Micciah responds to questions within current world conditions around:
• Holding on to optimism? View Section
• Living with peace and trust? View Section
• Being here to evolve? View Section
• Transmuting destructive forces? View Section
• Interspecies communication? View Section
• Doing what we haven't yet seen? View Section

   Julie: So I ask to be guided, to be open to the most useful information as the realms converge through me at this spot. And I ask that the work be blessed. I feel blessed to do it and to be with you.

   Micciah: So, we greet you dear friends. And we are so pleased to be invited to speak with you. And as we have said so often, you all meet in the physical (although now we have people on Skype, some of them in faraway places) and when you meet, not only when we are here but often other energies are here learning from you as you are learning from us in the connection between the realms.
   You are living in a time of intense challenge, chaos, sadness; and Spirit is always with you. So the joy of Spirit, however you connect to that, however you perceive that, is always with you. It is always with you. And the more you allow the elements of personality that separate you from it to melt, the more joy comes through you. So it is the paradox of joy in the midst of such difficult circumstances. And I know your questions address that. So, please.

   Linda: [reading the class’s assembled questions] So holding the optimism, what resources to we have within us to do that?

   Micciah: Well, Spirit is the most profound resource. Spirit is everywhere evenly present, accessible to you in any moment that you call upon it. Doesn’t go out to lunch, take a vacation, disappear for a while. And even in moments that are difficult, when you cannot feel it, you can remind yourself, whether I feel it or not in this moment, it is there. And the more you do that, the more you remind yourself, the more open the connection becomes, the more vibrant the connection becomes. Another aspect of keeping joy alive in the midst of these challenges.
   It’s what we said, we believe it was in the session right after your current leader was elected. Stay connected to the people you love. Make new connections to people who might become friends. Stay connected to your community. In some ways, in earlier times, it was easier to stay connected if you live in a community, if you live in an extended family situation without romanticizing them, people were right there. Perhaps sometimes there were… One wished they weren’t there. But in this world, especially in this urban setting, everything is now moving much too fast. Much too fast for the human body to metabolize.
   As a sidebar, one of the reasons that people are behind their phones. It is not only a constant feed of information, which is much more than anyone needs, but to create a kind of privacy in the midst of all of this activity.
   So, the mindfulness of connection is crucial. Yes, take the time to meet, to have lunch, to take a walk. Not too many people use the phone anymore. Make contact. Those vibrant loving contacts nourish your optimism. You know how you feel when you have had a meal with a good friend, or a talk, or gone out for a bit. You nourish each other. You can keep you optimism by reading material that is oriented toward optimism. And really paying attention to what you feed yourself emotionally and spiritually. You could take violent movies, books, etc. off your list. What you feed yourself emotionally is as important as what you eat, if not more so.
   You can keep your optimism by going through your day with gratitude. And we will raise the ante with celebration. What happened to today that I am grateful for? To stay awake, as the spiritual teacher Gurdjieff said, stay mindful. Stay awake. Grateful for your food, grateful for your friends, grateful for your home. And then go a step further and imagine celebrating your friends, your meals, your body, your home, the people in the street. As you bless them, as you sit with them in the subway, as you are with them in a store. As Marilyn does, make friends. Bless them. This is a very active practice. Not active in the sense of busy, active in the sense of lively. And you can be peaceful in meditation and with the blessing consciousness.
   Oh, well, appreciation. We were going to say… Say thank you. Thank you. [hands clasped] Thank you. Thank you.
   Please, go on.

   Linda: How do we live with a sense of peace and trust in these conditions? The most life-affirming and least destructive way of living?

   Micciah: Well, what we just said, applies as life affirming. Now, here’s a very important piece. So, you are living amidst chaos but also, and also, some movement, some movements that are full of life, treasure life, are coming up. When you observe the people who are hateful, filled with hate, encased in racism, isolationist laws… [whispers] Just a moment. Observe in what ways… (No, we don’t have it right. Just a moment. Julie is not getting it quite right. Ah!) In what ways internally, Intrapsychically, you have those elements within yourself?
   In that same session, just after Trump was elected, we said, “Look at the ways those characteristics are shadow pieces of yourself.” And that is true, but we are saying this is a slightly different notion. That within yourself, in your relationship to yourself, are there ways, or, what are the ways you are unkind to yourself? Critical, lacking generosity; even being cruel to yourself? Without then adding to that, “Acch! How can I be doing this to myself?” That adds, as Stephen Levine said, “That drives hatred into the pain.” But, wondering, observing, “How do those characteristics of those people out there…” Really there are no people out there. There is only one of you. But, “How do I replicate the characteristics within myself to myself? Are parts of myself at war with each other? Hateful towards each other? Demeaning, shaming, ungenerous?” As a way of enhancing your kindness to yourself.
   This is not about criticizing yourself further. “I am a model, you are a model of all consciousness. Are the elements I observe outside myself that are so distressing inside myself within the relationship I have to myself? And how can I address these compassionately?” Because all of these behaviors, whether you see them what looks outside in other people, or inside, come from fear. Anger, racism, cruelty are based in fears that are unacknowledged and unaddressed; and therefor unaddressed. Does this make sense?
   [class murmurs yes] Questions? As we are speaking? You are good with this? [class affirms]
   So, then you will live increasingly in a trusting environment within yourself. “I trust myself to be kind to myself.” It is like the Tonglen prayer you do in every class and some of you do in all of your meditations. “May I be happy.” Are you taking care of that as you would like to see people in the outside world taking care of the world, and of creatures, and of the earth? “Am I caring for myself that way?”
   Because, when you do, even when you just approach it, you are not… Well it’s an ongoing process, but you are not… It’s new. Pieces of this may be new. You will feel a lightness. You will feel a sense of relief. “Ah. Ah. I do not have to blame myself. I do not have to be unkind to myself. I can be good to my body. I can be kind to myself in the places where I experience pain, as I wish others to be kind. Others in government, others in position of worldly power to be kind.” Kindness.
   And as we almost always say [snaps fingers] dancing. In the midst of the very real issues that you face. Remembering to embrace, to dance, as people through time have danced at the most difficult moments. Have prayed at the most difficult moments. And we understand prayer not to be you, small being asking from, asking for… How to describe this…
   In some teaching, prayer is supplication, yes? We don’t mean it that way. We mean it as alignment with Spirit. Celebration and affirmation. [whispers] Yes. When we look at you, observe you, because we don’t have physical eyes, we see you as pure joy. The joy and the delight of the great heart of spirit expressing in you and through you.
   So, please, continue.

   Linda: Are we here to evolve? Is this a part of the process?

   Micciah: [laughs] That’s a wonderful question. [laughs] Are you here to evolve?
   In every lifetime the deepest wish is to come home. That means home to Spirit. Home is always there. You evolve as your relationship to compassion deepens, as your capacity to celebrate, to heal, to dance. As all of that flourishes. In a way, if you are already completely Spirit, there’s not really anything to evolve to. It’s a paradox, but there is. In the material living of your life, yes. You take on… Let us put it a different way. You take on an incarnation, with a…
   There’s a purpose to every incarnation. The purpose, you know in the prayer, “On Earth as it is in heaven,” refers to living in your physical world as a heaven. And every incarnation, every breath in every incarnation is another opportunity to do that. This one has a joke that when she passes she wants to see the contract she signed. [laughs] She wants to read the small print. And do you make a contract when you come into each incarnation? Yes, you do. And in each incarnation, we do not believe as it is taught in some spiritual situations, that earth is the kindergarten. No, we are with the Tibetans, that the gift of an incarnation is so  precious, because there’s so much to learn. It is precious. Your life is precious. It is precious. All of life is precious. [whispers] All of life. Every atom and molecule. IN the eyes of Spirit, even those people you don’t like, are precious.
   So, we can go on from there. [laughs]

   Linda: How to transmute those destructive forces out there?

   Micciah: You can reference everything we’ve said so far, and to that you can add “Keep them in your prayers. Don’t make them other.” You see, the easiest movement, the great temptation is to make the people who are obviously being cruel, who hate other people, who are destructive; is to make them other. “I am not like that.” And that is true, you are not. If there is only one of you, however, those elements are still contained being enacted in the body of the one. So when you… And we are not suggesting in any way (we never do) that you cut off your emotions, or you don’t have room to watch a broadcast the is distressing and know you are distressed and know you feel angry. The personality is angry. You need room for that. This isn’t about faking it. Giving yourself room for that, you can then move on. And in your meditations together or alone, put them into prayer, if you can. And, put your hands where you can put them. Serve soup. March, peacefully. Give the energy of money to people who are in groups representing the things that are affirming life. Ba a model (be the peace you want to see) of offering care. Offering care when someone is in need.
   This is related. It is a little bit to the side, but it is related. We think you are sometimes hesitant, “Oh well, I don’t know if that person wants my help. I don’t want to be intrusive.” Be intrusive! Try it! Ask! “Do you need help? Do you need my assistance? Can I keep you company while you are not feeling well? Can I come over and make you soup?” Ask. When you bump into that hesitancy of… You know what we mean. Ride right through it. If the person does not want or need your help they can say so. Acts of kindness. What is the bumper sticker? “Commit random acts of kindness.”
   We know Marilyn worked at the bird sanctuary. Offer your help to the animals. You’re here, you are here to be of service. You are here to serve. To learn about choice, because in this realm, choice is what you deal with all the time. Wonderful phrase Linda told Julie from Al-Anon, we think. “Does this need to be said? Does it need to be said?” (Is ‘me’ first?) “Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said now?” Is that right?

   Linda: Yup. That’s right.

   Micciah: This is a big chunk of serving peace. “Does this need to be said?” And you can apply it to what we said earlier about your relationship to yourself, and looking at the areas within yourself where you are unkind. “Does this need to be said? Do I need to criticize myself for this?” And outward, “Does this need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said now?”
   All these things. It is like snowflakes. You think, “Oh well, that doesn’t matter much.” It does matter! Ten snowflakes in your hand will melt. Thousands and thousands of snowflakes can stop a whole city. Thousands and thousands of prayers, thousands of times that you are grateful, thousands of times that you put people in prayer... [sounds “tch tch tch tch tch” while opening her hands wide] Shifts (this is important) shifts the whole dynamic of energy. So that when things happen, as we have discussed before and you have discussed in your group. The Soviet Union was there and then it wasn’t there. The Berlin Wall was there and then it wasn’t there. And perhaps on the other side of it you had Mr. Obama, and then you had… [nods head] So, remember (because it is easy to feel helpless in the midst of this) remember snowflakes. [tch tch thc] It does make a difference. One thing. Another thing. Another thing. Every time you do it, it adds to the activated spirit within the one. Spirit is always there. What we are talking about is activating it. And as you do that it goes into the oneness that already exists.
   Please.

   Linda: Related to Marilyn’s work with animals, how can interspecies communication help?

   Micciah: Ah well, because it creates… It enhances the peace. Jon was studying with an extraordinary man who… His name Jon?

   Jon: James French.

   Micciah: James French, who, if you have never seen him work… Look at it. It is on, we think, YouTube. He can quiet himself and be so attuned to an animal that a wild horse will lie down and relax. By attuning to animals, even if you don’t have… If there are no animals in your home, you can put them into your prayers and imagine them and attune to the creatures. And they have no barriers. They will get it. They will receive it. It is… We know it does go into the news at some point because there are active groups who rescue animals who have been in floods, in areas of volcanos. But it is not reported in your regular news. “Well, these many people died.” How many dogs died? How many birds died? How many sheep? How many cats? Not part of the general picture. So put it into your picture, into your heart, into your prayers. You attune with the creatures. You can select a group of creatures, or just think (or not ‘just’) think of all the creatures and your connection to them. And that is the beginning of active interspecies communication.
   The western view, ahh… We said don’t be critical. The western view of animals with the exception of people like French, and others like him, and a lot of the research that has been done, and the amazement that animals are intelligent(!) is a very limited view. The true essence is much closer to the practices of the shamans, the great teachers of the Native American people. The traditions that understand animals are their teachers. We believe in the Bible, in one of the bibles it says that “man” who is to have dominion… [shakes head] No. They are your teachers. And the more you know it and the more you keep them in your heart and notice them, care for them, the communication… The greater the communication and the more it is enhanced. And we know you, in this room, and in our Skype people already know that. I mean that you… The animals are so dear to you. The creatures are so dear to you. And that fosters the communication.
   From the animals’ perspective [laughs] you all are not too bright, [all laugh] not too perceptive.
   Are there any more questions please?

   Linda: Yeah. One more.

   Micciah: One more.

   Linda: So, what do we need to do that we haven’t yet seen?

   Micciah: Well, that’s really what we’ve talked about. And we’d like to remind you that being precedes doing. Consciousness precedes action. The more conscious you are, the more aligned your actions are with Spirit. And you do need to do things. And we have described a lot of them. And you also need to remember consciousness precedes your action. The more deeply conscious you are, the more deeply connected, actively connected to Spirit, your actions will flow from that. So we answer that by saying do what we have described, a lot of which is about consciousness. And your doing… Doing arises out of being. Manifestation arises out of consciousness. It’s not the other way around.
   Yes, and we see the word ‘treasure’ written. Treasure yourselves, and life, and all of life. And out of that consciousness your doing will be imprinted with that energy.
   When Julie first began to do this work, it was with her friend Emily. And Emily would go into an altered state and say, “It is with the dancing particles of light.” You are the dancing particles of light. You are in fact the dancing particles of light.
   So, we will leave you with that. We share with you much energy and much love. And we bid you a very good evening.