Friday, February 2, 2018

Art & Soul Painting Class



February 23rd 2018, Friday 6:30pm

Activate your Inner Artist...set the Muse loose!
In this process you will bring forth messages through your own artistry, as you work through a specific theme that is chosen each month in this 6 class series. You can attend just one class or all of them.

The themes and images will take you on a very powerful spiritual journey. The soul communicates in symbology and imagery. As you communicate with your own soul in this way the great mysteries within are revealed to you in a beautiful way that is fun and creative!

Cost per class: $35
Class includes all paint, paint supplies and canvas
(No painting experience required.)

Themes
February: Portals
March: Tree of Life
April: Pheonix Rising
May: Roses
June: Atlantis
July: Galaxy

Must RSVP Rev. Renee... PM or 239-569-631

FEBRUARY 2018: Love, Compassion & Forgiveness


“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ― Rumi

The overwhelming urge to take stock of ourselves at the beginning of a new calendar year can often find us casting a harsh eye upon our lives. Often we are moved to make resolutions and enact new life plans and goals that will get us the results we are looking for because we are fed up or disgusted by the way things have been. And while it is true that discontent and discomfort are great teachers, it is also important to think about how we can open up to more love, more prosperity, more peace, more respect and more personal power from a creative, empowered, energized and loving space.

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”  ― Rumi

First of all, it is important to understand that anything outside of us cannot truly give us those things that we are seeking in a way that is whole. It is an inside job. If respect is won because we invoke fear in others, that negates the other things that we need and want such as love and peace. If peace is won as a result of denial, the cost might be our own self-respect and a decrease in personal power. Force and the use of personal willpower carries with it a great price. Love and allowing opens the energy for all of our human needs and heart's desires to cohabitate and harmonize. This is an opportunity for our inner team to learn how to play together, to balance and synthesize sometimes what appears to be conflicting needs, through our higher power.

“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.” ― Rumi

We must first bring into our field the energy of what it is that we want. If we want more love, we must be more loving... right now... not when we get a new partner... but now. The things that we do, the goals or intentions that we make, if done because we want to create love or peace or prosperity, become more of an allowing. Once the intention is made, and it is surrendered to the powers that be, in love, we step aside and get out of our own way. This is truly using the powers of creation as they are intended.This is Doing Without Doing, and engaging in the Art of Allowing.

“What you seek is seeking you.” ― Rumi

This allowing surely is not accompanied by motionlessness, but rather an acknowledgement that we are working with subtle and profound energies called love and light, and that these forces don't need our constant nagging or pleading to come into effect. After all, these are omnipotent powers that respond according to universal law. If anything appears to be arbitrary it is because there is another belief system that is over-riding it... or something that needs to be released and forgiven in order to allow the new in. The laws of the universe tell us that if we ask, then we will be given. Yet my question is, Do we receive what is given? Do we notice how the universal powers are trying to deliver our desires to us?

“Knock, And He'll open the door. Vanish, And He'll make you shine like the sun. Fall, And He'll raise you to the heavens. Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.”  ― Rumi

As we start to think and feel more into what we would like to create from love, we find the need to focus less and less on what we do not want. This is a turning point when this begins to happen regularly. In unconditional love, there is supreme wisdom. For it is not bound by the desire for a specific result, which holds the objectivity that can help us to break out of old patterns and see new solutions, ideas and opportunities. As we allow our creations and relationships this sacred space, there is so much love, that the beloved, whatever or whoever that might be, is afforded the room to grow even potentially beyond our wildest dreams, and blossom into something we wouldn't even have known to ask for.

“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.” ― Rumi

In love, we become fluid, like water.... and once we are set in motion... love is an eternal abiding action, like the waves of the ocean lapping the shore, even if we are apparently waiting or holding still. The river of love within continues to flow out, much like the energy that patiently coalesces within the seed, as it sprouts later for all to see that there is a period of silence, which will produce something tangible. Love was at work during the entire process, we find out after all.

“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.” ― Rumi

Learning to love the process, the journey is what love is all about. It is not love if we are sending negativity to some aspect of ourselves, or if we have an "if/then" mentality. The universal laws do not support these hard lines. Sure, we can make things happen and it might appear that we have outrun these laws, but we end up with the unending job of controlling our lives, and instead of commanding our ship, we end up holding the bag on everything. This gives us little energy, inspiration and time for true creativity.
“Be empty of worrying.Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi

As we open up to greater love and oneness, we understand that there are parts of ourselves that we have barely given a voice in our life, namely our own soul. As we begin to make conscious contact with our soul, a world of wonder awakens within us. And we are moved. For love that comes through the soul moves us to take action, even if that action is to be still and know that God is within us. Even if that action is listening, praying, and meditating. Being still and doing nothing are not the same thing. And so it is through these small silent acts that we can hear the voice within that holds the greatest wisdom and insight of all... our higher self.

“The minute I heard my first love story,I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”  ― Rumi

It is from this space that we can begin to hear and actuate the whispers of our own soul and bring ourselves truly alive. For love and light are our animating forces, what scientists call electo-magnetic energy. The truth be told, no matter what we call these forces within, so long as we recognize that all that we experience is a dance, a flow of energy, a juxtaposition of these two, we will have the understanding that will open us to the next levels of love. If Love is a verb... what do you love? And How does love move you?

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.” - Rumi

Sunday Talks with Rev. Renee Bledsoe
February 04 - Love, Compassion, & Forgiveness
February 11 - Sacred Altar Church in Circle - February Clanmother "WisdomKeeper"
February 18 - Languages of Love
February 25 - Let Go, Let Love

Affirmations
I allow myself to feel my feelings.
As I acknowledge my feeling I break with denial and shatter illusion.
My feelings and thoughts are messengers.
I let go of what I think about how I feel.
I honor the sensations in my body and listen to their message.
I continue to purify my mind so that I can properly interpret and honor my feelings.
My body is a sensitive instrument designed to express love and to create.
The unloveable need love most of all.
I love and accept the unloveable parts of myself.
As I accept all of myself, I am healed in the light.
My job is to gather the realization that I am perfect and whole.
I have taken the burdens of my family and humanity's karma to turn to love.
I am strengthened by my love.
What I love is strengthened by my love.
Love is a beautiful gathering of energy.
As I build the energy around something, I create love.
I protect my love in sacred space.
I allow love to move me, touch me and fill me.
True love results in devotion.
Devotion is commitment through free will and love.
Let the Light reveal Love in my life.
May my languages of love expand and grow.
May I receive love from all directions.
Love lifts me up, energizes and inspires me.
Unconditional love has no agenda other than to be love.
I unconditionally love myself.
I apply love and compassion first to myself, before I can truly give it to others.
Love and compassion are a part of who I am.
As I allow love to live through me, what I offer to the world is filled with light.
Let my love be as great as my light.
I am in service to the light of my soul.
There is a great love that has given us life.
As I remember more of myself, I remember the love.
I extend love and kindness to all.
Love moves me to create good in my life and for the world.
I open myself to healing through love, compassion and forgiveness.