Evoking Our Inner Mystic

I've been teaching a class, Practical Mysticism, with Rev. Nancy Woods at our Center for Spiritual Living. We have a great group and we’re definitely working to awaken our inner mystics, to evolve as mystics.

So, what exactly IS a mystic?  When I first heard the word, I thought of that Walt Disney film, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, where Mickey Mouse is left alone to mind the sorcerer’s habitat, gets the mops and brooms dancing and the water sloshing until things get out of hand, and the sorcerer arrives in the nick of time to stop the disaster in progress.

No, we’re not learning to be sorcerers. According to Ernest Holmes, a mystic is one who intuitively--intuitively -- perceives Truth and, with mental process, arrives at Spiritual Realization. Mystics are so attuned to Spirit that they are totally convinced of their oneness with the infinite and know that all life, visible and invisible, is the wholeness of God.

We can all evolve as mystics. Evolving mystics use prayer, meditation, contemplation  and silence to patiently listen for the voice within. Evolving mystics practice the presence, or remember to center themselves throughout the day. They also observe their thoughts, emotions, actions and everyday situations and people in a non-judgmental way.

It’s all about evolving our consciousness -- past the powerless blame game of victimization, through the personal empowerment of using prayer to make life changes, to surrendering to divine guidance by allowing Spirit to live through us, and finally to complete identification with God -- the knowing that I am It, I am an expression of God in action.

Basically, as we evolve we allow our awareness of the infinite and our place in it to be revealed, step by step. We use a book by Carolyn Myss, Enter the Castle, which is inspired by the work of Teresa of Avila, a 15th century nun. Teresa views the Soul as a castle with many rooms and much soul work to help our evolution.

Today’s mystics can be anyone; there is no need for monasteries. We seek a partnership with God to answer these questions: "Why was I born? What is the greater purpose and meaning of my life? How am I meant to be of service?" The process is meant to build a soul of stamina, to develop our own healing power.

And what exactly is our soul? It’s not our mind, or even our subconscience.  Its our essence, our deep inner consciousness, that part of us that desires to be strong enough for direct contact with God, to be able to listen to and act upon divine guidance. A soul with the qualities of humility, dignity, integrity, honor, wisdom,, justice, harmony and endurance -- that, according to Carolyn Myss, is a soul with STAMINA.

And as we journey into the Castle with this class, that is our ultimate destination -- to find our highest potential, to live without fear -- to experience divinity, to evoke our Inner Mystic.

And so it is.

Become a Senior Dynamo

The Prosperity Plus class is over but it revived my interest in completing a book I started awhile back: Become a Senior Dynamo. Expand Your Dynamic Range and Live Large in Your Golden Years.

You may be wondering, so what exactly IS a senior dynamo? It’s those of us, in our  later years, who want to tap our inner dynamos of energy and generate our personal power to the max -- to radiate the good health, creativity, loving relationships and financial abundance that form the four pillars of experiencing our best life now.

Even though we may feel ourselves slowing down, experiencing the vicissitudes of an aging body, or possibly seeing dreams unfulfilled,  we don’t intend to shuffle off  this mortal coil with the thought, “It’s too late, now.”

And expand our dynamic range? What’s that? In photography we use the term to describe the luminance range of a scene being photographed, and use different techniques to increase that dynamic range to produce a brilliant, very detailed photograph.

So as an avid photographer, I adapted this phrase to describe a Senior Dynamo...someone who is expanding the parameters of human existence to live life full throttle, someone who is evolving to become more brilliant, powerful, alive, healthy, loving, creative, fulfilled, beautiful and spiritual!


While I stalled on the book, I managed to get started on a senior dynamo website: (www.seniordynamo.com). But really, I want to finish the book. The challenge is that I often don’t feel like a Senior Dynamo.

“Aging ain’t for sissies,” said Betty Davis in her laser fashion. And sometimes I let fatigue, depressed mood or inertia take over. So the recent Prosperity Plus class was helpful, in bringing motivators such as Thomas Edison and the power of FOCUS to our attention.

Edison said, “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”  He was an inventor. That’s what he did.  He cut out the distractions and focused on his work. He tried, and tried again. “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 things that won’t work.”

He had the ability to FOCUS on the one thing he was working on. “The difference is you do a great many things and I do one.”

I realized that’s what I’ve been doing. Allowing one distraction after another to steal my time and attention.  I need to clear away the clutter and focus on what matters most. 

That’s the advice of Gary Keller, in his book, The One Thing, The Surprisingly Simply Truth Behind Extraordinary Results. Rev. Mike McMorrow will be teaching a class around this book in September, so we’ll have an opportunity to practice this approach on our projects and ask ourselves: "What’s the One Thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary? 

For me, it’s not only finishing my book, but becoming a fantastic Senior Dynamo.

Wait! That sounds like more than one thing. Maybe the class will help.

And so it is.

Here's a link to a youtube video of my talk, which starts at the 1:18 minute mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq7CTREth0E