If you allow your potential to be released, your true nature in all its wholeness will be revealed.
This past Sunday was an unusual Sunday. In my church there is a once a year Mass in the Park. Generally this is on Saturday evening at the time of the regular Saturday night Mass, but there must have been something going on at the park and it was scheduled for Sunday instead. It’s funny how such things can throw you off. I generally accompany my mom to church on Saturday night and so in that way of things grown routine, waking up the next morning I expected Sunday morning quiet.
On Sunday mornings I am enjoying the quietest morning of the week in my cabin. Donny, my husband, built it for me in the woods behind our yard. What I call the woods are an overgrown half acre of land that runs next to the freeway fence. Every once in a while, if I’m up early enough on Sunday morning, there are a few seconds of silence.
I like those quiet mornings, but it no longer matters much (most days). The cabin holds silence. I walk in and the look of it says silence. It is my quiet place.
When I reflect back on the years of A Course of Love, (which is something you do when you have your work compiled, especially when you have an editor who asks a lot of questions!) one of the sure things I know is that it led me here, to the cabin. She, the cabin, came to me as my Course of Love miracle. The day after I finished the last page of The Dialogues, my husband got a phone call that the land was for sale as tax forfeited property, which meant at a price we could afford. It had been my fondest wish—to own the land and have a place on it to which to retreat. A couple of years later the materials for the cabin came in a similarly miraculous way. But really, that is such a small part of what I mean when I say ACOL led me here. It led me here through pain and through love; maybe by leading me through pain to love.
I was forty-three-years-old when I began to receive A Course of Love. I’ll be sixty next year. When I start to reflect on these years I start to write too long for a blog post, which is my tendency in any case. But in short form—the pain, I think you could say—was about what many of us go through to find our true nature. And the love is in that too. The love and the pain are held together in a transformative way as we constantly move toward the freedom to be who we are in our wholeness. The cabin’s been a holding ground for that inner work. This Course, as Jesus says, is but a trigger. (C:26.15)
When it was said that A Course of Love was a trigger, it was meant that the Course is both a trigger of choice and a trigger of nature. It was meant to convey the action of a catalyst. Now it is up to you whether you allow your true nature to be revealed. To struggle against your nature is what you have spent a lifetime doing. Stop. If you allow your potential to be released, your true nature in all its wholeness will be revealed. D:Day24.3-4
Thanks Christie. Now you got me thinking about the different views I see from this same window depending on the time of year. Even as I posted that one I was thinking of taking a new one. The grape vines have filled in and there is more of a border between yard and cabin. That too feels like it has something to say about the release of our potential, as if there are different cycles and stages to the release, just as there are to the seasons. I love the connection you made with childhood though, and that feeling of “It was always there!”
Hi Mari. I was pondering this post for some time because I realized I was puzzled and a little frustrated. After all these years, I didn’t think I knew how to “release my potential.” Not a clue. Then I noticed your photo with a view of the cabin. I made it larger and thought, “hey was that swing set in there before?” I’m not sure. But it made me think. Between your “silent cabin” and your “everyday life sun room” was a child’s swing set. I wonder if the image of a child is in the “in-between space” where the potential can be reclaimed. I think of myself as an 7 or 8 year old; trusting, full of self-love and wonder; not afraid to express who I was. My potential was there. It’s been with me all the time. How do I release it now? Thanks for your reflection that helped me remember what I loved about myself. Love, this blog. Christie.