Easter is coming upon us and the renewing of Spring’s cycles upon our hearts and bodies. The Story we have told for centuries about Easter is one of death and resurrection, one of trauma, abuse, betrayal and salvation. In many ways, quite simply, Easter is the story of our lives. We experience every moment an Enlightened Master experiences…betrayal, violence, forsakenness, the power of love and forgiveness, being delivered from our own darkness through a profound choice to humbly surrender to the Light of the Divine and the Sacred. Although the details of our story may be uniquely re-arranged from another‘s story, yet in the end, the Story We Tell, reveals the same mysteries of the Sacred awakening and guiding the Potential of our Lives and Hearts. Eckhart Tolle in his book, A New Earth, that over 700,000 people from around the globe are simultaneously studying and over 1.5 million people are downloading, writes that the spiritual story we need to tell is one where a ‘radical transformation of human consciousness’ must awaken us to a higher awareness of our inner purpose. He writes that whether we call it enlightenment, salvation, the end of suffering, liberation or awakening, a new story of transformation is required or we will die.

What a powerful time for the world to be studying this book given that much of the world will honour, in some way, the Easter story , spring equinox, this March, Passover in April and other religious celebrations. Whether or not you have claimed Christianity as your spiritual tradition of faith or not makes no difference. The point is can you see the deeper story of love and transformation available to anyone who can hear and anyone who has eyes?! The story that Buddha told is the same story that Jesus told, that Atman told, the same story in the legends of the Native peoples, a story of inner sacred knowing that requires our discipline and truth to live and set ourselves free to evolve in Love and Light. We are now being called to be open to align our stories with the Light of ‘Christ/Buddha/Nature’s Consciousness’.!

Olive Ann Burns died in 1990 and before she died she wrote one of my favourite and very funny stories, Cold Sassy Tree. How we tell our story from day to day can vary depending upon our willingness to receive the deeper currents of truth and love that lie beneath the surface of our emotional rationales. The story, set in southern Georgia, is largely about a grandpa who marries a younger woman after his wife dies and the relationship he shares with his grandson, Will Tweedy. Will Tweedy is often struck by the way his grandfather simply throws out the ridiculous of religion and culture and finds within his own heart, the truth that sets him free to live, laugh and love.

So as you enter into the new spiritual consciousness available to us this Easter, what ‘transformation, enlightenment or salvation’ story are you willing to be open to tell? If you need some laughter to help you to awaken to your story of transformation and enlightenment out from beneath the darkness of your story that may have started with violence and betrayal and abandonment, I invite you to discover the wisdom of faith in Grandpa’s words to Will Tweedy as he recounted his ‘sermon’ to his new young wife, Miss Love.

Tweedy asks, “Gosh, Grandpa. You mean you don’t think Jesus rose from the dead?”
“I’m a-sayin’ thet did He or didn’t He ain’t important, son. What’s important is thet when the spirit a-Jesus Christ come down on them disciples later, they quit settin’ round a-moanin’ and a-tremblin’ and got to work. They weren’t scairt no more, and the words they spoke had fire in’m. Compared to a miracle like thet, Jesus rollin’ back a dang rock and flyin’ off to Heaven ain’t nothin’. …..

“Grandpa, you don’t think Granny’s gone to Heaven? Tweedy asks.

“I like to think so, son. If’n they is a Heaven, she’s Up There, I know thet, he said softly. “ Ain’t but one way to find out if she is or ain’t, though. And I’m not thet curious. He sighed, spat and said, “ Havin’ faith means its all right either way, son. The Lord is my shepherd means I trust Him. Whatever happens in this life or the next, and even if they ain’t a life after this’n, God planned it. So why wouldn’t it be all right? He looked dead serious, then all of a sudden laughed again. “You know, if’n I was a real preacher, Will Tweedy, wouldn’t nobody come to my church.”

“I would Grandpa.”

Now I encourage you to re-read this small section of story again and transpose the word Him for Her/Goddess. So what if the Consciousness of Christ had come to us in the form of a woman? What awakening of freedom and transformation become available to you in this SPACE? And now re-read it a third time from the vantage point that YOU have come out of Light, and put your name in the place of the disciples. What story of transformation or enlightenment is sparked in you that you now need to tell? It’s our choice which story we tell of our past, of our present or the one yet to come. The story we tell, however, will lead us to the GREAT LIFE, the GREAT LOVE, the GREAT HARMONY/PEACE we seek or the story of our death, our sickness and our darkness. Sweet Blessings!

“Reflecting through the Heavens, All darkness is made light.
Descending, the vastness of the great sea Is filled with the voices of Joy.”
Morihei Ueshiba

 

©Shirley Martin