Patricia Pearce

Helping You Be the Change

The Promise of an Awakened World

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This is a talk and guided meditation I presented for Unity Church of Albany on June 27, 2021.

Transcript

I’ve been looking forward to this talk and this opportunity to bring you a message ever since Roger reached out to me several weeks ago, and invited me to speak to you all and he shared with me the vision statement that you adopted last summer, “a world transformed through spiritual awakening of all.”

And when I saw that, that vision statement, I knew that. something’s afoot here. Like this is meant to happen. So it’s really my delight and my honor to be with you all today to talk about the promise of an awakened world.Continue Reading

The Blessing of Trust

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The new world is beyond even our capacity to imagine.

I had a dream the other night in which I am given a blessing that I am to impart to a male friend of mine. The blessing is single word: Trust. (The man is someone I know in waking life, someone who is deeply in tune with his intuition and with his feminine aspect.)

Later in the dream, after I’ve shared with him the blessing, I see my friend practicing it by standing in front of a mirror and repeatedly shrugging his shoulders.

As I was doing some yoga the following morning, the dream came back to me and I could see that it was depicting the animus, or the male energy, being relieved of a tremendous burden it has carried: the need to know.

In the dream my friend was shrugging his shoulders, expressing his willingness to not-know, which is what trust requires.Continue Reading

Orientation for New Guardian Angels

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You will long for your human to be able to see their splendor

Thank you for attending this orientation session, and thank you for your willingness to serve as a guardian angel to your assigned human during their Earthly sojourn. In preparation for your service, we wanted to give you a bit of information to orient you and prepare you for this assignment.

First of all, as you accompany your human, you will find that the human mind excels in its ability to embrace and believe falsehoods. You will be astonished that your human has the capacity to believe things that, from our angelic perspective, are ludicrous, and to devote their lives to manifesting these falsehoods.

Chances are, for example, that your human will believe in something called “separateness.” They will believe they can be cut off from Love. They will believe they can be unlovable. They will believe they are responsible for proving and establishing their worth. They will believe they can construct an entire world founded upon these erroneous beliefs, and they will be remarkably successful in doing so.Continue Reading

The Forest: Our Wisdom Teacher

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Life is an interdependent whole.

Recently, a criminal cyber organization called DarkSide, based in Eastern Europe, hacked into Colonial Pipeline’s computer system and installed ransomware. As a result, the pipeline, which serves many areas on the East Coast, was shut down.

After they hacked Colonial Pipeline, DarkSide apologized for inconveniencing U.S. citizens. They claimed they only ever wanted money and never intended to disrupt the lives of ordinary people. After pressure was put on them by the U.S. government, DarkSide supposedly disbanded their operations.

What I find especially interesting is that DarkSide (who comes up with these names anyway?) had so perfected their ransomware that they had established a franchise, sharing their ransomware code with other hackers in exchange for a portion of their proceeds.

That the Internet, which now connects people globally, is being used to extort wealth may be inevitable in a capitalist economy that is all about taking. The whole idea in vogue now is to amass as much wealth as possible and share as little as you can get away with.

It may be that DarkSide is just bringing out of the shadows the dysfunctional priorities of the global economy. The only difference is that in their case the law doesn’t support the way they go about it. But then, laws, too, can be criminal.Continue Reading

Outgrowing Our Myths

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In the many, the One.

Several months ago, on my birthday in fact, I had a dream unlike any I’ve ever had: a dream telling me how to interpret another dream I had 15 years prior.

The original dream was quite short. Here it is.

I’m returning from some sort of sojourn or quest, possibly returning from my time on Earth, and a Voice asks me, “Did you see minotaurs?”

I reply, “No. I saw crystal, and a star on the rainbow of life.”

The Minotaur, as you may recall, was that creature from Greek mythology that had the torso of a man and the head and tail of a bull. It was a ferocious creature that eventually had to be imprisoned in a labyrinth on Crete, and every year it would be fed with human sacrifices.

As I worked on the dream, I wondered, “What does it mean to see minotaurs?” I sensed that it symbolized journeying through life seeing only terrifying forces looking to devour you, living beholden to a myth of fear.

But I was baffled by my response to the question that had been posed to me. Seeing “crystal and a star on the rainbow of life” sounded very poetic, but I had no idea what it meant.

That’s where the dream I had last fall stepped in. It told me that crystal symbolizes the way in which light solidifies into form. The rainbow, the dream explained, symbolizes the diversity of expression that light takes on, just as in a rainbow light refracts into many colors. To see a star on the rainbow of life is to be able to see that all diversity arises from a single Source.

I was in awe, and very grateful, to receive this clarification of a dream that seemed important but had always stumped me.

This shift, from the mythology of fear into a realization of the intrinsic oneness underlying All That Is, is part of the global awakening that is underway. We are living in an era in which humans are becoming increasingly aware of the wholeness at the heart of all matter and of the unified Source that expresses in astounding diversity in this world and cosmos.

This recognition of diversity as an expression of singularity and form as solidified light is a long way from the mythologies of our ancestors that have guided our understanding for millennia.

Mythologies, like all stories, are ideas in the mind that have taken on narrative form. They are symbolic rather than real, and they can either be true or false, expressing either the truth of interbeingness and Love, or depicting the illusion of separateness, enemies, and fear.

Personally, I am someone who loves stories, but lately I have become unwilling to indulge in stories that aren’t true, whether they show up in the media or in my own mind. I guess you could say I’m done with minotaurs.

But give me a story that captures the essence of Light taking on form, or a story that transports me to the star on the rainbow of life, and I’m all-in.

I also know, though, that to live my entire life immersed in story, even if it is true, would be to live my life missing out on the unspeakable amazement of this present Moment. The mind, when it is engaged with story, is in a trance state. Only when it steps away from story to be fully present to What Is can it have a direct experience of Reality. Only then can it behold the beauty of Light dancing Its infinite diversity into form.

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The Impulse to Be

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Is it time to let your awareness be rooted in the deep soil of your soul?
Recently I was talking with some women friends who have accompanied one another in our spiritual lives for nearly 20 years, and the conversation turned to something several of us are experiencing right now: the impulse to be, rather than to do. I have noticed it in myself of late. It is as though something in me is putting the brakes on any sort of initiative. It is a season in which inner patterns are dissolving and even imagination seems to be taking a hiatus. I haven’t a clue what comes forth from it all. I am simply yielding to it and allowing it to be. As I was noticing this impulse to not-do, an image arose in my mind of a tree, and I could feel how doing and action in our usual human sense of those words were foreign concepts for it. The tree was not going anywhere. It was becoming more deeply rooted in its own beingness.Continue Reading

Reflections on the George Floyd Case

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Dear One,

I know you would like insight into what wants to be said about the verdict rendered this week in the case of George Floyd’s killing.  As you know, there are various levels from which to observe this world. One is at the literal level of events themselves. Another is a higher and wider vantage point from which one can see the symbolic meaning of the events.

On the literal level, this verdict reflects what your world thinks of as justice. A great wrong was committed, and the person who committed it was held accountable. Therefore, justice has been served.

This is a variation of the eye for an eye story. In this understanding of justice, a wrong is answered with a corresponding punishment, and the belief is that this restores some sense of balance, some sense of rightness.

And yet, even from this level it is obvious that no punishment can undo what was done. No punishment can ever return George Floyd to his life and to his loved ones. In this sense, justice is never and can never be achieved.

Your own mystical experiences have shown you that this world is a dream, and as you know, dreams are symbolic. Therefore the events in your world are symbolically depicting beliefs held in the mind. This is not to say that, because it is a dream, there is no suffering. As you know, the mind that is experiencing a dream is experiencing it—all of its anguish, all of its elation.

Knowing this world to be a dream you can see that this event is revealing a belief held in the mind, and that this verdict, which sets a new precedent for your society, is a turning point because it signals that the mind has begun to change. It is beginning to divest from the erroneous idea of racism.

On the literal level, Derek Chauvin was on trial, and beyond him as an individual, the idea that police can act with impunity toward Black people was on trial, and from a broader perspective still, the idea of white supremacy was on trial.

Now this is where a distinction is to be made when it comes to the concept of judgment. Within the domain of the ego mind, judgment is that which deems something “bad,” and this idea of judgment is a crucial keystone in the ego’s thought system.

And yet you know that in right-mindedness this sort of judgment does not exist. What does exist is the ability to discern truth from falsehood, Reality from illusion. From the vantage point of Love, white supremacy isn’t “bad.” It is illusory. An error in the mind. Something that has no basis in Reality, which is absolute Love.

One of the driving desires of ego is to be special, and white supremacy is the belief that an entire “race” of people is special. (Please understand that the idea of race is yet another illusion.) This belief in specialness is what the mind is now moving away from. This is the erroneous fallacy the mind is beginning to see through.

As you also know, in dreams each element and character depict an aspect of the dreaming mind. In this sense, Derek Chauvin is a representation of this erroneous idea in the mind. His actions were not merely the actions of an individual, but an enactment of a belief. The fact that the mind is now rejecting this belief, rejecting the fallacy of white supremacy, is a hopeful sign to you that egoic consciousness is indeed waning and its grip on the mind is loosening.

So how then are you to hold this situation? As always, you are to hold it in Love. To hold the Floyd family in Love. To hold all the people of color who have been repeatedly traumatized because of this fallacy in Love. To hold the Derek Chauvins of the world in Love, for they are lost sheep who are alienated from the truth of themselves.

You and all the others who are here on the planet at this time to fortify the presence of Love are doing a great service, greater than you know. By holding Love in your Hearts you are enabling the dreaming mind to awaken to the truth of Love.

Always remember that the realm of Spirit is with you, holding you in the greatest esteem, and with unbounded gratitude.

Eternally,
Your True Self

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Spring at the Penitentiary

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It’s time we rejoin the community of Life.

In the heart of my neighborhood here in Philadelphia stands an imposing building that looks like a medieval fortress complete with turrets.

Eastern State Penitentiary, which is now a museum dedicated to raising awareness about the criminal justice system and mass incarceration, was built in the early 1800’s and was originally conceived as a visionary reform to the criminal justice system of the time, which used various means of corporal punishment as the sentences for crime.

The idea that was envisioned and which took on form at Eastern State Penitentiary was that a person found guilty would be removed from society for a period of time to contemplate, without any distractions, what they had done. The belief was that, by contemplating their wrongdoing, inmates would reform themselves. They would become penitent, hence the name penitentiary.

It was the first time that time became the sentence for a crime, and people doing time at Eastern State Penitentiary when it first opened had absolutely no contact with other human beings. They were kept in their own cells, handed their meals through small openings in the wall, provided a Bible, and given lots of time to think.

What the people running the penitentiary discovered, though, was that rather than becoming penitent, the inmates started going insane. They were subjected to what we now know as solitary confinement, something that is completely unnatural for human beings, social creatures that we are. (After a year of COVID, some of us had had a glimpse of the toll isolation can take.)

Frequently, when I pass by Eastern State, I think of how the penitentiary is a carefully architected depiction in stone of our story of separateness. Most of us, most of the time, live inside a sort of prison of the mind, believing and perceiving ourselves to be cut off from one another, from the Earth, from the Source of our Being, even from our true Self. This perception, even though it is illusory, has resulted in us feeling an existential displacement from the community of All Being.

Many years ago I got an inside glimpse into what actual incarceration is like when I was sentenced to a week in federal prison for engaging in civil disobedience when the US launched its invasion of Iraq. It seemed symbolic that I and the dozen others protesters who were sentenced with me, had to report to the Federal Detention Center on Earth Day.

Walking into that prison, leaving the spring sunshine and blossoming trees behind and stepping into the completely artificial environment of cinderblock walls, florescent lights, cell blocks and locked doors, was one of the most surreal experiences I’ve ever had.

While I was there, I reflected on what it would be like to be in this environment year after year.

Earlier in the day I had stood with my eye glued to a tiny pinprick of clear glass I had discovered on the frosted window of our cell. Smaller than the head of a pin, it was my only view to the outside world. Looking through it I could make out the basic outlines of buildings, cars, a distant highway. I realized that for me the cruelest aspect of imprisonment would be to live months and even years never seeing a moonrise or a flower opening to the sun, never feeling the breeze on my skin or breathing in the smell of the woods after a rain, never hearing birdsong or touching the rough bark of a tree or walking a beach and feeling the sand beneath my feet. Ripping people away from the web of life and caging them in a world of artificial lights and unyielding surfaces was inhumane, the antithesis of the spiritual truth of interconnection. [ excerpt from Beyond Jesus: My Spiritual Odyssey]

This is the month when we celebrate Earth Day, an observation that calls us to renew our relationship with the Earth and to restore the damage done by our dream of separateness. It is a time for us to bring down the walls of isolation that we have built within ourselves so that we can know our oneness with all life on the planet.

The other morning, I took a walk around Eastern State Penitentiary. It was a gorgeous April morning, and the flower beds in front of the prison were brimming with hundreds of daffodils, tulips and iris. Along one of the towering walls the air was full of birdsong, as birds flitted in and out of cracks and crevasses between the stones where they had found safe places to build their nests.

That this historic site, such a graphic symbol of humanity doing time in our story of separateness, should now be a place where birds can hatch new life and daffodils and tulips open their petals to the sun moved me. It reflected the shift so many of us sense is happening on the planet right now as we move beyond the egoic consciousness of separateness and into an awareness of the truth of Love.

And just as moving was coming upon a gathering of toddlers and their parents sitting on the grass, in the community garden that has been created on the penitentiary grounds, under a canopy of flowering pear trees. They were being led in song by a young woman reading a story to them that had a recurring chorus, a story titled One Love.

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