Calling All Angels*

We’re not alone.

It doesn’t always feel that way, that is for certain.

Yet I believe there is support.  

There is connection.  

There is an energetic partner that we have,

Dancing with us,

No matter what is happening.

Over my years of trudging this wacky road of healing, as a teacher I have been conflicted about appropriate, inclusive language to name this Force.  Here are a few I have used and discarded, only to use again, in no particular order:

• Grace
• Energy
• Prana
• God (triggering for some)
• Higher Power (nicknamed, in the casual version, HP)
• Higher Self   (ugh, implies lower self, hate that)
• Zac Joe Doodle the Dog (God disguised as fuzzy, salt-and-pepper canine)
• Reality (my current personal fav)
• Nature (such obvious glory!)
• My 12 Step Home Group
• Flow
• Flow state
• Positive life force
• Grace
• Jesus (the name of any teacher or teachers who speaks to your heart)
• Angels

The bottom line here is—fill in the blank for yourself.  What works for you? That’s the name.

IF there be one, fill it in.  If not, please keep reading.

______________

As a Reform Jewish kid growing up, despite years of painful Sunday School classes, a hideous and unsuccessful dip into Hebrew School (really triggered my stuttering), and confirmation at the age of 13, I heard and felt nothing that offered any sense of partnership, solace, or support.  To the contrary. The orange drink in those little wax boxes that you had to squeeze to open, served at Sunday School recess, gave me raging headaches.

I continued to drink them throughout my limited yet well-intended Jewish education.

Truly it wasn’t until I got sober, many painful “headaches” later, that I was confronted by this idea of conscious contact, in 12 Step lingo.

I was urged through the 11th Step to seek “through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God as I understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out.”

What?

I thought a lot about that for a few years, wandering around New York City, going to meetings, puzzling, living sober, with a very busy, attempting-to-be-spiritual mind.

I tried hard.

I am a hard, hard trier.

Not a lot of solace was available to me through thinking—which, by the way, is probably not a spiritual practice.

And eventually, the doors of Kripalu yoga on and off the mat beckoned me into a body-centered spiritual exploration, urging me to look inside, to feel, inside, to search, inside.

There lives divinity.

LOVELY! 

YES!

I GET IT!

And yet, what a work in progress I am.  

How fully I believe, how easily I forget.

How totally I surrender, how willfully I grasp back—that which I think is mine.

If it isn’t happening, it isn’t mine.

I don’t remember finding this song, Calling All Angels.  I don’t remember the time when it wasn’t a part of my teaching world.  I have played it consistently in the Inner Quest Intensive for decades.

Here it is.  Please—promise me you’ll listen and watch and feel.  It’s KD Lang and Jane Sidberry:

 

 

 

 

 

Ah, dear friends.  It is so intense being human!  It is such a trudge, such a journey.

These lyrics blast open my heart, so powerfully, for me, describing that human dilemma:

Then it’s one foot then the other
As you step out onto the road
How much weight? How much weight?
Then it’s how long? And how far?
And how many times before it’s too late?

Whatever your practice, whatever brings you closer to that which is not your mind, that which is not your will—be it walking or hugging a kitty, swimming or knitting or meditating or cooking Thai food—whatever it is.  For the love of life, do it.

Let’s practice getting closer to that part of ourselves that knows—that remembers—that has such ultimate forgiveness for the forgetting—that part of us that is Us, the greater, the higher, the connected Us.

Being human.

What a dilemma, as these lyrics proclaim:

Calling all angels, calling all angels
Walk me through this one, don’t leave me alone
Calling all angels, calling all angels
We’re tryin’, we’re hopin’
We’re hurtin’, we’re lovin’
We’re cryin’, we’re callin’
‘Cause we’re not sure how this goes

*By Jane Siberry and KD Lang

Dear Friends, 

Check out this sunset outside my window in the picture above.  Holy mackerel! How blessed are we.  

I pray to keep my eyes and heart open, to see the signs, to hear the angels in all their configurations.

I pray to remember I’m not alone—that you are here, too, we are in it together.

You are just me over there, disguised as you.

Please keep in touch.  All voices welcomed—all experiences sacred.  I am aruni@rnetworx.com

All blessings,
Aruni