Hello Merry Ones, down below are the vows that I collected through old emails that some of us put together back in October 2009.
While looking for the email vows I also found this email that Susan sent to the group back in 2009 describing her dreams that she had. I reread it and wow did it ever touch me deeper this time around. Thank you all for you teachings!
I will listen to myself
I will not hurt myself
I will trust myself
I will be disciplined and not allow the parasite to hook me out
of my discipline.
I will keep looking for myself even
though I can't find myself.
I will be kind to myself.
I will put new awareness into action
I will honor all my authentic feelings whether they be positive or negative.
I will tune in each moment and decide whether to express or not
I will live the unknown
I will be present where I am emotionally
I will be patient with myself
I will tune in to Life
I will trust myself to look at/feel whatever emotion comes up for me.
I vow to be more authentic with myself.
I vow to accept my feelings without judgement.
I vow to sit in my feelings of needing to give and explore it more.
Bring “awareness” to every moment
Become friends with “ doubt”! Find the truth in it.
"I will spend time with my feelings with a gentle non-judgmental attitude."
I will not judge myself and others
I will respect myself and others.
I will not get hooked on others emotional manipulations.
I will provide my own encouragement.
I
will know that I am life - selfishness cannot exist....(sort of a way
of reinforcing that I am life and that loving me and all that I am is
loving everyone and so it is...)
* know nothing
* Embrace denial
* Trust whatever
* Feel my emotions
* Stop with the stories( re-framed, be aware of the stories,yet not believe them)
* Enter the mystery
* Put my relationship with Self/self first
* I can and will...
For the past week I had dreamt 2 versions of the same dream. On
Friday
night of our Toltec weekend, I experienced the dream again. The dream
involved a terrible crime of ruthless death and butchery. A team of
detectives, all dressed in black suits and hats arrived at my house,
telling me that I was charged with murder and they had a warrant to go
through my house. I kept telling them that I didn't know what they were
talking about, but as they fanned out into my rooms, they discovered
dessicated limbs, fingers, legs and head of a body. I was terrified and
insisted that I was a good person, and not capable of such a horrible
act. And yet, the detectives were so insistent and so powerful in their
numbers that I began to doubt myself, and wondered if in fact I was
involved in this heinous murder. It didn't seem possible to my rational
mind, and yet at a deeper level, there was a nagging truth to it all. At
dawn, I awoke with a start, and tried to dialogue with the imagery.
When
our toltec group regrouped in the morning, it turned out that we had
all experienced disturbed sleeps and dreams. Lennie in her wisdom,
advised us to go into the energy of the dreams, without the stories, and
try to connect with the emotions. As I started to move into a
meditative state, I felt my dream was perhaps calling me to recognize
the shadow side of my capacity for violence, denial, manipulation, and
to explore my deep fear of punishment for committing this violent crime.
To the ego level, I did not recognize myself in the dream, nevertheless
its symbolism was loud, and I was willing to sit with the energy to see
where it led. From where I started in the dream, to where I ended in
the meditation was quite a surprising evolution. As I descended into the
dream, I found myself grief stricken and filled with guilt for my act
of murder, and even more crushed thinking about the pain of punishment. A
voice suddenly emerged, saying ' there is no punishment, only
forgiveness; surrender to the grief, the feelings, and through surrender
you will find forgiveness". The voice continued, " don't abandon your
belly... process and release quickly to let new energy flow".
Almost
from another dimension, I heard a commanding voice say " pick up the
pieces", and with those words, I found myself transplanted into the
ocean. I found my body being reassembled and all those murdered and lost
pieces pulled out the water into a large "spirit canoe". Inside the
canoe is an atmosphere of ceremony and silent holiness. All parts of my
murdered body and self are being treated as "sacred objects", honored,
and clothed in ceremonial garb. As I sit embraced in the "spirit canoe",
the tenderness, forgiveness and compassion is almost too much to bear. I
cry out that I am not worthy. I am a murderer, let me drown. No one
seems to hear me, and as I look through the night, I see that this
beautiful canoe is being paddled by the "detectives" who came to
investigate the murder. They are now in warrior ceremonial gear, and
hold a wonderful masculine energy as they move the canoe forward with
their paddling. At the back of the canoe, a grandmother directs the
paddlers. As I look through the darkness, I see that there are hundreds
of these "spirit canoes" being paddled in the silent darkness of the
night, picking up lost pieces of the world. Everywhere I feel this
silent co-operation between the paddlers; a deep knowingness, holiness
and grace that I cannot even begin to understand with my brain...
I
realized that the "murdered" person in my house was really myself. I
had shattered my body ad broken my heart, but still when the grandmother
told me to go and "pick up the pieces", I was shocked to find them
alive and vibrating. I thought they were dead, but she said " this is
your authentic self" - can you hear it calling you back?" What a miracle
that my authenticity was still alive, even though I had tried to kill
it and conceal the evidence. The "detective team" arrived, not to punish
me for my crime, but to help me to solve it, so that I could heal and
become renewed and rebirthed in the "spirit canoe". As the canoe glided
across the calm deep water, tears rolled down my cheeks in deep
gratitude for this dream experience. It was about the power of death and
rebirth to myself and the world, and to the power and presence of
mystery waiting to be birthed.