final chord, yet the conclusion of the whole is not in the final chord, but in that which runs beneath and inspires the entire web–in that which from first to last the whole complex succession of chords and phrases indicates:

Realising this–

Realising–thus for a moment withdrawn–that there is no need to hurry, no need to dash against the bars;
But that Time itself rushing on with amazing swiftness in its vast and endless round, with suns and systems, ages and geologic epochs, races and tribes of beings, mineral, vegetable, animal, and ethereal, circle beyond circle, infallibly fulfills and gives utterance to the glorious whole:

Like one in the calm that is the centre of a cyclone–guarded by the very tornado around–
Undisturbed, yet having access equally to every side,
I drink of the deep well of rest and joy,
And sit with all the gods in Paradise.