The following is a message I received from Jesus for my friend Christina Strutt. The choice to share it here, at The Jesus Chronicles, was hers. After she reminded me of it, I was in awe, once again, by the way Jesus was speaking in her language, yet with that ability he has to be personal, universal and timeless. Her message, from 2009, may have great relevance to many as we close out this “one” year of the 2020’s.
I want to express my appreciation to Christina for bringing it to my attention. We both feel it will speak to many in this exact time. When a message still articulates so much, so many years later, I know again the timelessness of divine wisdom and how powerful it is when it is shared, just as it was given.
It has helped me, as I often feel doubtful about revealing all that I do in the “Way of the Marys” books! Christina’s openness to sharing is a gift. Her prescience to know that it would resonate and speak to many “right now,” is another reminder that ideas “come to us” for a reason. Mother Mary reminds us that this vulnerable sharing is the feminine way. To preserve our humanity we need to share, with our full creative power, all that has this “one-ing” potential!
The One-ing of Christina
November 15, 2009
There are periods when aging accelerates. A boy of 15 is much unchanged from a boy of 11 and then suddenly, at 16, is a young man. In a year, all that didn’t happen slowly in the years before, happens all at once. In some cultures, this swiftness of aging happens in later life. A woman looks nearly the same at 55 that she does at 35, and suddenly, at 57, she seems to have aged 20 years. Some people age with grief or stress. There is no template. There is slow maturing and quick maturing. There are tendencies inherent to families, gene pools, people north or south of the equator. There is a nature to the human body as there is to all species.
There is a similar nature to the mind. Periods of lightening quick maturation and periods that are like a stupor and others when the mind goes wild. It is like a rhythm. It is naturally occurring and recurring though not habitual – not set – as if to a clock or a calendar.
As body, mind, and spirit are linked, there are certain leaps that are co-joined. There are passages through which body, mind, and spirit move as one. These passages can be linked to lightening quick maturation, to stupor, and to wildness. There are variations and often outward as well as inner catalysts into such movements. The lightening quick might be seen as a certain brilliance – of ideas or inspiration; the stupor might be seen as nurture or as collapse; the wildness might show up as crisis, creativity, or rebellion.
The heart center, during such times, is more obvious in its centering function. It can feel like an anchor, heavy and leaden, but still. It can feel like a compassionate center, so that all that is going on makes it soft, mushy, or absorbent. It can be, as well, like the eye of the hurricane, a neutral zone, the non-buffeted in a whirlwind, a void of feeling.
There are beginnings and returns inherent in these periods simultaneously. As there are days on which seasons change irrevocably, there are seasons to this co-joined movement, and days on which the passage is complete. As the passing of one season births the next, so are these movements passings and births.
To be forewarned of such movements does no good. Forewarnings bring anticipation, questioning – am I in “the movement?” Only in certain cultures in which community is particularly strong are there those able to anticipate and prepare for such passages. They are still celebrated as “rights of passage” in some religions, but are not given individual credence. The community is said to move as one through passages such as Lent. Even those who participate fully and devotedly, even those whose inner passage is in sync with the outer demonstration and ritual, seldom feel that the demonstration and the ritual is “for them” and so fear accepting the significance it might have for them.
In times past, there was recognition of these passages, in individuals, as they happened. The individual’s whole self, and the whole of the individual’s rhythm, was what dictated the timing of the recognition. It was the person’s season that was seen, not the season of Ramadan or Advent. From the heart and soul of personal journeys these seasons sprang, not the other way around.
In youth, these passages are sometimes honored appropriately by parents who see them as being within their purview to recognize and honor, individually, with each child. Yet here too, as with religious recognition, the youth are celebrated with predetermined seasons, as graduation. Marriage and childbirth are such visible passages that they are often honored, but more so with shallow sentiment than with wise ritual. It is simply so. A thing that has come to pass in a time that has come to pass.
I bring this to your attention, to the attention of both of you, Christina and Mari, because it is important for you to understand; important to you individually to see what has fallen away; important to you together to find your own understanding and acceptance of the movements you are in and what they signify. Many, many traditions still maintain some semblance of “recognition” but it has gone awry in as many as not. This too is simply so. A thing that has come to pass in a time that has come to pass.
You are seeing, individually, and collectively, what happens when rites of passage fail to be seen and, over time, fail to appear to occur at all. There begins to be a collective loss of sight and memory. The lack of ritual and the lack of preparation – as of youth for adulthood – go hand in hand. The co-joined movements become less frequent within those who have not yet sought for this joining through spiritual means.
But the past was nothing to aspire to. Women were also burned as witches. Power has always been feared. I am merely saying that co-joined movements of the type that you are passing through were previously rare enough to be witnessed as such. They happened within enclosed communities where practices were contained. Much is said now about the great wisdom traditions that were once confined, the literature that was untranslatable, or unavailable, and that now are being widely read and practiced. That they are being absorbed without witnesses is leading many into passages for which they suffer – as from an illness that no doctor is available to attend. With a return of many to these states you might imagine that more recognition would occur, but it is not occurring, or is occurring with those hardy enough to make the passage unaided. Witnessing is needed for the movement through the passage.
You might imagine it this way. With body, mind, and spirit all in movement and the heart centering the movement, there is no faculty “removed” or distanced enough from the event to report back its findings. No mind observing the body with detachment. No spirit seeing the process as if from above. No even-keeled body able to stand firmly, with both feet on the ground, while the mind and spirit find their way. All is movement, and even if this movement is quite harmonious, it is like an orchestra’s harmony rather than like a soloists. It is “all systems go” or “all systems stop” – one instrument of the orchestra can’t be skipped because it isn’t working – all parts are simply working as one.
All parts are working as one. This is co-joined movement. The affect will tend to be joy, despair, or chaos. Perhaps all three in an hour. Perhaps one following the other by days or weeks. Perhaps one in the lead. These are just word descriptors that might seem to suggest that if one “part” is out of step, all will be out of step, but this is not the case. All is working as one. The movement is a totality of movement. The centering of one’s heart or the witnessing of one’s fellows, is the way the movement is known. It cannot be known otherwise. There is no “organ” – spiritual or physical – with which to know it. The kind of knowing that is of the centering of the heart becomes a bit like a sense organ in some, but in others, reflection is the only way.
Christina, in your drawing of the trees being observed in the pool – first murkily, then clearly, and then actually, there was a seer observing. This is like there being no observer. No observer of the self. Yes, the mind still busily tries to observe, the body to see, the spirit to guide. Yet underneath there is an awareness that it is not working – much like in the teenager who does not have a clue why they do the things they do. Too much is in movement at the same time. Nothing is known with certainty. There is no destination. There is only movement. Your body craves movement partially for this reason – while your hips move of their own. Your mind screams, “there is no movement” while it is spinning and your head aches. Your spirit cries out for some demonstration of movement and seems to sink into depression. But all is movement.
In evolutionary leaps the means of movement is the same. There are whole system changes going on. That is another way to describe what is happening – as a whole system change. Think of an organization in a period of total change without a leader.
You know your mind has been in the lead. It is no longer. You are in total system change without a leader. Doesn’t that sound just right to you? Doesn’t it sound like the truth? So imagine this now internally and externally – as a change of leadership – if it suits you. When you feel “in the lead” or “in control” or “in charge” – that is what is ending – that is the destructive power of this movement, the destruction that comes naturally, organically, in the movement to creation of the new.
There is already, right now, only one movement. This is good news. This is oneness happening right here, right now. A one-ing of Christina. As I am your witness.
I will not tell you not to despair. Despair may be part of your path. I will not tell you that your body and your mind will not continue to adjust. They will. This is the major movement of your life. Only one final movement will follow. But I tell you that this is the movement you have sought, the yearning that has gone unfulfilled, and the cause for which you have rallied again and again. You have more stamina than you actually need now, for this time of abdication of leadership. Your stamina lies in this area of your leadership. If you have less in the future, accept it as a gift of movement if you can, if not grieve as you must for this way that is passing. You are not asked to accept such monumental change without feelings – you cannot accept such monumental change without feeling its effect. But you will, more and more, feel it in a new way, as your awareness of the one-ing takes hold and gains your trust.
Of your resurgence of memory, I ask you only to be aware that you are “re-experiencing.” In this re-experiencing, there is a different action taking place than has taken place before. Re-experiencing makes your past one with your present. You are experiencing “again” what you once experienced. You are experiencing again those things that formed your leadership of yourself. It is painful to re-experience pain in the present. But this is the way to undo the coping mechanism you built in defense. This is the way to see you no longer need the defenses. When you see that you no longer need your defenses, the pain will pass, and the pattern will be broken. You are re-experiencing the pattern as well as the memory, and this is what is most painful you now.
All of your instincts to treat yourself as precious come from your heart center even though I know your heart has been heavy. You are precious. You are in love.
Today, Christina looks back in wonder at the grief, joy, and chaos of the many spirals within spirals of “whole systems change” she has navigated these past twelve years. So much movement, within and without! Each helical spiral an expansion in every dimension into self-love, compassion for all, and fuller expression of her true Self. With gratitude she continues her quest to simply be the presence of Love in Form, doing her best each day to embody and live the messages of ACIM, ACOL, A Journey into The Unknown, and The Way of the Marys.
See a video of us speaking of ACOL and our friendship by visiting The Center for A Course of Love here: Mari Perron and Christina Strutt in Dialogue and scroll down—Christina’s interview was first and so it shows up last!
