Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day.

Today I speak in Flagstaff, Arizona. Since it is Father’s Day I wanted to speak about father’s in our lives and how they, just like everyone and everything, exist to develop our Soul. What do I mean by this? I mean that EVERYTHING gives us an opportunity to develop the capacity to become more loving and more grace-filled.

My desire for myself is that I train my mind to look less to the past and more to the “Emergence” of what is birthing Itself on the leading edge of my consciousness and the expansion of my heart. In other words, I can look back at my father and “judge” him (positive or negative) or I can wonder if maybe together the two of us co-created a field that contains us and is beyond us so that both of our Souls may evolve. That is a different way of looking at relationship. What if my father created me physically and influenced me socially, emotionally, intellectually where I in turn mirrored between us either my opinion OR an opportunity for more of God (also known as Life and Love) to be lived through and between us?

Since there is no time and space in the Infinite God, we can and are always create and recreate our relationships regardless if someone is alive or deceased in physical form. What a great way to celebrate Father’s Day this year. I choose to incorporate my dad into my daily spiritual practice in order to enhance the Field of Love between us and I give thanks for his presence as one that expanded my Soul.

Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hahn, engages in many forms of prayers for parents as each parent represents the feminine and the masculine within us. Anything unhealed between them will show up in our unconscious interaction with others and usually sideways. Therefore the forgiveness work and the ripening he offers is in the developing of healthy and beloved inner parents. Below is one of his meditation. I have changed “Buddha” to “Divine Love” as I can take it in more fully:

Breathing in, I invite the Divine Love to breathe with my lungs.
Breathing out, I invited the Divine Love to sit with my back.

Divine Love is breathing, Divine Love is sitting.
I enjoy breathing, I enjoy sitting.

I know that the quality of the breathing, in the Divine Love breath, is excellent.
I know the quality of his sitting is excellent.
I enjoy breathing. I enjoy sitting.

I am aware that my father is fully present in every cell of my body.
I invite my father to breathe in with me. Breathe out with me.
I would like to invite my father in me to sit with my back – this is my back, but it is also his back.
Father and son. Father and daughter. Breathing together.

Breathing in, I feel so light. Breathing out, I feel so free.
Daddy, do you feel as light as I do? Do you feel as free as I do?

I know that my mother is fully present in every cell of my body.
I invite my mother to breathe with my lungs, to sit with my back.
This is my back, but it is also hers.
Mother and son breathing in together. Mother and daughter breathing in together.
Mother and son breathing out together. Mother and daughter breathing out together.

Breathing in, I feel so light.
Mother, do you feel as light as I do?

Breathing out, I feel so free.
Mother, do you feel as free as I do?

I wish for you, my friend, a blessed and beloved Father’s Day.