Compassion Group Notes - June 2023

Stop the Fight of Shame 

Stop the fight against shame 

that leads you on a long and twisted path 

away from contentment, 

as you abandon and forsake 

all that is your true, inner purity.

To stop the fight against shame 

uncovers the inner purity of a new born child, 

filled with the wonder and amazement 

of the gentle path of contentment, 

instead of losing yourself to the crooked, 

twisted turns of shame. 

Stop the fight against shame 

And commit to the wonder and amazement of your True Eminence,

your inner purity, 

And in turn, free yourself 

from the race of proving yourself in time. 

For contentment is not found in time….

but instead in your Infinite Eminence, 

in the Breath of Love.

Stop the fight against shame 

That runs away in fear of your cries of distress

And instead bring the peace of Love

to all you abandon within. 

You can be saved from this fear

that causes you to run the race of earth 

in contempt of connection to the Thou of All, 

your inner Eminence.

As you inhale the Breath of Love, 

exhale the smallness of earth,

with its injury and mischief to hunt and kill 

all that swells your shame. 

Contentment is found not in 

hiding your sins of shame,  

but in Loving your sins of the earth

with the wisdom of your Inner Messenger, 

The Lord of Dancing!

In this Dance, 

swirl with delight 

to this Inner Messenger, 

And find the flow of your 

true and inner purity, in the Breath of Love. 

And in your contentment, live to sound the drumbeat 

of the Messenger for all to hear. 

Slay not the connection to all, 

but instead slay your thirst of the earth

With only your peaceful desire to shine your Eminence. 

Yes, stand firm in the still point of peace 

found in the Breath of Love.

Inhale its radiance and let it shine

with your oath to make straight 

the crooked path of 

fraudulence in your hidden shame. 

The fear you feel in this invitation 

will divide you from the Surrender of Love 

continuing the crooked, twisted path of shame

that kills and destroys. 

With divine and infinite certainty, 

surrender all of the earth

to the All of Thou,

and shine forth with the gift of your Eminence. 

Desire this…..

to know yourself as the purity of Breath of Love within….

And stop the fight of shame. 

© Charisse Lyons June 23

Study this poem as many times as it takes to internalize the message and meaning and see how it applies to the poem below

The Snowman

This is a poem for Tom This is a poem for Tom Blair This is a poem for him And for all the men on the edge of their beds in their underwear Wondering what they are doing there. This is a poem for them.

The place of the poem is Chicago. The time of the poem is the great snow Of nineteen hundred and seventy-nine. In 79 it snowed so that People fought over parking spots. Arms were twisted, headlights busted. And all because of the snow. Not that I blame the snow. The snow was only the weather.

I’m talking about something else altogether. Thomas Blair drove a plow, And because of the snow in ‘79 He worked a lot of overtime. Not that I blame the snow. But because of the snow the work was there, And there was the wife and kid, A blizzard of debts, and so The food of the poem is coffee, Coffee and cigarettes.

Tom went to work, and he worked and worked, With little time off, And he worked and worked And one day, Tom, He went berserk.

He forgot all about the snow And started plowing up cars, And some had people in them, And some of the people died.

Can you see the blue lights of his truck? The cherry tops of the cops? He wrecked forty cars with the plow Before they got him stopped, And when they could hear What the screaming said, You know what the screaming said?

“I hate my job I want to see my kids I hate my goddamned job.”

So that’s it. That’s the poem. What do you think? What do you think it’s all about?

It’s not about the snow So much as … I’ll tell you What it’s about.

This is a poem for Tom. This is a poem for Tom Blair. This is a poem for him And for all the men on the edge Of their beds in their underwear, Wondering what they’re doing there.

This is a poem for them.

For all the good providers…

~Barton Sutter

What questions do you need to ask yourself if you resonate with the poem? What state of consciousness does this represent? Can you see that if you don’t see, you will fuck it up? And when you do fuck up, just see it, but do not fuck it up more with judgment and hatred that further splits and divides.

“You can’t fuck this up. Where-ever you are is fine - just see it! ~Charisse Lyons

“For me, caretaking and cowardice go together.” ~group member

What a beautiful recognition. If I know I am caretaking, and I do it anyway, yes, then it is a failure of courage.

Mostly we do not know we are caretaking - we think we are being kind, generous, helpful, kind, empathic, loving. It is only when we introspect deeply into the unaware motives of need, fear and shame, and when we introspect deeply into the consequence to ourselves of what we are offering others and see that we end up exhausted, irritated, resentful and burned out, that we realize that we were giving for many reasons that were not loving. We give and do and help to feel power because we feel powerless, we give and do and help to believe ourselves loving and in control of our lives, we give and do and help to manage other people’s impression of us, we give do and help because we feel anxious about being in trouble if we don't, to avoid anger, criticism, judgment. There are so many reasons…. none of them speak of love. And as Charisse says, we do not have to judge this, we just have to see it with empathy and understanding for ourselves, with lightness and humor and then the caretaking stops and loving begins.

Consider how you learned caretaking as a kid. You were innocent and it was noble to be “good,” rather than “selfish and bad.” Now you can learn to be loving - to yourself first and then others.

Darkness is different to the shadow. The shadow is cast by material existence when the light is shining. Do not live in darkness. Be the light - who you are - in relationship to every aspect of your material existence so that life is a beautiful dance of shadow and light.” ~Lyndall Johnson

To fly we must dance
With our longest shadows in
The brightest sunlight.          
      ~Louise Rader quoted on the website Heron Dance - well worth subscribing to this website

“I destroy the present by worrying about the future.” ~ group member

We cannot really worry about the future, because we have no idea what the future will be. What we are doing is remembering a past event and projecting the terror and shame of the experience into an imaginary future. In other words we are not living int he present - we are living a past reality and experience and imagining it into the future. It is all illusion. If we know this is memory we can go backwards instead of forwards and rectify the past with our awareness, love, empathy, understanding and correction of the meaning of what happened so long ago. Learn to put the memory to rest so you can move forward free of fear and live life joyfully. Learn to die so as to live.