Welcoming a Creative Shift
Summersfest 24x24 acrylic on canvas
This week I finished the book The Power of TED (The Empowerment Dynamic) by David Emerald. I am stunned at how much the victim orientation trained me to be a problem seeking problem solver. I am in the process of shifting from the dreaded drama triangle to the empowerment dynamic, from victim orientation to co-creator orientation.
This week in Conspire, we practiced the Welcoming Prayer. It is difficult to explain how much more I got from this practice after steeping myself in the creator orientation rather than the victim orientation. There may be various resources for learning about The Empowerment Dynamic and the Dreaded Drama Triangle. Much of the work I have done in the past 10 years can fit into this framework, shifting towards empowerment. Here is a link to the book, The Power of TED, for sale on Amazon
Here are the poems and excerpts we used in our group practice session this morning.
Reading One
”Life, therefore, is a constant flow of invitations to awaken to these spiritual realities. Spiritual practices are, at their best, cooperation with life’s inherent tendency toward spiritual awakening and unfolding - a tendency that Christians name as grace. Awakening is the expression of that grace in which we see through our apparent separation and notice that we are already one with Divine Presence and with all that is. All that is missing is awareness.”
~Ancient Wisdom for Contemporary Living, By David G. Benner from Oneing, Vol.1, No. 1, The Perennial Tradition, a publication of The Rohr Institute, page 22
Reading Two
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times
Come, yet again, come, come.
Practice
Follow this link for the instruction sheet I used for guiding us through The Welcoming Prayer.
Here is a link to information and programs centered around the Welcoming Prayer on ContemplativeOutreach.org
Reading Three
That Lives in Us
If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.
If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land-
that sacred earth that is
your body.
If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.
Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.
Why lay yourself on the torturer's rack of the past and future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.
Be kind to yourself, dear- to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.
If you put your heart against the earth with me, in serving
every creature, our Beloved will enter you from our sacred realm
and we will be, we will be
so happy.
post #267