I am mountain

I am budding tree

I am crumbling rock,

Raging river,

Ebb and tide.

I am moon,

I am fading flower,

Eternal dance,

Ephemeral song.

I am spirit hovering over the deep.

I am form and formless.

I am Alpha and Omega,

Beginning and end and

All the nows in between

World without end.

One day this form will pass away, 

but who I am can never die.

I am the cosmos,

the stuff of stars.

I am life,

the universal Christ lives in me. 

I am created in God's image,

part of all creation,

yet never ending,

always existing.

I am that I am.

I am, but though I exist now in this limited body,

I am eternal.

I am connected to the whole of creation.

We are one.

I am the wind.

I am the red-tailed hawk upon the breeze.

I am the awareness.

I am peace, stillness, joy, love.

I am my brothers and sisters 

and mother and father.

I am my "enemy".

I am all and none.

I am the dash on my gravestone!

I am the space between 

those etched, but fleeting years.

Knowing this, I am free!

I am that I am, now.

I always am.

Selah.

Today's lesson: learning to accept what is and relinquishing "my" story. 

 What did I grumble about today? My sister worked in the yard. Yep, now that I say it out loud, I can see the absurdity of my ego railing against help.  

 Instead of rejoicing that she is participating in creation, I grumbled and complained and resisted what is. No acceptance. Instead, I filled my mind with judgments and imagined judgments from her. "I don't like the way the flower beds look, they are all chaotic, tangled, trashy." Instead of being happy that she was getting involved, I took offense. In my mind, I complained and defended myself and told myself over and over, with every snarky complaint from her, "Well, at least I TRIED to do something!" 

 I did not say it out loud, but I get why Jesus said, "If you say it or do it in your heart, you've already done it." I was defending my bruised ego all day, taking offense at everything she said, implied, or didn't say. "She didn't even thank me for spending hundreds of dollars every year on new plants and hours and hours planting them. Hmmmph!" See? I was totally identified with defending my sense of "self" or ego, instead of just accepting what is.

My whole day could have been different if I had just said to myself: "Hey, it's a good thing that she is participating. So what if she gripes about the way I did it? She can't help it anyway. She is unconscious. Not that I am superior. But I can accept what is. It is as it is. Complaining or grumbling will not change anything for the better. Stop seeing only her ego structures. Stop imprisoning your sister. Set her free by seeing the weight of glory in her. Let go of judgments against her, the situation, and me. Let it go. "

I can see now.

That anger was my pain body just reacting to a trigger which may or may not have been there. I have a choice moment by moment to settle for arguments, drama, ego v ego, and fighting against forms, or to live in my deepest presence now just letting go, accepting what is, and relishing the deep peace of inner self.

 And doing so, I set not only myself free, but I set my sister free from all my judgments against her.  I release her to be the divine presence that is her true self.