How creative magnanimity saved the day

How do you personally choose to manage the over-arching energies of fear that compete to define the times?

I once read a true story about an uninvited guest interrupting a small private patio get-together in DC. He wasn’t your movie-version of the adolescent, fun-at heart party crasher, but one packing a gun and sinister intent. He pointed his gun at the host’s young daughter; someone quickly offered the intruder a glass of good wine: Chateau Malescot St-Exupery as the story goes.

All ended well: the people were spared harm and robbery by a kind gesture that ended, unbelievably, with hugs all around.

This is very like an event told in James Tipton’s biographical novel, Annette Vallon: A Novel of the French Revolution.

Annette was the French lover and muse of English Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, and also the mother of his daughter, Caroline.

I found the publisher’s claim to be true; Tipton does paint an “entertaining yet poignant French Revolution through the eyes of Annette”.

Yet through that entertaining style the messages of surviving unimaginable times pierced to the very heart of the co-creative principle: your feelings always dictate your responses. Your feelings always go on to create more circumstances. Usually ones that trigger you to feel the same way again.

And on it goes as each new circumstance unfolds. Still, that choice-point is the one possession no one can take from you when it comes to how you choose to use your co-creative abilities.

Feeling is the mold into which you pour your thought and emotion. Feeling lives in the molecules. Feeling is not the same thing as emotions, though all three form the primary tools you use to work through the density of physical life.

You, the real being, work from the very spiritual origin that in actuality you never left. And it never left you.

So here is what I learned reading Annette’s story:

An aristocrat who lived during the worst of her times, Annette survived mainly through her wits and unconventional response to the horrors unfolding around her and her family.

She not only met the unexpected but began to expect it, and with equally unexpected choice she persisted in preserving her individuality. She managed that even amidst a society under siege.

And that is no small feat, for Annette’s narration paints a society being stripped of the dignity to which each of its members clung in their own way, whether represented by the low or high pieces in that extreme para-political chess game of The Revolution. Games that left even the players wondering who was on whose side. Conflicting, excruciating Illuminati-like games of terror.

I can barely imagine anyone finding amusement and pleasure in life through that. Yet how can I judge the need to do so when in reality it is the ultimate healthy choice a free being can make? The freedom of birthright, after all, includes happiness. And when powers that be seem to take even that, you have to hire your own musicians you see.

Clap and smile again and say, “Everyone, dance.”

Annette and Wordsworth, who met amid the first stirrings of the Revolution, were bound by their countries’ bureaucracy and his family’s tradition. Unable to wed as they desired, they ‘married’ in mock civil ceremony. She later bore his daughter alone, when war and convention separated them.

As moving as the rest of the story was, the scene that spoke most deeply to my heart was of Annette’s uncle becoming caught up in one of the orchestrated mini-peasant revolts. The serfs became a mindlessly run army of people whose best interests were the last things their handlers had at heart.

Annette and her brother were on their way for a visit when they were swept into a crowd of her uncle’s serfs, mobilized to ransack his chateau

She described feeling as though she and her brother were being escorted to a grand soiree being hosted in honor of the very ones in revolt. What was her uncle’s response to the people’s glee? In true French fashion, and not unlike the quick-witted guest at the DC almost-robbery, he too offered his ‘guests’ the best of his fine wine and hospitality.

Annette and her brother poured from his finest reserves into his best crystal. The three prepped and whipped up the finest gourmet omelet so deliciously described that it made my mouth water even amidst the almost constant sidebar of tragedy.

Serfs streamed through the old man’s kitchen while he continued to serve them as his honored guests. His guests, unlike the DC robber however, took from this man without savoring. They appreciated neither his hospitality nor the goods they wanted and that he offered playfully and willingly.

People think they want things, but what they want are the feelings things represent

What was the treasure carted off that night and others like it during The Revolution? Just about every piece of furniture and article of decoration, every last bottle of wine, kitchen item and all the food (livestock included) they could cart or carry on their backs.

There was some trashing about, though not as you might expect in such a mini-revolt

It was clear the peasants were merely carrying out the work of those scripting the charade. And all the while, in tragicomic bas-relief, Annette’s uncle bantered and played with the people as though nothing had changed nor would.

As the last of the revelers departed, her uncle spoke of the ‘gifts’ he’d freely given: priceless family heirlooms

I believe that if these people truly knew what they wanted, instead of banging and bumping their loot through the front door like junk being carried to the tinker’s, they may have realized their intrinsic worth.

His grief was not so much over the fact that these things were taken, but more that the people were manipulated into thinking they wanted them. The realization that they were tricked only enough to carry out their end of the bargain in this revolt (one of many strange enactments across France) is what finally triggered the uncle’s meltdown.

Registering both the loss of what the things meant, and the betrayal by those who used the serfs (while being used themselves), he cried. He may have been crying out that he had always been kind and fair, his people always had bread even during the wheat shortage, but that was not the real grief here, nor in scenes like this throughout human history. Because his heart had registered the truth of what needed to be healed.

Later, Annette recalls how the peasants continued living on her uncle’s land in relative peace

Many were still happily serving him in his home and on his farms as before, as if that strange night had never occurred. At one point, after this surreal ‘revolt’, her uncle even went to them individually, offering money for what held the most sentimental value to him.

His offer was well received, and he proudly displayed his damaged heirlooms in their usual places, a testament to the old man’s tenacity to hold onto, not things, but the feelings he owned about them. The Revolution progressed, however, and Annette’s family lost more than mere things.

As the story evolves, Annette privately speculates at her uncle’s allegiance, making somewhat veiled references to local co-conspirators in The Revolution who supported the ones behind the scenes of these badly organized mini-revolts. Iin spite of my own mixed feelings about her uncle’s further choices for survival, through playing at both sides of the game, I remained inspired.

I raise my glass to one remaining so cool as to save the day by relying on creative magnanimity

The fire abiding in the human heart shines brighter than even the largest fire-lit skies of orchestrated rampage. Maybe I felt so inspired because I happened to have read this novel during the stock market crash in 2008, and it activated my sensing of the French Revolutionary-like energy running through the anger in America. I observed how much more voice the people were given at first, and how suddenly all was being painted as though these same people were getting the change they wanted.

People are no longer serfs, nor pieces in the game. Each has the capacity to be a player in the game of a higher reality. As the only main player who counts, the trick is to look at what you do want, even amidst any apparent chaos to the contrary. You must accept your role as a major player, determined to not only survive personally, but to offer a more whole you to the solution your life’s direction informs you to support.

Take a cue from sports coaches and their proteges who use vivid imagery to win. And do, consistently. Know what it is you want, and see only that, and win only that, like a highly-paid professional sports player.

I’m sometimes asked, but what about what happened after 09/11?

Sensibilities were heightened and then, over time, deadened by the steady barrage of stories. Stories that layered and even buried whatever evidence may have been obliterated by the ruins. Ruins that could have healed our collective fear, even if only by stimulating our outrage into action effecting more positive change.

Yet even after that I believe with all my heart that there’s always a better way to feel, even about insensible reality.

That is why I was struck by the eerie juxtaposition Tipton painted, from torch-lights carried by the seemingly docile looters who swept Annette and her brother toward their uncle’s chateau, to the heartfelt, almost clever, survival tactics he employed. Because I’m more for what individuals can do to feel as well as be empowered. To do better to save lives and, just as importantly, the purpose of each life. Especially one’s own.

To be selfish is the most selfless act

The more whole you are, the more examined are your feelings, even while engaged in the necessary work of the revolution of the spirit. The more value you add to that which you choose to do by being the change you desire, the more value-added that change becomes. It can even inspire others.

So, if outrage precludes working with your emotions to the point that you can genuinely feeling good – as good as if what you are working for already exists – then work with the outrage first to get you there. Take it as the point that informs you, but do move from it so that you can create and then have something higher to feel good about later. Choose to have what you desire now, right down to the molecules in your feeling world. Don’t relegate it to some other unreachable tomorrow.

It seems worth reiterating that that notorious ‘guest’ at the DC dinner party was also the recipient of a similar gesture that saved the day – and some lives. Just as at the chateau where, instead of resisting the revolt, the uncle turned it into his own gesture of peace, so did those at that small dinner party in DC. In each case, a wise if not heartfelt offering preserved the dignity as well as the lives of all concerned.

Okay, so how can you turn feelings around during times of evident doom and gloom?

What corollary emotions and thought seem to be swirling through the collective consciousness? Not so difficult to imagine, especially after months of news about people falling to ruin during the worst financial recession of our nation’s history.

Amid the hastily planned and perhaps, effective (or not) recovery measures enacted in lightning-speed succession, how do you truly feel about the spiritual principle of abundance?

Has anyone really taken anything from you?

Do you commiserate with others about those who seemed to have absconded with your retirement fund by the largest shift of wealth and power in history? Perhaps you prefer a more multi-layered view of events, with a little conspiracy theory and even para-political manipulation thrown in the mix? Are you working with others to revolt against invisible or puppet miscreants?

Or are you busy cooperating to create or support green ventures that may at least begin to pave the way toward real change? How can you find ways to participate in co-creating positively, from a grass-roots or entrepreneurial standpoint?

Maybe you are too busy surviving. Maybe you prefer an apolitical viewpoint. Maybe this just doesn’t effect you at all; your chateau having been spared.

Or, instead of dwelling so much upon any of this, maybe you’ve decided that how you choose to feel about any of it is more important than what appears in the world. And that by neither focusing on or ignoring the events surrounding what may seem like the thrashing of our collective hopes and dreams, you believe recessions are only part of the ongoing growth or cycle of the economy.

Whatever you dwell on, even for a time, you can always choose to turn back to the immaculate Truth

You can choose to not allow any of this to pollute your conscious awareness of eternal beauty. Of the abundance inherent in creation.

While recessions do tend to last well over a year, many economists started to predict that this one may last longer. On the other hand, data collected by sources that predicted this recent crash has also surfaced to point to recovery beginning as early as this summer.

What version of this drama can you rely on? And what can you do amid apparent contradiction to instill and nurture your own conscious awareness of the Truth? The truth that you have unlimited resources, from the Unlimited Within.

Are there fairly recent lessons in history from which to find your inspiration?

Perhaps so; during the Great Depression, for instance, there were countless individuals who prospered. People who, instead of being sucked out to sea by the tidal wave of dire events, rode that wave to find true wealth in spite of the times.

And these survivors and even thrivers were not just descendants of the big wheels who created the prospering industrial revolution. Stories abound about how the wealthiest among even pre-Depression Era industrialists practiced generosity and never stinted in giving. But so did those who were not born with the proverbial silver spoon.

Speaking of wealth, is being rich the same thing as being wealthy? Not necessarily. Wealth has the adjective ‘well’ in its root origin, and ‘well’ as an adjective implies the state of being in good health and satisfactory position. Holistically, we can then define the state of wealth as one of ‘well-being’. And yet there is nothing wrong with being rich. Look that up in the dictionary and relish the imagery it invokes.

My inspiration comes from closer to home

A legacy of such true wealth springs to mind when I remember a close family member long departed, a woman of simple means. She was one known to have thrived by hard work and a natural adherence to principles of generosity, giving as she did even from what to outer appearances seemed a meager supply.

She instilled this practice in me, not so much by teaching me directly, but by my own observation of her character. I absorbed an understanding of how in spite of challenging circumstances, a person’s capacity to just relax and be the receiver opened them to unexpected and unending streams of supply.

This family member’s generous nature permeated her aura as well-being, as someone everyone wanted to be with

Her house was always full with those she entertained–friends, loved-ones, family–even after her children had grown and moved out. She didn’t worry where the food would come from to feed all those who came to her. All things were drawn to her. She received gifts of food and plenty from others. She did not stress, worry or try to figure it all out. She asked, she let the Source of her being do, and she never looked at life as ‘not working’ or thatwhat she asked for was ‘not there’.

She confidently expected, and it came.

Many in her shoes, then as perhaps even today, might have felt such giving was unwise during hard times. But she never changed her practice of giving from her pure heart. And treating even those who may not have appeared to deserve it with the same respect as those who were unarguably easier to love. Those who knew her said she was like this even before the economic uncertainty of their time.

Some of the best ideas for re-creating the times come from tapping the abundance of your internal resources

When I speak of abundance I include all that the word implies, the same well-being of body, mind and soul inherent in the definition of true wealth. I include richness in that the experience of having abundance also includes being abundantly supplied with valuable resources, experiencing life as being more sumptuous, vivid, full, fragrant and offering you more of what you desire to be happy and fulfilled.

If you stop me here to say I am teaching selfishness, I agree. Remember, I have already said that you must be what the world calls selfish in order to offer yourself more selflessly. Ask to receive to give. Give to receive to give again. Ask. That’s all you have to do. Then receive the clearest guidance of what to do next. If in doubt, give.

But do any of what I suggest here, not to receive. Am I being contradictory? No, I am providing a key: the secret is in the motive. It’s okay to be expectant, but first do the asking, visualization and giving from a place of pure pleasure. Not from a place of ‘gotta have’. ‘Gotta have’ implies you don’t have something. It fixes your attention on the lack.

Fix your attention on the feeling of what it is like already having your desire

That’s confident expectation. That you already have it so much in the molecules of your sense body that the rest of you responds to the sure guidance you receive each step of the way to the unfolding of the actual experience.

Abundance is after all a spiritual state that fills you with the fragrant beauty of life, that exudes from you in such an effervescence that you both attract and create more and more experiences that you can then share. This kind of abundance is the life that begins from the knowing you already have it inside. And from there it can only spill out all around you as the gifts of magnanimity you offer to life.

Attracting this abundance begins with how you feel while you hold your focus, your thought and emotion, on the change you desire to be and to effect in the world, beginning with where you are.

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