Join us later today when we present a synopsis of Joanna Macy's long awaited two-day workshop, Taking Heart in Tough Times.

- Mattie Porte -

Opening Address, Positive Energy Conference
Findhorn, March 23, 2008
Given by Dorothy Maclean

Firstly let me say how wonderful it is to see you all here. As I look around, I see many familiar faces, and many more new ones.

I was horrified at finding myself being given the role of keynote speaker. I must confess to feeling somewhat nervous. I was daunted by the responsibility of getting us all off to a good start. However, I got marching orders from within to go ahead!

As I read through the materials about this conference, and about the other speakers who are here, I wondered just what my role could be. I am not an ecologist or an environmentalist. I am neither philosopher nor politician. Nor am I trained or experienced in helping to shape structures for housing, or finances or decision-making. In looking for ways to describe what I am, I realised there were several descriptions that rested reasonably comfortably on my being. One is that of planetary citizen. I even have a passport to prove it, although no country has ever recognised it. Another is as mystic. Although I refer to myself as a modern mystic, my story differs only in the details from stories that have been lived out and told through the ages. Ever since we humans began to try and name or codify that which is all around us, there have been men and women who found themselves caught up by the magnificence that is in our environment – from the stars to the tiniest creature. Nature is a doorway to an understanding of, and a relationship with, the Divine that defies description. Yet nonetheless we try to describe it.

A friend recently shared with me the introduction to a book she was reading, and there was something in it that resonated with me – perhaps because, like the author, I too believe in the power of stories

With some paraphrasing to make it work in this context, I would like to share it with you.

Once upon a time the description of a planet as round and spinning in a great void of space, would have been considered strange, even impossible.

But then …. things used to be so simple, once upon a time.

Because the universe was full of ignorance all around, scientists began to pan through it like prospectors crouched over a mountain stream. They were looking for the gold of knowledge among the gravel of unreason, the sand of uncertainty, and the little wiskery eight-legged swimming things of superstition.

Occasionally one would straighten up and say things like “Hurrah, I’ve discovered Boyle’s Third Law”. And then everyone knew where he or she stood. But the trouble was that ignorance became more and more interesting, especially big fascinating ignorance about huge and important things like matter and creation. People stopped patiently building their little houses of rational sticks in the chaos of the universe, and started getting interested in the chaos itself – partly because it was a lot easier to be an expert on chaos, but mostly because it made really good patterns that you could put on a t-shirt.

And instead of getting on with proper science (I’ll come back to what I mean by proper science in a minute), the scientists suddenly went around saying how impossible it was to know anything, and that there wasn’t really anything you could call reality to know anything about! All this was tremendously exciting. Incidentally, did you know there are possibly all sorts of little universes all over the place, but no-one can see them because they are all curved in on themselves?

Real science, by the way, might mean finding that bloody butterfly whose flapping wings cause all these storms we’ve been having lately, and getting it to stop.

The mystic (modern or otherwise) exists right on the edge of reality. The least little thing can break through. So the mystic takes things seriously.

Things like stories. Because stories are important.

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.

Stories exist independently of their players. If you know that, the knowledge is power.

Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died, while the strongest have survived and grown fat on the retellings. There are endless stories, all twisting and blowing through the darkness.

And we are all in them!

Their very existence overlays a faint but insistent pattern on the chaos that is history. Stories etch grooves deep enough for people to follow, in the same way that water follows certain paths down a mountainside. And every time fresh actors tread the path of the story, the groove runs deeper.

This is called the theory of narrative causality, and it means that a story, once started, takes a shape. It picks up all the vibrations of all the other workings of that story that have ever been.

This is why history keeps on repeating itself all the time.

So a thousand heroes have stolen fire from the gods. A thousand wolves have eaten grandmother; a thousand princesses have been kissed. A million unknown actors have moved, unknowing, through the pathways of the stories.

It is now impossible for the third and youngest son of any king, if he should embark upon a quest which has so far claimed his older brothers, not to succeed.

Stories don’t care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats.

I would like to extend gratitude and apologies to Terry Pratchett for using his words from ‘Witches Abroad’, albeit slightly modified.

For the past 40 years, my efforts to describe and to share my experience have required that I become a story teller of sorts, though the story I tell is primarily my own. The bottom line of my story is an unshakable knowing that each and every one of us can have a personal and direct relationship with the Divine, and that through that relationship we can also have a co-creative relationship with the intelligence of nature.

The longer story of my journey is not for the telling now. Suffice to say that in trying to answer the great questions of life, questions like who am I, why are I here, I came to the conclusion that it is all about love. Everything I read, all the teachers I listened to, led me to the belief in spiritual principles, of which my key understanding was to be loving. I got tested of that belief. Was I willing to act lovingly enough for another, to give up my greatest personal desire? To cut a long story short: to gain the inner strength to go through with this action of love, over many months I chose to commit myself to doing it. Then, for the very first time in my life, I experienced God within me as a living cosmic presence. And my definition of God is as the life force in everything. I was no longer a lonely misfit, I was part of a joyous universe.

As you can quite well imagine, this experience changed me completely, even changing my voice. With such an expanded experience of myself, I now had the courage to take action on my commitment. 55 years later, that inner contact continues to give me courage to take actions, actions like being here this morning talking to all of you!

After that initial contact, whenever I was alone a thought kept continually intruding into my mind, to “stop, listen and write.” After being besieged by this idea many times, eventually I did just that, and turned within. To my wonderment, I opened up to inner perceptions which I wrote down in my own words. I should say here that I do not hear or see anything. I have an inner experience, like an idea that arrives whole, and I then translate it into words. At first I was amazed, because those knowings revealed a God very different from the Old Testament Jehovah God of my childhood. Here was a delightful Presence, full of love, joy, play and merriment: a God of celebration, connection and empowerment.

I want to share with you the love of God I experienced in my attunements, the helpful messages I received, and how empowering and necessary these were in leading up to and in the founding of Findhorn, and of course in my personal spiritual growth. Here is an example:
Come closer, come closer, so softly, on tiptoe. As quietly as a mouse creep up to Me. Let Me draw you nearer, in slow motion lest we disturb anyone, lest we raise any dust. Move closer to Me invisibly, hearing no evil, seeing no evil, speaking no evil. Only purity can come close to Me, and we do not want any ripple of impurity to trip you.

Draw nearer, draw nearer, with the movement of your heart. Let it expand into Me. Let it bridge any space that might be between us, until there is just one, big, glowing heart, so big that it holds up this universe.

For nearly 10 years before the nature contact began, I attuned to that Presence daily. Initially I did this three times a day, and received thousands of wonderful teachings, some of which have now been published. The main theme of these messages was to empower me to bring the love that I was experiencing into my everyday living. A love, which for me embraces both the personal and impersonal dimensions. How could I not fall in love with that God? How could I do anything other than allow this energy to be the guiding force of my life?

In looking back, I realize I was in training in how to explore the deeper parts of myself. I was not alone in this training. Peter and Eileen Caddy and our colleague Lena were all in training, each of us learning to follow that inner wisdom in our own different ways. Again, those are threads of the story not for the telling now

Here is an example of how I was helped from within:
A tiptoe awareness is needed to express My thoughts, the awareness being of Me and not of what you yourself are doing. When you are aware of Me, you will be doing the right thing. This can be achieved in all situations, and is not impossible. It is difficult, it is unusual, but it is the only way to live.

This state is reached by continual practice. Think of Me all the time and gradually you will not have to try so hard to turn your thoughts in My direction.

And another example, with helpful suggestions:
Stretch every particle of yourself towards Me, and I will fill every particle with Myself out of My abundance. Soak yourself in the stream of love inside and out, giving yourself up completely. Relax in it, drown in it, every atom of you, until there is nothing in you not made new and pure.

Then breathe again, like a newly emerged chick, breathing love in instead of air. It is My love that keeps you alive, that sustains you. Know this. Breathe it in softly, breathe it out gently.

Let all your thoughts come to Love for their life, that they breathe forth My dimensions of love. Let all your acts come to love for their life, that they abound only with love. Let all you see be seen in love, that you see only boundless loveliness.

At first I did not trust what I received, and had to learn to discriminate between my normal thoughts and those coming from my God-self. Throughout it all the patience of God never wavered. A fact I often wondered at! Over time these wonderful periods of inner attunement slowly changed me.

During those years we each learned to trust and act upon what we were receiving from our inner wholeness. What came applied to all dimensions of life - for example, God conveyed: Brush your teeth with Me. Everything was to be done with love. Whenever there was a problem, God was available as a source of help if we so chose. A great example of this occurred at Cluny Hill Hotel, when our alcoholic Head Chef arrived in the kitchen too drunk to stand up, and with 200 dinners to cook. In this instance, Peter’s intuition failed him and he was forced to ask Eileen to get guidance on this looming crisis. She went within and received, that if we wanted the Chef to cook the dinners, Peter needed to give him another drink. Believe it or not, it worked! Normanal sensible minds would never have thought of such a crazy solution - only God could have!

Another inspirational message that I like very much is:
You are close to Me but you can come still closer, further into My love. That is the marvellous journey ahead of you all, this glad venturing into My love, this delicate response in you to a new outpouring of Myself. This is the ever different, ever lifting, ever softening process which is the joy of My heart to behold in you and in all.

For each one My approach is different, for My one love is sensitive to all creatures. The warmth of My love, the surge of it into an open heart, is universal and unique; I am all things to all people. I pour it out on all creation, and it comes back to you as you open yourself to Me from all sides, within and without. The more you open your heart, the wider the opening through which I can come.

Eventually the storywriter brought the Caddys and me to this Caravan Park. Unemployed and living with minimal financial resources, Peter set about creating a garden to augment our diet. Sand, which is all that was here, along with lots of rounded pebbles, is not conducive to great gardening.

One morning in my meditation I was told that I had a job to connect with Nature. This was later expanded upon and I was told that everything in nature has an ensouling intelligence. I was to harmonise with that essence. I was also told that the forces of nature are something to be felt into, to be stretched out to. I was told that this would not be as difficult as I expected, that all forces are to be felt into, even the sun, the moon, the sea, the trees, the very grass, for all are part of God’s life. I was to play my part in making life One again, with God’s help. I was told to begin by thinking about the higher nature spirits, the overlighting angels, and to attune to them. This would be so unusual as to draw their interest to the garden, and they would be overjoyed to cooperate with humans who were eager to cooperate with them.

Eventually I chose a vegetable that I enjoy eating, the garden pea. I made contact with my inner divinity and then focused on the pea. To my surprise I made an immediate link and received a creative, helpful response, which I translated into words as I did with my God-contact. I realized I was communicating not with an individual pea plant but with the soul of the species, with a formless energy-field. The nearest word I could find to describe it was “angel,” which to me had too much form. Somewhere I had come across the Sanskrit word “deva” which means ‘shining one’. That seemed more accurate, as to me it was formless.

As usual, I was sceptical about these messages, as well as doubtful about my ability to feel into nature.

Thus began our experiment of cooperating with the intelligence of nature in the garden.

Luckily God helped me to understand the process, by telling me:
You are pioneering in the true attitude to nature, to the one life. For this attitude, it behoves you to think of everything in terms of life force, not merely an impersonal force like electricity, but a manifestation of a being. They can teach and help you, though what you see of them outwardly may be a lowly bee, a leaf, a stone. Behind all is a great chain of life leading to Me. Humans have been given dominion over all these on Earth, but only as you, too, fit into the great chain of life.

We got many answers from the devas to our gardening questions, though they never ordered us to do anything. The devas/angels/god, whatever word we are comfortable using, do not want us to be just obedient servants, but a humanity who is attuned to its own wholeness and who can cooperate with them as equals.

Just after my first contact with the garden pea, I became aware of a presiding angelic presence which seemed to be in charge of all levels of life here, including the human. I called it the Landscape Angel. In hindsight this was a misnomer, for now I realise that this angel is the local representative of the Angel of our planet, of Gaia itself. It came to help us specifically in our experiments in attuning to God and the intelligence of nature. Suffice to say that it became my teacher, introducing me to all manner of other beings and stretching my understanding into new realms. All the while the garden flourished, and the community you see here today began to take shape.

The Landscape Angel gave us continuous help. For example, in order to grow healthy vegetables, it communicated that we needed nourishing soil, not sand, and the best way to achieve this in our situation, was by adding compost to the sand. I have hundreds of such essential and invaluable messages from the Landscape Angel, who is ever ready to help and be a source of inspiration and connection.

I continued to receive help from God in understanding this cooperation with the devic kingdom, and what I needed to do in order to listen to and be sensitive to their contact: God said:
Remember that most of the beings you contact are highly evolved and can understand human feelings, so they will try to meet you to a certain extent. The various plant devas live in a sphere of immediacy of knowledge about anything which concerns them; all knowledge is open them. This knowledge is yours when you tune into them. Their mission is to manifest My plant world.

Mingle with these beings. It is an exchange and a beginning of a unique and far-reaching cooperation. They are amazed and delighted that their cooperation is sought and then followed so faithfully, and at this time in the world’s evolution when humans are increasingly harming their work. It is not only important, but vital, that a new relationship be established.

Listen to the sounds of nature whenever you have the chance.. They are true sounds, coming from Me within each, and can lead you into My world and into the world of the sound devas. When you are close to Me, you are tuning yourself into worlds of growth and forces which are always present, and have a tremendous effect on humans unconsciously. When you are conscious of them, they open up and reveal how you are linked. Do not worry if you get no specific message; as you tune into them, the link with them grows and may bear fruit in a slightly different direction – with the devas for example.

I believe that our inner attunement and cooperation with nature created an atmosphere, a powerful note that attracted many on inner levels. We were asked to have no publicity and invite no one here, yet people kept arriving. The strong inner energy field drew people from all over the planet, and they had incredible stories to tell of how they had found themselves here. Some felt they had come to a paradise, or had come home; some felt that the split between the kingdoms had been repaired; some felt a spirit of joy, an energy of love, wisdom and/or healing. People still describe an atmosphere that permeates the place, special qualities, and a sense of personal homecoming. Perhaps some of you have felt some of that. Perhaps here you come home to a bigger part of yourself.

From the devas I was continuing to understand more about their worlds and the links to humans.

One message particularly stood out. It was from the Monterey Cypress, who said:
We are not just the little trees you see in your garden. You feel in us an almost intolerable longing to be fully ourselves. We of the plant world have our pattern and our destiny, worked out through the ages, and we feel it quite wrong that we and others like us are not allowed to be, because of humanity and its encroachment. Trees are not so much Do-ers of the Word as Be-ers. We have our portion of the plan to fulfil; we have been nurtured for this very reason and now, in this day and age, many of us can only dream of the spaces where we can fulfil ourselves. The planet needs the likes of us in our full maturity. We are not a mistake on the part of nature; we have our work to do.

Humanity is now becoming controller of the world forests and is beginning to realize that these are needed, but you use silly economic reasons for your selection, with no awareness of the planet’s needs. You should not cover acres with one quick-growing species, which, though admittedly better than none, shows utter ignorance of the purpose of trees and their channelling of diverse forces. The world needs us on a large scale.

We have been vehement… We have rather dumped this on you and you feel unable to help. You are only looking at it from a limited level. We know that a truth once in human consciousness then percolates around and does its work.

This particular message carried a sense of tremendous urgency - it was as if this Cypress was shouting, so that the whole world would realize the need for trees throughout the planet.

The Leyland Cypress expanded on this theme:
Great forests must flourish, and humanity must see to this if you wish to continue to live on this planet. The knowledge of this necessity must become part of your consciousness, as much accepted as your need for water. You need trees just as much; the two are linked. We are indeed the skin of the earth, and a skin not only covers and protects, but passes through it the forces of life. Nothing could be more vital to life as a whole than trees, trees and more trees. Spread this truth, and know that the forces of the angelic world and all the worlds in which truth reigns, are behind you.

Some of these ideas are now common knowledge, but 40 years ago they were new, at least to me. The issues of global deforestation and the detrimental effect of certain forestry practices, were not generally recognised then. The devas were talking to me about things that science is just catching up with now.

Other devas had their input to offer, for example the Lily Deva said:
We feel it is high time for you humans to branch out and include in your horizons the different forms of life which are part of your world. You have been forcing your own creations and vibrations on the world, ones which are more than strange and not at all pleasant to us and to others, without taking into consideration that all living things are part of the whole, as you are, put there by divine plan and purpose. Just as each soul has its own contribution to make to the whole, so has each plant, each mineral. No longer should you consider us as lower forms of life, with no intelligence with which to communicate.

As always the Landscape Angel guided us, as in the following:
The angelic world is poised with great love towards humans. The energies that flow through us and all of life are purposeful, forceful and to the point. Love is a firm reality which forms a bridge over which all can walk. Gooey sentiment is not love and does not exist with us. When we step towards you, we do it energetically; you can do the same. Though you cannot see or hear us, touch, smell or taste us, still we are a tremendous force. We stand here in love, a whole dynamic world reaching for an intelligent relationship with a humanity that will wield all its God-given forces for the whole. You need us and we are ready, awaiting the recognition, love and just treatment that you give to your own kin. We wait in love for your love.

This is still true now and the initiative to make it a reality has to come from us.

In the midst of these messages and as the community was becoming known in certain circles, we were joined by another facet of nature, the elementals, when Ogilivie Crombie (often referred to simply as ROC) visited us and began to actually see nature spirits. He first encountered the delightful faun Kurmos, and later Pan, the god of the woodlands. And so you glimpse yet another strand of the story not for the telling now.

Cooperation between the “nature” and “human” parts of us, is not just partnering with nature. It is more than just getting messages or instructions. It’s more than just hanging out with fairies and gnomes. Or even with Pan! It is opening and holding a connection through which a vital energy – nature’s forces – can flow into the human world. This is a spiritual force which helps us cultivate what might be called a planetary consciousness, the capacity to “think” like a planet. That is more than awareness of global events or cultures; it is a way of entering and living in a “Gaian” consciousness.

We here in this Hall are all part of a story – the story of humanity. The conventional version of that story says we are about 10,000 years old. We all know that humans have been around much longer than that.

One perspective on humanity’s story that I came across recently, puts forward the idea that at a pivotal point, funnily enough about 10,000 years ago, some humans decided that food, and the land that produced it, was in fact a commodity that could be owned. Controlling the food supply meant power. Farming had begun! The story of so many civilizations is built around that premise. When the ability to control the stockpiling and/or the distribution of those commodities broke down, civilizations toppled. Other civilizations replaced them – but the premise that nature was a commodity remained. Evidence indicates that we, as the subset of humans who could be referred to as takers, are on the verge of creating global collapse.

Collectively we have taken more than we have given, and the earth is running out of new places for us to pull into the story of a humanity that treats nature, land, and food as commodities. The books of Daniel Quinn explore this perspective in detail. We, gathered here, have entered that longer story of humanity at another pivotal point. The outcome, the ending of the story, is as yet unwritten.

James Lovelock has said that it is too late to save the world. I disagree! Certainly we have reached a [Marker][Marker]crisis point. We stand on the brink, and may well topple into global collapse. Or we can birth a new consciousness, and work to offset the destructive forces rampaging on our planet.

The title of this conference carries the sub-title “Creative Community Responses to Peak Oil and Climate Change”. Findhorn didn’t start as an intentional community, nor was it designed as a response to peak oil or to climate change. It is an outgrowth of the dedication of a small group of people to following a spiritual path. I know that the lessons learned here can act as a template for creative responses to current crises.

And so I wonder which community we shall focus on? Which community will respond to the current crisis? After all, we are all part of so many communities. There is the community of me, myself and I. A bit solitary I admit, but a community of sorts nonetheless. There is the community of me and my family, or me and my work mates. There is the community of my town or village, my country. There is the community of me and the whole rest of the world. The term global community is one that has come into our language fairly recently, though I suspect we have very different understandings of what it really means. Of course for us mystic types, there is also the community of me and God. Someone once said to me that “With God, one is in the majority”. Whatever! I think we are all mystics, it’s just that some of you might not know that yet.

Another of the delightful catch phrases that has emerged fairly recently is ‘Think Globally, Act Locally’. I know there are many ways to understand the phrase and the sentiment behind it. Even so, I should like to offer an alternative, ‘Be Global, Act Here’. Or maybe, ‘Be Global, Act Local’. Even if the latter is bad grammar!

Even as we sit here, gathered from many countries, we are surrounded by myriad beings and objects that can connect us to the reality of Gaia, the global consciousness that we are all a part of. That sculpture behind me was carved from a Monkey Puzzle Tree, a native of the mountains of South America. The floor I sit on is maple, the pillars that support the ring beam and criss cross the roof are Canadian Douglas fur. The window frames, the facings on the platforms for the benches, are of British Elm, a tree species decimated by disease and thus a wood that was plentiful at a certain point during the building of the Hall. The seats you sit on are upholstered in woollen fabric, likely to be from the sheep of New Zealand and Australia. Below that is a layer of cotton, probably from Egypt or the US. The seats are framed in metal, dug and moulded from who knows where, but I’ll bet it wasn’t local. The reality of how global our day-to-day environment has become is undeniable, though often not really recognised. Each and every one of those objects is the manifestation of, or the product of, those invisible, non-physical, or those non-human physical realms, of which I spoke of earlier.

The word Gaia is used to refer to the living system that is the planet. I also use it to denote the creative and intelligent presence, the beingness, of which the planet is composed. That being is sentient and creative. Like the devas and angels I have been talking about, I believe it is available to us as a direct ally in what we collectively face on the planet. We can embody both human consciousness and Gaian consciousness, and the unique consciousness that may emerge from the engagement of these two. We can give birth to a new kind of consciousness, one that will actually make us more, not less human in our wholeness, and offset the destructive forces on the planet.

I try to be a positive person, having been trained both on the inner and on the outer to look for the highest and best in everyone, in all situations. But I must confess that as I look out into the world, as I listen to the news, read the papers, hear the concerns and worries of so many people, it’s as if I am watching a plague race round the world. A plague of death that values money over love, a plague that values personal gain and comfort over the good of the whole. Of course there are many antidotes to this plague being experimented with, and new solutions are being sought.

Einstein said, “You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created”. Yet it seems to me that that is just what we are trying to do. Most of the solutions are being created by the very thing that catalysed the plague in the first place. We seek with our minds, to understand the workings of the finely-tuned systems of nature, systems evolved over millions of years. Then, with all good intent, we set out to recreate them, to restore them. All this we do from the limited understanding that our minds can bring to bear. What if we were to listen beyond the mind to the allies awaiting our invocation? What if we were to create on a planetary scale, the same level of co-operation and co-creation demonstrated in the early days of this community? Here, sand dunes were turned into gardens, some even say Eden was re-created. The success of the early garden at Findhorn remains a demonstration of the potency of cooperating and co-creating with nature. As Sir George Trevelyan noted “One garden can save a world”.

The early garden was undeniable proof of the principles. I have every reason to believe that the microcosm of this one garden can be replicated in the macrocosm of the planet. What if the scientists, rather than spending years in laboratories, spent a few months in nature honing their connection to the Divine, to the devic realms, and then asked their questions of those non-physical, non-human realms that I have been talking about?

Nature is so much more than a source of renewal and regeneration for our jagged exhausted selves. It is so much more than a treasure to be kept safe in selected places. We ignore the subtler aspects, the unseen dimensions, at our peril.

And let’s face it, the peril on our planet is great.

This week there will be much discussion about how we can deal with the emotional and psychological effects of that plague sweeping the planet. There will be valuable exchanges of information about how structures and attitudes can be shifted or built. There will be much that inspires and calls us to action. My request is that as we do all that, we remember that we are not alone in trying to find new ways forward. We have potent allies, ready to lend their untold resources to the cause. We need only make room for them, believing that they are there, ready and willing to lend their aid. We need only welcome their input and they will reply, in ways undreamed of, in ways beyond our comprehension.

I should like to end by sharing with you a message from the Landscape Angel. It speaks of what they know about us. Afterwards I should like to ask all of you a question and then I will be open to yours.

We call to you, humans, from the highest of our realms, and you are there. We call to you from densest Earth and you are there. We call from other worlds across space, and still you are there. We are inwardly still and attuned, and you share our oneness. If there are worlds we cannot reach, no doubt you are there. “Man, know thyself.”

We talk to you from the kingdom of Nature. Do no limit the wisdom of that kingdom, which is the Divine in manifestation and includes obscure worlds which you disregard at your own peril. All around you, in every bit of matter, is what has come from, is, and leads to the only One, and within you is the consciousness that can know and express this. You are all things to all worlds. You incorporate life itself, bound to earth and bound to heaven, tiny specks on one small planet in a limitless universe, the image of it all. That is what you are.

But what do you think you are? We know what we and you are, but you, what do you think? Your thoughts tell you: they are your range of expression and you might just as well let them reflect what you really are. Are they negative or trivial? Then change them, turn them the other way. Use the mighty gift of the pairs of opposites to find Oneness, to rise and turn to what you are. Enjoy what you are; give thanks for it, give thanks to creation and its servers for making you possible. Slot in to what you are; stay put to your immensity. For this we have wielded power through the ages, but now we can know one another and come together for the glory of God. We need call you no longer; as one we can express wholeness.

And now my question for you is:

What if, what they say is all true? How will you respond?

© Dorothy Maclean 2008. All rights reserved. This speech may not be reproduced without the permission of Dorothy Maclean.

Photographer: Peter Vallance

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