After-Thought: Passion-Ashes

Passion-Ashes – Bread Crumbs from the Soul
Path Three – The Path of Passion
Sunday, October 25, 2009

I have been reflecting on my Sunday message and really going deeper inside to discover what my passion is. I missed the mark on my “bread crumbs” analogy – calling them passion crumbs instead of what I see now as passion ashes. They are the ashes left behind from the “fire in the belly” that point us and show us the path of our passion. These ashes give us evidence of the “little fires,” the sparks that Vivekananda reminded us are our “karma.” (I will re-type that passage that I shared on Sunday at the end of this writing.)

I was reflecting this morning in my mediation on my own passion ashes, in particular the evidence of a long-held desire/idea/intention of mine to write a book on the Unity teachings of the 12 powers. When I started to look back at the numerous little piles of ashes in my life I could see a steady trail that started in 1992 in Sacramento at Unity Christ Church Continuing Education Program. I was a new Unity Student and taking my first week of classes that would eventually lead to my Licensed Unity Teacher credential. (When I think back I believe that the seeds of desire to become a Unity minster were planted in that week’s experience. But that is another story.) I found a set of colorful cards describing something called Unity’s 12 Powers. I was intrigued ,fascinated and a little bit overwhelmed I didn’t know how I would ever remember 12 somethings, three to five seemed like my limit! I had never heard of this teaching and it seemed to resonate within me very deeply.

Over the next few years I began to gather all the books on the 12 powers that I could find. It was not a program or theme that seemed to interest my minster, but as I was planning to become a Licensed Teacher I was free to do my own study and focus. In December 1995, I decided to select one power to focus on each year. I would close my eyes and select one card from my stack of 12 and really be intentional in my awareness of that particular power for the following year. I remember that first year because I so wanted to pick the power of LOVE, but I got STRENGTH, which seemed rather pedestrian and not very WOW. How wrong I was! That year was one of great challenge for me and my family, and my inner Strength was just what I needed to cultivate and rely on. .

In the mid 1990s I began to create spiritual growth programs based on books. In 1998 created a six week book study for a small group study program in Santa Rosa that was based on the 12 powers. Next I created a 13 week sabbatical for my Unity in Marin minister called Claim Your Power. From the early days of New Thought Unity, later to become Unity of Berkeley, I created the tradition of having people pick a 12 Power Card at the Christmas Eve Service. One year we studied a power each month to bring more focus to the ideas. One year I tried to offer a once a month Saturday class on the 12 powers, but the energy was not strong and so that class did not continue as I had hoped. The timing was not right, not in Divine Order I guess.

Between Christmas and New Year’s Day in 2007, I took a week to pray and study and once again caught the fire of writing my own book on the 12 powers. I set up a web site, www.claimyoursoulpower.com. I had wanted to call it Claim Your Power but that name was already taken. I started writing and working on the site, and then my fire went out and another pile of ashes were left on the trail.

This Sunday, when May Rose was sharing about her idea to raise funds for the church by doing a matching $1,000 challenge, I realized how much the 12 powers really mean to ME. She has been telling me that the program is not HER program. She had another idea of how to raise the funds, but due to travel and illness was not able to execute her idea. In being with all of this conversation I realized how I have put my own passion for this project on the back burner. It has been on simmer for a very long time.

Today I have been fanning the fire in my belly and looking at what transformation is happening in this fire, and what is my karma, my authentic action to take? My desire has always been to get this 12 power message out in a contemporary, compelling, current book that will offer insight and tools for personal spiritual growth. And so I am taking this action, I am writing to share with all of you.

Sometimes we share our thoughts and then find the after-thoughts are more powerful. Such has been the case with me today and yesterday and all last week. I have been living these topics, as we are Walking in the Light together for these seven weeks. I dearly hope that you are finding your passion, your deeper purpose and your spiritual power as you journey with me this fall at Unity.

I owe you a write up on our Path Two of Creativity and Abundance. I think I will let Spirit flow these transmissions in the right and perfect order for my soul growth and hopefully for each of you. I welcome your ideas, your comments and your prayers. This journey is more fun when we take it together.

The children did a belly button meditation yesterday to focus on the third chakra and the solar plexus. I hope you will have a belly laugh and find your spiritual power center as you look at the divine fires you have created and those that are waiting for your good karma, your authentic. God bless.
In Love and Oneness
Rev. Patricia

Here is the reading from Sunday morning
By Vivekananda from Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga, published 1955 page 5-8

“Like fire in a piece of flint, knowledge exists in the mind. Suggestion is the friction which brings it out. So with all our feelings and actions. Our tears and our smiles, our joys and our griefs, our weeping and our laughter, our curses and our blessings, our praises, and our blaming – every one of these we shall find, if we calmly study our own selves, to have been brought out from within ourselves by so many blows. The result is what we are. All these blows taken together are called karma- work, action. Every mental and physical blow that is given to the soul, by which, as it were, fire is struck from it, and by which its own power and knowledge are discovered is karma, using the word in its widest sense. Thus we are all doing karma all the time. I am talking to you: that is karma. You are listening: that is karma. We breathe: that is karma. We walk: that is karma. Everything we do, physical or mental, is karma, and it leaves its marks on us……You must remember that the aim of all work, is simply to bring out the power of the mind which is already there, to wake up the soul. The power is inside every person; and so is knowledge. Different works are like blows to bring them out, to cause these giants to wake up.”