Dear Jeff,

I have no problem with magic and have believed in it all my life. My stumbling block is having faith in shared magic. I have been comfortable--safe--with my faith in God, in creative mystery within my heart, and between a few trusted and beloved others, but have shied away from collective magic because of those boxing gloves, so many of us wear when we get into the ring of life. Ouch! I have done my share of jabbing and being knocked out equally. It is trusting in the spirit and magic expressed through others that gives me pause. Can this magic be trusted when pouring through the sieve of another heart?

Whether I trust magic or not doesn't matter to magic; it only affects my experience. I am still afraid in some ways. Or perhaps that's just my old paradigm talking. Maybe I'm not afraid at all and don't know it yet.

I have an image of holding my thumb up to my eye and saying I cannot see the moon. I interact with others as if the moon is not there. I think of Jesus, who never had an obstructed view of the moon, per se, but always acted with full knowledge of magic pouring, effusing, being in everything. He never blocked his vision by his thumb or anything. The magic of love was always available to him, suffusing him as he was love. I'm sure the same goes for many saints and mystics; I use him as an example.

In the meditation Friday you said, "The space between us is where reality emerges." I saw lace, beautiful delicate lace that we all wove with our collective consciousness. Without the spaces, there is no lace, and without the thread, there is no lace. I see reality as God and our consciousness as the thread. I don't know if God is the weaver of this lace or if we are, but perhaps it doesn't matter. Does it matter? Do we want no lace? Just space? But that's impossible because we do exist!

These are the kinds of thoughts that go through my head that I hope to discuss with friends in this collective you've gathered for this celebration. I was thinking of not sharing this. Of staying safe within the shell of my separate consciousness which is where I am comfortable. But I am here to share, to listen, to weave. So I'm clicking the "submit" button.

Thanks for listening and the opportunity to say what's in my heart.

Love,
Polly

Dear Polly,

Collective spiritual work is very tricky, but ultimately it has to be done. We do need to awaken as a species to a higher way of being and we have to do that together.

And yes, even for us, a rarified few who have self-selected as interested in awakening and spiritual evolution find it hard to trust and open together. But if we can't find a way to do it, what hope does the world have.

We can see in our own fears around collective engagement, why it is so hard to get enough people and enough nations to work together in unison to make a difference in something like climate change.

I love the example of Jesus and of course, you can't really avoid the collective nature of our being. We are part of a collective any way, there is no way to be separate. So the real question is how much do we want to chose how we engage with the collective and can we do that in the right place with the right people to make a difference.

These are very important questions. Thank you for hitting "submit."

Love
Jeff