Oneness Ministry

We are One

Nov 9

Paradigm

by Sequoia Elisabeth

Every story has its own parameters within the larger paradigm. The story practically writes itself when staying within these parameters. The plots will change depending on the circumstances of the character and the choices they make. Choice is the driver behind the plot line. Say the character makes the choice to do XYZ. This will drive the plot in that direction within the parameters of the story, keeping of course, within the paradigm.

We are all playing out a story. Our lives are our story. This means we each operate within certain parameters within a paradigm. Early on our choices are bound to our parents or guardians. Once we become adult and get out on our own, the story of our lives diverges based on the choices we make. For instance, say a person decides to go into the medical field as a physician. The medical industrial complex comes with its own parameters. The many hoops must be jumped through to reach the goal and all along the journey the story further defines itself by the choices made. The student becomes the intern, becomes the physician, becomes the specialist in the chosen field, becomes the servant to public or private industry, etc. The choices made by the person are not really choices as we are made to believe. The choices are dictated by the story within the parameters of the paradigm.

It all comes down to a life lived within the parameters of the paradigm. So, the person has already made its choices before it is even born. The very act of birth sets the paradigm. The person’s identity and path are set at this point of birth. A family has been chosen and thus the paradigm. We like to think we can change our path. Society claims change is the rule, not the exception. In fact, it is just the opposite. Even this change is within the paradigm of the individual. The greatest show on earth! Your Life!

Sequoia Elisabeth

Oneness Ministry

Spirituality Transitions

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Dec 2

What’s your Story?

by Sequoia Elisabeth

What’s your story? Have you ever thought about the story you were given? We are born into our story, whether fed the story line from family or discovered along the way. In fact, we create it as we live our lives by the choices we make moment to moment. For example, choosing college after high school or jumping straight into career building, each path contains it’s own story for you. In this aspect life is like a branching tree growing and expanding till it reaches a point where the branches start falling away… the tree dies and a new one sprouts from a seed it dropped long ago.

Have you given it some thought now? Story is woven into society and includes family, community, and geography. For instance, each town and region has its own story. Folks from Appalachia are a certain way- hillbilly, lazy, tobacco smoking, overall-wearing farmers. “Thai people are a warm, inviting bunch that revel in the rich traditions their culture has built up over the course of centuries.” (OneHourTranslation) The stories are infinite!

Many of us attempt to change our stories and in doing so, simply add to the story, not really changing it. Moving to a new place and starting a new life means the story has a new chapter. The story does not end till ones life does and even then stories tend to stay on track within families. This is why ancestry seems to be so popular today. With computer records and DNA testing it is fairly easy to find out the “story” you haven’t been told.

What does all this mean and how much of it determines your path. Are you really your story? You can be if you accept all your told. Or you can question reality and choose your own path. In the end and after reincarnating a few hundred times or more does the story ever really change? I think not. We are told this is how we get to know ourselves, but all we ‘get to know’ is the story.

My life has been about questioning my beliefs and thus my story. The turning point for me was at the age of 30. I was just divorced and looking for my path. I starting questioning everything about my life, especially religion. Beliefs are the foundation of who you think you are. These beliefs are informed from your story, the one you developed from birth and were fed by your family. I have learned it is important to go back before belief, to dig deeper. Who am I without my beliefs? The process is like peeling an onion and takes a while. My process continues and I am about to reach 60 years in this story. I feel very close to the core!

There is a higher You and a lower you. They have been called different things from different professions, soul and over soul, id-ego-super ego, etc. However, I go with the ACIM teaching of Ego and Holy Spirit or wrong mind and right mind. Not to be confused with left and right brain. The mind is not in the brain! Which gets us down beyond beliefs to mind. We are not our bodies but mind! So the body is in the mind, not the other way around as we are taught in school. “Looking for consciousness in the brain is like looking inside a radio for the announcer.” Nassim Haramein

Thus my study of Story began about 7 years ago. This included the study of archetypes though I still don’t completely have a handle on that. Story though was made simple by Joseph Campbell in 1949 when he coined the Hero’s tale. We are each on our own hero’s tale and every story you have ever heard is some version of this. Once you know it, you’ll see it everywhere. Are you being the hero of your story? Of course you are! The story laid bare opens so many doors. Step outside your story for a bit and look back. Who are you, really? Who are the characters in your story? Which archetypes do they represent? It can get rather complicated and I have a simple mind, so I often get lost along the way. I just fall back on my foundation, I am a Spiritual Being, having a human experience! I am not my body, I am free, I am just as God created me. Understand this and everything changes. The story becomes infinite!


Sequoia Elisabeth

https://onenessministry.info/

Spirituality Transitions

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Jun 19

One Raindrop Raises The Sea

by Sequoia Elisabeth

What is your story and how does it fit into the larger societal story.  Think of yourself as a pebble which just got dropped into a still pond.  There is your ripple, and as they move out they include the birth family ripple, your friends ripple, the community you live in ripple, … your state, country/nationality, etc. etc.  The ripples never stop and extend far beyond this place we call earth.  Each ripple is an identity with its own story.  If you have ever played in the bathtub, a pond, or sat by an enclosed bay you know the ripples will bounce off each other creating a “chop” or chaotic wave pattern.  This is how life is; we are each one ripple in the mighty waves of the much greater ocean.

So what if you wish to change your story or perhaps you have a certain view of your story and everyone else has theirs.  For instance, you see yourself as an easy going, creative person with a deep insight into the workings of the world and your family and perhaps friends see you as a mentally ill, free loader with their head in the clouds all the time.  We each have a story.  Just how these stories mesh is not always neat and smooth.  Any teenager can tell you that!  The real question is does their version of your story matter to you?  The answer I stick with is; “what you think of me is none of my business”, however, it does matter in the big scheme of things.  Not so much to you but to them.  How you think of another, you actually believe about yourself.  So their story of you reflects back on them.  All you can do is accept them for who they present and get on with living your life.

The dynamics of relationships can get complicated really fast, just as the ripples do in the bathtub.   It’s not your task to calm the waves.  Your task is to ride them out and forgive those who trespass against you.  Your task is to support your own story and allow them to have theirs.  Just don’t be fooled into thinking you can change your story without also affecting theirs!!

Coming out for any reason sends shock waves in all directions.  It is like doing a cannonball right in the middle of the pool!  The reason does not matter, it could be coming out as gay, transgender, having some disease, being mentally ill, or even harboring radial beliefs.  If your inner circle does not also relate then your story change will exclude them.  It is like the repulsion of a magnet.  With time it is possible for alignment to occur, if and only if, they accept your story.

One could say it is just a story.  Why do you want to mess up my story by changing yours?  This is not fair to the rest of us.  I call this an invitation to take a guilt trip, but to take this trip you must first buy a ticket.  There is no need to give in to others.  We can all have a story (and do) and still respect others and their story (this is up to you).  So the plot changes from time to time.  Plot twists make it all the more interesting!

It is never ‘just’ a story.  Your story is vital to the workings of this world and without it we are all diminished.  Think of yourself as one candle and everyone else each being a candle.  Together we are as bright as the sun, removing one candle diminishes the whole or to put it another way, quoting Dinotopia, one of my favorite stories, “One raindrop raises the sea.”

Sequoia Elisabeth 🙂

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Mar 21

a Story Told

by Sequoia Elisabeth

The power of telling your story cannot be underestimated.  Your life is your story and yet your story is only that, a story.  It is not the essence of you or even the result of you.  Part of this journey is understanding you are much more than your story and at the same time using this story for your own enlightenment.  Celebrate your story by sharing it with others while you contemplate the nuances of the tale.  What lessons have you demonstrated?  And I say demonstrated because learning is a process of demonstration.  It is like building a tree house, looking up at it and appreciating your accomplishment, then using it for your highest Joy.  How would you do it differently next time; …can it even be improved on?

Share your story and then contemplate your desires and dreams.  This is the story of your past and who you were all along the path combined with your present story of who you are, extending to the story of who you will become… the future self…your dreams and aspirations.

My story is found here on my website and while it is brief, meaning much was left out, it is the part I find most significant to who I am now and who I desire to be.  Identity is a funny animal.  I mean identity is so fleeting and yet a core remains which guides the daily discoveries of self.  Certain identity is chosen before birth and is fixed for each lifetime.  Things like race, heritage, sex, gender, and such are fixed at birth.  As much as you may try to change these the reality is fixed.  So what you do with the cards you are dealt so to speak is up to you and this defines your story!

I find this journey of discovery and self-realization to be invigorating and enlightening!  While at the same time it is daunting and intimidating.  Looking into the eyes of God often seems to be more than anyone is willing to do.  However, this is our journey!

The next step for me is embracing my dream of a Love Based Society and while I left myself out of this book on the topic, this is the world I see myself living in.  What my identity is does not matter, it is unimportant.  What I crave most of all is the feeling of belonging without judgment… total acceptance… the support of society and the love of my neighbor, living in a world where everyone is supported and loved because we all realize our connection, our interdependence.

So Share your story!  Live your dreams and on every step of the journey give gratitude for the opportunity!  I certainly do, … deep gratitude to you for reading this tale and for sharing your own, together we make great harmony, a wave upon the ocean of life!

Sequoia Elisabeth 🙂

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Oct 5

What Is Your Story

by Sequoia Elisabeth

We are each on a carousel ride, the same carousel.  The ride goes round and round while we each view and experience things differently.   Even if you are sitting in my lap, you experience it different.  What this boils down to is we each have our own story, the story of our lives.  The part we share is the carousel!

What if you were to take your story and toss it in the trash?  You think it is inseparable?  You are not your story, just as I am not my story.  What makes a story?  Is the story ever complete?  Is it ever over?  Do the stories interconnect?  You know, like a TV series with successive stories, one episode after another?  The characters are the same in each episode, just as they are in your story.  If a character loses a contract they are written out of the story, just as people sometimes leave our lives either by dying or by situation, like divorce or simply moving away.

The stories will interweave as characters cross paths, sometimes staying for a while and sometimes only for a brief smile.  The paths can pass close without touching or they can collide head on!  What does it all mean?

The answer is up to you because there is no meaning until you give it some.  The simple fact is there is no story but the one you create by living your life!  So is your life living your story or your story living your life?  Which came first the chicken or the egg?  Funny how we love that question, or at least I do.

I wrote my gender focused story and published it as part of a larger story of Sex and Sexuality.  It was therapy for me because I did not understand my own story.  I needed to step back and get a bigger picture.  It all seems like a dream to me now, in some ways maybe a nightmare.  None of it seems real anymore, because I have awoken to a different reality and yet I have only awoken within a dream.  A dream within a dream!

Love to hear your story or at least your comments on these thoughts.  Maybe you have shared these thoughts or parts of them.  I love how a million people can see a beautiful vista and see it differently every time!  Maybe your story is more meaningful when it is shared.  Maybe it is not yours till you give it away!

Sequoia Elisabeth 🙂

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