Winter is a good time for inside work: spiritual reflections, cleaning out the house, and… board game nights!!!!
My kids, neighbors and I just finished a complete game of monopoly in under 2 hours!!!!!
How is this possible? By setting up the game at its climax and playing the downward spiral!!
Here is the setup:
Distribute the standard allotment of cash to each player (total $1500)
Sort all 28 properties in color order from highest to lowest value, ending with railroads and finally utilities
Divide the 28 properties one per player until they run out. No need to buy houses or hotels, all properties collect Hotel-style rent right off the bat. No need to have all three colors to cash in mad money.
Distribute the 11 token markers evenly among the players. This fills up the board with pieces to maximize the chances that your properties will collect (and the chances that you will pay up). If there are only 3 or less players, using 3 markers each will work.
When a player goes out, all his money and property goes to the player whose property he landed on. If there are 4 or more players, continue redistributing the ousted player’s token markers so that mad rent is being collected.
Play continues until there is one player left or by counting up winnings and property as time allows.
2 hours is the average time to complete in this style, but it can be shorter as the odds may go against a player early.
Heavenly Father, I come before you on this chilly afternoon full of love, full of life, full of the enduring promise of uniting with that which is highest within. I read this morning some words of Uranda that said centering in the highest spirit is the beginning and it is the opportunity to do the work. It makes possible the work that needs to be done, and yet by abandoning unity with the highest within, faith is actually broken no matter how sincere outwardly a person may be. These are powerful words. These truly are powerful words.
Heavenly Father, I am deeply reflecting upon the meaning of prayer and whether it is possible to change one’s prayer, specifically by becoming clear about the intention behind the prayer. This seems to be a never-ending practice because any prayer that can be put into words or crystallized as thoughts has come into form in some way, whether it is here or there and what it looks like and what it feels like. It has come in into form, and yet the intention behind that form is actually the most important thing. If the intention behind one’s prayer can be met in another way, then the prayer will still be fulfilled.
Please allow me to fill every moment glorifying thy name in my inner temple. How wonderful to live in unity with thee, Father. How wonderful to be coming into alignment with life, with truth, with thought and emotion, and creating a space in which love – the true presence of the divine one – can descend. Please descend upon me, father. Find me worthy of thy love, find me worthy to awaken truly to what it means to be a son of the father.
Please go before me, father, into the hearts of all those around me. Create a space of safety, protection and deep penetration of holy presence that precedes me in every respect. May the bonds of faith be strong, may their energy be pure and clear that I may begin to do the work that is being called of me.
I am always open to dream a new dream and visualizing the work being achieved in any particular mental form as long as I’m clear about the intention behind the prayer. I am loving you father with all of my heart. Thy joy brings smiles to my lips, shining round about. I love you with all my heart, father, with all my soul, with all my strength. Amen.
Traveler, your footsteps are the road and nothing else
Traveler, there is no path, it is made by walking
When walking, the path is made, and when looking back
You see the path that you will never walk again
Traveler, there is no path, just the glistening of the sea
~Joan Manuel Serrat
What does it mean to be living with love? Is it possible to be both living with love and making choices rooted in past conditioning? When something happens not in your favor, is it possible to love when acting out in reactivity? What is the true cause of reactivity? What would it be like to live with a kind of love, as said in this beautiful song, that is made new with every choice, every decision and every word? The steps towards love are spelled out by the acronym of its holy name: “L”et go of the past; “O”pen your heart; “V”ibrate with God, not people; and finally, entering the temple of light, “E”nergize the soul of humanity.
To live with love means firstly to let go of the past and be conscious. The past is gone. It is dead, and so are decisions rooted in conditioning alone. Just as one can wake up in a sweat in the night from nightmares, we can also force ourselves to wake up from reactive patterns of living. When we let go of the past, who we thought we were also passes away, the remains of which is a glorious being rooted in the spirit of life. We know we have taken the first step towards love when the winds of life are strong within our inner being. Thus, we are in each moment born anew and forced to get to know ourselves all over again.
The winds of life are fully present, purifying the world and magnifying the name of love by obeying their master, the diamond heart within you. These winds can be thought of a spiritual pressure. They could be thought of as energy. They could be thought of as love. They could be thought of as enthusiasm – but in any case all of these expressions point to the same spirit of life within. When you open your heart and command the spirit of life with fearless abandon, a great energy is known. This energy fills the body temple with strength and willpower and fills the mind with true thoughts.
Thus, the third step towards love is to vibrate with God, and master our thoughts. The opposite is to resonate with, react to, and thus take upon ourselves the judgments of other people. The spirit of truth can only be known in radiant and wise, holy thinking. Our thoughts in many ways are like our children: How is our relationship with these children? Do we allow them to cause havoc and drag us around? Do we allow our thoughts to blame the world for our suffering? Do we repress such thoughts with firmness and judgment? Living with Love means to live with blessing for all of humanity. How can we simultaneously love and blame humanity for our own suffering?
We enter the threshold of the temple of light when the heart is open and we begin to vibrate at a higher rate. To energize the soul of humanity, we must first learn to energize our own thoughts. This is an ongoing practice, and I encourage you to try it now. Surely there is a voice in your head responding to at least some of these words. If you are wondering, “What voice?” Then, as Ben Zander says: “That is precisely the voice I am talking about!” What are you thinking at this very moment? Are you even aware of it? Let your thought condense into a single phrase. What is it? Don’t judge the thought as positive or negative. It just is: and, the ones that are “negative” ultimately contain more wisdom in their true state.
Do you have the thought? Perhaps written down on a paper? Now: energize it! What does it mean to energize a thought? Energizing a thought means to accelerate the rate of energy present in that thought form. It means the thought is ascending into heaven. It means the thought is getting both louder and softer and more powerful at the same time, and now it is becoming golden. Your thought has become holy, filled with the power of life. Filled with the power of true beingness, it has now joined the ranks of love steadily marching, like the glistening of the sea, for the upliftment of all humanity.