2001-02-17-Art of Living

Session

Opening

TOMAS: How good it is to be here with you and enjoy your reach into friendship and greater bonding between worlds far removed experientially, in order to bond and merge in ways more revealing of the spirit, and thus reflecting the joys of living and learning more from and about the inner life which we share with deity.

We enjoyed your remarks prior to our joining you in this way for we are able to enjoy an understanding of how you reveal what would be meaningful to you in sharing what you perceive as worthy of holding high in belief and socialization of that belief. We will reciprocate by/in telling you we are many here this afternoon in enjoyment of your reach for greater understanding of your full consciousness, including super-consciousness, including the consciousness of others, even those who lie outside your mortal vision.

Like you, we are hosts today of student visitors. We are joined also by a regiment of seraphim and we have a celestial artisan who would like to speak for a while. One moment.

Expression, Art of Living

ATHENA: Good afternoon. I am Athena. I am an artisan and I am happy to be in your midst. We are appreciative of art in all its manifestations and are interested in opening up understanding of how art impacts on your well-being, how an artistic appreciation for occupation and investment of time and effort are instrumental in bringing about satisfactions such that they invite responses from other living, growing entities -- either material or spiritual.

Artistry is an activity as well as an attitude, and the attitude of creation is an attitude we share with the Creator, and thus when we attempt to bring artistry into our lives we automatically are introducing God to our fellows. Our fellows then respond to this illumination and rejoice in kind.

How artistic are you in your appreciation of your life? Welding is indeed an art form, for it bonds materials/elements through fine applications of heat in such a way as to melt and converge matter, even eternally, as it were. Foundries are an extension of this art. Foundries bring to you the manifestation of sculpture, such works as endure for centuries, and it's architectural renderings have been known to symbolize civilizations.

Just as the artistry of a gardener/ a landscaper is a way of elevating an environment from the hap-hazard and random beauty of Mother Nature to the exquisite symmetry and refinement of the Gardens of Edentia, revealing harmony and peace of mind as a reflection of the creation that has been invested in the art of bringing about order from chaos.

As you allow yourself to think in terms of artistry, you are given another dimension of appreciation for what you do and what you are in your arena, in your efforts to bring a spiritual tonal quality to your very environment, to share your spiritual nature with your fellows, to invest them with your artistic co-creation with divinity and to induce in them a sense/ a response to that which has been formed by the Master's hand, or certainly has had a hand in your expression for your attitude has brought his grace into that which you do, and we have a teacher among us.

I welcome you, friend, on behalf of your friendly neighborhood of universe personalities who are devoted to the advancement of humanity, who have been assigned to interact in gracious commune with you who yearn to augment your appreciation of who you are with that which you are becoming. Yes, it is an adventure, an eternal adventure. And we embark upon the experience with you in friendship and in trust of divine overcare.

I will leave you to observe your dealings this afternoon. I am Athena.

AARON: And I am Aaron. You know me well already. I'm glad to come in and socialize with you this afternoon. I'm a friend from where you've been and a guide to where you want to go. My specialty, if you will, is in helping to draw people out. It's a specialty I have assigned to myself inasmuch as I have found the skill of introducing people to themselves, in encouraging them to respect and reflect their own personalities, as a valuable tool in "kingdom building."

Much like Athena mentioned in being artistic I attempt to induce interaction through socialization, social exercises if you will. So what say you? Tell me about it. Have you got things you want to share or argue about? Any confusion or celebrations in your mind?

Dialogue

Growth

GUEST: Aaron, I would like to know what thoughts are keeping me from growing spiritually.

AARON: When you ask me what thoughts are keeping you from growing spiritually, your phrasing would infer that you are standing in your own way of your own growth, and without specifically knowing what your thought or thoughts may be, it could be comprehended across the board that what stands in the way of any and all growth is a reluctance to let go of what is familiar in order to grasp that which is unknown.

You have a very complex personality -- a very mechanical mind with a spirit that yearns to soar. You are in fact a sensible man, and you have one foot in the material world and one foot extended forward into a greater grasp of reality. You do well to harmonize your development. You can't just cut yourself loose from all that is important and good in a material life in order to swing on the vines of faith from one tree to the other, always keeping yourself above the human experience. It is in the human experience that you are conscious of the growth that your heart is involved in.

Slow and sure and steady growth is optimum, and your steps toward advancing in your spirit awareness and your grasp of your own inherent divinity is apace with what is healthy and right for you. You are not one to go off half cocked, and although you are hungry for divine favor and yearning to experience freedom from the restraints of fear and fundamentalism. Your desire to connect with your growing soul is responding to the promptings of divine guidance.

What stands in your way, stands in everyone's way and that is fear and a lack of confidence born of unknowing what you are intending to secure for yourself. Sometimes people think they are afraid and they are not so much afraid as excited. There's a very fine line between fear and titillation. The mental conditioning which you have been subjected to time and time again in your world is the kind of conditioning that would relegate your sense of adventure to one of caution and your delight at life's titillation as foolishness. You need to make your own determination as to what is meaningful, and trust your Indwelling Spirit to lead you into those paths which will bring to you the exhilarating life that you long to know and live, while enabling you to also and simultaneously maintain your solidarity and appreciation for the material realm such that you have the best of both worlds.

This is possible; this is happiness. This brings reality to you, to us, and to your world. Doubt is an insidious thing and fear is a master intellectual fraud practiced upon the evolving mortal soul which will be identified by you as you strengthen your resolve to advance in spiritual learning and actualizing. That great and mighty spirit then will help you overcome the constraints of the mortal mind which would have you denounce the greater reality in order for the lesser reality to feel secure in its animal existence.

God has no intention of removing you from your full and rich life, even while you live it in the flesh. The joys of living are in the spirit, yes, but they are reflected in the human life and in the associations that develop and are enhanced in your artistic co-creation with the Creator.

When you feel, sense, hear, recognize your mind balking, appreciate that it is doing its job of keeping your feet on the ground. Assure it you are not going to risk its happiness or its existence by pursuing higher thought and pursuing patterns of perfection that are unfamiliar to the mortal consciousness. Continue to support that in you which is frail and weak. Assure it of your concern for it, your tender attitude toward it. Be good to yourself, in other words, without allowing your lesser self to run you.

Put your faith in charge. Put your association in league with angels, above your lesser tendencies toward reluctance and restraint, but all the while be mindful of the need for balance. When I mention balance, it is a lot more actually than a simple left foot, right foot. It's more than the material and the spiritual. For you, as a complex being, are also mental and emotional. You have many energy patterns and all of you needs to grow together.

My, I am talking too much, am I not? I'm supposed to be encouraging socializing and here I am monopolizing our conversation. But I am enjoying being with you and hearing your heart open and seeing your soul flower. The soul is like a sponge that has been bereft of a good saline solution. Let your porous self soak up some spirit substance and feel the relief that comes when your psychic cells are washed with this moistness, these drops of living water. Replenish yourself in spirit awareness. Keep yourself from feeling dried up and crisp. Rather, allow yourself to feel moist and soft and full of goodness.

What this group needs is a female teacher. We need to put in a requisition to Melchizedek for a feminine presence at these Spokane meetings. We have many male energies here, but not enough feminine presences. I'm glad Athena asserted herself in revealing herself to us all today. This is another facet of the human that is making some advancement, and is encouraged. Those of you who are dry and crisp are perhaps in need of a soft, moist and feminine essence in you to be revealed in your life path. There are facets of both realities in your composition and that, too, would do well to seek and know balance.

Balance

THOROAH: So we have a little left brain crispness? Is that what it's all about?

AARON: You are more than left-brain. You are material, and therefore somewhat mechanical. But you are also organic and in truth all of these qualities transcend gender but somehow your mind symbolizes these values as qualities that are male or female. The nature of life is such that there is a balance, bringing all of this into good use, fair appreciation. Somehow a greater grasp of your reality will include getting to know yourself more and better. There is so much to each of us, each personality, each existence, that is unknown at least until such time as we attempt to become good friends with who we are.

So many people have no idea who they are. They essentially refuse to exist. And so I encourage you to know yourself and when you feel you know yourself, look further and deeper and begin to appreciate and understand your reality is reflected in all you see, all you do, all you know. Be true to yourself and get to know who you are. Become the author of your own identity, as it were, and learn to be co-creative in your existence -- being hard and soft, left and right, male and female, human and divine, enriching your life and the lives of others by your very being.

I am inclined to recess. We will back in just a few minutes, after you've had an opportunity to check in with yourself.

PAULO: Paulo here. I have to come in, too, because I'm the only one who has not had an opportunity to say hello and meet our guest, so "hello, guest." I'm a feisty fellow and I'm glad I didn't come in first. I had a few responses to your early discourse that might have set you off with a misguided impression of how we function in and with our mortal associates, but I do enjoy sparring on occasion. I am a person who enjoys and appreciates a certain amount of contention. I am a student of rebelliousness, as if I were an overseer or therapist for delinquents.

Closing

Since all you have certain attitudes which rise up against authority or boredom or even our own reflections, I am understanding of your nature that experiences internal conflict and conflict with others. A sympathetic ear you'll find here, and I look forward to your return, for you seem to be a kind of fellow who would appreciate a spunky attitude and a vigorous approach to life's vicissitudes. So, that said, I am going to have the opportunity to close our session for this week.

Before I go, or as I leave, I would like to bless each of you and offer you my personal good wishes for a healthy and robust approach to your life this week. Go for the gusto. Good evening.