If It Works, Use It

time.

Perception One

Do you always take responsibility for everything that you think, say and do?

My first impression when I read this question was, Of course. Who else would be responsible for what I think and do? After my initial chuckle, I settled down to answer since I do know what the questioner means. Do I truly take responsibility for all of my life? The answer is a resounding yes and it has been so from the time of my birth.

I was born into a family in Reno, Nevada that was well-known, wealthy, had a maid and a cook and was on the rise within the community in the post-WWII era. My father owned three used car lots and was one of the creators of the original Automobile Association within the Reno area for the automobile dealers. He was very much loved and well liked. A veritable pillar of the Catholic Church, he gave freely of his money and his time, and belonged to the Elks Club. His family owned a restaurant in town and he had been asked to run for Governor not too long before the fateful day when he decided to scout for sage hen outside of Austin, Nevada.

As his group of hunting cronies was traversing one side of a hill with my father at the wheel of his CJ-7 Jeep, it began to slip down the slope. Everyone jumped out, yelling at my father, as I was told, to get out also. He seemed to have figured he could save the Jeep and so he stayed with it as it rolled and tumbled down the hill, finally pinning him underneath the Jeep’s roll bars (newly-fitted and custom built – not standard, yet). I was told it took about two hours for him to make his transition out of this earthly plane. While some might mourn his slow demise, I was glad to know that he had time to get ready to make his entrance into the world of spirit.

I was five years old at that time and had been very spoiled and loved by my father. I am aware that my mother was extremely jealous of me and as I grew up and matured, she did tell me that she hated me for my likeness to my father, my mannerisms and the fact that I bear his name. She told me that she hated me because I reminded her so much of my father who left and went on this scouting trip when he really didn’t need to go. It was simply a trip of pleasure and he left her with two children to bring up alone. I was left here in this world without the man whose name I carried, looking much in form like him, in a small family with a mother who projected her jealous anger upon her older child and a younger sister who was going to become more like her mother. It was perfect. It was being acted out exactly as we mutually created before we each incarnated here. All of us were playing out our roles exactly as needed to spur me to that place where I would become more naturally introspective and able to let go of whatever small hold this dimension might have over me.

On that day, September 13, 1952, after my father had transitioned to the other side, my mother came into our bedroom (I remember the rose print wall paper and the twin bed with the wooden screen between me and my sister) and sitting down upon my bed, she took my hand and said to me, Toni, your father is not ever coming home again.

I said, Why? and she answered, Because he has gone to heaven.

Immediately, I felt myself connected to a plane that I had only come from five years before and I realized that it was now time to begin the mission that I had brought to this earth. I remember the words echoing in my mind, Now it begins.

I realize that few people have the benefit of this gift. Most people are in at least semi-nuclear families where there is a basis for a mother and a father or some kind of structure that allows them to feel that they are secure here, even though that security is an illusion. We will be talking much more about the illusion of that security as we go on, but for the moment know that I did not have that illusion of safety in my childhood. My mother had always been insecure having come through the depression in poverty as a child. It was my father’s strength and money that made her feel safe, so now she was left with her house, her servants and her children. She had to learn how to manage the businesses, eventually sell them and then get on with her life by hiring attorneys and accountants to take care of things. So my early childhood was filled with caring for my mother and sister and always being present in the role that my father had left unfilled, taking on the persona of parental father in the eyes of my mother.

If there was garbage to be hauled or groceries to be carried, or things of that nature it would fall to me naturally, not with any great to-do but simply that this was who would do the job. I took it on happily and willingly. As I did so, I became less a child and more mature. Living in an adult world, not interacting with other children, not going out to play except sitting on the front lawn reading a book, I soon stopped relating as a child. None of this made me unhappy. I did not feel left out or as though no one loved me or liked me. What it did was give me a great, silent peacefulness within my being that allowed me to bury myself within the lives of the saints, prayer to Mother Mary and the brotherhood of knowing that Jesus was so close that I could feel his breath upon my face, all based upon my Catholic upbringing.

I was raised in the old Roman Catholic Church, which prompted me to consider Jesus and Mary in a Catholic way, to revere them as much as God. It brought me closer to a unity concept of the male and the female polarity that exists in this planet. Within the Christos and the Virgin Mother exists the feminine aspect and the male aspect of the polarity in union as one. I realized how much this would mean to me as I matured. I began to slowly progress into a young woman knowing my femininity while carrying the male vibration that had become mine at such a young age; a frequency that I had brought into this planet allowing me to become more one and less dual. So even as a child, I was a very balanced being. This balance allowed me to interact with adults as well as children from time to time though I connected with the children on more of an adult level.

So, yes, the answer to am I responsible for all of my life came to me without having to figure it out or test whether I was being true to myself. There was simply no other way to be and it gave me the opportunity to investigate the world of spirit and form simultaneously.

I believe that the person asking this question would like to know if I also own all of the aspects of my life that may appear undesirable. In other words, do I blame that which is uncomfortable upon anyone else?

Since I know very well that no one experiences anything in this world alone, even though it may appear that way, I understand that while another or others may be part of a certain set of circumstances in my life’s script, ultimately the outcome rests with me. It is my life that is being lived and my soul record that is being affected, so no matter how it may look to someone else there is not ever another person to whom I would lay blame. We are all co-conspirators in our lives from the delight of joyous bliss to the pain and suffering we believe we experience together. There is no victim. There is no perpetrator.

Going back to my mother’s feelings for me as I grew up, the day she expressed to me how much she hated me (and, yes, those were her words), I felt the greatest compassion for her pain. Think about it: Marrying a man who dies when your children are four and five years old, leaving you with businesses to run with no understanding of them in any way and having to raise the child who bears his name, a reminder every day of what you are missing in life. The dislike my mother expressed for me was actually a projection of how she felt about herself. I would not tell her that because I loved her very much and I still do although she is no longer alive in earth.

Upon her death, she came to me in energetic form allowing me to feel the depth of a mother’s love. Since I had not felt that emotion from her in this physical life, I was surprised at this warm, energetic sense that flowed over me like the coziest quilt. What she could not give me in this life, she gave me in her death.

Being responsible for all aspects of life and living in the integrity of personal truth leaves freedom to be, no matter the situation. The best part of living authentically is the lack of pretense or the wearing of masks. It may not look like the assumption of personal responsibility to an outsider. It is very easy for a human being to judge another when he or she has not lived the same life experience.

From single mother to teacher of mastery, legal secretary to chairman of the local Red Cross, wife or lover, author or video producer – so many, many hats and costumes have been worn. Each and every one of them has asked me, and some still do, to own a new set of responses to this world. I take each one on willingly and with a full, loving, compassionate heart.

When I was eighteen and completing business college, my primary instructor told the class that I was the only student who was ready for the world of business. By the time I was nineteen, I had moved to San Francisco and became a mother at twenty. At twenty-one, I managed the apartment building in which we lived. At twenty-three, I was ordained as a Master Teacher. My life is and always has been one of mature responsibility, no matter the earthly age.

Remembering another dimension, while living this human life, does not alleviate one from the vagaries of physical form. The deliciousness of it all is the awareness before incarnating that many different types of situations will be part of the game, the playground. How will they play out? If it works, will it be used? Or will the fear of stepping away from the human boundaries and response to personal divinity in a chaotic and unseeing world be overwhelming?

I understand that some people may suggest that taking on the role of my father was a substitute for grieving him. I have been approached by more than one person who believed that my world of spirituality was a replacement, a coping mechanism for my father’s death.

I also understand that each of these people are relating to my story from the standpoint of their own frame of reference. Whatever experiences each has had colors their viewpoint of me in relation to them. When you can’t easily comprehend a person’s reality, the easiest action is to deny it. This is not a judgment. It is a fact of all life. Humans deny what they don’t understand. I don’t expect anyone to fully appreciate or discern my realm of existence. I would, though, ask them to accept it as mine.

As I matured, I found that responsibility is much less a burden than a way of living. There have been times when being responsible for my actions did not resonate with another’s interpretation of right or wrong. I cannot take responsibility for their beliefs. I do take responsibility for mine.

One aspect of living as a human being that covers all of the bases is that each of us is living a life as the divine I AM in form. Since there is no judgment, condition, expectation, faith or hope within divinity, each time one of those frailties shows its face, it is based on a human belief.

Therefore, every thought, feeling, action and word that I take responsibility for is expressed as divinity in form. I know this within the strength of my personal divine awareness and I invite you to use this knowing as well. It does work, so use it.

Perception Two

What does it mean for you to live as Divine Awareness?

While it is possible that this questioner is referring only to me, I am going to address this question personally and universally. I will also include some autobiographical material as examples.

One aspect that easily fools the mind is the degree of separation invited within the idea that you can live as divine awareness and live without divine awareness. We are divine. Our awareness is divine awareness in all things, always. The answer then is that it means I am alive as spirit within a body.

At the same time, I understand that the question is asking what it feels like to live aware of being divine. It may appear that it is a hallowed or spirit-filled outlook because the mind wants to consider the divine as more or better than simply being human.

All of life is divine. All human life is conscious of itself to the degree that each person is able to be so. Small children usually experience life as quite divine until they are programmed into believing that it is other than such.

As a child, I was more focused on living correctly as a Catholic and being inspired by Jesus and Mary than most of the students with whom I attended parochial school. Recess and lunchtime were often spent in church kneeling before the statue of the Blessed Mother communing with her from my heart. Other kids would usually play ball or talk to each other in the school yard and while I did do this from time to time, it was less the norm for me.

If I had stayed anchored within the Catholic faith, it is most likely that I would not have arrived at the awareness I live today. Thanks to a ruckus within the administration of the Catholic High School I attended in which I unwittingly became embroiled, I left parochial school for my senior year and graduated through the public school system. The distaste of this experience gave me the needed impetus to open up the spiritual versus religious door.

The original expression of Source in the moment of creation was, and is, to experience what we are in physical form. As that creative energy emanates from its central source, and becomes slower in vibration, it finally comes into what humans consider physicality. That is the human being. In that, It did not lose any of Itself. There is no thing that can exist that is not God. Now we might want to change that word, because so many people think of God as a being sitting up on a cloud someplace being God. That is not what I am talking about here. I am not referring to that kind of God because it doesn’t exist. I am talking about the Source that is the energetic origin of all life. This Source is what humanity has created as God.

Living in this universe as an expression of Source is a day-to-day awareness of perfection no matter the situation or circumstances. Awareness is. Awareness is not positive or negative, nor does it hold specific beliefs. It is not creating a condition of right or wrong, good or bad.

The world we live in, the world we came from and the world we will experience next is not physical. It exists and is available to you when the decision is made to live life more consciously aware of, consciously linked to that which already exists. It is not outside and it is not inside. It simply is. This is awareness. The subtle, etheric realms are information and communication. Awareness of divinity, that each breath emanates within Source, as Source, for Source and to Source changes the