The call comes while I sit on a friend’s patio eating lunch. It’s from the artist who rents the studio on my land.
“Your neighbor called the county inspector. He’s here citing me for a code violation.”
I take a breath and call on the Beloved.
“Your neighbor was here too, threatening me during my class,” she adds. “She wouldn’t leave but finally she did.”
I feel the assault in my chest, as though knuckles are pressing in.
“Please get the inspector’s number and tell him I’ll call when I get home,” I say. Setting down the phone, I chant my mantra.
My friend asks what happened, and I explain.
“You don’t seem very upset about it,” she says. I sit back and realize that I’m not. Though my emotions feel a bit fluttery, I’m calm and joyful.
We finish our lunch, talking all the while about the Beloved. Even with this new challenge I’m able to appreciate the flavors of my beets and greens and the quiet babble of the fountains that adorn my friend’s patio.
I return home and call the county inspector. He explains that my tenant needs a license to teach her occasional art classes, and yet she is ineligible for one since she doesn’t live in the studio. The gravity of the situation tries to pull me off center. My tenant has to teach in order to afford the rent, so if this is not resolved I will lose her and thus the monthly income.
Still, even with this peril, I remain calm. I surrender, become willing to lose the tenant and even the income, knowing that I rely on the Divine Source for all sustenance.
I ask the Beloved to show me a solution, and slowly a possibility trickles in. I will contract with my tenant to teach in the space. Thus she will operate under my business license. I present the idea to the county inspector and he’s pleased we came up with such a simple solution.
I revel in the fact that all this happened without anger or a sense of injustice kicking in. I don’t have ill feelings toward my neighbor, but instead am grateful that my trust in the Beloved was tested and proven strong.
And yet…
The next morning, while the sky is perfectly clear, I sense a dark cloud hanging over me. It’s familiar, though this may be the first time I have really seen it. As I sit on my porch drinking tea, I awaken to what it is: a sense that I am wrong. Not wrong about renting the studio to an artist who occasionally teaches classes there, but wrong about everything, wrong in my very existence. The feeling is subtle but very strong. I know that like a sepia photo its brown tint has colored my days.
The Beloved gives me a glimpse of its origin. As an eternal being living lifetime after lifetime, I have been wrong a lot—or at least perceived myself to be.
I have made countless errors in my writing business, loved men who didn’t love me, let my house get flooded, and harmed people with my selfishness and anger, so many wrongs one could never count them all. And those are just experiences in this life. How many thousands of “wrongs” came before?
Now I’ve manifested a neighbor who goes to great lengths to point out how wrong I am. (For more on this, please read The Divine Court.) Of course, this neighbor reflects the shadow within me, the part that attempts to thwart my spirituality. Upon seeing this, the weight hangs so heavily on me I can barely stand and walk back into the house.
But I do stand, and I continue with my day, calling on the Beloved for the transformation that I know will come in recognition’s wake.
The next day my body responds with a bout of stomach pain that leaves me weak and napping on the couch.
Then I sleep the first full night in weeks. I wake to the quiet dawn, dark with a sliver of waning moon. I rise to do my spiritual practice. During it the Beloved lifts the sepia pall from me. This Divine Source takes me up and shows me how “right” I am in Soul.
All those wrongs were never wrong at all—they were necessary to bring me to where I am today. Even more important, I am not them. I am Soul—pristine, flawless and eternal, made in the image of the perfect Divine.
As the sun rises and lights my day, I float through it knowing that the lower worlds will constantly vacillate from good to bad, from right to wrong, just as day turns to night and summer to fall. I sit above it all within the blissful expanse—the bright, sparkly Oneness of my God self.
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Thank you so much for this entry. I have been under a shadow myself these last few weeks trying to decide how to guide and make decisions for my 11 year old daughter. I realize now that I have the same “being wrong” issues, but even more feeling like ALL Will fall apart if I make the “wrong decision”. I am working very hard to center and know that I can’t be wrong if I trust the master.
Kathy, thank you for joining the conversation here. That dark cloud seems so pervasive, when as you know it is really a puffball. Staying with the Master, as you say, will definitely lift it, with the bonus of a whole new understanding. It works without fail. Always. Sending you love.
Leslie,
This makes me smile, you know the kind of smile that shows teeth……it’s so spot on. Beautifully said. Thank you.
Now THAT makes me smile, Sherri. 🙂
Your intense honesty has become a hallmark of this blog. Your entry permeates to the bone, the crux of our deepest illusions — that we are insufficient, weak, and vulnerable. I so appreciate your tales of success implementing Light and Sound principles in your daily, living life. Your description of a sepia tone existence is so graphically accurate, and you bring back the color in such articulate, moving ways — it is a gift to us all. Thank you for this post!
Wow, Rudy, how beautifully you said that. Thank you for your kindness. I am just so grateful that the Beloved brings these stories forth, while I do my best to edit out the ego that is always intent on stealing the show.
This pierced my heart deeply so I know the Beloved was ministering to me through your words. Thank you, dear friend for being the channel for Truth and healing that you so often are with your sincere sharing in this blog. I’m so grateful to know you.
You are so welcome, Marian. Your humility is always a teaching to me as you walk your lovely path.
Leslie, thank you so much for sharing your gift with us. Your writings are always exactly what I needed to hear on that particular day. Of course there’s no mistake in that.
Blessings to you Lesley. I have come to a place within that accepts the fact that there are no “wrongs” only experiences. If we as Soul (Inner Master) create an experience, and we do, even as our minds interfere and judge it one way or another, How can it be “wrong”. We always have the experience we need at the time. The perfection of this is astounding to me. Love.
This is so lovely and ideal for me to read for me today, thank you Lesley! An image has come to me a few times during the last few days – it used to occur to me often but I hadn’t thought of it in some time. It’s the image of Humpty Dumpty un-falling, as if you took the footage of Humpty falling off his wall and shattering, and reversed it so that you could see in slow motion how all the pieces come together seamlessly and he’s once again perched calmly in his high place. I used to think of it as “falling up”. I was in an art gallery over the weekend and I overheard the gallery owner saying to a patron, “Humpty Dumpty DID come together again!” That’s how I feel after reading your piece here; it’s that same incredible experience of witnessing something that looks like it is a shattering, instead being a “coming together again.” How joyous! Thank you again.
Wow, Holland, what a fabulous image, and I’m honored that this piece invoked it. Truly, on this Journey we are reassembled into our true soul self. In order for our parts to adhere they have to be thoroughly purified, and that is done through Love. Thank you!
Thank you Lesley, as always, it’s so inspirational to read how you navigate so gracefully your path through this episode. It nudges me to make the space to be more in touch with my soul and recognise that everything we experience, even what we may perceive as trivial feelings, is a gift from our inner Master for us to recognise and alchemise. I love your last sentence ‘I sit above it all within the blissful expanse—the bright, sparkly Oneness of my God self’. An aspirational goal for me to aspire to. Thank you!
To have such insight is a treasure few possess.
May the Spirit of the Universe continue to shield you from negativity.
Namaste
How kind of you, Jerry. Truly the insight is not mine but is graced by the Beloved and the Light and Sound teachings. And may I say that in seeing that insight, you are seeing your own treasure.
Of late I am, as a result of choices I made, living beside an energy as challenging to my serenity as is the behavior of your neighbor. It is in my own home space, where I work daily. But as a result of those choices I’ve made, I am also engaged in an outer relationship as warmly loving and supportive as my inner experience of our beloved Master. Could any situation more poignantly and pointedly illustrate both the duality of the lower worlds, and the critical importance of our constantly available choice as to where we place our attention?