<![CDATA[ Ann R. Davis - Blogs]]>Sat, 22 Apr 2023 14:22:20 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[It Loses a Lot in the Translation]]>Mon, 09 Sep 2013 20:38:14 GMThttp://annrdavis.com/blogs/it-loses-a-lot-in-the-translation    Man, given "the Word of God," tends to garble it. Even the best teachers have cloudy perception, sometimes. Yet, there are grains of truth in what we receive.  Look for those pearls and forgive the messenger if he erred a bit in the translation. (How would we know if it is truth? If we let ego go for a while, we can access our God-given truth recognition.) Human language is insufficient for the hugeness and mystery of spirit. During quiet moments, when we succeed in being still and willing, we receive messages from our source (some Christians would call this The Holy Spirit).  They are not in words, because God does not use human language. We always know we have "gotten something" - we feel it - we are blissful (contact!).  Only later does the message come to mind, "spontaneously" like inspiration. We have put it into our language. Our words, however, are weak vehicles of God's Word. 
    There is also the challenge of readiness. During the phases of man's spiritual evolution, he has understood God and mysteries of spirit only within the boundaries of his earthly experience (paradigm). Hence the God of the Old Testament was one who loved only a certain segment of his creation.  He is vengeful and jealous and angry when opposed by sinful little people. This makes no sense. We can't believe this of God in our present phase. Since the teaching of Jesus and our present awakening, we recognize our source is Love. Knowing Him to be omnipotent, we realize He cannot have the errors - the faults - of human beings.
    Why then, was He seen that way? Perhaps it was the best man could do given the perception of that time. It may also have been a way of controlling the people of Israel. Only the fierce could survive in that culture, perhaps. Now, however, even though our media are full of violent acts, there has arisen an understanding that we can be (indeed we are in our true, created state) like God, and God is Love. How we translate that is highly individual and the outcome produces a radical, uneven structure, but I believe we are at that step in our understanding. The messengers have taken us by the hand and led us up the ladder a bit. The Word has been translated a bit better. But don't be too secure.  We are still in transition. The story continues.  
]]><![CDATA[Buzzard ]]>Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:12:07 GMThttp://annrdavis.com/blogs/buzzardBuzzard


I was out on my porch trying to meditate. There was a  stiff breeze and scudding clouds. A day which seemed to love all within its  embrace.  I didn’t close my eyes.  There were things going on that seemed in harmony with my meditation audio and my mood.  Birds circled and called,  their music blowing out of the trees and into the freedom of the wind.  A squirrel froze on the side of a tree,  seemingly under the influence of the meditation sound from my porch. I was  caught by the sight of a Buzzard sailing on the breeze high above. Amazing how  graceful he was then. On the ground this ungainly, ugly scavenger picking at the remains of road kill, is not at all what we think of as graceful nor  beautiful – yet here he was, music in the air, beautiful to behold. Others of  his kind came and went - one came near, tilting and threading himself through a  narrow slot between tree limbs and out into the open over the marsh, letting  the wind lift him ever upward. They never fight the current, of course. Their instincts tell them what is called for. They use it to their advantage. I was  admiring the bird and his flight, but then realized that was only a part of it. He  was not performing alone. It was a duet.  The unseen was a major part of this music in the sky. The wind, you say?
Well yes, the wind was his partner, the dominant leader of the dance. But there  is more still. What contains the wind? What is all that within which we all  perform our dance? What is that? We don’t see it, but it is most certainly  there. Space? Is there such a thing?  Time- with which we embroider our  tapestry; our story, does it really exist? Are we really alone, divided up into bits of matter floating in space? If matter, as science tells us, is not really  “solid” are we simply a facet of a whole, which is also us? What is that which surrounds us, then? Is it us without form?  And if our eyes could not separate what  we see into separate bits, could we possibly understand it? 

Hoo boy!

So, contemplation does not always facilitate meditation,  but can be its offspring. The artist in me prefers to think on the paradox of  the homely buzzard as a beautiful thing when in the sky, allowing himself to be  carried along, in his wisdom knowing when to use his own strength and skill and  when to use that which is gracefully given to him on a beautiful windy day. All  he has to do is be what he is and allow the unseen to do what it will – just  trusting, accepting. 

   ]]><![CDATA[Fried Egg Prophesy]]>Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:41:43 GMThttp://annrdavis.com/blogs/fried-egg-prophesy
Picture
(Note:  I wrote this last year. Decided to post it and hope we will not have another warning this May 22nd.)
For years I have been struggling to find “enlightenment” – you  know, to rise above the warped perspective of this institution for the insane  that we call the world. I, like other such seekers, have my ups and downs. It  seems like a trampoline; we rise, snatch a bit of truth and revel in it, only to  find ourselves down again, bounce, bounce, bounce, thud. Lying there wondering  how this happened yet again, we scan the sky, looking for the way up, praying  for a boost. I was lying prone at the bottom of a deep gully at the time of May  21, 2011. In my fuzzy state leading up to this day, I had fleetingly heard or  seen somewhere that once again someone had prophesied the end of the world. I  had not followed it up and had forgotten this bit of trash in my mind that was littered with junk from the internet, the television news; the printed mass  media. 
                
On the morning of this date, I had been feeling sick and in a weakened  state. Old age had been kicking me around, and then bronchitis, like my least  favorite cousin, had come for a surprise visit and decided to stay for an  intolerably long time. I aimed my creaking body toward the kitchen to fix  breakfast, holding my old bones and sinew together by sheer force of will. (Body parts tend to give up that effort and go their separate, sagging ways with  time.  It’s not pretty. I avoid all  reflective surfaces in the morning.) Anyway, I decided I could manage to fry a  couple of eggs and make toast. 
                
When I had eased two eggs into the pan and began the process, I noticed  there was something odd about the one on the left. Blinking the gunk out of my  eyes (I told you old age isn’t pretty), I focused on it. The yolk was turning  white with the hot oil, but letters had formed on the top of it. I put on my  reading glasses and peered at it. There were three letters. E.N.D. 
I backed up, blinked my eyes, cleaned my glasses and looked again. Yep,  there it was – clear as day. And I had not, I say, had not, done anything that  should have caused this apparition. The other adjoining egg was as innocent and  perfectly cooked as it should be. This one was telling me something. I was split  two ways.  My mind was rollicking  with the humor of it – reminding me of past sales on eBay of likenesses of Elvis  or Jesus on pancakes or turnips. Could one package and sell a fried egg?
Funny!  Yet my ailing body was  fearful and shrinking. Oooh! This is what it had thought all along. The END was  near. Time to make pre-death funeral arrangements – and fast. 
                 
I was munching my toast (still have my own teeth) and eating my right  egg, staring at the left one and ruminating on it. Does God make jokes?  Yes, given my experience with life, God  is a master comedian - and lucky for us, because otherwise it would be too  darned bleak here.  I showed the  egg to my spouse, who hummed and hawed about it. (He’s no longer surprised at anything that happens to me.) I decided no one would believe me if I told them  about it, so I got my camera out and took a picture of it. The photo was not as  good as the real thing, but it would do. While I slowly chewed and swallowed the  tasty omen, I mused that this would be a good story to tell the family, but I  wanted them to know my mind wasn’t going as fast as my body was, hence the  picture for proof. At my age, one always worries about one’s mind. And the  family always looks at you funny when you can’t remember something from  yesterday or even five minutes ago. It makes me uneasy because I can look into their  eyes and see thoughts about nursing home facilities and medication (or is that eradication?).

 I decided I would brazen it out and treat the story like a joke rather  than an omen of my approaching demise. (Or, maybe it was, but that was a joke  too.) So, with my picture as back-up, I told my son and grandson about it. I  chuckled and felt silly. That was when they told me it was the day the world was  supposed to end. “What?” I said, not getting it. They gave me that look - like I was out of touch. Then they said  some religious group had figured it out to the day and this was the day – either of rapture or disaster, however you looked at it.
 This gave my egg a whole new  possible meaning!. 

It was a joke after all. The day came and went (6  pm I think was the forecast) and nothing doing – that I saw anyway. The way I  figure it, I ate the egg and thus diverted the whole thing. This benign omen is now churning away in my innards, to be disposed of (in what might be a  most appropriate way for this kind of precognication) by May 22nd – if I’m lucky. 


]]><![CDATA[Long Distance Friends]]>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:34:04 GMThttp://annrdavis.com/blogs/long-distance-friendsThe internet has been a great gift in more than one way,  but just one comes to my mind today. 
I am a recluse by nature. I live in isolation and have  little exposure to other people. Most of the time this suits me. It gives me quiet time in which to meditate, make art, garden, enjoy nature and write.  However, there are times when I need a friend - someone to talk to who shares  my interests. So I, like so many others, reach out through the internet. I find groups who share my yearning for spiritual knowledge, for the plumbing of  mysteries, who make up the web of the brotherhood. I have a great desire to see  the coming of the brotherhood - the unification of those who desire above all things to achieve spiritual awakening – to make a great step upward in  spiritual evolution. So, then, I surf this web and find pockets of loving  thoughts scattered here and there where I pause to delight in my “friends.”Some  of them are writers like myself, whether of blogs or books, it doesn’t matter.  Sometimes it is seen in artworks – hidden as though in a code, it begs you stop  and let it seep into your mind and heart. And music!  Spiritual  truth, though formless, can be expressed in all forms. Many of the brothers have  taken on the purpose of teaching awareness. Some of these teachers have become  very well known for their books and conferences. Yet, I know there must be many  who are alone and praying on the mountain until sweat drips like blood into  their sandals. All are equally great, all purposes equally important. The  thoughts of each have made channels from above into our dense world, so that it  is no longer as dense, but filled with holes through which light comes from God.  (You can call your Creator “the universe” if you like, but only GOD will do for  me) 

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