ACIM Potpourri

with kironJ

‘I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me,
while I rest in Him in quiet and perfect certainty’

Welcome to a page of ACIM writing

Please enjoy this selection of ideas and experiences arising from the study and practice of the Course

New writing will be added regularly

A Potpourri Introduction to A Course in Miracles

A Course in Miracles is a contemporary spiritual masterpiece first published in 1976. Jesus is widely understood to be the ‘voice’ of the Course, bringing his pure nondual message again in a form that we are now ready for. Christian terminology is used to teach non-Christian ideas; a brilliant device for the healing of our dualistic split minds which believe in sin and fear a punishing God. The Course also employs a sophisticated psychology to help us see how we are choosing separation from each other and from our Creator.
The book contains 3 volumes:
The Text, which presents the radical and profound metaphysics of the Course.
The Workbook, which sets out 365 Lessons to support the practical application of the metaphysical ideas.
The Manual for Teachers and Supplements, which further support study and practice of the Course’s thought system.

Here is the Course on the Course,
from each of the volumes of ACIM:

From the Preface:

‘The curriculum the Course proposes is carefully conceived and is explained, step by step, at both the theoretical and practical levels. It emphasizes application rather than theory, and experience rather than theology. It specifically states that “a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible, but necessary”.. It emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum.. There are many others.. They all lead to God in the end’.

From the Text:

‘The whole purpose of this course is to teach you that the ego is unbelievable and will forever be unbelievable’.
‘We are therefore embarking on an organized, well-structured and carefully planned programme aimed at learning how to offer the Holy Spirit everything you do not want. He knows what to do with it’.
‘This course is not beyond immediate learning, unless you believe that what God wills takes time. And this means only that you would rather delay the recognition that His Will is so’.
‘This course offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, and provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will see it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convince you that the words are true’.

From the Workbook:

‘There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach’.
‘This course removes all doubt which you have interposed between Him (God) and your certainty of Him’.
‘This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no satisfactions in the world’.

From the Manual for Teachers:

‘Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real. In this one sentence is our course explained. In this one sentence is our practicing given its one direction. And in this one sentence is the Holy Spirit’s whole curriculum specified exactly as it is’.
‘This course has come from him (Jesus) because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand’.

kironJ’s ACIM Blog

Guidelines for studying the Workbook

‘It is the purpose of this workbook is to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth..
You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do..
It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you they are true.’ (W, Introduction)

It is impossible to get our studying wrong!
Every practice period will help, regardless of how we judge it.
Think of each Lesson as a gift to yourself, a tremendous stride towards peace.
Studying the Course is like learning a new language, with a twist..
A foreign language uses different words for the same content. The Course uses familiar terms, but they have a totally different meaning to the world’s meaning for them.
This can take some getting used to!

Spending time with the Course, building relationship with its Presence, becoming familiar with its Voice, helps us to access the part of our mind that already understands the teaching perfectly.
Bringing this understanding to our conscious awareness is the goal. We’re not expected to have it now.
The Lessons are designed with our current lack of understanding in mind.

It’s very helpful to read the Introduction to the Workbook regularly, as a reminder of how the Course would like us to approach the Lessons.

Practice welcoming the encouragement that is given to us in the Lessons; much is given.

We don’t need to accept the ideas, only allow the questioning process of all we thought we knew and understood.
Simply allow space in our minds for the ideas, be open and receptive, and then they can reach beyond our conceptual thinking.

We are learning to soften our fixed meanings and free our minds of false ideas.
We are asked to develop willingness to accept the Holy Spirit’s help in this.

Alongside our insecurities about not fully intellectually understanding the Lessons comes an entrenched belief that we do understand ourselves and our world. Our physical identity is built on understanding the world’s ways and laws.
Studying the Course helps us come to a new and clear realisation of what is true and what isn’t, and what we innately know as a Child of God.

We need to practice every step. All of them are needed to comprehensively undo our use of the ego’s thought system.
We need much reinforcement in this undoing of our current way of seeing and for the opening to new perceptions.
Patience with ourselves, and with the Course’s method of repetition, is a wonderful attitude to adopt.

It’s best not to look ahead to future Lessons, or refer back to Lessons already covered.
Stay focused on the Lesson of the day, and trust that this is quite sufficient.
The Course has been described as a symphony of ideas, and they will be brought again and again to our attention.

As we study, our life experiences will provide us with the perfect practice for the day’s Lesson.
It’s helpful to bear this in mind, and be grateful for the supreme intelligence that is overseeing our studying.

We are working on forming new habits of disciplined spiritual practice which will serve us for the rest of our lives.
It is worth the effort!

There is a difference between genuine lack of time to practice on occasions, and a lack of willingness to practice disguised as using distractions as an excuse. A good approach is to be gentle with ourselves always, while choosing radical honesty about our practice.

The ego will try to hijack our studying at every turn and in all ways conceivable.
Common ways are:

forgetting
being too busy
perfectionism (can’t go on to the next Lesson until I’ve fully understood the current one)
analysis of the ideas
deciding we’ll do the Lessons our way rather than follow the instructions
just reading the Lessons rather than practicing them
deciding some Lessons aren’t important/interesting and paying less attention to these
deciding some Lessons are wonderful and delaying the process by spending lots of time with these
resisting the structure of the Lessons, not wanting to be told what to do
wanting immediate intellectual understanding and letting lack of understanding discourage us
deciding we’re just not up to it

Quiet morning time to practice is essential to establish our mental set for the day, before the mind gets cluttered with the day’s activities.
The Course says ideally to take this time as soon as we get up, but it also advises to practice when few distractions are anticipated and when we feel reasonably ready. We can but do our best, in our circumstances.

As our world is negated, our mind starts searching for a new truth. If we give the space, the Holy Spirit will provide this new truth. We don’t need to be concerned about anything but allowing the undoing and choosing the willingness to be shown. We don’t need to try and ’empty our minds’, but simply be present, observe and practice.
The truth will naturally dawn on our minds as we follow the exercises and expand our willingness.

Our resistance and any uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that surface during our practicing are all part of studying the Course. ACIM works in us to bring to light what we have hidden/disguised/dissociated from, so that we can choose healing and let go of what is hurting us.
Acknowledging thoughts and feelings is central to our progress, and prevents a log jam of resistance building up.
Celebrating the powerful invitations to heal will be a great help.

If resistance is very strong, try just sitting with hands on the closed book, asking for the Holy Spirit’s support.
The Course advises us not to fight ourselves, so if strong resistance continues then it could be that we’re simply not ready at that time.

Any perceived failures and inadequacies with the Course are precisely what we need to look at to find peace and healing. They will represent existing false beliefs we have about ourselves. The ego will want to find us guilty and persuade us we’re poor students.
A central part of studying the Course is to practice not believing this, or anything our ego says about ACIM.

The Course also encourages us to make our best efforts to follow the Lesson instructions as accurately as possible. Saying ‘we can’t get it wrong’ could be an ego tactic, rather than gentleness to ourselves.
Practicing will increase our ability to discern the difference.

Two quotes to give us all encouragement:

‘Each gift to Him will be multiplied a thousandfold and tens of thousands more.
And when returned to you, it will surpass in might the little gift you gave
as much as does the radiance of the sun
outshine the tiny gleam a firefly makes an uncertain moment and goes out!’ W172

Jesus says, ‘I would not ask you to do things you cannot do,
and it is impossible that I could do things you cannot do..
nothing can prevent you from doing exactly what I ask,
and everything argues for you doing it.’ T159

ACIM Stories & Experiences

Please enjoy this selection of stories & experiences arising from the study and practice of the Course

SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A MIRACLE (1st November 2024)

Wishing to extend it..
Ha, it’s been quite a week!

I’ve been feeling more and more connected to the ‘idea of ACIM festivals’ and the immense healing on offer when we come together in this way.

At the Greece festival last month there was a light bulb moment while talking to Andreas Prohl over breakfast, and I found myself saying ‘Festivals, festivals, festivals, this is the way to go!’ Of course, it was my mind switching on: Andreas doesn’t need to be persuaded

Then recently I’ve been feeling drawn to the German Advent festival, and thought this was an opportunity to join with the minds of German brothers ‘from afar’.

Last Monday an idea popped into my mind (exactly like an email landing in my inbox) of actually going to the Advent festival for a particular project – making mini-recordings of participants and teachers talking about their festival experiences. These recordings will be put together to make a video to promote the first UK ACIM festival next September.

This project idea is being met with warm welcome. Flights are booked, someone has offered a place to stay for a few nights in Cologne before and after the festival, and a ride from Cologne to Bad Meinberg is being organised for me.

There was a practical snag in that I have a pre-arranged class with Jennifer Hadley’s POLM during the festival and there is only a busy cafe area at the festival site that has WiFi. Andreas has offered his home in Bad Meinberg for a quiet spot to lead the class.

When Spirit moves, it really can move!

If you’re attending the festival, please come and find me and offer your festival miracles/overwhelm/delight/holy love.. so that ‘us Brits’ can get the feel and flavour of it.

And, part of the miracle is the inspiration to host an online gathering on Saturday 30th for anyone who’s not attending to join minds with those who are. As the one mind quickens its pace of awakening, it will be more and more aware that it can share in any joining, anywhere. This online gathering, ‘Receive All Now’ will be practice.

THE WORLD I KNEW IS FADING AWAY (25th October 2024)

Seeming worldly absolutes and glimpses of hope
fading away

Ancient ego trickeries, so long deceived

fading away

Ever-present, debilitating hidden dreads
fading away

Belief that a body could ever be possible

fading away

Belief that there’s anything but false ideas being dreamed

fading away

Stars and galaxies and eons of fantasy

fading away

Only the idea of holding Jesus’ hand

makes this a flow of certainty and infinite gratitude

UNDERSTANDING UNDERSTANDING (13th October 2024)

I’ve just been typing up some quotes on understanding, and have been struck by what deep teaching they contain.
Sharing a few here.. Which ones speak most to you?

1: ‘When you decide upon the form of what you want, you lose understanding of its purpose’.

2: ‘Our understanding is so limited that what we think we understand is but confusion born of error. We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light, and minds engaged in worshipping what is not there’.

3: ‘My holiness is far beyond my own ability to understand or know.. Our Will, together, understands it’.

4: ‘You do not understand what you accepted, but remember that your understanding is not necessary. All that was necessary was merely the wish to understand. That wish was the desire to be holy. The Will of God is granted you. For you desire the only thing you ever had, or ever were’.

5: ‘Perceived problems in identification at any level are not problems of fact. They are problems of understanding, since their presence implies a belief that what you are is up to you to decide’.

6: ‘Put no confidence at all in darkness to illuminate your understanding, for if you do you contradict the light, and thereby think you see the darkness’.

7: ‘The attempt to understand totality by breaking it down is clearly the characteristically contradictory approach of the ego to everything. The ego believes that power, understanding and truth lie in separation, and to establish this belief it must attack’.

8: ‘The Holy Spirit does not want you to understand conflict; He wants you to realise that, because conflict is meaningless, it is not understandable’.

9: ‘If you hate part of your Self all your understanding is lost, because you are looking at what God created as yourself without love’.

10: ‘On this side of the bridge to timelessness you understand nothing. But as you step lightly across it, upheld by timelessness, you are directed straight to the Heart of God’.

ONE WEEK ON FROM THE FESTIVAL (9th October 2024)

This year’s Greece festival had a depth and power that leave me forever shifted.

I want to shout out – come next time! Find a festival and go! Organise one!

The one dreaming mind is advancing in its decision making process to wake up,

and my sense is that festivals will reflect this more and more.

Just as ‘He joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand’, we joined with each other and received healing far greater than we can imagine with our limited minds.

But I could feel it. I can feel it..

Just as ‘The Sonship in its Oneness transcends the sum of its parts’, our experience transcended the sum of a large gathering of ACIM students and teachers.

The theme of the festival was remembering our Magnitude, and our opening to this memory was palpable.

I’m so grateful to Kornilia Nikoleri and Maria-Daphne Tsitsi for their dedication and work in organising the festival, for their vision of making it more experiential this year, and for their graceful presence during our days together.

I’m so grateful to all who came and contributed to this miracle of joining. It was beautiful to be with you.

I’m so grateful to Andreas Prohl for following the guidance to organise a festival in the UK in September 25. Watch this space!

‘So do the parts of God’s Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is a mighty herald of eternity. No one who has a single purpose, unified and sure, can be afraid. No one who shares his purpose with him can not be one with him’.

SUMMER BREAK AND GRATITUDE (31st July 2024)

I’m about to go into an August summer break, and it marks the end of a 5 year phase in the full time role of ACIM teacher. I cannot begin to express the gratitude I have for all who have joined me in so many workshops, classes, study and experience series, study sessions, 1-1’s, and silent joining sessions. The miracles have been legion!

When I return to work in September I’ll be continuing with some events on others’ programmes, 2nd and 4th Monday practice sessions on my programme and a limited number of 1-1’s. This work form is to give space for the new ACIM project of writing a book. The prompt to write arrived over a year ago, and it seems much if not all my own healing has been in service of preparing me for this venture.

It now seems just about settled in my mind that the book will be an invitation to revisit the first 5 chapters of ACIM. As you are no doubt aware, these early chapters are often regarded as ‘less than’ the rest of the text. I was looking through these chapters recently being so struck by the profundity of the teaching, and there’s been a growing sense that it is ‘my part’ to illustrate some of this teaching with commentaries and material based on transcriptions of my recorded events over the last few years.

The book will be aimed at committed ACIM students rather than as an introduction to the Course.

Yesterday I felt inspired to sit down and start writing.. and it feels so good to have begun. I’m going into the August break buoyed up and ever more confident that the words will come when I ‘officially’ start in September.

Watch this space!

TRUE STROKES FROM SPIRIT (21st July 2024)

I’ve just been doing some research for the ‘From Ego Drama to Spiritual Power’ class in October, and have found some chilling examples of how the ego works..

In Transactional Analysis, a form of psychotherapy, a ‘stroke’ is defined as a ‘unit of recognition – a unit of attention which provides stimulation for an individual’. A smile, a compliment, a frown, an insult all show our existence has been recognised

At the human level, people have great need of strokes for validation and for forming relationships

From the ACIM perspective, minds dreaming they are people have great need of reinforcement for these false images that they’ve made

Here’s the chilling bit:

Claude Steiner (a psychotherapist who wrote extensively on TA) wrote that as children we are all indoctrinated by our parents with 5 restrictive rules about stroking

*Don’t give strokes when you have them to give

*Don’t ask for strokes when you need them

*Don’t accept strokes if you want them

*Don’t reject strokes when you don’t want them

*Don’t give yourself strokes

He says parents use these rules to control their children and teach that strokes are in short supply. We then spend our lives in a state of partial stroke deprivation

What a brilliant ego strategy! Make identities (people) that need acknowledgment by other people to survive, and then make rules for the giving and receiving of these essential units of recognition that leave us confused, frustrated and always ‘hungry for more’

So we’ll keep looking for more, trying to strike rich in the ‘stroke economy’

ACIM teaches:

‘An idol is a means of getting more’.

We could say we look to idols to give us strokes..

ACIM also teaches we have no need of special relationships (idols) at all! So we don’t need any ‘human stroking’ – at all!

If we open our minds to the memory of God, the memory of ourselves as a mind, then there is a limitless supply of ‘true strokes’ from Spirit, acknowledging our true Self. These true strokes may indeed be reflected in the dream, but we’ll be clear they are reflections..

Closing with a sublime acknowledgment (stroke) from ACIM of our reality:

‘You are altogether irreplaceable in the Mind of God.. Your value is in God’s Mind, and therefore not in yours alone. To accept yourself as God created you cannot be arrogance, because it is the denial of arrogance.. You did not establish your value and it needs no defense. Nothing can attack it nor prevail over it. It does not vary. It merely is’

This quote is taken from the section Grandeur versus Grandiosity, which was the focus of our workshop yesterday. We looked at how all forms of grandiosity are but a cover for our perceived littleness

We could say here that only the belief in littleness could persuade us that strokes from our projections are essential to our existence

VIGNETTES OF THE GERMAN FESTIVAL (25th May 2024)

Closing thoughts on this miraculous gathering

On the first day, Andreas Prohl, co-organiser of the Festival, with a hundred and one things to think about and do, offering to pick a participant up from the train station because her train was delayed.

Early morning, my roommate sitting in meditation on her bed, in total stillness for an hour, face serene, being touched deeply to see ‘a body’ reflecting peace so vividly.

Jon Mundy looking impressively sprightly and spry, with absolutely no lingering sign of his serious illness a little while back. Really inspiring!

Frank Hamm striding across the main stage with full face paint and on fire for God, and his deep meditation on feeling our Creator creating us now.

The ‘miracle team’ pairings of 2 teachers, names drawn out of a hat at the beginning of the day, so nothing could be preplanned for their hour’s session. What delicious fun and wonderful scope for the Holy Spirit! Many agreed they’d like to have been there for Jon Mundy’s (in his 80’s) and Frank Hamm’s (in his 30’s) impromptu talk on sex in their miracle team session.

Kornilia Nikoleri bringing the ‘hush of Heaven’ to a packed main room. The sense of Presence was so, so strong!

A Portuguese participant in my voice workshop asking me to partner him in an exercise, me declining so I could pay attention to the group, and someone else coming forward who was probably the only other Portuguese speaking participant among the hundreds at the Festival.

Ann Peters, co-organiser of the Festival and leader of the interpreter team, flowing seamlessly back and forth between her 2 roles, and giving effortless simultaneous translations of German into English, I’m sure catching every nuance..

Around 40 of us gathering to chat and reflect at the local ice-cream parlour on the afternoon after the Festival closed. A Dutch teacher (though not speaking at this Festival) shared how for him dancing and music supported a state of mind completely beyond the physical. For me it is silence that does that. What a lesson in not judging form..

A ‘miracle walk’ on the last evening with one of the Greek participants, seeming to stray from our route back to the centre, but noticing we were passing an inn called ‘Alexander the Great’ and the people outside were talking in Greek. Not lost at all..

Amen Amen for all of it.

SNEAKY EGO AND DRAMA TRIANGLES (12th May 2024)

We had such a powerful joining yesterday for the ‘Stepping Out of the Drama Triangle’ workshop.

What is staying with me most is how our involvement in drama triangles can shift as we deeply choose healing. The positions of the triangles are ‘victims’, ‘rescuers’ and ‘persecutors’, and of course all 3 can be found in every split mind.

As we start claiming our power, feeling less a victim of others and the world, and stop rescuing others as a way of avoiding our own neediness without God, and pull back from persecuting others, seeing they are simply our projections, then the mind can get really frightened in its approach to the Light.

In sneakiness and ingenuity, the mind can start choosing, or intensify its use of ‘healing process’ drama triangles.

Some examples:

Victim – me, the mind choosing healing

Rescuer – Jesus/Holy Spirit as a magician figure

Persecutor – the ego

Victim – me, the mind choosing healing

Rescuer – ACIM, as support for a ‘dream upgrade’

Persecutor – fear/guilt, that seems to come unbidden

Victim – me, the mind choosing healing

Rescuer – the ego, as the way to avoid the frightening Light

Persecutor – a vengeful God

Do you recognise any of these operating in your healing process? Or maybe you have a different form of a healing process triangle?

In all 3 examples above, we’re choosing a position of not claiming our true power, asking for help from something external and seeing the block as imposed upon us. This is a split desire in operation – we do and we don’t want healing – and so we won’t receive full release from what we’ve made, even if our plea is to Jesus/Holy Spirit/ACIM. Being in these triangles can be useful stepping stone learning in our process, but ultimately they are such a trap!

ACIM is inviting us to remember our true power and realise we don’t need rescuing, and a fictitious ego can’t help us or persecute us.

Let our prayer be to transcend all 3 positions of all drama triangles, whether they appear in personal relationships or in our mind’s healing process.

True forgiveness is of course the way..

‘Only an illusion stands between you and your brother, and the holy Self you share together’

‘In him is Heaven’

EGO BACKLASH TO EGO BACKFIRE (5th May 2024)

Feeling inspired to write about the miracles on offer if we view ‘ego backlashes’ in a different light.

A common reaction to the backlashes is ‘oh no, it was all going so well.. I could feel real progress and then this happened..’.

What if we viewed the ‘unwelcome backlashes’ as perfect invitations to see the nature of the ego thought system more clearly?

The ego thought system is insane, sick, destructive, spoiling for a fight at every turn.. (and of course unreal).

Why are we surprised that by employing this ‘software’ in our minds that the outcome is painful?

What if we could accept that just as the sun is hot and ice is cold, the ego, the choice for separation, brings painful experiences?

When a ‘backlash’ occurs, we could say –

‘my mind must have been choosing the ego for this uncomfortable experience to occur. How useful to see this example of the horrific nature of the ego, and be in a stronger position to consider if I want it’.

The key is to not be victims of the backlashes, but know that it is us as dreaming minds that has deliberately chosen the difficulty.

Then every ‘backlash’ will bring the enquiry – this is the nature of the ego; do I want it? And of course if we really saw the nature of the ego thought system, we would easily and instantly say no, I don’t want it.

If we keep practicing this way of looking, ‘backlashes’ will begin to backfire on the ego, and will instead offer a sling shot to eternity, to God, to our Home, to our Self. We will see more and more clearly the ‘cost of sleeping’ and refuse to pay it.

We will gratefully and easily be more inclined to say yes to the sanity and peace and love of Truth. Amen.

PERFECT LESSON FOR EASTER SUNDAY (31st March 2024)

Today’s lesson is ‘Miracles are seen in light’, and it has such deep and powerful teaching about darkness and light (or we could say, crucifixion and resurrection). The message is that we have all power to choose the miracle of resurrection, which of course is of the mind and not the body.

Here is a summary of the teaching in the first few paragraphs:

The miracle is always there.

You will see miracles in the light;

you will not see them in the dark.

Denial of light leads to failure to perceive it.

Failure to perceive light is to perceive darkness.

The seeming reality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless.

Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. How can this be reversed?

Your efforts, however little they may be, have strong support.

When you have felt the strength in you, which makes all miracles within your easy reach, you will not doubt.

Instruct yourself that you are not a body.

Faith goes to what you want. Your will remains your teacher.

Your will has all the strength to do what it desires.

You can experience the strength in you.

TWO FUNERALS AND JOY (11th February 2024)

The Students of Joy series is well underway, and there was some sharing in the last session that I feel inspired to post here. It touched me deeply, and I hope it will be helpful for you too. I’ll call the participants B and L.

The theme of this session was ‘confusion between pain and joy’, and these examples show so clearly the process of coming to clarity.

B talked of recently attending a funeral of a friend who had committed suicide, leaving 3 children. In worldly terms, this is tragic indeed and not a reason for joy at all. B prepared for the funeral with some deep inner work: she asked the question, ‘How do I dedicate myself to the practice of joy?’ and received the answer, ‘Accept only what God offers’.

B tried to ‘make joy happen’ on several occasions – there were some partial and fleeting experiences of joy, but then her efforts backfired and there were some explosive happenings. With the great pain of this approaching funeral, B simply surrendered and asked for the healing of her mind’s belief in suicide. B has had many suicidal feelings herself in the past, and some of her family members have committed suicide. At the funeral, B found joy arising from within and she had an image of Jesus comforting the 3 children, and inspiring the priest’s speaking. B said you could ‘hear a pin drop’ as he spoke. Adding that B had a very difficult experience of the Catholic church when young, and so for her to find joy while she seemed to be in a church setting is a sign of great healing indeed.

Joy doesn’t arise from the physical, and isn’t affected by any seeming ‘non joy’ in the world. The ‘non joy’ can only be our projection, and an experience such as B’s is a miracle of giving reality to the joy, and not to the projection.

L also talked of recently attending a funeral, and this miracle was centred on another attendee of the funeral. L had worked with this person some years ago, and this person, L’s boss at the time, had been ‘really awful to her’. L has done much forgiveness work on this relationship, but she was still concerned about how it might be when they met again. In the days leading up to the funeral, L focused on the teaching, ‘I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself. I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison myself’. When walking to the building where the funeral was to be held, L immersed herself in healing thoughts – death is illusory, this funeral is illusory – and when she saw this old boss of hers, a love arose that was pure and beautiful. L and her old boss walked towards each other and held each other. The love stayed with L all through the proceedings, and she was so aware of the healing at the level of the mind. What a clear example of forgiveness leading to love and joy!

In gratitude to B and L, and all the participants of this series on joy. What blessing!

TODAY’S LESSON SEEN MORE DEEPLY (23rd January 2024)

I’ve just been with today’s lesson, ‘I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts’, and have seen its meaning more deeply than before. Prompted to share, so hope this is helpful:

Giving up attack thoughts doesn’t just mean giving up judgements of others and of ourselves.

It means giving up:

believing that attacks that seem to come from others are real

believing anyone’s body symptoms are real

believing that any conflict at all, wherever it seems to be, is real

believing that bodies are real (all made to attack the Truth)

believing that the world is real (made to attack the Truth)

believing that separation from God has occurred

So, ‘giving up attack thoughts’ is a wonderful and succinct description of true forgiveness, and I’m grateful to see it.

LOOKING MORE DEEPLY AT FRANCES XU’S PASSING (22nd October 2023)

We’ve come through the initial shock of Frances passing, and have no doubt been through a process of assimilating not only that there is no longer a Frances but also the circumstances of her passing. And we can now choose to apply the fundamental teaching of ACIM to what seems to have occurred.

Let’s take attention from ‘what happened to Frances’ to the healing of our own minds, our one responsibility, and see what ‘Frances’s passing’ can show us.
From lesson 137:
I have numbered the quotes so I can refer to them afterwards in applying them to this situation, for the purpose of our own healing.

1. ‘Healing.. must demonstrate that sickness is not real’

2. ‘Healing but removes illusions that have not occurred’

3. ‘Healing but offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of truth’

4. ‘Healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth’

5. ‘And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind.. healed along with you’

6. ‘Today we will ask that only truth will occupy our minds’

7. ‘And I would share my healing with the world, that sickness may be banished from the mind of God’s one Son, Who is my only Self’

So, ‘Frances Xu’ is an image in our minds, representing a cluster of thoughts about separation and healing. There never was a real ‘Frances Xu’, just as no person and no world has ever existed. Apply quotes 2, 6.

Just as ‘Frances’ never occurred, so her sickness never occurred. Apply quote 4.

If we are confused or shaken about the manner of Frances’s passing, we can apply quote 3.

If our goal is true healing, we must choose to open to a state of mind that sees all and any sickness as unreal, including ‘Frances’s sickness’. Apply quote 1.

We can choose the miracle of recognising that the spiritual teacher Frances, her dedication to healing, and her sickness and passing, are all the one virtual mind’s thinking. This miracle shows that none of these thoughts can change the reality of our One Mind, and in this we offer healing to all the ‘seeming fragments’ of the one dreaming mind. Apply quote 5.

And I applied quote 7 in the decision to post this.

ISRAEL, HAMAS AND FORGIVENESS (11th October 2023)

Feeling inspired to remind us of ACIM’s teaching on forgiveness, and that it applies to all seeming happenings in the world:

‘The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth and not illusions’.

‘It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him… Do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself’.

‘The world cannot perceive its (forgiveness’s) meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in all the world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects’.

Shall we join in the prayer, ‘Let me perceive forgiveness as it is’.

GOING AND NOT GOING TO GREECE (28th September 2023)

Today it seems I set off on the journey to Greece, to speak at the Greece ACIM festival.

When I went to France at the beginning of the year, it did seem like I went somewhere. When I went to Canada in April, it didn’t. It was far more obvious that it was only my thinking – of going, being in and coming back from another country. The thinker of these thoughts didn’t go anywhere!

And now I come to the idea of going to Greece. Even more obvious that this is simply my thinking.

And it is beautiful and holy purpose thinking.. joining with other minds choosing to remember that we are ‘one in the heart’.

Whether your body seems to be attending the festival or not, I invite you to join in the memory of our one mind, one heart.

‘Love is one.. It never alters with a person or a circumstance It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son’.

A BRUISED HEEL AS A STEP TO GOD (20th September 2023)

I’m in the middle of a miracle, so thought I’d share..

Yesterday I noticed that my heel was sore. Nothing particular had happened,

and I noticed the ego wanting to know the reason and how to fix it.

And so began the healing process..

Nothing has happened, only a decision by the mind to:

believe projecting guilt onto the body has value

believe the body can dictate what ‘kironJ’ can do

believe in limitation and injury

believe feelings of frustration are justified

believe in loss

And the forgiveness practice has brought the gift of gentleness; seeing how ‘harshness’ has still played a part in the mind’s thinking, arising from a belief that harshness is strength and needed to cope with a ‘harsh world’.

I’ve been resolutely ‘staying here with God’, observing, and welcoming gentleness as strength and blessing and healing.

It’s been so beautiful and powerful to ‘experience a limitation’ and see it only as a set of meaningless ego thoughts in my mind.

The guidance has been to use the magic of foam cushioning and a support sock, but be really clear that this is only ‘giving tangible form’ to my mind’s choice for true softness and support.

Stay in this morning and then go out as planned this afternoon, walking gently, radiating gentleness, reflecting gentleness..

Indeed, a step to God.

LETTING THE DOER FADE AWAY (10th September 2023)

I’ve been shown a simple yet really powerful exercise to support our return to a mind identification – the goal of ACIM; to let the ‘doer’ fade away.. I hope it is helpful.

Stand up and sit down, as you would normally do, being aware that this is something you as a person are doing. You the person have decided to do it and you do it. This is our everyday experience.

Now look at the space all around you, be aware of its stillness, silence and peace, its spaciousness, and allow your mind to open in the direction of its natural state – still, silent, peaceful, spacious. And then observe the person standing up and sitting down, being willing to have a sense that the person is not doing this, but the mind is choosing to project a set of images – person standing up and sitting down.

Go back and forth a couple of times, as the doer and the observer of standing up and sitting down. Be willing to be shown the difference.. it is the difference between identifying with a body and identifying with a mind: choosing illusion or remembering truth.

This of course can be done with any simple action, and extended to all our seeming doings.. ACIM is helping us live in the holy instant, and this exercise is a mighty practice in support of this aim.

All blessings for all and any engagement with letting go of the doer.

KEN ON STRAIN AND FATIGUE (15th August 2023)

Holiday reading.. being blessed by re-reading Ken Wapnick’s “A Vast Illusion”, and receiving the miracle of being immersed in the idea, ‘we are reviewing mentally what has already gone by’.

This has landed as never before.. helped by Ken stating so simply:
“It is not we, our physical and psychological selves, that are perceiving and experiencing the world.. our eyes are sightless and our ears do not hear.. It is the split mind that exists outside time that projects its dualistic thoughts of separation onto the body”
And now to strain and fatigue. What if we really took the following in:
“Although this is not our experience, it is hard work indeed to keep ‘real’ the illusory nature of time, because in reality it has already been corrected. And it is this ongoing strain of attempting to deny reality and make the unreal real that is the true source of the strain and fatigue that is our experience of living in this body”.
So, not busy work schedules, or family roles, or the weather, or bodily symptoms, or getting older.. we get tired because our minds are trying to make the unreal real. It is quite a task they have set themselves!

FOCUS ON THE SECOND COMING (5th July 2023)

Does this call to you?

I’ve just been with a student in a silent joining session, with the idea ‘By grace I am released’. It took me into a deep experience of opening the door in my mind to ‘beyond’ and being guided to focus on the Second Coming, ‘the time in which all minds are given to the hands of Christ, to be returned to spirit’.
This universal release has of course already happened (we are mentally reviewing what has gone by) and of course has never really happened (the separation never occurred).
By taking my attention to the Second Coming I was strengthening my knowing of both its levels and bringing it closer not only for this mind but all minds.
The guidance included writing this post, and asking if you feel called to this focus.
‘What is the Second Coming’ is a passage immediately following Lesson 300.
‘Pray that the Second Coming will be soon, but do not rest with that. It needs your eyes and ears and hands and feet. It needs your voice. And most of all it needs your willingness’.

POEM OF CELEBRATION (27th May 2023)

I’ve just qualified as a ski instructor, and this reflects immense healing in my mind. I feel a shift in the healing process now, so that it will look like much healing going on within the other instructors I work with, and those that come apparently to learn to ski.

Here is a poem of celebration, speaking of a skier/ a mind that I’m working with. Hallelujah Amen!

THE EXQUISITE HOLY WAY

A river of holiness runs right through it.

Becoming the flow of holiness and being the power of holiness.

All else is the dark land that holiness is shining away.

Holy Brightness. In God, reaching to God, being of God.

And so the ski ministry begins.

A 16 stone shaking mass of terror stands

10 feet up a gentle nursery slope and cries and cries.

I stand with her

looking on the what we have done to our most holy minds.

The freezing fear is of losing control.

She can’t be reached today, but gentleness leaves a trace.

She will come back next week

and witness again the ravages of ego

and maybe have another go

at sliding 10 feet

and choosing again.

HOLY TRINITY PRACTICE (20th November 2022)

Offering a practice to help stop choosing the runaway frantic rush ego mind..

Choose 3 ideas – say ‘holy peace, holy power, holy light – and for 15 minutes be absolutely resolute in keeping your focus on them. You might choose one of the ideas as the main focus, and then go to the other two as ‘stabilisers’ if the ego thoughts intensify to an extent that you can’t keep with one idea. You might choose to cycle round all three.

The main aim is to keep turning to this holy trinity of thinking no matter what the ego mind comes up with – fears, plans, aches and pains, some ‘lovely’ future event..

We did this in the support session last Monday and the group found it very powerful and helpful, and much was said about wanting to adopt this practice themselves. One participant has let me know she has been doing this practice and always asks Spirit about the particular ideas for that day. Other suggestions are ‘holy love, holy joy, holy abundance, holy stillness..’

SO INSPIRING! (16th November 2022)

I spoke with a friend earlier this week – I’ll call her K – and was so inspired by her sharing, so sharing here too..

K’s new neighbour began making demands that K do her cleaning and cooking, cut her hair, take out the rubbish.. and wanted to talk to K about her problems.. At first K was overwhelmed with old thinking that she ‘ought’ to help someone who clearly can’t cope on her own. Then K took the issue to Holy Spirit and was shown what is truly helpful. The neighbour wouldn’t be interested in ACIM but she had mentioned God, so K has told the neighbour that she’ll join with her in talking about God but won’t join with her in talking about her problems. On a practical level, K offered to take out the rubbish and has provided her with details of departments who can help.

K has been sticking to ‘only talking about God’, which the neighbour can resist but then come round and say – thank you for reminding me.

What if we decided to only join with others in ‘talking about God’ (where welcome) or demonstrating our openness to God in some form that would be welcome.

The Course invites us to join with the dreamer and not their dream. K has lived this teaching through her experience with a neighbour. I’m inspired, hope you are too..

THE LAND OF BARBIE DOLLS (3rd November 2022)

I had a painful experience last night: lots of ‘dead thoughts’ coming to the surface seeming to be caused by an outside event.

There were lots of tears and a feeling of being hit by a 10 ton truck. Raw and bruised..

So of course, a brilliant forgiveness opportunity. This was all going on in my mind! Only affected by my own thoughts.. An immersion in Course thinking and a choice for holy perception..

A few hours ago I felt a shift and suddenly every person I’ve ever known or thought about was seen as a Barbie doll. Miniature Barbie dolls at that.. and my mind is experiencing a vast presence

I don’t know how long I’ll be in this state of seeing, so I’m posting now while it’s so clear.

We are not people!

BODY UPDATE (30th August 2022)

A body update is of course really a mind update..

I’ve had 2 body experiences in the last week which have clearly demonstrated to me the power of the mind, so sharing..

Last Tuesday I had the option of quite a physically demanding day or a really full on demanding day. The guidance was to go for the latter and stay rooted in the idea that the mind is outside time and space and cannot possibly be tired.
This deeply challenged my mind’s ancient pattern of reaching for tiredness as escape and comfort and ego bolstering..

So, last Tuesday I did 2 hours ski shadowing (standing to observe a lesson and doing demos, running up the nursery slope many times), I looked after my grandson in the afternoon – not a sit down job – then back to the dry ski slope for a 90 minute personal skiing class, followed by a 2 hour instructor training session, which involved much side stepping up the nursery slope.

And at the end I felt a sense of strength and well being that was completely new.. because my mind was choosing to recognise its natural strength and well being. It was nothing to do with being ‘physically fit’ or trusting my body.

The second example happened this morning:

One of my crowns fell out. I’ve had a few teeth situations in the last couple of years, and for a millisecond all kinds of stories flashed through my mind – oh, no, another tooth problem – I’m leading a retreat this weekend, it can’t interfere with that – how long will it take to get a dental appointment etc And then the ego was spotted and chosen against. The replacement thoughts were of peace, the body is a projection of the mind, only guilt laid on the body can bring suffering, I choose to stay in the holy instant..

I went to the dentist when they opened and was given an appointment for later in the morning. I went back, and a happy smiling dentist cemented back the crown in a jiffy. His comment was ‘the tooth looks good, but the cement was quite old. All done’.

So, this experience was a reflection of my mind choosing to lay peace on the body, and not guilt. If I’d kept running the first stories, the experience may have been quite different.

The takeaways..

Love is strong, and my mind can choose that the body reflects this.

My mind can consistently choose to lay peace on the body, and not use it as a dumping ground for guilt and anger.

Amen!

I’m off soon for another ‘physical Tuesday’ – grandson, 90 min ski class and instructor training. Having only had a couple of walks to the dentist and no shadowing this morning, it will seem sedate after last Tuesday.

BLESSING FROM TODAY’S LESSON (10th June 2022)

I was reading the blessing in today’s Lesson, Give me your blessing, holy Son of God, (161), and a beautiful extension came to me – so sharing..

The blessing as given is:
‘Give me your blessing, holy Son of God. I would behold you with the eyes of Christ, and see my perfect sinlessness in you’

Then the idea came to vary the ending, with different images to match.

For example:

Have an image of a sick person, and say

… see my perfect health in you.

An image of a poor person, and say

… see my perfect abundance in you.

An image of a violent person, and say

… see my perfect peace in you.

All these images of sickness, poverty, violence, are images of my thinking, in my mind.

This is an exercise in choosing miracles.. seeing through the separation images to the perfect health, abundance and peace of my mind, of all minds.

All blessings if you choose this exercise in miracles.

STAYING IMPERSONAL AND HELIUM BALLOONS (25th May 2022)

This morning I woke up with a clear prompt to keep self talk impersonal from now on.. not ‘my body’ but ‘this body’, not ‘my flat’ but ‘this flat’ etc, all to support the growing acceptance that ‘my mind’ is equally projecting ‘my body’ and any other bodies in its dream.

This led to an instant expansion and an image of a helium balloon rising into the sky. The helium balloon has no control over where it goes; it will rise and be taken by air currents. Similarly, a mind that is welcoming the memory its impersonal nature will simply rise above belief in the dream and be taken by Spirit. I’m noticing some fear, but not enough to stop the huge gratitude for the practice and the determination to keep rising.

A COLD CLASSROOM: JOINING OR OBLIVION? (10th May 2022)

Yesterday was a deeply healing day, wishing to share..

Overnight, Sunday/Monday, I was in an almost comatose sleep, waking sometimes to shivering and aching. In the morning I felt weak and just wanted to go back to sleep. I had a 1-1 and a group session planned, and wasn’t at all sure I’d be in a fit state to lead them.

I did go back to sleep 4 times during the day, for an hour each time. The striking thing was observing the overwhelming ego desire for oblivion. Before one of the times, I tried to stay awake and join minds with Jesus, which offers the greatest restoration. No, just fell asleep..
In worldly terms we’d say – of course, you’ve got a fluey cold, your body needs sleep.. but I recognised that as an excuse, a false reason, disguising the attraction to death, the seduction of oblivion. Through listening to the ego we make an identity and world that is full of stress and strain and sickness, and then the ego comes up with rogue solutions to block out these stresses and strains – sleep can be used this way, and then ultimately death of the body.
The group session last night was part of the Ken Wapnick series focusing on resistance. Ken makes powerful and eloquent calls for us to do nothing but look at the resistance with the Holy Spirit and feel its effects. So, applying this yesterday, I didn’t try and get ‘kironJ’ ready to lead the sessions, but allowed a deep looking at my choice for and attraction to sickness.
‘One need but say, “There is no gain at all to me in this” and he is healed.. The resistance to recognising this is enormous, because the existence of the world as you perceive it depends on the body being the decision maker’.
Yesterday was a supreme classroom in which to feel this resistance.. It may seem easy to say – there’s no gain in sickness, but is it so easy to say there’s no gain in being ‘kironJ’ in a physical world? They are the same decision, and I now feel closer to saying ‘no gain’ to both..
It was also a beautiful opportunity to welcome Spirit to speak through me, and not be concerned about the apparent weakness in kironJ. Of course, perfect timing.. with 30 minutes to go before the group session I felt a wave of strength come through, and during the session I shared of my healing day, which was appreciated..
A footnote about sleep.. someone asked in the session if sleep is always of the ego. No.. the Holy Spirit can use everything we’ve made, and if we dedicate our sleep to holy purpose, to our mind resting in God, nothing to do with relief from illusory stresses and strains, then much healing can come of it.
Last night I could happily put my sleep to this purpose.. whew!

WHY FOLLOW THE NEWS? (14th April 2022)

In the support session on Monday a participant, I’ll call her P, shared that she is still troubled by the Russia Ukraine war, but that she is also attracted to the news about it. P asked for suggestions, a healing process..

What came to mind immediately was to suggest not watching the news for a day, and watch her mind instead in response to no news. P’s first reaction was ‘no, no, no, anything but this..’. Ego loud and clear, protecting its place in P’s mind..

P went on to say that she’d give a day off a go, and our group discussion went on to the general issue of watching the news. Reasons given for following the news were ‘needing to be in touch with what’s going on’ and ‘I feel a duty to know how others are suffering’. This is all ego..

Who is it that needs to be in touch, and just what is ‘going on’?

Who is it that feels the duty, and what is the ‘suffering’?

The answers I offer to these questions:

The mind choosing separation needs its projections/things going on in this world to keep the belief in a personal identity.

The mind choosing to deny that it is suffering through its choice for separation needs to see suffering outside of itself, in others.

Following the news about war is a strong strategy for the ego, which can convincingly claim there really are innocent victims, aggressors and a need to be emotionally caught up in the unfolding story of struggle.

Turning to Spirit and desiring to remember the Truth, beyond all good/bad/tragedy/suffering, will bring peace to our war torn split minds, and allow a perfect showing of what needs to be done in the dream. Sometimes Spirit may guide us to watch the news, sometimes not, but either way it will be for the holy purpose of healing our minds and not in response to the hallucination of a conflicted and violent world.

RELEASING AN EGO STRANGLEHOLD (24th March 2022)

Sitting amid miracles and wishing to share..

In the kironJ dream, skiing has been a prominent subplot. Young adulthood saw skiing as specialness supreme, offering freedom and excitement and evidence of being ‘good at something’. Then came a long gap, when it was viewed as a cherished memory and unlikely to come my way again due to ill health and then ill wealth..

Last May I put ski boots on again for the first time in 26 years, at the local dry ski slope, with no more aim than to gently prepare for a family ski holiday. By last summer, the aim had extended to applying for the training to become a ski instructor – a nationally accredited one year course. Since last summer I’ve been on skis a lot, unlearning the old way of skiing and learning the new way. Of course an analogy for unlearning the ego..

This activity has brought me face to face with much ego thinking!

I’ve been steadily undoing the specialness, and dedicating skiing – and the potential to instruct – to holy purpose. Many ideas have been coming about how I could bring the mind level into ski instruction, and my heart has soared..

On Tuesday we had the second part of the assessment, a practical, and since then the wait for the decision about who would be accepted for the training

In meditation this morning a very painful limiting belief popped into awareness.. a belief of being a ‘dunce’; that compared to others I had no talent and would forever be stupid and ‘less than’.

(The ski class last night was a perfect representation of this belief – I simply couldn’t do what was being asked of the class, and more than this, there was a self-sabotaging wish not to comply. I wanted to be incapable!).

I had a panorama of endless dreams of underlying ‘duncehood’, and either caving into this belief, or strenuously trying to show otherwise.. both ways keeping the belief intact. By seeing all this and feeling the acute pain of it, the stranglehold loosened.. just a dream.. as God’s Child I can’t possibly be ‘less than’..

A short while after the meditation, I received the news that I’ve been accepted for the ski instructor training. I couldn’t stop crying..

A miracle.. this ‘special’ activity now being re-purposed. A new panorama of powerful spiritual opportunity opens up as the belief in ‘duncehood’ wanes. I can be in the role for healing and blessing, not for the purpose of trying to fix inadequacy (or succumbing to it). I am so grateful for what I sense will be ‘ACIM outreach’; another strand of supporting others to go beyond ego limitation, and so go beyond the ego in this mind.

ANOTHER STEPPINGSTONE TO NOT WORSHIPPING THE GOD OF SICKNESS

(26th January 2022)

In the last 36 hours I’ve been graced with a perfect steppingstone to not worshipping the god of sickness.

Inspired to share..

Overnight Monday/Tuesday I started to feel weak and nauseous, and by the morning I couldn’t get out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time.

My son emailed to say that his husband and son had tested positive for Covid, and I wondered if I had Covid too. I spent the day with Jesus and Bill, being present, observing everything.

It was such a wonderful opportunity to feel the symptoms of nausea, weakness, revived reactions to the Covid jab – so convincing, debilitating and so ‘real’! – and put alongside them the Course thinking – my mind is choosing this, my mind desires to feel awful, this is guilt laid on the body, this is what the ego thought system really rests on, it has no power, it’s not real no matter how real it feels..

Overnight last night, I experienced being in a titanic battle between choosing Light and choosing the sick attraction to darkness. I saw Jesus, Bill and Mother Mary as Lights above me, holding me as the battle raged. Part of my mind simply refused to identify with the Light. This describes it exactly:

‘An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path.. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view’.

This was ‘push comes to shove’ territory.. just what do I want to be true? Sickness is not accepting my true Identity, and this is how ghastly it feels, and yet I was fighting and fighting it..

I kept turning to Spirit and asking for the strength of my Mighty Companions to make their decision..

After a while, I saw myself as a 4th Light, in a ring of 4 Lights above the ‘sick one’. My identity had shifted. I settled and eased, repeating again and again – my single purpose is to know myself as the Light that transcends all ideas of sickness.

This morning the symptoms were milder and I could get out of bed and stay up for the day. I did a 2nd Covid test, again negative. I’m so grateful for my Mighty Companions and that I could set the goal of healing at the outset. Not once did I feel a victim or sorry for myself, even with next week’s ski trip being cancelled because the family have Covid (mild symptoms). The treasure is practicing not bowing down to the god of sickness.

ENJOYING FOOD BLOCKING HEALING (18th January 2022)

We had some deep looking in the Manual for Teachers session last night, studying ‘How is Healing Accomplished?’

A sticking point for one participant, I’ll call him P, was food. P said, ‘while I’m here, I want to be able to enjoy food’. This seems harmless enough, but contained in this wish is the whole desire for separation..

A quote from the section, to give some context:

‘The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it is. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea’.

If we give power to food to give us pleasure, we are giving significance to the body, and reality to the world. We’re saying – I am this person (not my Self) and this image/food (not God/Truth) will make me happy.

In this case, P’s mind is trying to enjoy separation, and the means is a story of a person enjoying food.

The ego won’t like this seeing!

Body appetites and seeking their satisfaction is such a seductive ego strategy to keep us bound to the world. P had said, ‘while I’m here..’. Well, we will continue to ‘be here’ while we choose to value any part of our human experience for individual gain. And with valuing body experience comes the guilt, sickness, pain, disaster..

P asked, ‘so do I have to just have bread and water?’

Unlikely.. this is about repurposing our eating, not about which items of food we eat. It’s about not eating for the pleasure of the person but giving the whole issue of food to the Holy Spirit and ask that it serves holy purpose. We don’t actually need to eat (the body is a projection of the mind), but our belief that we do is so very entrenched that the Holy Spirit will help us eat without fuss; just what is needed to fuel the body well so we can practice forgiveness.

Opening to the Course teaching that ‘all pleasure comes from doing God’s Will’ is a profound path of healing.

Ending with another quote from this fabulous section:

‘Place cause and effect in their true sequence (God is the Cause of my happiness; Enjoying food is an effect of my desire for separation) in one respect, and the learning will generalise and transform the world. The transfer value of one true idea has no end or limit. The final outcome of this lesson is the remembrance of God’.

So, changing our tastes from eating for personal pleasure to eating because we enjoy following the guidance of Spirit will lead us God.

That’s healing!

NO BIG OR LITTLE PROBLEMS, ONLY PREFERENCES (9th January 2022)

In yesterday’s workshop, A New Year Dive into Healing, one aspect of the teaching we looked at seemed to strike a particular chord, so sharing here.. ‘All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is preference, not reality’. Saying more..

Our minds have made some problems to be ‘difficult to fix’ because we want some projections to be beyond forgiveness. Our choice for separation and our personal identity depends on projections, which we call problems and other people’s wrongdoing. The ego, ever ingenious, makes some problems that are easy to resolve so we keep hope that this world can come good, and some problems that aren’t easy to resolve so that we keep either trying to fix them or bemoaning that we can’t (either way we keep attention in the world, the ego’s main aim).

Each mind has a preference for particular easy/difficult issues. We also have common ideas about easy/difficult. These too are preferences, although it doesn’t seem like this in our experience. For example, a cold and cancer are equally unreal and equally amenable to healing. Our minds are colluding with each other in the belief that cancer is a serious illness and so it serves as a powerful anchor in the ego thought system. Think of all the cancer research, cancer experience, cancer care, cancer fears..

‘Illusions are illusions and are false. Your preference gives them no reality. Not one is true in any way, and all must yield with equal ease to what God gave as answer to them all’.

The answer is not to tell those with ‘serious problems’ that their problems aren’t serious or even real.

The answer is to realise the sickness is in our minds, for seeing our brother in Christ as a person with problems.

‘All sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes’.

A participant asked yesterday: Can it really be that simple?

The Course says yes.

One way of working with this is to be vigilant for our illusion preferences, and change our self-talk.

An example that cropped up yesterday –

‘The price of petrol (gas) is shooting up and I have no control over that. It’s a big problem’.

This can be seen very differently with Spirit:

‘The price of petrol (gas) is my preference for a difficult problem and I’m choosing this difficult problem so that I can be this person in the world’

With the Holy Spirit seeing, we claim our power to choose again and accept true healing of our minds. Then the petrol issue will have a new purpose of being a forgiveness classroom. Peace will come when we see that ‘petrol’, ‘cars’, ‘lack of money’ are separation symbols in the mind – ideas leave not their source. Then our circumstances will reflect peace too. Maybe the need for a car will go, maybe more money will come..

‘Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule. In joyous answer will creation rise within you, to replace the world you see with Heaven, wholly perfect and complete’.

In great gratitude to all who attended yesterday. I hope this post will help us have a preference for Heaven, rather than a preference for big and little problems.

Amen!

All quotes are from ‘The Laws of Healing’, Chapter 26, section 7

LONDON SIGHTS AND A NEW PERCEPTION (9th November 2021)

In last night’s support session a participant asked for some insight into how to be in his sightseeing trip to London today. He remembered me talking about going to the Wimbledon tennis a few years ago with the intention of seeing it wasn’t real, and said he didn’t want to spend all his day saying ‘this isn’t real’!

ACIM simply isn’t going to budge from its message of ‘illusions are illusions are illusions’ – the ‘happy’ ones, the ‘interesting’ ones, the ‘satisfying’ ones..

‘Every illusion is an assault on truth and does violence to the idea of love’.

‘Enjoying ourselves as an individual’ is a choice for illusions, an attack on truth, and the result will be guilt, which will call for punishment, which brings suffering. Always. The only way out is to dedicate our experiences to holy purpose, for the healing of our minds. I offered this suggestion to the participant:

Look at everything you see as one – the sights of the tour and the litter and the homeless and the traffic congestion and the old/sick bodies etc and practice acknowledging they all go together as one choice for illusions. This would be holy purpose for his visit to London.

The profound and miraculous teaching from the Course is that we can’t desire the ‘lovely things’ of the world without unconsciously desiring the ‘upsetting things’.

As we desire, so we experience.

‘How surely, therefore, must the real world come to greet the holy sight of anyone who takes the Holy Spirit’s purpose as his goal for seeing. And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see’.

What holy sights might there be for this participant to see in his trip today.

WHAT HAPPENS AT A FUNERAL (28th September 2021)

A participant in the support session yesterday, I’ll call her P, asked for support for attending a funeral. She didn’t want to get sucked into ego thinking. Funerals can be very powerful classrooms for healing, if we dedicate our experience to holy purpose. The attraction of death has centre stage, disguised amid the weeping and sorrow.

P has a wonderful opportunity to observe her thinking and beliefs as she mingles with others engulfed in the sadness of a ‘life cut short’ and concerns for the ‘family left behind’.

This isn’t about P being stoic or denying her human responses, but witnessing her mind to know better how real the dream still seems to be. P will then be in a position to ask the Holy Spirit for the healing of these persisting beliefs in the ego. The Holy Spirit will show what P needs to say and to whom, so that she is appropriate and kind, without colluding with her brothers’ dreams.

The ego will love funerals, basking and bathing in the worshipping of death that will typically occur. The separate self depends on death for its survival (yes, insanity..), and a gathering which reinforces the belief in death, where all the conversations will spring from the ‘reality’ of someone dying, will bring much ego rejoicing and relief. Whew! How far from the decision making mind that could see the impossibility of bodies.

Some quotes on death from the Course:

‘Without the idea of death there is no world’

‘Death is the central dream form which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, ageing, losing vitality, and dying in the end’

‘It is the one idea which underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy. A slight discomfort, the merest frown, acknowledge death. It is the alarm to which you give response of any kind that is not perfect joy. It is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical’

PERFECT PATHS OF CORRECTION (17th September 2021)

I was in contact with someone this week, I’ll call him T, who has an approach to ACIM that is quite different from the one I’m guided to take. It set me musing.. students are following this teaching in so many ways, and it seems to me this is perfect!

All spiritual paths are paths of correction, helping us to correct our mistaken choice for the ego. At the level of form we have expressed this mistaken choice in a myriad of ways, so we need a myriad forms of guidance to meet us where we think we are and guide us back to the memory of One Mind, One Truth.

If we’re in Berlin and wishing to travel to London we’ll need a different journey plan to someone in New York who’s going to London. Same destination, but different routes. If we’ve come from an atheist upbringing/understanding we’ll need a different form of healing to someone with a Christian upbringing/understanding..

I see it as a strength that the Course can be helpful to students through a wide variety of teaching/sharing means and modes. I sense that T might see it as something that would best be changed. And this difference is again all part of the brilliance of how ACIM is reaching us. I’m right to be following my way, T is right to be following his way, you are right to be following your way.. they are all our perfect paths of correction, all leading to the Heaven we never left..

MIRACLE WORKING (2nd September 2021)

A friend, I’ll call her P, has just told me of a recent miracle working experience which has deeply inspired me, and so sharing..

P was called in to see a man who was on ‘death’s door’. He was close to organ failure and the vital signs were very weak; he had no awareness of P sitting with him. P asked Spirit how to be in this situation, and was given the message to accept the Atonement for him, to see him as perfect and beyond the physical situation.

P found that she could do this with absolute certainty (P to me: I ‘accepted the Atonement on his behalf and asked for a miracle, to see him as perfect and that his dream was beyond what was appearing.’)

After a while he suddenly ‘came to’ and said he felt different, felt better.

P left, knowing the miracle had occurred, and was able to let go of the physical outcome.

During the next couple of weeks P felt this man’s presence 4 times, on each occasion sensing that he had fallen back into darkness and was calling to her at the mind level for help. Each time she joined with him, again offering him the miracle of certainty of his Truth.

Now the man has no physical symptoms at all. He seems to be stabilised in his attraction to Life rather than death.

Unsurprisingly, P has been profoundly affected by this experience! Of course it will mirror P’s journey of back and forth into attraction to death and then back to Life. When I spoke to her on Monday I witnessed a quiet joy and certainty that I wanted to rest in, to stay with, join with. It was very powerful!

I’m so very grateful for this connection and join P in saying – what else is there but to claim this certainty through the miracle and to share it?

SKIING FOR HEALING (16th July 2021)

I’m having a bumper package of healing through my recent ski experiences, so thought I’d share..

Setting the scene – I hadn’t put on skis for 26 years until 6 weeks ago, and now I’m looking to become a dry ski slope instructor.

How to ski, not to mention the skis themselves, has changed considerably since my younger adult passion for this sport. I’m having to unlearn all I knew and learn a new way.

Does this sound familiar??

It’s a powerful and perfect reflection of unlearning the ego thought system and learning to think with Spirit.

‘Muscle memory’ (ego thinking) has stored the old way – for example, a pole plant is the signal for an upward movement and unweighting one of the skis. My instructor said this will be difficult to unlearn because it is so ingrained.

Ditto – the ego is a challenge to unlearn because it is so hard wired into our thinking..

In my younger days skiing was all about specialness, and now it is dedicated to holy purpose and the healing of my mind. The practice on the slope is to be present with Presence, let the thoughts of ‘I can’t do this, I’ll never be good enough to be an instructor, I want to look good..’ float up and to recognise them as ego (and therefore illusions without meaning).

In the private lesson last Sunday, the instructor ‘deconstructed’ my skiing, and gave all focus to strengthening my foundation (downhill ski). From this foundation, all else will follow.

Ditto, the foundation of following the Holy Spirit.

So, back to basics with lots of snowplough turns.. which I practiced on my own yesterday. In my younger days I’d have felt almost humiliated, but yesterday I was celebrating the opportunity to develop this firm foundation.

I’ve been told it’s a realistic goal to work towards instructor training in March/April, with the next yearly intake at the local dry ski slope. I wonder what miracle working might be possible in this newly shown part of my dream..

‘The bringer of all miracles has need you receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received’.

CELEBRATING CLEARING (29th June 2021)

It is a season of extensive clearing for many.. It seems there are new and daunting challenges rising, or old persistent challenges coming once again, but that places us on the timeline with a future that’s always presenting problems.

We can see it differently!

We can see ourselves as stationary, quiet, peaceful, connected, with a clear choice for complete healing and a glad acceptance that this choice brings the clearing of all our separation beliefs and fears and fantasies. From this stable witnessing position we can see that nothing new is happening. We are simply allowing into awareness what we have previously hidden from ourselves – the huge and harrowing cost of desiring to be an individual in a physical world. We recognise there is no other way to freedom than to see what we have made through the eyes of Spirit and realise the extent of its insanity.

So, as we experience ‘the challenges’, we can celebrate the opportunity to see what once scared us are really only clouds, with no power or meaning or reality. How incredibly liberating! This time round we can experience the challenges as an hallucination! And also a classroom for healing our mind.

What do we truly desire?

This is a profound and essential question to ask ourselves.

A more comfortable illusion?

Salvation, but not just yet?

Our special relationships kept intact?

I extend blessings to all who are asking these questions of themselves and who are willing to be shown that challenges are clouds.

A current one for me is being told by the dental hygienist yesterday that I need to see a gum specialist about a growing pocket under a wisdom tooth.

It’s a picture of guilt, a cloud to walk through with Spirit.

I hope these quotes on illusions from ACIM will be supportive:

‘Freedom from illusions lies only in not believing them’.

‘All illusions are investments. They will last as long as you value them’.

‘Eyes accustomed to illusions must be shown that what they look upon is false’.

‘You must look upon your illusions and not keep them hidden’.

HAPPINESS AND DEATH WISHES (13th April 2021)

In the support group yesterday, we held our sharing in the idea that perfect happiness comes only from our connection with Spirit, and to experience stable happiness we need to see everyone as the same. The sharing was rich and deep: here are some examples.

One participant asked why she felt happy at ACIM gatherings, if happiness doesn’t come from anything in this world. This is sneaky ego still at work, having us believe there’s cause in the world. In the belief that spiritual gatherings can give us something positive comes the belief that ‘undesirable’ physical happenings can take away our happiness.

We’re looking to the world to determine our state of mind, and this is a choice to reject truth. What’s actually going on is that the participant is opening to Spirit, feeling the happiness that this brings, and the picture that her mind is generating is ‘ACIM gatherings’. The healing and learning is that her mind is in charge, and can always make the choice for connection and happiness.

Another shared about a very challenging Easter trip to stay with her parents, and the seeming choice about when to see them again, asking if she could just stay at home and quietly potter in her garden, avoiding all the difficulties. We looked at simplifying this to a choice to listen and follow the Holy Spirit, without preference as to how often she visits her parents. If she’s with her parents, this is one aspect of her separation thinking, providing forgiveness opportunities: if she’s in her garden this is another aspect of her separation thinking, also providing forgiveness opportunities. The same! If we listen and follow, Spirit will lead us through the perfect rhythm of our healing and the healing of all brothers in our circumstances too. ‘My parents need me’ is an ego cry, and it’s so powerful to look at our ego need to be needed!

The last example of sharing is from a participant talking about a friend who is ‘traumatised’. The participant is reluctant to invite the Holy Spirit into the relationship, fearing the friend may commit suicide. This is such a clear example of believing that salvation brings loss and suffering! We explored some more, and the participant shared that she also sometimes wishes the friend would die so that she would be relieved of the challenging friendship. It’s truly wonderful that this could be shared; the death wish is central to our ego thinking and identity, and we do need to acknowledge this before we can heal from it. The fear of the friend’s suicide and wishing them dead are 2 sides of the same coin. Of course, the friend disappearing from the participant’s life wouldn’t help at all with the guilt in her mind that has generated this image of trauma. The friend is the same as her, a Child of God dreaming, yet still peaceful and whole and not traumatised. This is the knowing that will heal both.

A participant emailed me just after the session, saying ‘wow, what a night!’.

I agree, and I’m very grateful.

UPDATE OF THE TALE OF THE COVID JAB (8th April 2021)

Another healing invitation is revealing itself in this Covid vaccination experience, and I hope it’s a useful follow up to my last writing.
It’s become clear that there was an undetected belief in my mind about the high value of having a ‘sensitive body’. It’s an ancient defense strategy that’s been employed by my mind through countless lifetimes/dreams: if I’m sensitive/weak/fragile then I can’t be called upon to do things I don’t want to do. It’s been a guaranteed opt out clause and coping mechanism within the chaotic world of illusions.

Like all our defenses, it doesn’t work! It left me with far more stories of struggle than if I’d faced whatever it was that ‘I didn’t want to do’. From the ego point of view it’s worked brilliantly, keeping the body identification strong.
So, to this current episode.. I’ve unconsciously chosen a story of ‘big reaction to the Covid vaccination’ to support the ‘sensitive body’ belief. There is great healing on offer here! I have an opportunity to change my mind and recognise there is zero value in projecting a sensitive body, and total value in ‘accepting my part in God’s plan for salvation’ (today’s Lesson).
‘We have a mighty purpose to fulfill, and have been given everything we need with which to reach the goal. Not one mistake stands in our way’.
This sensitive body belief had to come to the surface to be healed. If I’d decided against the vaccination, my mind would have generated another ‘sensitive body’ story, with the same opportunity for healing if given to the Holy Spirit.
The issue really isn’t to have the vaccination or not. It’s do I want complete healing or not?
If we ask for complete healing, that’s what we’ll receive through looking on all our guilt and choosing again.
If we ask for a more comfortable illusion, that may be what we receive for a while, but it will incur guilt and so more painful illusions will follow.
Today’s Lesson says, ‘We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it be’.
I’ve found that this episode has brought a deeper dedication. Amen to that.

TALE OF A COVID JAB (3rd April 2021)

I had the Covid vaccination on Wednesday, and it’s been a miraculous experience, wishing to share.
I wasn’t planning to have the vaccination, but an invitation to go to Santorini in July with my son and family brought me to a new decision. The proposed holiday has holy purpose, so I need to be able to go.
By Wednesday I was feeling fully aligned with Spirit on the safety and appropriateness of having the vaccination. It was all easy and efficient at the Covid centre, but within a few minutes of the jab I could sense the vaccine spreading round my body. My system felt deeply compromised, and I was glad it was only a short walk home.

The following 2 hours were very challenging, inviting a concerted focus on Light, Jesus with me throughout. Past lives/dreams of catching ‘deadly diseases’, and dying from them, came rushing to the surface, and it quickly became clear that this was the healing gift of the jab. A familiar sense of powerlessness and defeat swirled around my mind, but this time I gradually found a footing with Spirit in the awful blackness. I couldn’t feel a connection with Light, but I could keep turning to the metaphysics of the Course and the mind of Jesus, repeating and repeating ‘The Light is Supreme’. After a couple of hours, there was a shift and an easing, and I felt more secure with Spirit again.
Whew! Such gratitude for that chunk of guilt coming up to be let out!
The feeling of being compromised has come back a few times, in waves, but not nearly as strong as in those first couple of hours, and there have been no more past life/dream experiences. I’ve been taking a homeopathic ‘vaccination kit’ of remedies, and I’m sure this has given ‘tangible form’ to my choice for healing. So grateful that I was led to this use of magic.
This episode has given me a new appreciation of the utter ghastliness of the ego thought system, and the total supremacy of Light and our Truth. I’m smiling and smiling at the timing, of this happening in the lead up to the Easter celebration of the mind’s resurrection.

THE MIRACLE OF GIVING UP OPINIONS (16th March 2021)

We had a beautiful study group yesterday, focused on the Manual for Teachers section 18, ‘How is Correction Made?’ A participant, I’ll call her D, shared that she decided to give up all opinions about what her husband does and doesn’t do, after becoming aware of just how many sneaky judgements were leaking out from her. D delightedly reported to us that it’s been a huge relief to give up these opinions and that their marriage has never been happier! Her experience is now of living with a beautiful being and it’s all so much easier.
How inspiring!

D demonstrated – taught – the central theme of the section: true correction is of our own mistakes and nothing to do with putting others right. Another participant shared deeply after this about a choice to change her relationship with her daughter. At the moment there always seems to be conflict.
From the section:
‘God’s teachers’ major lesson is to learn how to react to magic thoughts wholly without anger.. Anger but screeches, ‘Guilt is real’. Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God’s Word’.
A major lesson indeed, and our family relationships are often the most powerful classrooms for it.
Another participant was full of wry smiles as he quoted:
‘If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realise that he has made an interpretation that is not true’.
Hum.. the bar is set high in the Course.. and that is why it is a course in MIRACLES!
This is the section that contains the fundamental and well-known statement:
‘The sole responsibility of God’s teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself’. Atonement meaning the correction of our errors..
What clear and loving direction.

I’D LOVE TO SEE ALL STUDENTS TRY THIS! (29th March 2021)

Douglas Crawford and I led a combination workshop on Saturday, with breathwork and ACIM brought together to such healing and miraculous effect.
Some feedback:
‘I’m writing to thank you and Douglas for an amazingly different and exciting workshop. You both presented ways of working with ACIM in a totally new light for me. I’ve been studying the Course for ten years and embrace it as my path, but l felt today’s blend of breath work and penetrating self-enquiry gave me new and unforeseen tools to deepen my understanding and strengthen my resolve’.
Having supported some of Douglas’ rebirthing work before, in the physical, it was truly wonderful to witness its releasing power over Zoom. Participants lay down and turned their cameras so they could be seen; all sound was on, and Douglas’ calm and assured presence held them through the process. Earlier I had led a relationship contemplation, which brought many issues to the surface. All ripe to be taken into the breathwork..
I see profound healing on offer through this vehicle of rebirthing and ACIM. The breathwork encourages release of entrenched patterns and pain, way below conscious awareness, and ACIM gives perfect context and support for the choice to transcend our patterns and pain. Douglas and I will be offering this combo again!

DEEP MOVEMENTS OF DISINTEGRATION (14th March 2021)

Following a powerful clearing overnight, indeed deep movements of disintegration, I feel inspired to quote 2 paragraphs from today’s Lesson.
These paragraphs graphically describe the insanity of this world and just how extensive our healing needs to be if we are to come to peace. Last night was an experience of securely choosing to be one mind with Jesus, and to let ALL else go. I could feel the ego thought system falling apart, in total disarray. Miraculously, Spirit held me in the centre of the storming, where I could rest in the knowing that we have to witness the chaos of separation before we’ll truly decide for God.

Lesson 73, ‘I will there be light’, paragraphs 2 and 3:
Idle wishes and grievances are partners or co-makers in picturing the world you see. The wishes of the ego gave rise to it, and the ego’s need for grievances, which are necessary to maintain it, peoples it with figures that seem to attack you and call for ‘righteous’ judgment. These figures become the middlemen the ego employs to traffic in grievances. They stand between your awareness and your brothers’ reality. Beholding them, you do not know your brothers or your Self.
Your will is lost to you in this strange bartering, in which guilt is traded back and forth, and grievances increase with each exchange. Can such a world have been created by the Will the Son of God shares with his Father? Did God create disaster for His Son? Creation is the Will of Both together. Would God create a world that kills Himself?’

HOW RESTFUL TO SIMPLY OBSERVE (17th February 2021)

In yesterday’s The Script is Written session, someone asked about the tempo of the healing process and wondered if there is some guidance on this. She’s been working hard, listening back to previous sessions, journaling, studying the teaching on time..
ACIM teaches that the world is over, and we are mentally reviewing the illusion of separation. It’s a closed system, nothing new will happen, our only choice is which inner teacher to watch the movie with and which parts of the script to review.
Whew! Going deep into this understanding will take us out of all the pressure to push through forgiveness opportunities, to strive for healing, to awaken.. The most powerful position we can adopt is at the quiet centre, observing, re-interpreting with Spirit, flowing within Joining, remembering always we are watching a film of what hasn’t happened. We will all choose, and in fact have already chosen, to stop this observation and remember we are in Peace. How restful is that..

THE MIGHTY HOLY USE OF METAPHYSICS (30th January 2021)

I’m becoming really clear about the difference between studying the metaphysics of the Course with the ego and the Holy Spirit! Preparation for the ‘Metaphysical Jamboree’ workshop in April is proving to be an unexpectedly powerful experience, so feeling inspired to share..
Focus on the metaphysics can be discounted as leading us to intellectualisation, and can be seen as less important than the practice – or even a distraction from it. Yes, we can easily get stuck in our heads if the ego has hopped on board, urging us to ‘know the Course, chapter and verse’, or struggle with each sentence’s meaning.

However, if we contemplate the ideas with the Holy Spirit, they become potent door openers in our minds. This is uber practical! It allows a deeper connection with Spirit, which brings healing in its own right, and commitment and clarity to all our forgiveness work.
I’ve just been in silent joining with Jesus, contemplating ‘God is in my mind’ (part of today’s Lesson title). I let the idea drop deeper and deeper in – God really IS in MY mind! (my true mind, not the split mind). I was then shown to reverse the idea – ‘my mind is in God’. I felt great expansion in my awareness, a lightness, a formlessness. Then it was back to ‘God is in my mind’ and the expansion continued.. I went through many cycles of these 2 ideas and was so aware of how they were working together to promote opening.
As I write now, the sense of expansion and lightness is still here, and form seems to be less dense.

SPACE FOR ANGER (24th January 2021)

I led Anger, Peace and Miracles for a study group yesterday, the 4th time I’ve offered this workshop. It leaves me with great clarity about the healing power of giving space for anger to be seen and felt and owned. The aim is not to be comfortable with screaming our rage, but at being comfortable with giving it permission to come into our awareness without judgement.

The Course says, ‘You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and realise its full extent..’ It’s stating here that we do have hatred and there is a ‘full extent’ to be seen. We can’t forgive what we’re not aware of; we can’t forgive what we’ve projected out and don’t see as coming from our minds; we can’t forgive intense fury if we think it’s just mild annoyance..
Our split minds are traumatised, and we can think of the core aspects of this trauma as being guilt, grief, anger and fear. They are entwined, and as we focus on healing any of the aspects we automatically bring all aspects to the light. Working on anger is a brilliant way forward, as it is loosening our attraction to the favoured ego device for promoting ‘I’m right and you’re wrong..’.
There were opportunities yesterday for participants to express anger and it was moving and healing indeed:
One, a ‘mature lady’ who has always seen herself as ‘not an angry person’ – and maybe proud of that – dived in the deep end with a vigorous repetition of ‘I’m so angry at you, how could you, how dare you’ (the starting point of expression that was offered). She reported later that over the lunch break she felt really ‘discombobulated’, not being able to find things in her kitchen etc, but was so grateful to start lifting the lid off this hidden part of her mind.
Another, who does feel great anger inside her and has been fearful that it would overwhelming/out of control if expressed, went flat out into screaming mode, letting it fly.. a gift for the participant and a gift for the group. When we put Spirit in charge, all is safe.

NOT BOWING DOWN TO PAIN (16th January 2021)

I feel inspired to offer some quotes about pain from Lesson 190, as I continue a masterclass on healing through my tooth situation. 4 weeks on from the redoing of a root canal procedure, and after oodles of healing focus, there is still soreness and a slightly puffy cheek. I’ve faced fear again and again as the situation allows deep cornerstone dread that ‘something is terribly wrong’ to surface, and as a result I feel ever more powerfully with Spirit.

Each night I go to bed with an all-encompassing call on God, bringing every symptom and choice for separation to Him. ‘In God, with God, to God, choosing God’.. repeating and repeating, opening my mind, and calling again at any time I wake in the night. In my afternoon meditations, I’m calling on the Great Rays, the Presence of Light. I’m so grateful for the motivation for this determined and consistent practice.
This morning I attended a wonderful workshop led by Jennifer Hadley on visioning, and the enquiry led me to see that the tooth healing masterclass is an invitation to let go of the entire principle of projecting guilt onto the body. The Course teaches that our experience is what we’re currently desiring: if there’s pain in the body it’s there in preference to being seen and felt in the mind.
I can feel a real shift about this, a new willingness to be present with the pain in my mind so that it can be released, and I’m turning to Lesson 190 as mighty support. Simply typing the quotes below is balm and strength.
I hope they support you too:
‘Pain is wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception’
‘It (pain) is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love’
‘Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself’
‘If God is real, there is no pain. If pain is real, there is no God’
‘It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way’
‘The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want’

NEEDING THEIR NEEDINESS (11th January 2021)

We had a beautiful and rich workshop on Saturday, the Self Enquiry Bonanza. There were many miracles, and I’d like to share a couple with you.
One of the exercises was about bringing ‘inaccessible’ emotions to the surface, and a volunteer, I’ll call her P, chose to work with ‘neediness’. Another participant demonstrated an expression of neediness for P and the group, and then P was invited to have a go herself.

It was powerful indeed, and near the end of the exercise P shared that for the first time she really ‘got’ what projection means. P realised that she places her neediness in others, and then is overwhelmed by their clamours for help. Although it’s been very uncomfortable, it’s obviously been the mind’s preference instead of seeing the neediness in P, and it being caused by the choice to reject God. P was so grateful for this seeing, and now she has the opportunity to withdraw the projections from others and go to Spirit to heal the neediness that’s inherent in desiring separation.
Another participant was deeply moved by this exercise and shared that she looked after her disabled partner for many years, never realising that she needed his neediness to block awareness of her ‘separation neediness’. This was a miraculous shift, opening the way for a reassessment of all her relationships.
Feedback from this participant:
‘My thoughts & beliefs about myself were that of a strong & independent person caring for others. When the Holy Spirit showed me, through the neediness dramatisation.. I saw how I projected my neediness onto others, so I wouldn’t have to look at my own pathetic neediness/strength & keep my separation from God.. I learned to see myself in truth & now I can ask Holy Spirit to show me how to help appropriately’.
Anyone drawn to the ‘caring professions’ may well have entrenched ‘separation neediness’ to heal. I absolutely acknowledge this has been a central aspect of my healing..I so enjoyed sharing this bonanza of looking, and the wonderful and deep processes that the participants engaged in.

REVIEW OF ALL PEACE NO PIECES BY JACKIE LORA JONES

What a fabulous book! Deftly and engagingly written, this A Course in Miracles overview is a clear and accessible welcome for newcomers and also a deep invitation for long time students to contemplate the truly radical nature of the Course. Jackie, Cindy Renard’s sister, really understands the teaching and gives examples from her own life which show she absolutely puts it into practice.
I had many insights along the way, and particularly appreciated the no nonsense statement that much of what we call forgiveness, even as students, is actually based on separation ideas. If we let something go because we want peace, there is still a ‘me’ that’s letting go. If we see that forgiveness benefits both parties, there is a ‘me and you’. If we feel compassion for another, we are judging someone as different from us, as having a rough time, so again it’s acknowledging separation. Jackie insistently and consistently brings us to the Course principle that real forgiveness is forgiving the mind’s decision for the ego, and our practice is to allow the undoing of the belief that anyone is separate from us.
I learnt most from the chapter, ‘Our life scripts are written’…

where Jackie quotes Ken Wapnick’s analogy of two almost infinitely large libraries of video tapes, fear scripts and forgiveness scripts. From outside time the sleeping mind chooses fear or forgiveness. Jackie succinctly points out that all scripts are occurring simultaneously within a fixed system and have already happened. All we can do is jump scripts by choosing the Holy Spirit as our teacher. We mentally review His correction scripts (practice forgiveness), and this prepares us to awaken from the dream.
Jackie is great company and I found it a real pleasure to see the Course through her eyes. She encompasses the practicality and the metaphysical genius of ACIM in a warm and inspiring read. I highly recommend it!
All Peace No Pieces is the first book in Jackie’s planned ‘The Wisdom Series’, going deeper into aspects of the teaching. I will be looking out for the next one..

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ACIM Potpourri

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‘I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me, while I rest in Him in quiet and perfect certainty’

Welcome to a page of ACIM writing

A Potpourri Introduction to A Course in Miracles

Here is the Course on the Course,from each of the volumes of ACIM:

From the Preface:

From the Text:

From the Workbook:

From the Manual for Teachers:

kironJ’s ACIM Blog

Guidelines for studying the Workbook

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ACIM Stories & Experiences

SITTING IN THE MIDDLE OF A MIRACLE (1st November 2024)

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THE WORLD I KNEW IS FADING AWAY (25th October 2024)

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UNDERSTANDING UNDERSTANDING (13th October 2024)

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ONE WEEK ON FROM THE FESTIVAL (9th October 2024)

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SUMMER BREAK AND GRATITUDE (31st July 2024)

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TRUE STROKES FROM SPIRIT (21st July 2024)

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VIGNETTES OF THE GERMAN FESTIVAL (25th May 2024)

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SNEAKY EGO AND DRAMA TRIANGLES (12th May 2024)

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EGO BACKLASH TO EGO BACKFIRE (5th May 2024)

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PERFECT LESSON FOR EASTER SUNDAY (31st March 2024)

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TWO FUNERALS AND JOY (11th February 2024)

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TODAY’S LESSON SEEN MORE DEEPLY (23rd January 2024)

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LOOKING MORE DEEPLY AT FRANCES XU’S PASSING (22nd October 2023)

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ISRAEL, HAMAS AND FORGIVENESS (11th October 2023)

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GOING AND NOT GOING TO GREECE (28th September 2023)

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A BRUISED HEEL AS A STEP TO GOD (20th September 2023)

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LETTING THE DOER FADE AWAY (10th September 2023)

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KEN ON STRAIN AND FATIGUE (15th August 2023)

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FOCUS ON THE SECOND COMING (5th July 2023)

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POEM OF CELEBRATION (27th May 2023)

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HOLY TRINITY PRACTICE (20th November 2022)

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SO INSPIRING! (16th November 2022)

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THE LAND OF BARBIE DOLLS (3rd November 2022)

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BODY UPDATE (30th August 2022)

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BLESSING FROM TODAY’S LESSON (10th June 2022)

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STAYING IMPERSONAL AND HELIUM BALLOONS (25th May 2022)

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A COLD CLASSROOM: JOINING OR OBLIVION? (10th May 2022)

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WHY FOLLOW THE NEWS? (14th April 2022)

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RELEASING AN EGO STRANGLEHOLD (24th March 2022)

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ANOTHER STEPPINGSTONE TO NOT WORSHIPPING THE GOD OF SICKNESS

(26th January 2022)

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ENJOYING FOOD BLOCKING HEALING (18th January 2022)

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NO BIG OR LITTLE PROBLEMS, ONLY PREFERENCES (9th January 2022)

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LONDON SIGHTS AND A NEW PERCEPTION (9th November 2021)

‘I rest in God today, and let Him work in me and through me,
while I rest in Him in quiet and perfect certainty’

Here is the Course on the Course,
from each of the volumes of ACIM: