Greetings in Gratitude!

Yesterday the message was about how we can contribute. We are well-schooled in giving. Our society, our communities, our families give us so much training in doing service for others. The sketchier training is in how to receive; how we renew ourselves. It seems we need prompting often to recreate self. This has been my primary life lesson: how to receive without guilt; how to receive without limit from The All That Is.

In May of last year I gave myself H1N1 and collapsed, flat on my back with fever for a few days. Unable to do anything except drink water and eliminate, I faced The All That Is with no choice but to open gratefully to receive. Energy moved through me, effectively renewing me and, perfectly, teaching me that receiving to this degree requires total surrender.

Total surrender?! I've been practicing all these years and still had so much to learn.

Acceptance does not come easily to those of us who have learned that survival means struggle.

For months before the flu drama, my heavy cotton lace drapes had been turned inward, time and again, during the night. What was my first reaction (after thinking I must be sleepwalking)? I thought, what have I done wrong? Certainly, if it was important for my guides to be contacting me, I must need correction.

Then, as I processed further, and the drapes continued to turn in the night, I realized I was getting no correction. One morning after straightening the drapes and going to the shower I suddenly realized I was learning how to receive without self-consciousness, without limitations. I knew that receiving was mine, not by earning or deserving but simply by being. The "drape messengers" turned the drape while I was in the shower, and I could "see" them applauding!

But it wasn't until I gave myself the flu that I realized how far I had yet to travel in this new Wisdom.

And breathing is the practice to achieve surrender. Whether we are receiving insights or new cars, breathing is the key. Breath is the key to open ourselves to The All That Is. With each deliberate breath we remember we are Spirit, thought falls away and we enter that stream of consciousness through which all things are made possible.

As we enter that stream of consciousness we reveal Self, the Master Self, which is all wisdom.

In that Wisdom we know - not the future necessarily - we know who and what we are. We have certainty that reaches beyond the physical and gives us ultimate Peace. This Wisdom is Peace.

This is the ultimate surrender; the surrender that releases us from the struggle we once learned so well. Survival is not the objective. Life with ease, life with Peace, life in the Wisdom of Master Self is the objective, and we are achieving it!

With Breath, we are achieving it.

Until next time,

Phyllis