Mari’s Blog
Mirari: The Way of the Marys
Dear Readers of A Course of Love,
More than likely, many of you may have heard the 2020 decade spoken of as the decade of the feminine. I have felt this to tremendous effect. Here, at the end of the first year of this promising period, I am releasing Book 1 of a trilogy that expands on A Course of Love’s way of Mary. Jesus gave us a preview of Mary’s way almost twenty years ago (I completed The Dialogues in October 2001.) In it, he said we were preparing for the way of Mary. The time has now arrived.
Mirari:
The Way of the Marys
I do not recall having knowledge of this feminine decade, myself, when I began this dialogue with Mary of Nazareth. Our initial encounter came in 2013 but I did not embrace this new work fully until we began again in 2018.
At the beginning of this year, I took a sabbatical to begin to put together what had been written . . . and never emerged. I thought many times that I “ought to” be reaching out during this isolating and frightening time in the world, but my year became a year not only of deep immersion with Holy Mary, but of leaving “ought to” thoughts and actions behind. It took a while to free myself of guilt and shoulds. The highly scheduled life I had been living contained a lot of those. As I let it all go, I slowly became confident that my time was being spent in the most essential way it could be—doing what is mine to do.
You too, can call on Mary to be with you. You too, can allow yourself to be transformed. What I felt emerging in myself, (slowly . . . as you will see as you read Mirari), is confidence in my gift and the power that sharing these words, spoken so intimately between Mary and I, will have. They light the way for our movement out of “the old,” the very movement that Jesus called us to in A Course of Love.
I would like to welcome you to this movement. It will carry to you, a sense of belonging in the life and the time in which you are living, and reveal your destiny as a creator of The New. From my earliest contact with Holy Mary, she sought to transform my “resistance” to carrying on in an old way, into a passion to create in a new way. Reclaiming the creative feminine energy that has been lost, we emerge for the birth of new life. We can each live in a new way.
A key reference for the initial awkwardness of this time arrived in The Dialogues with the realization that acceptance includes accepting that we have dislikes. This liberating idea can mean that we allow ourselves to choose not to participate in some things. With that freedom, a sense of devotion to what is ours to do can at last arise. We commit ourselves to where our energy is most drawn to be. There, we are at our most expansive. You and I have no need to avail ourselves of anything that is “more of the same” as we begin to realize our worth. As you and I are empowered with free will, The New arises in us and we feel how much we belong in the new time that is birthing.
This is especially true for women and men in whom the feminine is arising. Through the alure of The New, along with the sympathetic understanding that Mary offers, you and I begin to heal and to feel free of the old. We begin to accept all, rather than some of our feelings, and to sense the power of creation that rests within them.
This happened slowly in me, and so this personal account will not arise as pressure to quickly achieve a new state. There is no value to “achieve.” Mary’s way, and our feminine way, is just the opposite. It lets us slow down and realize the wonder of Mirari (“Mirari” is Holy Mary’s way of expressing wonder). Wonder captivates us. As its beauty is found, both within and without, we are readied to embrace the grief we carry from the time of learning. Through our grief we are lifted to a new beginning. We can’t turn back. The new age is here and is extending as we open space for it to arrive.
As distracting thoughts and activities fall away, spaciousness opens us to The New. We are “literally” birthing The New and our undivided attention is required. In this devoted responsiveness we find unity. We begin the sometimes-slow movement to no longer being split by conflicting aims. Our potential is untapped. As I heard on Day 24 of The Dialogues: We are “the virgin, the pregnant, the birth, and the new life.” And this “is the way of the world as well as the way of creation.”
I invite and encourage you to receive Mirari in sacred solitude. Let it wash over you. There is nothing here to learn. Nothing needs to be discussed. Here, you are to become reacquainted with intimacy. Here, you are soothed into acceptance of who “you” are. Being who you are is your liberation from all you have been taught you are, and from your need to seek instruction in how to better yourself. Here, you begin to see yourself as you were created and desire to be.
You will know when to share.
When you do, call on Mary’s assurance that sharing deeply will draw forth the knowing and being known that is our deepest and most hidden desire. Knowing and being known is our very entrance into the way of the Marys and the way of The New. It is the felt-knowing that is our birthright, and the sense by which we will navigate this fluid wave of our quickening, our movement to The New.
In the wonder of new life,
Mari Perron
Mirari: The Way of the Marys is available now.
A Course of Love and the Power of Us
Mari Perron and Mary Love
Live at Miracles in the Mountains II
Invitation from Mari
I hope you’ll join me and Mary Love in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, for Miracles in the Mountains II. Kathy Scott Perry puts on the best events! Those of us who were at the first Miracles in the Mountains can attest to that. Last time I was “introducing” A Course of Love to many people who’d never heard of it.
This time I get to go beyond introduction and talk about about our freedom to be who we truly are. There is no topic on the horizon that matches this one: to be real, true, and to claim this space. Not tomorrow but today.
Why do we still remain blind to our true freedom?
It’s not easy to give ourselves permission to be real. The true self that yearns for just this moment—this secret we hold within. Have you ever realized that you aren’t free if you can’t be who you are?
Freedom sounds so good! What holds each of us back? We look at our lives: filled with commitments, obligations, and expectations. There is all we’ve learned we’re not, and all we’ve learned we should be. A person can easily bland-out in a middle zone that isn’t a “center,” but an isolation unit. Life gets lived on an imperfectly pleasant surface – populated, but not intimate. Least of all true.
This freedom—this particular freedom, is to be one’s Self, and is a release that envelops us in intimacy. It is what A Course of Love inspires.
D:Day9.4 You who do not feel confident in your feelings, who do not feel confident in your ability to respond, who do not as yet feel the freedom of the new, allow yourself now, to do so. Allow freedom to reign, for it is your allowance, your choice, your permission, that will make it so. The only one who can stop you now is yourself. The only permission you ever needed was your own.
When Jesus says the only permission needed to experience freedom is our own, it may be the first time you and I realize that this is true. Then the real questions arise:
Can the world be a loving and embracing place when we don’t allow ourselves to be who we are? Can we actually change the world by changing what is within?
The Power of Us
True companionship is found when we break out of our confinement. It is what Mary Love and I have shared for decades. Only a few requirements are needed: vulnerability, acceptance, delight in differences – and living life on our own terms, while standing in truth. Even as we change, or disagree, the urge to explore reveals itself – a kind of archeology of lost selves that somehow are destined to find a voice. Amid laughter and stunning tears, a way is found. Our hidden fears only help summon the light within each of us.
I will highlight A Course of Love, and Mary will highlight “The Power of Us.” We will stand together and share this intimacy with you.
Joined in union and relationship, we find the power to be who we are, and to extend and create from the consciousness of unity. In dialogue, we share in the Power of Us.
A Course of Love is the beginning of a life journey
A Course of Love is the beginning of a life journey . . . not an end.
Opening your Mind to the Wisdom of your Heart, the first ACOL Online Conference . . . is also a beginning, not an end.
This conference, Open your Mind to the Wisdom of your Heart, may be the only of its kind. There may be another conference, there may not. But one thing is sure: there will never be another like this one.
It is a beginning, because it was new.
Thank you to all who joined and shared with me, and many warm and insightful friends and colleagues, for this twentieth anniversary of the reception of A Course of Love. These recorded sessions are still available to experienced. For those of you who missed it, see: https://acourseoflove.org/online-conference/
The sharing of this conference was a joy! The first part of the joy was it’s initial suggestion by James Kelly (pictured), who became our host. I probably said it three or four times during the conference—how touched I was that he had the idea for a celebration of this particular anniversary, of this day that my life changed forever: the day in which Jesus spoke the first words of ACOL to me: “This is a course in miracles. It is a required course.”
These words were as startling to me when they came as was “how” they came. How did it happen, how could it be, that it began just as ACIM did? It’s even more startling now, as I recall the impact of the next lines of the two books:
ACIM
This is a course in miracles.
It is a required course.
Only the time you take it is voluntary.
ACOL
This is a course in miracles
It is a required course.
The time for you to take it is now.
You are ready and miracles are needed.
The time for you to take it is now. You are ready…
These received words are the start of a transformation that begins from the inside out. It’s the one thing I wasn’t sure the conference fully captured, and maybe that is the way it is. . . the transformation too pervasive to have words assigned to it. This transformation doesn’t stand apart from us, something we can see as “elevated.” The “elevation” exists, a response of the heart to the receiving we each did, a response that shows up in our living and relating: one to one, and one to many. This course starts with the transformative, which slowly and surely becomes an intimate sharing of who we are. This is what Jesus asks of us, isn’t it? This very movement, through giving and receiving as one, in union and relationship, is what becomes dialogue and creation of the new.
When we start realizing that giving and receiving truly are one, we know not to elevate the giver and discount the receiver—not me, and not you. This is essential to realize. There is no separation between giver and receiver in truth. This is the change asked of us! Being who we are in unity and relationship is giving and receiving as one in truth. This is our “elevation” and what propels the movement of The New into the world.
While we are all receivers, for me the reception was also participation in the creation of A Course of Love. I shared a lot on this during the conference. In general, people have been quite interested in how this course came to be, and it was fun to share.
ACOL has been at the center of my life for twenty years, and I am given to shepherd it to it’s true potential, a potential that can’t be realized through “learning.” I haven’t watched every video of the conference yet, but I’ve watched almost everything, and I am assured that very little occurred in the category of teaching or learning, and that something new was demonstrated. As Jesus says, to demonstrate is to show our feelings. Feelings abounded! Feelings, I trust, were evoked!
I spoke of both the joys (relationship with Jesus and with friends) and the practical life difficulties of being the first receiver. Even while we can trust that all is happening as it’s meant to, I shared my challenges to assure you: it’s not “unspiritual” to admit to the tough times, especially as you and I have remained willing and more—eager—to continue.
And I want you to know that I will continue.
Words continue to come to me from time outside of time. I’ve begun (https://www.mariperron.com/the-jesus-chronicles) and will slowly share these additional revelations with you, as I’m more clear that ever, that sharing is the way of the new: sharing in union and relationship. What we know in truth comes in relationship as well as union. Jesus has been insistent on this throughout ACOL.
ACOL is the beginning of a life journey . . . not the end.
This life journey is to be shared. That is very close to being the whole of it. You and I, in our holy relationships, SHARE THIS JOURNEY TO THE NEW TIME and CREATE THE NEW as we go—THROUGH THIS SHARING. There is no other way. It happens in relationship. Intimate relationships are the very essence of giving and receiving as one. They allow us to know…together. And it is there, in togetherness and dialogue, that the new is discovered, experienced, explored . . .and created.
YOU AND I ALREADY SHARE THIS JOURNEY TO THE NEW
So let’s go back to the beginning of ACOL for a moment:
A Course in Miracles opened a door by threatening the ego. All those who, with egos weakened, walked this world with the hope of leaving ego behind, with miracle-minded intent, have awakened human beings to a new identity. They have ushered in a time of ending our identity crisis. Not since Jesus walked the earth has such a time been upon humankind. P.5
The ego is what you made. Christ is what God made. The ego is your extension of who you think you are. Christ is God’s extension of who He is. In order to end the need for learning, you must know who you are and what this means. Where the original Course in Miracles was a course in thought reversal and mind training, a course to point out the insanity of the identity crisis and dislodge the ego’s hold, this is a course to establish your identity and to end the reign of the ego. p.8
This time we take a direct approach, an approach that seems at first to leave behind abstract learning and the complex mechanisms of the mind that so betray you. We take a step away from intellect, the pride of the ego, and approach this final learning through the realm of the heart. This is why, to end confusion, we call this course A Course of Love. p.44
ACIM
The course does not aim at teaching
the meaning of love, for that is
beyond what can be taught. I.1
ACOL
What love is cannot be taught.
It cannot be learned.
But it can be recognized. C:2.1
No matter how we take ACOL, we take it “in.” We take it to heart. By “taking it in” in this way, we’re already sharing it…with Jesus. This initial sharing prepares a place within each of us. It opens the spaciousness we need in order to invite each other “in.” This “shared” inward movement becomes our recognition of who we are in truth. It doesn’t mean constant contact, but that you and I can “hold all in our hearts” and, at the same time, move in a flow that will allow this essential movement to The New to be as rapid and expansive . . . as miracles.
We are ready. We have begun.
My thanks to go out to every single one of you who are “in it” with me. Together we begin. Together we are ready. Together we create the new! In this time of Christ, I wish you the fullness of Christ-consciousness and elegant and reflective and holy moments of joy on this road we travel.
Open your mind to the wisdom of your heart
Stop. Do something new!
A year ago, almost exactly, I wrote these questions here:
Will we choose a way of oneness and relationship? Of heaven and earth? Of form and spirit? Will we dare to live meaningful, true lives? Are we willing to see ourselves—as neither greater nor lesser, as neither bound to external authority nor to who we have been as a consequence of teaching and learning? To see ourselves as the self given when we came, tabula rasa, heart and soul? Will we live by that from which we sprang and within which rests the ground of our being? Will we manifest that which we are, as we are, with all our “seeming imperfections?” (Day9.24)
Just hours ago a friend suggested I write a blog to let you know about the online conference beginning in just a week (December 1-3), a “first” such conference for ACOL and one that celebrates the twentieth anniversary of when ACOL began. The first thing I did was take a look at my last posts and find the questions above.
A Course of Love Online Conference (click here)
I know it’s been a while. Something was calling me, the last year or so, to Stop. When I finally did, I could see that the call to stop came in order that something New could begin.
Then all kinds of joy broke out!
Stop. Do something new! Begin a new adventure and an ongoing celebration of life!
I sincerely invite you to join us in this conference because I am certain that something new is going on.Yes, we are looking at the past, especially as the conference honors the anniversary of this Course’s first day…the day it began to come to me. It honors the relationship Jesus and I shared and the bringing of those words I heard into form—taking them from something only my ears could hear, to a call of love being sounded around the world. Of course many people played amazing roles in this all coming together, and most all of them will be joining me for this conference! In doing so, we’re honoring union and relationship, which is the way the new comes into being. The birth of a new babe is New Life, and this baby has left behind its infancy and is beginning to make its way in the world.
A CALL OF LOVE IS BEING SOUNDED AROUND THE WORLD.
There is no relationship, other than this deeply felt relationship of love that Jesus brings us to, that has the power to say Stop or Go, Listen or Speak, Quit thinking and Start loving, Be Who You Are, or . . .
It’s time for a celebration!
Bringing love to life is our shared calling, one that we participate in through the union and relationship that Jesus has enjoined us to share with him and each other. How exciting it was for me then, to see that this “coming together” is a manifestation of that call and an answer to those questions. “Our” answer to:
The call of oneness and relationship. Of heaven and earth. Of form and spirit. Of daring to live meaningful, true lives. Of being willing to see ourselves—as neither greater nor lesser, as neither bound to external authority nor to who we have been as a consequence of teaching and learning. The call—to see ourselves as the Self given when we came, tabula rasa, heart and soul. The call to live by that from which we sprang and within which rests the ground of our being. The call to each of us to manifest that which we are, as we are, even with all our “seeming imperfections.”
The “seeming imperfections” have been part of the joy of this conference. Many of the dialogues that make up the greatest part of our sharing, show these disguised blessings with warmth, humor, and a connectedness that can be felt. I fully believe you’ll feel it too. If you could know the volunteer hours that went into this celebration! The wholeheartedness with which everyone worked together! The fun that has been had. The inspiration that grew as we came together as one! I swear that I believe you can know, and will know, when you join us. And that you’ll appreciate that feeling and what it conveys as much as I do.
Also part of the “new” that Jesus called me to, is another coming together…not really new but a newly acknowledged relationship with my long-time creative partner, Mary Love, as we share “side by side” in creation of the new. You’ll get to know her at this conference and on a new website that just went live at mariperron.com
Stop. Do something new! Join us in this adventure and an ongoing celebration of The New!
A Course of Love Online Conference (click here)
Pope Francis and “A Course of Love”
This Course requires no thought and no effort. There is no prolonged study and the few specific exercises are not required. This Course has succeeded in ways you do not yet understand and have no need to understand. These words have entered your heart and sealed the rift between your mind and heart. (C:32.4)
Now that the Pope’s movie/documentary: “Pope Francis – A Man of
his Word,” is out, I remembered an article in “Science of Mind,” or maybe I was organizing and just found it—who knows. I don’t know about you, but I can rarely trace the “actuality” of the trail that leads me to start either a piece of writing or a treasure hunt for greater understanding of a fleeting insight.
This article didn’t contain any direct “heart and mind” quotes, and when I looked on-line, I couldn’t find any there, and yet I feel confident that I’ve heard the Pope speak them and that the writer of this article, “A Compassionate Heart, a Courageous Soul,” one of Pope Francis’ U.S. editors, describes this language accurately. He did so in ways that sounded just like A Course of Love.
Gary Jansen shares that, “The lesson here is that mindfulness is good, and coupled with heartfulness, it can lead to a powerful union of head and heart, ultimately leading to union with God.”
UNION OF HEAD AND HEART
“Francis would caution that our intellect is only part of who we are. In fact, our thoughts can often get in the way of our hearts….”
UNION WITH GOD
And so, I let A Course of Love speak for itself, and share some of what Jesus says about this union.
I.1 This course was written for the mind—but only to move the mind to appeal to the heart.
The heart is needed to guide the mind in a way that it does not desire to be guided, a way that is one of joining, a way that does not allow the mind’s separate stance, its rules, or its right answers. The heart is needed because it is who and where you are and responds in love to what is one with it. We are one heart. We are one mind. The route to oneness and union, to life in form that accepts oneness and union, to a humanity restored to wholeness, is through the heart of the mind. I:6.7
You were your Self before you began your learning, and the ego cannot take your Self from you but only can obscure it. Thus the teachings you need now are to help you separate the ego from your Self, to help you learn to hear only one voice. This time we take a direct approach, an approach that seems at first to leave behind abstract learning and the complex mechanisms of the mind that so betray you. We take a step away from intellect, the pride of the ego, and approach this final learning through the realm of the heart. This is why . . . we call this course A Course of Love. P:43-44
C:21.7 No matter which path you follow, the path of the mind or the path of the heart, you will not get where you are wanting to go until they are joined. You might imagine three paths—one path representing mind, one path representing heart, and one path representing wholeheartedness. The path of neither mind nor heart alone will take you where the path of unity will take you, and the journey will not be the same.
C:29.5 Wholeheartedness is unity regained. Your return to unity is your return to your full power and your ability to be of quite literal service to God and your brothers and sisters.
C:29.20 Choose anew and let the power of heaven come together to seal the rift between your mind and heart, and make you whole once again.
Through mindfulness you will remember who you are.
Through wholeheartedness you will be who are. T1:5.14
T1:6.4 Union is the mind and heart being joined in wholeheartedness. It is your union with your Self. Union with your Self is union with God.
D:7.8 [A]ll that lives is from the same Source, and there is nothing more alive than mind and heart combined in the spirit of wholeheartedness.
D:12 We are, in Christ consciousness, one Christ. We are, in wholeheartedness, one heart and one mind.
Pope Francis is spoken of in terms of “his humanness and his divinity” in one breath, and in another, of his “simplicity, 
authenticity and honesty.” With our embrace of wholeheartedness, this is our promise too.
I also invite you to celebrate, along with Sebastián Blaksley, and the entire ACOL family, the publication of the Spanish edition of Un Curso de Amor. This very weekend Sebastián will be representing our Course at a book fair in Buenos Aires. He was, in younger years, before Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, a student, and his father a teacher, in the school that Bergoglio headed, and the family continues to visit the Pope in Rome. The coming of Un Curso de Amor to Argentina, home to the Italian born Pope for many years, is also home to Sebastian and the home base from which it will be extended to the Spanish speaking world. You can view his website here:
http://www.fundacionuncursodeamor.org/#!/-bienvenido/
Quotes from “A Compassionate Heart, A Courageous Soul,” written by Gary Jansen, Science of Mind, December 2017
