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Writings: Where the Ten Things came from…

If there’s a thread that runs through The World According to Brother Ian, and you may have noticed this, it’s that almost everything I post here connects in one way or another to the Ten Things to Teach & Know.

Several folks have asked where this comes from, so if you like, I’ll tell you:

From Spirit.

It was about two years ago that I went to bed and asked my angels, guides, and ascended Masters and Mothers to let me know the Ten Most Important Things. Just ten, so I could remember them; important, so it wasn’t  Hallmark-card trivial stuff; “to teach & know,” because it’s important for us to model &  pass on to the next lot.

So, around two o’clock, it all just flooded in.

Now, this has happened before. Fairly regularly, I get my Next Big Song at 2am, and I’m certain I’ll remember it because it’s so awesome & catchy & brilliant. I may even write it down. When I check it in the morning it usually says something like, “Oh baby, we’re walkin’ the dog down by the firehouse and everything’s purple.” Or something. Not quite there, if you know what I mean.

Didn’t happen this time. I woke up around 2am, and there were the Ten Things. Interestingly, I thought, “Hey, I better write this down,” and reviewed the Ten bits in my head. I was amazed they were all  there, so I reviewed them again. Then I decided to just go to sleep.

Amazingly, at 5:30am, when I woke up, it was all still there. So, I got up & typed it into the computer, and spent the day thinking, “Sure like this,” and using my overactive non-creative side of my brain, kept trying to edit or improve the list, but couldn’t, really.

So, a couple of days later, I took the leap and added them to the masthead of this blog as one of the featured items, in a can’t-miss-it spot. You can see it up there.

And I noticed that sure enough, they were the theme that kept re-occurring in conversations, in things that happened around me, in the things that mattered that people seemed to care about. They were the glue.

Almost every problem someone had, one of the Ten Things (or several of them) served as a light to help shape a solution, an answer, or sometimes just an assurance that life would be easier if someone DID it.

The whole thing boils down to the first bit: Share & Heal. Think & feel about that for just a moment. If there’s anything or anyone around you that needs attention, needs fixing, needs love, think about whatever you do that makes the world better. It’s either some kind of sharing, some kind of healing, or some mix of both.

And it’s never one-way: If you share, things come back to you; if you heal folks, that’s part of your healing, too.

This, then, is my gift to you.

Let me know if it fits what’s going on with you & where you would like to go.

Loving the way you shine, dear heart –

Brother Ian

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The Ten Things to Teach & Know

• Share & heal. It all boils down to that.

• The more things you own in the world, the poorer you are. Count your days & hours by the number of hugs, smiles & laughs.

• The world is limited in how many humans it can feed & support. We have too many, already.

• Looking for a good wrestling match? Tackle the places in your life where fear lives, and shine a light on it so it shrinks & disappears.

• Truth is self-evident.

• Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. You can take Speech 101 in college & Communications 101 at university….can you take Quiet Listening 101?

• We often hear, “Save the Planet.” Remember from whom.

• It’s not how much you know. It’s how much you live & love.

• Each day we’re here to learn & have fun. Carry on.

• It is good to say, “Thank you” as a habit & as a rule; even more, take the time to make each “thank you” a heart hug that can be shared with the eyes, the voice, and the heart.

Writings: Going with the flow…and letting the flow carry ya

Last night the phone alarm went off.

It was in somebody’s purse in the living room, and I didn’t want to wake somebody to get up & get it & turn it off, because somebody was sleeping & apparently didn’t hear it. It had gone off at 6am (still night, here) the rest of the week. Today was Saturday & still night, a time for sleeping.

So here’s what I did: I listened to the sound of the over & over again chime of the ringtone. There were the notes, and the spaces between each note, and the highs and lows of its little melody.

I took a breath in, and released it when the little song ended, then took a new one in when it started again. Soon, I was breathing at the same speed & time as the little song, in rhythm with it.

As I lay there, I relaxed each time I released a breath, and with eyes closed, painted pictures of quiet and slow dancing in a field, set to the beat of a phone in a purse in a living room somewhere in Canada.

As the moments passed, the song pulled into the rear of the dream (or whatever it was), and the field’s smells and warmth crept to the front, along with the sweet feeling of movement in the open air. It was restful, and felt wonderful.

Beats me when the ringtone ended. I was back resting and asleep.

Where did I learn this yogic & transcendent exercise?

Knew you’d ask. So I’ll tell ya.

When I was twelve years old, my parents went to the hospital and came back with twins, who they installed in my room with two cribs and, well, me. Night after night, my job was to get up and make something for them to drink (I usually prepped the bottles beforehand to warm on the stove) & to change them. My traveling salesman father was away and my mom was still recovering from a difficult birth, so it fell to me to attend to them.

It never occurred to me to complain.

It was just my job and I didn’t know there was any other way. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about.

The boys never woke up at the same time. One could yell his head off, with the other one angelically snoozing; when the first was fed & cleaned up, he’d sleep & sometimes cry himself to sleep, sometimes just go to sleep. Then the other would wake up a while later & we’d repeat the drill.

During this time, when the kids were still crying after I had done my job, I learned to sleep to the rhythm of their yelling. I’d match my breathing to their cries, and match my intake and release of breath with the start and end of each cry. After just a few days, I found that they would quiet down (that helped) as they learned I wasn’t coming to get them; this was my first exposure to operant conditioning. And I found I could find a place of rest & peace, even surrounded by the insistent and sometimes piercing squalls of two fairly determined babies.

I just had to give myself over to the rhythm & tide of the evening.

While this has served me well in other sleeping situations – bus stations, airports, parks during Canada Day, and more, even last night – I like to think it’s a good way to approach the ups & downs of other things around us, as well. Embracing the things around us as just a force of nature, as a repeating sound or to align to the feeling…it’s easier that way.

Surrender? Kinda.

Letting go? In a way.

Getting into the dreams sooner & easier? Yup.

Let me know how it flows, for you, dear heart.

Loving your light,
Brother Ian