LoveToy Wisdom

Why This Bird Didn’t Sing or An Allegory on Beliefs

Allegories are stories, poems, or pictures that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.  They are metaphors.  Metaphors are ideas regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract.  They create images and provoke thought, comparison, connection.  Jesus taught in allegory.  His parables were simple and profound, and while the experts disagree, there have been 42 unique tales commonly attributed to this master teacher.

My favourite of Jesus’ parables has always been “The Mustard Seed”.  So simple.  So profound. A perfect image for the ‘Kingdom of God’ being one of the smallest of seeds…(A mustard seed is about this big:  ‘O’ if you are using a Calibri 11 font)…bigger than a poppy or sesame seed …but yields a tree that is 3 metres in height!  In other words, the image for what is inside You, your Divinity, that has been created from the Source (the Kingdom of God), with nurturing, can grow to be a large, beautiful, and functional Being-ness (shelter for the birds, again an image of a much larger Kingdom of freedom and peace) which of course then recreates itself, as trees do.  The intent of the tale and the significance of the images convey the meaning, which is ‘allegory’.

The greatest teachers use story-telling to get their messages across. My favourite of all allegories has to be “Plato’s Cave”.  I invite you to re-familiarize yourself with it on a regular basis, because, as with all great allegories, the meanings change as you grow in awareness.  It means something totally different to me now than it did even four years ago.  Looking back to my first study of The Cave in Grade 12 English Lit.  class, not to mention before that when, as a ten year old, I stumbled upon the concept of Plato’s Cave in an ancient Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) while researching a speech, the transformation in my understanding is quite amazing to me.  The allegory of course hasn’t change, but I sure have.

So it is with the stories of your life.  All of them, every single one that you can recall and re-tell for yourself,  are allegories for You, for who you are.  When appreciated and reviewed from your current point of view, I promise you that they will guide you to making some awesome discoveries.

As promised from my previous blog, I offer below my simple (?) allegory to show how our beliefs, formed so innocently in our childhood, can have major impact on our whole life, .  (And, yes, Beloveds, I was asked to share, otherwise, be your own guru!)

Remember in my last blog post, I had been discussing gender beliefs and suggesting that they could be eliminated if not adjusted, because we are in a different world from our ancestors, and even now in this present moment, in a different space from when the ideas were first placed in our awareness.  This means of course that there has been a transformation and these once useful, and maybe even well-cherished beliefs, no longer serve us.  In fact, they may be getting in the way of You being You.

I said that I would not be giving an analogy related to gender issues because as I said, you’re on your own for questioning those and all beliefs that you might like to put under the Mindful Microscope.  But here’s the example that I hope will help to clarify the insidiousness of some beliefs we hold, and thus, underline the importance of discarding the ideas  once and for all, now that you have awakened to their now ‘useless’ existence !

First, I’ll tell the story:

Once upon a time there was lovely little girl who woke up every morning singing in full voice.  Singing made her feel good, and feeling good inspired her singing.  It was a beautiful thing! When singing, she felt so happy in her heart.

Then one day, Father, who did not sing, though often was heard to whistle happy tunes, said to his songbird daughter when she bounced down the stairs to sit at the breakfast table in the sunny kitchen: “Daughter, it is time for me to tell you this fact of life.  You are old enough to learn this now.”

The little girl felt excited, and her eyes shone with pride.  “I am a big girl now!” she assured her father adoringly, and anticipated the secret she was now old enough to have revealed to her.

The man tilted his head and looked at his daughter across the table. His bowl of porridge steamed in front of him.  Pointing his poised spoon in her direction, the little girl’s father declared: “When you sing before you eat your oatmeal, you will have a reason to cry before you go to sleep tonight.”

The little girl stared at her father in astonishment.  What!  “No!” she cried out in instant horrified rejection of this truth.  Ashamed of her outburst, she focused her gaze upon her cereal bowl, and shoved a spoonful of the cooling potage  between her lips.  Just then, an evil fairy flew into the room, hovered over the table and pointed her twisted wand at the little girl’s throat. The mouthful of oatmeal felt thickly stuck in her throat in a huge sticky lump.  Then, with a tinkly wicked laugh, the fairy dipped over the table, glancing appreciatively at her own tiny reflection in the shiny toaster, and then POOF!, she disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

Swallowing the oatmeal with great difficulty, the pain causing tears to seep down her cheeks, the little girl jumped up from the table and ran to her room where she stayed till shadows darkened the walls and crept into her heart.   She fell asleep with her daddy’s words repeating in her mind.

The next morning, the sweet child awoke with a happy heart, leapt out of bed and began to sing her appreciation for the new day.  No sooner had the first notes lifted from her heart to her throat than she felt them bump up against a solid wall and stay stuck there.  Try as she might, she could not get the tune out.  Not one note!  Running to the bathroom, the little girl took a drink of water.  Staring in the mirror she watched her mouth form the words, ” Oh what a beautiful morning..” but no sound came out.

Like a flock of blackbirds, the events of the day before came swooping into her memory and the little girl flung her hand to cover her mouth, eyes wide in horror.  “I have a spell on me”, she whispered to her mirror self.  “I cannot sing anymore.”  Sadness overwhelmed her, and fear soon followed:  “I can never sing again.  I might not even be able to speak any more.  How will I break this spell?  Who can help me?” ….

To be continued…  (If you should ask)

caged bird singingLTOYW! I love you!  Cath

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Who Can Change Their Minds?

Well done, Beloveds!  The first response to my latest blog, published on February 16th, was a phone call from my dinner companion whom I wrote about previously, and she pointed out what she perceived as a major discrepancy in my recent article:  “You used a gender comment at the beginning of the blog post, referencing your right to change your mind because you are female, and then you go on to comment on how human beings have been conditioned to our gender beliefs and that we need to re-think our beliefs.”  She asked for clarity.

So thanks for asking, Little Moon!  Here is my reply:

Gender-based beliefs, also known as stereotypes, do have their uses and the statement that I am allowed to change my mind “because I am female”, was made to underline the perfidity of that and similar gender-based beliefs.  In other words, it was an arrow shot out of my bow with the intention of pricking a soft spot, and it did!  Of course anyone can and should change their minds, and I want all Beloveds to change their minds on everything.  I want you to question everything you have ever believed about anything and see if it is really true for you and if you still need to believe it.

Start with all the gender type-casting beliefs that you have ever held.  Anything that tells you that a male or female identity qualifies the owner with specific (of species) traits or aspects, that the other gender does or does not have, and which specially (as in of the species) qualifies one or the other to have a leg up on survival, so to speak.  Don’t just think your ideas.  Actually get still and be quiet, do your mindfulness breathing, ask your inner wisdom, and listen.  If you are unable to come up with some gender notions to question that is indeed AWESOME!  And I am not going to suggest any gender notions to be questioned, for the exact reason I am attempting to get across to you this uber important, ultimate, paramount fact:  You know the answers!  You are the Wise One.  Trust your innate wisdom on this!

However, should a gender notion come up for you, and then you go inside to question its validity, trust that this is a belief you hold, and that it is true for you, the every day, ego-self you. Your nervous system holds on to the belief in order to keep you safe.  If you state the belief when you go inside, and then feel a signal in your body of discomfort, or what I like to call “yuck”, that’s a signal that you are holding onto an idea that may not be serving you any more.  It is a ‘true’ belief for you.  But, don’t confuse that with The Truth, because it’s not.

The real Truth is that a gender designation is not who You true-ly are, and does not define or limit you unless you allow it to, which is fine, if it’s serving to keep you secure and protected.  But if it no longer serves you as a belief, especially if it is particularly uncomfortable when you run it by your internal “Yum-Yucker”, then it can be changed, altered, replaced or discarded if you choose.   If it’s a thought about the way you see the world and you are not finding it useful anymore, if it is interfering with your comfort, then simply thank the energy for being there for you for all these years,  and then tell it “You can go. I don’t need you anymore, right now.”  Try not to conceptualize anything, just keep noticing the feeling in your body as you have this conversation with your own energies.

There’s a simple analogy I can share with you, not related to gender issues because you’re on your own for questioning these and all beliefs that you might like to put under the Mindful Microscope. But for an an example that might help to clarify, as I have been asked to do, please catch my next blog.

For now, suffice it to say, that dialoguing with your own energetic Inner Self, your Innocent Inner Child, will allow you to eliminate these conditioned, self-limiting, sometimes downright insidious, beliefs from your nervous system.  If the belief is “Yucky”, it no longer serves you, though have no doubt that it once did or it would not be there.  But “yucky” is not who you are.   I cannot  underline enough the importance of first acknowledging the ideas and appreciating them for once being useful to your energy system, even if it was in a past life or what is very common, an inherited belief from ancestors, especially through your parents. Then, once you have done this, if the notions are no longer serving You— the boss of your own energy — the system is so smart, it will just let the ‘yucks’ go in a brilliant example of cosmic conservation.

Just try it!  And remember, if you would like more clarification using an analogous example of how our beliefs can  influence us and how by changing them, we change our whole world—or if you would just like to read an interesting personal flat earthstory— then please, just  ask!

Till next time…

 

LTOYW,

Love, Cath

Fallout From Inner Lunacy

Following my last blog post in which I declared myself to be redundant and basically noting that teaching Love Toy Wisdom had it’s own built-in obsolescence, a former student of mine, who is now a friend, called to meet for dinner at a local Italian eatery, which I gladly did.

Over dinner, in this rather noisy, big tomato restaurant, my friend told me that she was shocked to read my new blog posting, after seeing nothing for all these months, because I seemed to be saying that I would be doing no more teaching and no more blogging and what was I thinking, she had learned so much from me over the last three years and hadn’t finished taking all my courses, but really wanted to, and she had a goal to become a Heart Healer practitioner, too, and how was she going to do that since it was my very own creation of an energy healing modality and, Cath, what are you thinking!?

Well, I couldn’t help but smile at the frantic panic she was displaying, even if somewhat in jest, but I knew beneath the words, that this little moon of mine was revealing the age-old insecurity of the spiritual seeker, namely: I can’t do it on my own!  Which is to say, I am not enough the way I am and I need to get all the answers, and I need someone, like you, or this book, or this course, or this teacher to tell me what I don’t know. I have to keep looking for the answers here and there and helping my self to being a better, more perfect version of me.  Once I get this certificate and this credit I’ll be there. I’m so close.  It’s right around the corner.  (Well, she didn’t say ALL that, but I heard it all in the vibration of her voice and the energy of her words!)

So, I gave Little Moon, my undivided attention, listening to her intently, focusing on what she was not saying as much as on what she was saying, which was not easy in that bustling, busy atmosphere, and then when she finished her plea, she asked me the question:  “Well, what are you really going to do and what will I do, if you do?”

I looked her straight in the eyes, smiled, took a big breath and honestly at first, wasn’t sure what to say because my former, un-confident self tape kicked in for a moment and I heard, “But Cath, she really needs you and you know how much you need to be needed, and how happy it makes you to see other people happy.  Maybe you need to think this whole ‘just-be-the-light-intending-ultimate-good’ thing through.”

However, my new confident-in-herself-and- the-rest-of-the-world Cath-self piped up and said, “Barb, stop do-doing all over the place and relax.”

She took a sip of her drink, and eyed me, as only a Capricorn is allowed to eye a Virgo,  and she asked, “What the Sam Hell is that supposed to mean?”

So, once again I made eye contact, took a deep breath, smiled, trusted that the words would come and said very slowly and clearly, “I don’t know what that means, but you are so smart, so capable and such a beautiful soul, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

The space between us across the table was filled with palpable energy as our hearts literally connected.  I felt it!  She felt it!  Our minds were still on the same wavelength with the conversation but I knew that much more had just taken place!  Barb had suddenly gotten a quick glimpse of her own bright light in my moon face.  I had just validated her in a way that hours of teaching could never have done.  There was absolutely no ego between us.  I had given her permission to see herself as I saw her, in her own radiant innocence and perfection, that knew everything it needed to know, and thus in that kind of unconditional love, all was well.

My confidence shone on her, and she saw it, absorbed it into her heartspace, and then mirrored it back to me with the intense brightness of a full winter’s moon.  “You’re right!” said she.  “I do know a lot.  Maybe I don’t need the certificates and the titles on my wall to be who I am meant to be.”

“Mmmhmmm!” smiled I.  “It’s all here,” I said, setting down my pasta-laden fork and placing my two hands overlapped across my chest.  “Here, and not here,”  I added, tapping the side of my head.    “Just in the demanding, of ‘Show me’, ”

I was next guided to say, “You’ll receive everything you need to know, exactly when you need to know it. That’s all there is to it. You’re not required to do anything more.”

“Thanks!” said Little Moon Barb, grinning wickedly.  “Thanks for the wisdom, teach!  You say you’re done teaching but you realize that you just did that, what you said you weren’t going to do anymore, don’t you?”

I smiled and sighed.  “No, YOU did, darlin’!  You did it! And that’s what I’m talkin’ about! You already knew it all anyway.  Don’t you get it, Sunshine? You already knew all that!”

Then the waiter brought us our cheques, we settled with the debit machine, bundled up in our coats and scarves and stepped out into the parking lot under a brilliant, full moon sky.

All is well!

sun and moon

Love is the way  

messengers from the mystery

tell us things. 

Love is the mother. 

We are her children. 

   She shines inside us

                                                                                                       visible-invisible, as we trust

                                                                            or lose trust,

                                                                                                           or feel it start to grow again.

                                                                                                                      Rumi

LTOYW!  Cath