Mari’s Blog
Possession and Homecoming: Created and Creator are One
Who I Am to you, and who you are to me, is all that matters. Our relationship can only be thus in union and relationship with each other because we are in union and relationship with each other. We are not two beings who are separate but relating in union. We are each other’s own being. We are one and we are many. We are the same and we are different. In “own”-ership we are full of one another’s own being. We are each other’s own.
Day 38.13
“We are each other’s own.”
In Finding Grace at the Center, a book about The Beginning of Center of Prayer, it is said that the Greek Bible “used the word gnosis to translate the Hebrew word da’ath, a much stronger term which implies possession of the thing known, an extremely intimate kind of knowledge involving the whole person, not just the mind.” The word da’ath is further described as “the kind of experiential knowledge that comes through love.” *
“Experiential knowledge that comes through love.”
This could be one of the best ways I’ve seen of expressing what comes of the new way of knowing that is A Course of Love.
Since I wrote of “possession” last week, it has stayed with me, which I’m sure is is why this quote suddenly revealed itself. This week “possession” expanded into an idea much like taking possession of a new home, or in this case our “true home,” and a birth that takes place in each of us as this new home is revealed:
This alchemical transition, this passing of the unknown into the known, this moment when the unknown becomes the known within the Self, is the birth of creation. It is the culmination of all that has come before, the All of Everything realized in a single heartbeat, a single instant of knowing. This is the One Self knowing itself. This is not knowing that comes with a great ah ha, but knowing that comes with the awe of reverence. Creator and created are one and the homecoming experienced is that of union. (D:Day 26.7)
The homecoming experienced is that of union.
I love it when “means and ends” come together. Also in The Dialogues, Jesus asks how we could possibly “know” anything from which we are separate and says this is why this Course has had, as its main objective, returning us to true knowing of our selves. (D:Day 37.17) When we know ourselves we know God. When we know God we know ourselves. And then . . . we know ourselves together, as one, in union.
In my home, putting out the manger, this first “home” to Jesus, is a Christmas tradition. Behind it, we’ve placed a metal sculpture that portrays the riches that might have been near but far distant from this place of exile. We still live in a world where riches at times seem to stand apart from our God-given holiness, but humanity’s holiness and belovedness is still there. A realization or deepening of this “knowing” is my prayer for you during this season that can “get away from us” or . . . can bring us home to love.
All that you have experienced in truth is love. (T1:1.5)
- Finding Grace at the Center, by M. Basil Pennington and Thomas Keating (p. 62)
Possession
Do you wholeheartedly desire to follow me to your true inheritance? To come after me and be as I was? To be the inheritor of the gifts that are ours? Do you desire this? Are you willing to claim it? Are you willing to claim it in form and time?
. . .
Little can be had without desire. Desire, unlike want, asks for a response rather than a provision. Desire is a longing for, a stretching out for. . . . It acknowledges a certain “taking over” of the spirit of desire. Having “arrived,” the desire to “get there” has not been satiated but only has grown into something different. With having arrived comes the “presence” of Self so long awaited. . . .(D:17.3 & 5)
I started my trip to my mom’s yesterday with errands and, by the time I was on my way to her place, snow 
was turning the late afternoon into the first winter-white day of the year. As I drove, I began to feel the different sort of Christmas spirit that comes for me with snow. There was something very fine about being out in the dark with the newly falling flakes and its accumulation. The street lights and even the neon of shops took on a remembered glory, a glimmer. It was dazzling on its own, but I knew that loving it so was also tinged with memories from childhood—not just of Christmas—but Christmas too.
My mom has told me my first words were “pretty lights” said about my first Christmas tree. Seeing the holiday lights—yes, this was magical, but also, at this “low light” time of year—an early morning drive to church, or later catching the city bus to school in the quiet sparkle of winter’s light, and the evenings preceding or following snow days, looking out the window with almost impassable snow surrounding the house—all of these would find in me the same response of wonder. My little brother and I especially shared that fascination for the snow and the way the light of our world was different due to it.
Before heading out yesterday I’d been feeling a little irritated with the way this “season” has of taking over everything. Suddenly this seemed the whole point! Whether the way of “taking over” is one of contemplating the mystery of the birth of the Christ child, the Christ in us, or of decorating or gifting, the feeling of being “taken over” by something other than “the usual” is welcome. Letting something “take us over” is a longed-for departure from ordinary days, a known part of the creative process, and at times a spiritual grace.
This reverie led me to a contemplation of “possession” as it’s used in A Course of Love. As Jesus acknowledges “a certain taking over” of “the spirit of desire,” I saw this as one of the ways that the word “possession” is often seen: You’ve been taken over. You’re possessed.
You could see long-lines and frantic scurrying to “buy” as signs of being “possessed” by “possessions,” and rightly wonder if there is such a thing as “healthy” or even spiritual possession. Is there? In A Course of Love, the answer is “Yes.”
We start out on our journey with Jesus telling us, “You are an immigrant coming to a New World with all your possessions in hand. But as you glimpse what was once a distant shore and now is near, you realize none of what you formerly possessed and called your treasures are needed.” C:1.7
He speaks of our usual way of interpreting possessions in his chapter on the Prodigal and in other places too, as all that we’ve “thought” we needed. But as we reach the Course’s end, new meaning is given.
In Day 38 of The Dialogues we hear:
This is the meaning of the embrace—the possession, the ownership of belonging—of carrying, or holding relationship and union within one’s own Self. You are ready now to return to this ownership, this possession of relationship and union.
Possession and ownership are words that have become faulty ideas in separation. They mean an entirely different thing in union and relationship. They mean union and relationship. That you own it. That you possess it. That you hold it and carry it within your own Self. That you make it yours. As you make me yours and as I make you mine. I Am your own. You are my own.
We are the beloved when we are the beloved to one another. (Day38.8-9)
Being “possessed” could, in this way, be seen much like wholeheartedness. Rather than half-heartedly embracing life “as you’re living it” (as I was before yesterday’s drive), it is a full embrace. The full embrace of what you’re doing as you’re doing it, what you’re feeling as you’re feeling it, what is happening as it’s happening. These are the radical 
acceptances that bring peace and meaning to us. The depth of meaning found in embracing all that would take you and me out of “life as usual” could be seen as one of the gifts of being possessed by (or of) wholeheartedness and its grace. (Another way to say it would be, “If you’re not going to do what you’re doing with wholeheartedness and grace, why do it?)
Of course, there’s a much bigger meaning in embracing our beloved and our belovedness, but sometimes there doesn’t seem to be a much “bigger” acceptance than that of our own ways of being and living. It’s in these smaller ways that we find the inner peace that expands from there.
It is with joy that I find myself fully accepting being possessed by the wonder of city streets in winter’s darkness as well as all that goes on, both inside me and outside my window, in the early hours of contemplation. There are many ways to visit “time outside of time.” Many ways to embrace our seasons and our reveries of all that is sacred. Our possession in this way is also a being possessed. This is my wish for you in all “your” ways and seasons.
The arrival present
We are writing a new first page, a new Genesis. It begins now. It begins with the rebirth of a Self of love. It begins with the birth of Christ in you and in your willingness to live in the world as the Christ-Self. (T3:14.14)
You are the virgin, the pregnant, the birth, and the new life. This is the way of the world as well as the way of creation. What is unaltered remains unaltered despite its many manifestations. Wholeness exists in every cell, in each of every smallest particle of existence. Wholeness exists in you. Nothing can take wholeness from you. It is as natural to you as it is to all of creation. It does not exist only once potential is realized or made manifest, but always in all things. D:D24.2
Early this year, and last year too, I spent a great deal of time preparing for my first presentation at the Course in Miracles conference. Just recently the video of that “main” 
presentation became available and was made into viewable form. It is now up on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/perronmari
What struck me as I watched it came at the end—in the way I spoke of the coming of the Course—a way I hadn’t spoken of it previously. I spoke of it as what was long awaited having arrived.
Perhaps that also made viewing it the experience it was. Having had to wait in my desire to see the fruits of that creative time—it’s arrival—well, there’s such a feeling of completion in that!
The ideas of awaiting and arrival then prompted me (in that round-about way these things do) to bring up (from the basement canning room) our long-unused Advent Wreath. It didn’t remain “up.” There was something discouraging about the “church” definitions related to its use. I knew I could give it my own meaning, but by then the mood had left me. What remained was a contemplation on the “arrival.” Advent is generally thought of as a time of awaiting, but the word “advent” actually comes from the Latin adventus which means “arrival.”
Last year, as Christmas approached, I wrote this in my blog:
“The arrival marks a new season. We who have allowed the birth of the Christ within, are in this new season. It is present.”
A Course of Love began 18 years ago. December 1st marked the anniversary. Was that “beginning” the birth . . . or the gestation? I asked myself this question because there is a new feeling in me, a feeling that perhaps this 18th year marks the coming into maturity of this baby of mine. Yes, I have felt myself to be the proud mother, nurturing this baby along.
Some weeks ago, in speaking to one of the translators of the Spanish edition of ACOL, Coralie Pearson, I felt that in her immersion in her work of translation, she truly understood what I experienced on receiving the Course. Then this week, Glenn Hovemann, ACOL’s publisher, showed me the work he’s been doing on updating (really re-creating) ACOL’s website. There is space on this new site given to the foreign translations and those working on them. Reading other commentaries from translators, I knew that they had experienced this feeling too—especially Hélène Caron, when she wrote, “I sometimes forgot to eat.” Such little things say such big things! They speak of the total absorption that ushers in the new!
So many are feeling this now: the impregnation, the gestation, the birth, the maturing, the new life coming into its time of fullness. We are no longer awaiting.
This is a course for the heart. The birthplace of the new. (C:I.1.13)
At the start of A Course of Love, Jesus speaks of the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, saying: You are well aware of the fact that if you could not see the transformation take place “with your own two eyes,” you would not believe that the two seemingly disparate creatures were the same. Someone telling you this story of transformation without being able to show you proof that you could see would be accused of making up a fairytale for your amusement. How many of you see the story of your own self in this same frame of mind? It is a nice fairytale, an acceptable myth, but until your body’s eyes can behold the proof, this is what it will remain. This is the insanity of the nightmare you choose not to awaken from. It is as if you have said, I will not open my eyes until someone proves to me that they will see when they are opened. You sit in darkness awaiting proof that only your own light will dispel. (C:p.40-41)
When we hear of this again in Day 24 of The Dialogues, we have changed:
You are the caterpillar, the cocoon, and the butterfly. This is the way that you are many Selves as well as one Self. You are a Self with many forms. The form you occupy contains all of your potential manifestations as the form of the caterpillar contains all of its potential manifestations. 24.1
Potential is what you carry, as air carries sound, a stream water, a pregnant woman her child. You carry your potential to the place of its birth through an activated will, a will that is also carried within you. This merging of will and potential is the birth of your power and the birth of the new. 24.9
Let’s no longer sit in darkness. Let’s join together newly and celebrate this arrival, this birth of the new, this birth of the Christ in you and in me.
The visible and invisible
We are beginning now to paint you a new picture, a picture of things unseen before but visible to your heart if not your eyes. C5.7
Waking up to fog this morning gave me a splendid feeling of anticipation. It’s been warmer—mid 40’s, and the ground suddenly has give again. I didn’t know this heading for the cabin, but there was no way I was going to miss being out for the first vague and misty fog of the season, always so different when there’s snow on the ground, even the scant bit we’ve had.
In a mere week there’s been a significant decline in places for bunnies and squirrels to hide and find shelter. The steady fall of dry old limbs has left many passing friends in my path, and the few I pick up and pitch toward the fire pit are large but light, with no life left in them.
I walk into their topography of mystery, feeling surrounded by a burrowing and quivering
cloaked in dusk-tinted standing air—air given form. Ah, my God, the wonder of the visible becoming invisible and the invisible—visible! It arouses something in me, prickles my skin, upends my usual spacial sense of time and place. Something in me calms down and heats up at the same time. I’m both in my milieu and inspired by it. All is fresh. I’m a voyager offered hospitality in a foreign realm. And so there is an alliance, a fusion.
All faith is faith in the unknown through knowing, as a glimpse of fleeting light in darkness provides for a knowing of light. D.Day18.5
Fog and mist are visual images of a partnership with mystery and its invitation to enter into it
. . . literally.
And so I begin to ponder the visible and invisible, a quiet and lovely theme laced through A Course of Love, drawing us into its exploration, and then into our likeness to the very thing we’re pondering.
This is truly the approaching magnetism of the great mystery, coming out to meet us in the wetlands, seeping quietly in. This is what you are. Not only akin to, but one with, the invisible realms.
In addition to broad and lengthy descriptions of the spacious (and invisible) Self, this mystery is revealed in the metaphor of birth:
My mother, Mary, was responsible for the incarnation of Christ in me as I am responsible for the incarnation of Christ in you. This union of the male and female is but union of the parts of yourself expressed in form and story, expressed, in other words, in a visual pattern that aides your understanding of the invisible. It is one more demonstration of the union that returns you to your natural state. It is one more demonstration of cause and effect being one in truth. It is one more demonstration of what needs to occur now, in this time, in order for the truth of the resurrection to be revealed and lived. T:18.16
The truth represented by Jesus and Mary was represented as a visual pattern that would aide understanding of the invisible. This is what you are now called to do. Whether you demonstrate the myth of duality or the truth of union, you are demonstrating the same thing. The way in which you do this must be chosen, and for this choice to be made with full consciousness, you must rely on your feelings. D:Day18.7
Every day we’re asked to rely on our invisible feelings and make them visible. Whether it’s at a Thanksgiving table where family dynamics reveal the tenderness of someone who feels constantly interrupted, or the held-in fears triggered and revealed by an election, the revelation is essential to the coming of the new. It is the way deception becomes transparency.
This is the purpose of the world and of love most kind: to end your self-deception and return you to the light. C:6.22
The messages of mystery are many and varied. They can smooth and soothe or ignite and initiate. Yet the oneness stepped into causes a surge that reveals that we are that which we encounter.
The door is Love
A door has been reached, a threshold crossed. What your mind still would deny your heart cannot. A tiny glimmering of memory has returned to you and will not leave you to the chaos you seem to prefer. It will keep calling you to acknowledge it and let it grow. It will tug at your heart in the most gentle of ways. Its whisper will be heard within your thoughts. Its melody will play within your mind. “Come back, come back,” it will say to you. “Come home, come home,” it will sing. You will know there is a place within yourself where you are missed and longed for and safe and loved. A little peace has been made room for in the house of your insanity. C:10.32
Early Saturday morning, as my grandson Henry still slept, and I not far from sleep myself, a tidbit of A Course of Love jumped into my mind out of the blue. It came just before I went to my sunroom to write. It was this: “A door has been reached, a threshold crossed.”
It is from a favored quote, one I’ve felt drawn to recently and so shared in my most recent talk at Unity of Sedona and found appearing, through the inspiration of friends, in the material prepared for my upcoming visit to the Center for Contemporary Mysticism. (See https://contemporarymysticism.org/mariperron.asp)
Favorite quotes do this—begin to appear more and more, and to shed their place in the bigger 
scheme of things—existing apart from chapter and verse. They become not “favorite quotes” but captivating spoken-words that meet us where we are and fit our own context and mood. They are both personal and universal. They absorb us into them.
They are compelling communications, messages given, and received, and felt heart-to-heart.
Later, as I was in contemplation of this gift, Henry awoke and joined me. He crawled in next to me on the love seat where I was sitting with my feet up, and as I covered us with a blanket, he said, “Don’t you wish sometimes you could just lay in bed and look out the window at the snow?” And without another word, that was what we were doing, only not in bed. We sat in complete silence for maybe 15 minutes, the blinds open to the horizon and the first snow of the year. His body was perfectly comfortable in the crook of my arm, his head resting just above my heart.
And then he asked me if I was good (meaning, Do you feel okay?) and I said yes and asked him if he felt okay and we agreed we both had colds lingering and I said that was a good reason to get breakfast soon so that he could have his medicine, and that might have broken the spell a little but not fully, for we spent at least another five or ten minutes, at one point he twining his fingers with mine, and so I came aware of their shape, the length and slenderness, and the prayer,
Oh Lord … hold this boy close.
I know how blessed I am that my grandson is almost ten and still willing to be held close … by me. And I know that he is held close by Jesus. I know that I am held close too. And you. That each of us are held close by divine Love.
I have never, ever, been able to convey the fullness of the experience of the altered state that was receiving ACOL, or the immensity of the sweet, sweet love and acceptance for my imperfect self that was contained within it. But that door is love. That door is love’s sweetness in the form of a little boy, and in the mind-boggling reception of a sacred text, both of which are equally able to overwhelm with love, to leave you a puddle of love, to leave you with no more capacity to put up barriers to it.
This is A Course of Love.
