Hon Sha Za Sho Nen (a Reiki greeting meaning, the Divine within me recognizes the Divine within you)….

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi

I have always loved this quote, and always wrestled with how to apply it in my life. With all the upheaval in the world right now, this has really come home to me. I lost two friends in the fires in Santa Rosa, California, and many more friends have been temporarily displaced, and those friends have many friends who have lost their homes. The sadness has been overwhelming. The smoke in my mind’s eye comes not just from the natural disaster in my old home town and those around the country, but from the divisiveness in our country right now, which feels just as sad.

How do I cut through this heaviness and be the change I wish to see in the world? How do I be light and love? As usual, the simplest answer is the best. We simply Be Light, Be Love. And how do we do that?

We imagine. We imagine we are a point of light, a flow, a pillar of light, of love…..we imagine what is always true (even if we can’t feel it); that we are always an indivisible part of the flow of loving light, we receive it, we fill up with that infinite flow from Source, and spill it over to everyone and everything. I imagine pink clouds of love flowing through me and out to every troubled place and person in the world. I do this daily. I persist in being the Light and Love I wish to see in the world. And since everything circles around in this Universe, I know all that love returns to me multiplied. It’s important that I receive it, to complete the circle, fill up even more, and send that expanded love and light out again.

I remember reading a story long ago about an angel who took a despairing human being above the earth…..the human being looked down and saw countless points of light beaming from all over the earth. What are all those lights? the human asked the angel. Those are all the prayers and loving thoughts emanating from people around the earth to each other, the angel answered. And the human realized there was always Love and Light being offered from somewhere in the Universe. We only need to receive…..and then we too can be and feel the Light and Love for ourself and others once again. We can remind those who have forgotten their Light.

Please join me in remembering we are all Light and Love, fill up with it, and spill it over to everyone and everywhere in our beautiful and struggling world.