We have two bird feeders that we bring in at night because although they are technically critter proof, there is nothing that can stop a raccoon that has all night to skillfully pick out the seeds one at a time.

In the morning, if I forget to put them out as soon as dawn breaks, the birds remind me. Those birds like the nuthatch, chickadee, and finches that prefer the seed feeder, sit patiently on the rod that holds the feeder waiting for me to see them.

Sometimes I look out my window and see them all lined up together like a line outside a diner. Underneath the feeder, waits the squirrels, and cardinals. Patient and persistent, they trust I will be out soon, providing for them.

Once I hang the feeder, a chickadee sings to the waiting crowd in the trees that their expected provision has appeared, and the dining begins.

The other feeder holds suet and hangs on a branch near the deck that comes out from my office. Those birds are louder. In particular the blue jays, especially when they have young to feed. They literally sit outside my office door, on the branch or the deck and yell at me.

Sometimes I try to ignore them, after all, who is in charge here anyway? Obviously not me, because I eventually get up and bring them their suet. I feel like saying "What do you think, money grows on trees," but that would be a ridiculous thing to say, not because the birds don't understand, because they do, but because for them, yes it does!

(A few pictures of blue jays waiting their turn, and deferring to the red-bellied woodpeckers)

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As I retrieved for them yet one more day the thought occurred to me that perhaps they were trying to tell me something more than, "Help I need food to feed these crazy kids".

They are setting an example and asking me if I am following it. So I ask myself, "How much do I expect to receive what I need? How "demanding" am I in asking? How patient, how persistent?"

Each in their own way the raccoon, the birds who like seeds, and the birds who like suet, expect supply. They ask, seek, wait, demand, in their own way. However, all of them take action towards what they need.

They don't worry if they are offending me by squawking outside my door. After all, I am the one who promised to provide.

It seems to me that they fully embrace, as part of their DNA, the spiritual law: "Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." - Matthew 7:7 Bible

Our human personality gets in the way of fully embracing the fact that this spiritual law applies to us too and not just for other people. Perhaps if we could just find the blue jay squawk, the raccoon skills, and the patient bird qualities within ourselves it would dissolve the belief that we are less than they are, that money doesn't grow on trees, and that we have to be something other than ourselves in order to receive an abundant supply of everything we need.

As I was writing this, the squirrel we helped raise this spring (Junior) started crawling up my office door screen because I was too engrossed in what I was doing this time to hear the quiet sounds he usually makes, and too busy to see his cute face peaking over the door frame. It wasn't hard to understand that he wanted in for his daily treat of cashew nuts. He isn't shy about asking, and I always have a container by the door waiting for him.

By providing for him, even before he asks, I am acting from another spiritual law. "And it shall come to pass, that before they call I will answer." Isaiah 65: 24 Bible

As long as we marry the worldview into a belief that we are human, we abide by human concepts and laws. We perceive that there are only a few ways to receive supply, in all its forms, which of course blinds us to what has already been provided for us. Don't we know better than this?

We know the outcome if we follow this spiritual law "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto thee." - Matthew 6:33 Bible

This means that we can't say we are human while also agreeing that God - Divine Love, infinite Mind, the Principle, and essence of everything - is omnipresent. Where could the human "us" be present if God is omnipresent?

It's not that we need to acquire this knowledge, we only have to let go of the perception of human, and wake up to the Reality of infinite ever-expanding Love. It's a choice really.

Today, I am making it simple so I am choosing the qualities of blue jay married with the quickness of the hummingbird, the skill of the raccoon, the patience of the finch, the sharing of the chickadee, and the persistence of the squirrel and let them guide my actions.

What are you choosing today?

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ok .. here he is ... Junior in for his treat ..

~~~~~~~~~~~

You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

We have trained ourselves to live at a certain level of abundance and not to rise too much higher, or at least do it really, really, slowly, and in the timing and manner of our choice.

This means that although infinite Love is providing ever-expanding abundance for every one of us in every moment, because this is one of Its Principles, we have to find a way to stop it from coming to us.

Well, actually, we have to find a way to not see it so that it doesn't upset our personal paradigm, or story we have written for ourselves, or even worse, allowed someone else to write for us.

Perhaps you are thinking, "Not me, I don't do that, I am open to all provision".

We could honestly say we don't do this if every relationship in our life is filled with love and respect, and I mean every relationship in our life.

If the well from which we pay for life's needs is always full and in fact overflowing.

If our health is excellent with no signs of age or disease in any part of ourselves, and if we are fully living the essence of ourselves in every moment of our lives.

Ok, given that we are all stopping the flow of abundance in our lives in many ways, we can get down to the business of dissolving this habit of stopping the flow.

The first problem, and really the only problem, is we think we are human living in a material universe. If we accept this in any form then our human self is in the constant process of stopping the flow because it does not know how to handle too much abundance at a time.

Let me give you an example. If you run a business (actually we all are in the business of life, so this works for everyone) and you begin to feel that you have enough customers, or clients, and you say to yourself that you really can't handle anymore, that is stopping the flow. Not only will you not receive more customers, but also you will begin to lose the ones you have.

Or, your business is "making you crazy" in some way and you say to yourself, "I have got to get out of this business." Whoops, not a good idea, because being out of business is exactly what you will be.

Or, perhaps you decide to not reach out any longer, or not embrace and learn new ideas to improve what you have; all of this is stopping the flow of abundance to you.

Why is this? Because "what we perceive to be reality magnifies" or said another way, you are programming your personal computer within this "game called earth" to not show you anything that you don't want to see.

This idea applies to every aspect of life, not just to business and money, but also to relationships, love, and health - yes everything.

How can we stop this habit? We first have to begin with the correct premise. We are not human. Never have been, never will be. It's a little story we tell to ourselves to make the world make more sense to us, but that doesn't make it true.

We are the ideas of God. We are the expression of Love, we are abundance Itself. We are the action of Mind. We live in a spiritual universe. There is only one, and it is spiritual.

What if we find ourselves in a job, business, relationships, or any situation that we don't like?

Because we know that everything is in Reality Spiritual, and is in Truth the presence of God, and we know that God is the Principle of omnipresent good we can begin to shift ourselves from these situations, not by saying "that's enough", but by seeing through each one to see the qualities of God.

This means actively finding and rejoicing in every bit of good that is shining through the illusion of "bad," and actively stopping the habit of looking only at what is not working or we don't like. As we do this, the situation will resolve to match our understanding of the Truth of only One, and it is Spiritual, and it is good.

Of course, this barely makes sense to us within our human paradigm. However, accepting it and acting as if it is true will first show us where we have put up dams and barriers in our life, and then begin to dissolve them both by conscious choice and as a by-product of stating the Truth.

Would Love ever give itself more then it could handle? Would it ever put Itself in a business that wasn't joyful and abundant? Doesn't infinite Principle have enough wisdom to give Itself (us) everything in perfect proportion and practical means to take care of what it is providing?

Gratitude will break the habit of saying, "I have enough", or "I don't like this", or "I can't handle that". Gratitude will focus our attention on what is working, and builds up our confidence in the fact that the Divine is handling our lives, really Its life, quite well.

Gratitude for what we have, whether it appears to be a little or a lot, will bring out into the open our human personal stories and rewrite them based on our current highest understanding of God's provision.

Instead of saying "stop, that's enough" to abundance, we will stand with arms open wide in acceptance of the ever-flowing gentle rain of infinite provision, knowing that there is always a place for it and it is always beautiful in its presentation and practical in its application.

You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

Sitting on the back porch, I kept glancing over to my right where I could see a brownish “haze” under the weeping spruce tree. It kept distracting me because I couldn’t figure out what it was.

Forty tons of dirt ..

Thinking that the rain or the early morning light was doing something funny to my vision, I looked, and looked, and wondered why I had never seen either a big brown bush or a lower dead limb on the tree.

I was distracted the entire time I sat there, until I suddenly recalled that we had a forty tons of dirt dumped there the day before that we would be using to even out the ground in that area.

Immediately my focus cleared, and I saw the big pile of dirt, no longer a brown “haze”.

Earlier that morning, looking out our front window I saw a bush I had never seen before. It was dark, but still, this is a garden I work in every day. How could there be a bush there? I knew that the day before what was there was a big blooming clump of chives.

Once I remembered that there were chives there, I saw that it was not a new bush but the clump of chives spread out from the driving rain the night before.

Blooming chives .. looking like a bush..

Two reminders that the mind cannot see what it does not know.

This is good to know, for two reasons. One, if we want to see something, we need to learn how to see what is already there. And, two, if we do see something, we can rest assured that we already possess it because, once again, the mind does not see what it does not know.

How does this apply to everyday life? Let’s take the first idea. If we want to see something, we need to learn how to see what is already there. Yes, I am making the valid assumption that everything is already present, and we just don’t see it because we don’t know it.

This is a valid assumption because it is easily proven. From quantum physics to spiritual awareness, we know that the moment something is known, or thought, it is.

Given this, what do we want to see that we are not seeing? Let’s say we want to see more wealth, in all its forms in our life. “In all its forms” is a key statement because that is the place to start.

How many forms of wealth are there? Is it just that green stuff we exchange and call money, or is it also the leaves on the trees, a neighbor’s kindness, a found treasure, a hug, a gift? Yes, each one of these symbols, and the infinite number of other symbols like this, are all wealth.

Instead of shying away from observing wealth, we must learn to observe it. As we see wealth, acknowledge it, become grateful for what we see, whether it appears as our own wealth or another’s, then the doors of perception begin to open and wealth appears in all its forms and becomes visible and useable to us.

The brown haze transforms to a visible recognition of what is actually present.

The second idea follows the first. If we have seen it, then it follows that we know it, which means that it is ours now. If we hunger, it is because we already know about food. If we desire beauty, it is because we already know beauty. If we long for love, it is because we already have love within.

Once we accept this as a truth, then the need for something no longer frightens us, it encourages us to learn more about what we feel we need. It deepens our commitment to look for, honor, and understand the true substance of what we want.

As we do this, our mind knows what to see and find, or in Truth - reveal. In this perception shift, once again, we discover that what we need is already present, but often not exactly in the package we were looking for, which brings us back to our first idea. We need to know, in order to see.

While I was staining the deck, I sent Del into the garage to get the wood putty to fill in the holes that were in the deck. When he didn’t come back right away, I went to help him. I found the wood putty in just a few seconds. Why did I find it right away, and he didn’t? It’s not what you think. It is because I knew what the container looked like, and he was looking for the kind of container it used to come in.

We looked in the same place, but his mind expected to see the wood putty one way, and mine expected to see it another.

Woodputty hiding in the garage.

Do you see the implications of this? Yes, what “we perceive to be reality magnifies”. Being responsible for expanding our perceptions, beginning with the reality we wish to live within, we take the time to constantly upgrade our perceptions through awareness and gratitude, and as a result, wealth in all its forms becomes visible.

Within this perception there is no need for greed, panic or fear, there is only grateful anticipation for the revelation of the abundance that is already present for everyone equally and consistently.

Our job then becomes one of learning about the substance of Spirit, opening our vision, shifting our point of view perception to one of infinite, intelligent Love, and our state of mind perception to gratitude for Its provision.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern." William Blake

You have permission to reprint The Shift® Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: *Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

Every morning I have a drink that begins with a cup of hot water. One morning our microwave broke so I thought, “Well I guess I won’t be drinking that this morning.”

It took a few minutes before I realized that a microwave is not the only way to heat hot water, just the one we had used for years; habit constricts horizons.

There is always a way. Maybe not the way we have done it for years, but the Divine that is infinite possibilities does not have only one path or one way or one supply or one opportunity or one look or one anything other than the One that includes all and is known as Love.

It's hard to remember, much harder than realizing that hot water can also be heated on the stove. That’s because we are so used to feeling separate from Love with the accompanying feeling of lack.

The habitual lack-based worldview always attempts to creep in and separate us from the infinite possibilities and practicality of Love. It is in those times that we cling to the rock of Truth.

I can always tell when I am feeling very separate. I start having dialogues with myself; sometimes playing out more than one role, but always talking. This is different than my “normal” talking to myself; this is the dialogue that plays out how it could have been, should have been, or what I might have said if I had been wise enough in the moment to say it.

Getting out of that separate and dialoguing state sometimes feels impossible, but it is not. However, it does take a willingness to turn off the channel of separation and tune into the channel that is about the One.

One way I do this is have a grateful dialogue which resets my point of view and state of mind. As I do my morning walk, I try to practice a walking meditation. It’s harder than it sounds. I have to keep dragging my focus back to gratitude and away from whatever message the separation channel is playing.

Recently as I practiced this I experienced a new awareness about the statement, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.”*

The “Seek ye first his righteousness” became clearer. I realized that I couldn’t get to that feeling of peacefulness and love by seeking it either for myself or another, I had to seek first what is the Truth of Love and peace, and of course the rest would follow. I had to seek the right thinking – righteousness - that is Love.

One of the walking meditations that I use to ground my point of view in the Infinite One is the statement, “We are the loved of Love.” The “we” I am referring to comes from Mary Baker Eddy’s statement, “There is but one I or Us….”

While I am walking my mind wants to drift away to conversations, past, future or imagined; or it becomes occupied with designing places and things. It moves away from the idea of wholeness and is distracted by what I want. It doesn’t matter how good my intentions may be for what I want, or even if I want for another, it is still a distraction away from Truth.

Using a 360 degree soft vision technique while walking not only turns me away from the hypnotic internal dialogue, but brings my state of mind back to the awareness that the statement “We are the loved of Love” not only means people, but everything that appears externally and places it all back where it belongs, within the circle of One.

Obsessive vigilance is required when our intent is to move from the self-righteousness of fixing what appears to be broken or separate, to God’s righteousness which already is the wholeness of Love. Seeking to understand first the kingdom of God is not about getting something for ourselves or others, but the intent and desire to really know and live as One.

Meeting anger and resentment and sorrow with all encompassing unconditional love for ourselves and each other is one way out of the unhappiness of separation. The sooner we choose this perception, the sooner we find the peace and comfort that is the joyful atmosphere of the kingdom of God.

What does all this have to do with making hot water? Sometimes we think there is only one way to forgive, one way to seek first the kingdom of God, one way to experience at-one-ment, or atonement.

But there are many ways for each of these actions. Love, the nature of God, is expansive not constricted. No matter how many times we may appear to step away from the righteousness of God, the moment we step back and yield to Love’s direction we are within the kingdom of God and we intimately experience that each of us is the loved of Love.

*Bible - Matthew 6: 33

Core values, family history, worldview agreements, and personal habits all entwine together to present a picture we call our life. Our lives are like a movie that goes on and on because we go on about it.

We stand in the middle of this movie, like characters on the screen, and try to change it or simply live well within it, using of course our core values, family history, worldview agreements, and personal habits to do so.

If these ideas all come together to form a pretty picture then life is good, when they don’t then life is not so good. When the worldview script of lack and discouragement appears as everyone in the movie suffering, then getting out of the movie called our life can seem impossible.

Standing in the middle of this life, or picture or movie, and trying to change it for the better or even survive will only have a temporary impact, because of one very key fact. The movie and the movie viewer are one.

This is not a whimsical idea. This is fact. From the book Biocentrism: “Moreover, if one accepts that the external world occurs only in Mind, in consciousness, and that it’s the interior of one’s brain that’s cognized “out there” at this moment, then of course everything is connected with everything else.” (Robert Lanza MD with Bob Berman)

This means it is absolutely possible to change our lives because our lives are the out-picturing of (but not the creation of ) what we believe and perceive to be true. It also means that there is only one way to both permanently make a change and that is to shift our perception from within.

But what if we want more than just a better life? What if we want to be what we really are, what if we want to experience ourselves as the outcome or idea of the infinite Mind, or omnipotent Light? What then?

To do this we must re-think reality and re-set our perception altogether. We must stop identifying ourselves as human, stop believing what the five senses tell us and listen instead to the quiet voice within; stop acting as if the movie and script are real, stop wanting the story to get better, and want instead to let go and live as the idea of God.

This is a radical thought and decision. It demands a root change. It demands that we reset our perception, or follow the biblical word “repent” which means turn around and walk the other way; turn away from the movie playing in our heads which results in what we call our lives.

Turn away from identifying ourselves as human and re-set our thinking and perception. It demands that we let go of how we want it to be, think it is, and then follow through with action and commitment to Truth.

This radical shift demands that we turn away from trying to fix things and people; turn away from our story and turn instead to the fact that what exists in our lives is and who we think we are is one and the same.

This is not a half way decision, it is a complete shift. Yes, it may appear to take time to reset habits and beliefs, but that too is only set within our agreement of what is true.

It may appear that others need to change first. Again, not true. What appears as they, or that, is really our own perception. There is no way to separate the thinker from what it is thinking.

Our responsibility then is not to create, control, or to make happen. Our responsibility is to stop separating ourselves from the ever present infinite intelligent flow or force we call God; it is to let go and be what we are, which in turn re-sets what we experience as our lives.

As we do this we should expect more beauty, peace, abundance, grace, happiness, love and all the other fruits of good to be more present in and as our lives.

Not because we worked at becoming good and wise humans, but because we gave up the story and returned home by turning within and consistently listening and following the still small voice, by paying attention to the symbols that prove the presence of God, and continually re-setting our perceptions to match our current, highest and best understanding of the Divine.

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You have permission to reprint The Shift Ezine as long as it is copied in full without changes and includes the following footer: Article by Beca Lewis, author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for more ideas to help Shift perception. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

With a new Star Trek movie out I was reminded of a lesson I learned from Star Trek and how it relates to what appears to be going on in the world. It is the story of the power of illusion and how to see through it. Star Trek fan or not - yes I am a big fan - the lesson is easy to apply.

It happened in the first Star Trek episode seen as The Menagerie that aired in November of 1966. In an attempt to rescue Captain Pike from the Talosians, who were masters of illusions, the crew used heavy phaser fire to blast an entrance through the “mountain.”

Repeated attempts to blast open the entrance appeared to them to be unsuccessful because the Talosians' illusions completely hid the reality from them that they were successful the first time.

Captain Pike eventually realizes that the phasers must have worked and forces the Talosians to reveal the truth to everyone. The illusion vanishes immediately revealing the effects of the blasts.

Holding that idea in mind, let’s call debt and the concept of lack in all its forms a prison from which we all wish to escape.

We can be in debt in many forms because debt is more than just owing money, but all debt stems from the same erroneous premise, and until we uncover and step away from that premise we can never be really free from it.

This erroneous premise is an expectancy that good comes directly from the object that we see - whether it is a person, place or thing. It is our perception, premise, and belief that the material world, or matter, owes us a living, or good things, or health, or love, or our completeness that puts us into its debt as we have put it into ours.

How does this work with the Star Trek metaphor?

We often blast away at perceived problems, including debt and lack, with our phasers of Truth, but seeing nothing change we think that it doesn’t work, and yet it always does. Shifting our perceptions always changes the object that we perceive because what appears as the material world is the objectification of our current highest awareness of every idea, person, place or thing.

Choosing a perception of infinite good and blasting away at what appears to be a problem with that awareness does indeed dissolve it.

If we don’t see a change, it is not the problem itself, but our habit of seeing, or listening to the very loud voice that tells us in no uncertain terms that the problem is still present when in actuality it has already been dissolved.

The problem is that we continue the illusion by continuing to believe that the problem still exists, or ever did for that matter. The problem then becomes that we believe the illusion.

This means we waste immeasurable amounts of time, energy, thought, and hope on something that does not exist so that we do not take the time to simply demand and expect that we experience the Truth now.

In the Bible story of Elisha and his servant, the servant was afraid of the huge army facing them and worried that they did not have the means to fight the enemy. Elisha wasn’t worried, because he knew that it what appeared as the enemy was powerless before Truth.

Responding to his servants fear, “…he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (Bible 11 Kings 6:16)

Just like Elisha we can stop focusing on the problem, and return to Truth and stay there. What we perceive to be reality magnifies. We can choose to magnify Truth, not illusion. It’s that simple. No matter how big the enemy, how loud it may appear, how terrifying the perceived outcome, we are wasting our time shooting at an illusion.

What we can spend our time blasting away at is the habit of looking at what appears to be wrong and struggling and working to make it better. We can’t make “it” better. It will always remain an illusion and we can fire our time and our hard work at it all we want and but we can’t fix what isn’t there.

Projecting into the future with the fear of what will happen to us, we miss the present abundance. Demanding that the material world owes us a living, or a love, or happiness, we fall into the trap of every kind of debt because we have followed the siren call of the material and return to our old habits of thinking and perceiving.

Instead of looking at what appears as a material world as if it were the truth, let’s look again. Let’s step away from the illusion and immerse ourselves in what is actually True. Let’s look and see that everything that is present in our life is in reality the presence of intelligent Love, God. Let’s follow that clear guidance and direction of this promise: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (Bible John 8:32)

For as long as I can remember, one of my favorite poems has always been Victor Hugo’s,

“Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.“

Isn’t this poem beautiful? It sings about the principle and perception that no matter what appears to be happening, when we know who we are, then we can sing knowing that we have wings, and can easily fly up and away to safety.

While walking in the woods recently I watched our hawk’s nest high in the tree swaying in the wind, and felt the meaning of this poem even more deeply. Having felt for myself the bite of fear while sitting high in a tree while it swayed, I thought of what it would feel like to be that high and ride through the blasts of wind that whip the tree limbs around so freely.

I imagined that if it were me, I would worry that the limb would break, and then what would I do? And then I laughed out loud, startling a few wood creatures I am sure, with the realization of what the “knowing that she hath wings” means to a bird. If the limb would break they would simply fly away, singing as they always do with the joy of the freedom of flight.

Notice that my thought about falling began with a “what if question” that made me feel afraid. Of course I would be afraid I would fall if I didn’t find peace in the knowledge that there is always safety, and always a solution, and this knowing will act as wings, always flying me to freedom and safety.

Victor Hugo’s life’s work was profoundly influenced by his awareness of the social injustice, inequality, suffering, and uprising that was the underlying theme of France in the 1800’s, the place and time in which he lived. His writings, like “Les Miserables,” were directed at pointing out, and bringing to light what was wrong within “the system,” so it could be corrected.

Yet, he wrote a simple and elegant poem on how to escape, without harm, the mess that the worldview dualist system makes. He wrote about the bird, faced with a weak and falling branch, “Sings, knowing that she hath wings.”

Not only does she fly away as the weak branch breaks, she sings. She sings before the need to fly. She sings in the morning in celebration of a new day. She sings in the day, not because she must, but because she can.

A Chinese proverb says, “A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.”

Until we are all aware of and acting within the awareness of the oneness of what appears as mankind, aware that we are within the circle of One, and not without it, aware and acting from the Principle of the Infinite Intelligence known as Love, social injustice, inequality, and suffering will appear within the times we live within.

Yet, we do not have to be part of the suffering, we can “Sing, knowing that we have wings.” We can sing as the bird does, because we have a song.

No matter what we call the voice of the "system," worldview, predator, or monkey mind, this voice is belligerent, loud, but subtle, demanding that we listen to it, bringing with it all the emotions that begin and end with fear, with its tag along friends called doubt, anger, discouragement, frustration, sadness, despair, and the rest of these life-hope-stealing companions of the “what if” voice of the lie called, “fear.”

Since we do live in a thought Universe we must be able to recognize who is asking the question, “what if,” and who is doing the thinking. It’s hard to sing when we are within the grips of the “what if” voice of fear, but there is another “what if” voice, and it sings the song of the Infinite Principle of Love.

The “still small voice within” brings gifts of love, with its corresponding comforting feelings of hope, encouragement, possibility, joy and the rest of its friends that encourage us to “sing, knowing that we have wings.”

Sometimes this voice also says “what If,” but this “what if” is not loaded with fear, it is loaded with hope and possibilities. It sings to us that there is always an open door; there is always a solution, that we are never separate from the gifts of Love, that there is no one who has more than others within the Infinite provision and equality of the Divine.

To hear this voice we must pause and listen to the stillness within the peace of Love. To hear this voice we have to stop agreeing with the “what if” voice of fear. It may still be making noise, but we are not listening, because we have the thought wings of awareness of the omnipresence of Love.

What isn’t love is loud and insistent that we pay attention to it, like a petulant child, or a bully or even a terrorist. That doesn’t mean we bow down to it and give into its demand to be afraid. Instead we pay attention to the peace, beauty and love that is all around us and when we do this, what to do about the bully of fear becomes evident.

If we attempt to fight fear it has us in its grip. Instead, we sing knowing that we have wings, and rise above it watching it dissolve itself as it battles with itself, which is all that it knows how to do.

“Sing, knowing that you have wings,” sing with celebration, sing with gratitude. Share your song, sing of joy, sing of good, sing of the evident abundance within your life. Sing, because singing of these things reveals even more goodness, sing because it dissolves the blinders imposed by fear, and reveals the consistent care always present for you.

Sing of the abundance of your neighbors and friends, show it to them, and share it with them. We cannot be rich without all being aware of their richness.

Afraid that your clients can’t afford you, or your company can’t keep you on? Sing, knowing they have wings too, sing knowing that abundance does not come from people, places and things, but appears because you are present, the representation and idea of abundance itself

Keep singing when the wind blows, or the limb you are on begins to break. Sing, that there is nothing to fear, you are One within the One of the I Am, gather your thoughts to this place and keep them there, and let the illusion that threatens dissolve itself into the nothingness from which it came, never touching you, or your loved ones.

“Sing, knowing that you have wings.”

We have long used the question, “What’s in your house” to not only discover what is currently available for use if seen differently, but to reveal what doesn’t need to be in our house and can be discarded or moved along to another.

In the first glorious warm days of spring I was in our yard cleaning up after winter. It’s a new property for us, having lived here for less than year, and big enough for me to be finding areas and things in the yard I didn’t know were there, so I was thinking, “What’s in your yard?”

As I cleaned and visited the yard I discovered both trash and treasure, and was reminded how accurately the symbols in our lives tell us about mental lives too.

First the treasure: I was watching a gardening show where the property was completely paved in moss. It was glorious. I ventured out into our property thinking how wonderful it would be to have it completely paved in moss, but I couldn’t see how that could happen without years of work because I hadn’t previously seen any moss. I obviously wasn’t looking before, because when I cleared away the debris and leaf accumulation I discovered moss everywhere.

It felt as wonderful to me as if I had uncovered a pot of gold. Right under our feet the whole time was exactly what we wanted, already provided.

Then the trash: our property drops off into banks and slopes so that when you are in the house or the lawn (soon to be garden and moss) you can’t see what is there. The previous owners of our home must have thought that if they couldn’t see the trash, it didn’t exist.

In my first small clean-up with my granddaughter we discovered the smashed remains of a garden gnome tossed over the bank into the stream. The week before we moved in Mr. Gnome was sitting at the garage door. Instead of moving it, they trashed it.

That was just the beginning of what we have found.

What were they thinking? That it was out of sight and therefore didn’t exist? That no one else could see it since they couldn’t? Of course this sounds absurd because sooner or later it will be discovered, and we will all know who put the trash there.

But isn’t this exactly what we do with our own thinking? First the treasures that we are and do are hidden to us if we don’t look for them, but others may see them clearly. Then the trash, or mist-perceptions, of our thinking that have been “tossed over the bank” may be hidden from our sight, but certainly not to others who are paying attention. Like the trash in our backyard it still affects our lives.

Hidden treasures are a delight to unearth. Trash may not be. But, just because it is out of sight it is not out of mind. Trash thoughts and ideas are running our lives even more surely than trash is polluting our earth, because they are the hidden perceptions that filter information and blind us to what is really going on.

We all know how to clean our yard, but what about our thinking? How do we discover the trash and treasure, and then, how do we know the difference?

It begins by stating the intent and premise of our search. For example; our intent may be to live in and experience the beauty of omnipresent Love which is evidenced in overflowing supply of all that we need from love, food, money, time, space etc. To experience this intent our premise will be, “Love is omnipotent and omnipresent good is the obvious outcome of omnipotent Love.”

As we remain in an intent and premise based on omnipresent good, what is treasure and trash becomes obvious and is clearly seen; just as when I worked in the yard with the intent and premise of underlying present beauty, the treasure and the trash became evident that was hidden to me before.

Beginning with the correct premise before trash and treasure hunting is imperative. If we begin looking within the context and premise that everything is terrible and wrong, we are standing in trash to begin with, and when we find more, which we will, it will not be a cause for celebration, but a validation of a trash viewpoint.

What will we get? More trash. Treasure will elude us because we will be blind to its presence and soon life feels as if we are trapped in a dumpster and being buried by trash.

Beginning with the premise of omnipresent good both treasure and trash will be uncovered. We will know where to toss the trash, and we will be clearly aware of the treasure we have found that has always been present for our use and enjoyment.

Trash thinking is a popular pursuit. We are even competitive about who has the most trash in our lives. Don’t be trapped in trash! We live in a thought universe. We are in charge of what we say and think, and missing what omnipresent good has already provided for us because of trashing thinking is beyond silly.

Why not be treasure hunter and treasure talker? Things don’t have to get bad to get better! They were never bad, just our awareness and perception was misplaced. Becoming aware of the ever present Principle of Love we quickly escape the dumpster. Why not lead the way out of trash talking, because after all, people are following you. Why not lead them to the treasure and experience for yourself the Truth of omnipresent good.

A treasure hunter goes looking for treasure because he expects to find it. Expect to find the treasure in your life and you will discover what has been waiting for you all along. Throw out the trash as you search and you will experience, without doubt, guaranteed, that you are wealthy in all ways and always have been.

I had a nightmare recently.  The core of it was I was trying to tell Del something and I couldn't speak.  In the dream I knew I was dreaming so my "task" was to wake up. 

I did.  But, I still couldn't move.  I lay there thinking how will I live this way?  How will I help my clients, write my books, be present for my family?

And then I realized I was still dreaming. When I woke up "again" I was just as I was when I went to sleep. Nightmare over, I felt immense relief.

It took me some time that night to realize that I was still dreaming when I couldn't move. Within the second layer of the nightmare I didn't bother to try to declare the truth that I was not paralyzed, I simply decided to deal with it.  I was doing "what if's." Calmly maybe, but certainly preparing to believe in and live with the lie of being unable to move.

Once I woke up out of the second layer of the dream and felt free to move about and do my "work" I almost let the lesson go. Almost, until I heard that still-small-voice within me say, "Wait, Isn't this a clever deception of the one lie?  Wouldn't it make you feel so terrible that any relief from that nightmare would lull you into a false sense of security and freedom?"

Yes, of course. In times of stress and trouble and no place else to go, we go to God.  We ask to wake up from a nightmare which can take many forms; illness, lack of funds, sadness, and grief, all within the grip of and born of fear. In our great pain we demand to wake up to Love and that awakening heals, or dissolves, that nightmare situation because it was only a dream.

In a dream-nightmare we do that by knowing the truth.  We know we are dreaming and we are not awake. We demand to wake up.

In our awake-nightmares we wake up the same way.  We know the Truth. We declare that there is only One, and it is Love, the Principle of Infinite Intelligence. 

We rise above the lie of the dream by argument, or awareness, or we perceive the immediate evidence of Grace.  With all these ways of awakening we begin with the perfection of Love and with the full knowledge that we are simply asleep to the Truth.

Waking up, we feel relief.  But, still isn't there more waking up to do? If there is any place in our lives that we are making do, figuring out how to live with it, dealing with "what if's," we can be sure that we are still sleeping. Sleeping more comfortably perhaps, but still asleep.

We are all asleep within layers of dreams.  We are all not fully aware of the consistently constant, ever available, always present, completely accessible, perfection of Love Loving Itself, which - amazingly - is who we really are.  We are the love of Love Loving Itself. 

We are - you are!

We are how Love knows itself. We are how Principle is seen.  We are the thought of Mind.

If we experience less then this ultimate Truth we are asleep within layers of the dream.

The weird part and the trap is we think we have to understand this perfection within the dream. That's the lie at work again. The dream which is the state of the lie itself, or imperfection, cannot understand perfection.

To get to understanding, we have to wake up to it. Understanding is a quality of Mind Itself. With every awakening the light is brighter, the awareness is clearer, and our life has adjusted itself to match our new perception.

As this happens, which it must, let's not be satisfied with a partial awakening. Let's continue to choose to wake up completely and stay there.

Gratitude for each awakening and awareness of the fact that there is an Infinite One propels us forward, keeping us alert to the dream. Once we are completely awake we will know as we are known.  Until then, I wish us all, sweet awakenings.

There is only one evil, only one lie.  It has many faces. It plays many roles. It speaks many languages. But, it is just one lie.  Although it may appear that we must deny each version of the one lie separately, the truth is, we only have to recognize this one lie for what it is to permanently disable it, and dissolve its power forever.

We have reached a time in our world where doing just that is no longer a luxury, but is now an imperative call to action.  Not for someone else to do, but for each of us to fight the battle that is required for this enemy of peace and love to be destroyed.

Calling it a war is not a good idea; because that implies that we will use the same methods this lie uses to harm us to destroy it.  We all know that doesn't work. Fighting with someone when we disagree never resolves the issue. Each of us has experienced the escalation of the power of this one lie into greater anger and destruction when we fight against it.

However, in a sense it is a war and a battle, but not with something or somebody else, but with the idea that the one lie or one evil exists. We can defeat that idea, not from without, but from within.

How can we do this? 

First we begin with the Truth there is only One power and it is all Good.

The one lie claims that there is more than one power.  The one lie claims that the One omnipresent, omniscient, omniaction, omnipotent is not Omni.  The one lie claims that there are two powers, one good, one bad.  The one lie declares that bad is present, and as capable as good. The one lie uses terrorist's tactics to scare us into submission. The one lie feeds on our fear.  The one lie's intention is to make us forget that there is only One power and that one Infinite Good.

Yes, when we stop and examine its premise then the one lie makes no sense at all.  Of course we are always faced with the question. "If there is only One then where did this illusion of the one lie that there is two come from?" Trying to answer that question right now will derail us from following the Truth of the One that is Infinite Divine Power.

It doesn't matter if we don't understand the why.  The human mind cannot understand this illusion and it is a distraction and red herring to spend time trying to do so. 

What we can do is follow the logic of Truth. We know it to be true that what we observe is what we see.  We know that the act of seeing or perceiving something is what we experience. 

The corner stone of The Shift® to Spiritual Perception has always been, "What we perceive to be reality magnifies."  Terrorism, in all its forms, wants us to see it, the one lie, as reality so that it can magnify.

Is this what we want? Of course not!  We want to experience, see, perceive, magnify, observe and live in abundant joy and harmony.  Follow this perception law to its ultimate conclusion; as we "war" with this false claim within, and stand completely in the One big R Reality as that which we want to magnify, the one lie of evil has no place to exist.

It will dissolve within, it will be defeated without.

As we attend to the needs of all of our neighbors in all areas of the world, we stand in Truth.  We don't let the outward become the inward.  We stand at the doorway of our thinking and say "no" to the one lie in all its subtle suggestions.

This means that we also stop agreeing with the one lie's siren call of materialism. We stop participating in any tactics that can escalate into large scale terrorism.  Examining our thinking on a continual basis we uncover and uproot any outgrowth of the one lie no matter what form it is taking.

How do we know when it is the one lie or the One Truth?

If it steals happiness, joy, security and love, it is the fruit of the one lie.  If it reveals happiness, joy, security and love as ever present in infinite abundance, it is the fruit of the One Truth of Infinite Harmony.  

We can stand together in this ultimate denial of the one lie, and as we do, we will expose and dissolve forever its false power, and then we will know as we are known by the One Divine Intelligence of Good. 

Together we can perceive the Reality of Divine Love, and that will magnify in our lives and our families lives, our next door neighbor's life, our communities life, our countries life. 

Each of us, no matter where we may live, will feel that difference and we will find the strength to defeat that one lie within, no matter how loudly it screams. But, no matter how much noise it makes it has never changed the Truth that we are all One as Love. 

Together we stand in this Truth, and together we will dissolve forever the lie of two, because we live as One.