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This material was originally posted by Geraldine B on August 10, 2009. Note from Geraldine: In my travels through the older TLE group postings, I came across this from Michael/Troy. I loaded it into the database, but I still thought it worthy of reading as we all struggle with negative versus positive poles, CFs, and all of the other fun stuff of life. For some, it's a repeat, for others it's new material. Note from Kasia: Although Geraldine indicates that she loaded this article into the database, it was not found in the ning materials when they were transferred -- unless she meant this specific article. 7 Rings of Love April 6, 2007 In this article, the material was built upon from past material channeled in the past, with just more layers explored. I think this article came about because the original material was just an outline, and some of us really wanted to grasp what it meant to Love. [MEntity] We are asked tonight to cover what we perceive as the 7 Rings of Love. Considering the magnitude of impact that understanding this Universal Truth would have on an individual life, we are continually surprised at the lack of attention this subject receives. This is not conveyed to you as a judgment, but as an observation. There is no obligation to ever understand our perception of a subject. You will learn to love, and you will love to learn, at your own paces and through your own experiences, regardless of your intimacy or lack of intimacy with us. As we cover the 7 Rings of Love, you will easily see where you are in various areas of your life in relation to events, people, and yourself. You may have no questions in your love for a certain individual, yet have a painful challenge against loving the perpetrators of war or cruelty, for instance. In other instances, you may find you experience a Ring of Love for a complete "stranger," yet feel quite repulsed by your mate. We will list the 7 Rings, then cover each in some detail. First Ring: Nurturing Second Ring: Alliance Third Ring: Reciprocity Fourth Ring: Appreciation Fifth Ring: Comprehension Sixth Ring: Altruism Seventh Ring: Agape The First Ring, NURTURING, of course, is not tremendously difficult to bring to your life or to someone else's. Even "Events" receive some amount of this Ring of Love if you experience certain repetitive patterns in your life. In other words, if you find you continue to struggle with "issues" that change form, but retain the core "lesson," you are providing some form of Nurturing for those issues; some form of Love. Love is not reserved for only Humans or Relationships, but is able to be generated for all Events you experience as a Sentient Being. When you have repetitive patterns in your life and you "wish" they were not a part of your life, it will do you well to observe in what ways you Nurture these events as a means to extract or create opportunities for expanding into wider Rings of Love or as a means to opening to receive Love. We will clarify here that NO RING OF LOVE HAS CONDITION. That fact is the one underlying theme throughout each Ring. When you truly Nurture another person, yourself, or an event, it is without condition. This is why some Events continue to remain, even as you assume you prefer them to leave. On some level of your consciousness, you have determined that your "unwanted" areas of your life require unquestioned Nurturing, so it will remain Nurtured. Some of the most important first experiences of Love are found in Nurturing unwanted situations and relationships. Consider the result of having an "unwanted" child, yet without question, providing the Nurture required for sustaining the life of that child. Nurturing "unwanted" events is similar, even as the event outgrows you or you outgrow it. Nurture is the lowest form of Love, yet it is Love. It is unquestioned obligation and duty. Because the experience of Loving is vital to a lifetime, many Events and People remain within the life that may be harmful, draining, and even dangerous, because to Nurture these things means at least some amount of Love is being experienced. At some point, a fragment will either move beyond that Ring of Love, or eventually dismiss the event as it grows "out of hand, or out of control," responding in a way one would to an "unwanted child." To move beyond Nurture for an event or person or self, one must be willing to move beyond Obligation and Duty, and into AT LEAST Alliance, the Second Ring. ALLIANCE is the second Ring of Love and this rings sees the Person, Event, or Self as an equal. If the Person, Event, or part of Self is not found to be equal, then at least some striking similar traits are emphasized. Alliance becomes necessarily "exclusive" of other people and events and various parts of the Self. The Ring of Duty and Obligation experienced is increased, but without resentment or lack of understanding, and with more willingness and enthusiasm. Issues having been Nurtured in the life become more understood, even if still "unwanted," much in the same way that a person may surrender to, or devote oneself to an "unwanted child." Alliance allows that which is being Loved to become for the first time, a part of the identity of Self. To move from Nurture to Alliance, one only need gain a level of understanding that your actions led you to the Event, Person, or Part of Self. This Ring is related to the 3rd Chakra, or Moving Center, and the First Ring, Nurture, is related to the 1st Chakra, or Instinctive Center. Alliance then leads to RECIPROCITY, the Third Ring of Love. Reciprocity is the Ring that begins to incorporate the Emotions, or Emotional Centering (4th Chakra). It then becomes the first time that a fragment begins to RECEIVE energy, and a circuit is created. The first two Rings focus on basic ways of Giving Love, but to Receive Love is far more challenging than to "give" it. Although Love is more than a circuit of energy, that circuit must be completed before broader Rings of Love are experienced. Reciprocity is the Ring of Love many are capable of reaching on a steady and stable basis. It is fairly easy to live with this Ring and still experience the range of Emotional, Instinctive, and Physical experiences that can challenge a life, self, or relationship. This is the Ring in which your "issues" or "unwanted events," challenging relationships, and difficult parts of Self are even more consciously explored as being "mirrors," or as having more meaningful possibilities beyond superficial challenge. This is the Ring in which you begin to experience more important Attraction/Repulsion experiences within Events, Parts of Self, and Others. Because this Ring is experienced within the arena of Emotions, it can be quite confusing and difficult to manage at times, but it is marked by its strange, solid experience of truly knowing a strong connection and strength is shared with even the most repulsive of People, Events, or Parts of Self. This is because this Ring has the ability to perceive in even the "worst" of Events, People, and Parts of Self, that "gifts" can come of that experience and this allows the continued exploration. To move from Alliance to Reciprocity, one must be willing to Feel in relation to that which is being Loved. Reciprocity then leads to APPRECIATION, the Fourth Ring of Love. This Ring of Love relates to the Intellectual Center, or 5th Chakra, and is the first time a fragment is able to differentiate between what IS and IS NOT your definition of "You," and allows a release of that which IS NOT. Appreciation is the Ring of Love that recognizes the diversity of life and can begin grasping the reality that not EVERYTHING has to be "important" or "have purpose." The fragment begins to Forgive, to truly accept that there has never been a mistake, that all experiences are simply that, Experiences, and that all people are just that, PEOPLE. This is a ring that loses the emphasis that everyone must find a powerful position within their own definition of life, but does allow for others' definitions, even if those definitions are diametrically opposed to your own. Many fragments find this Ring of Love to be invigorating and begin creating strings of sexual and emotional relationships of short durations. This provides satisfying, beautiful, and intensely-contained experiences of Love. This Ring of Love is experienced strongly during the Hormonal Washes of the formative Teen years, but the experiences are dismissed as meaningless, not only because of the nature inherent in that Ring, but also because no validity is given by your culture to the knowledge gained from such formative and fleeting experiences. Of course, we do not say, nor do we imply, that the "teen" years are the only years in which this Ring of Love is experienced, as this Ring of Love can also be generated and sustained even as a "lifestyle" form of Love for some. We also wish to emphasize that the serial sexual/emotional exploration is only one example of how this Ring might be experienced. A more encompassing description is simply that the fragment begins to find a great appeal in exploring anything foreign, unfamiliar, and alien. In terms of the "unwanted issues," the Love experienced at this Fourth Ring will have the fragment finding the issues and events as being adventures, exciting tours, in the world of experiences, rather than as mere burdens. In addition, this Ring begins to see and reach beyond the Person or Event being Loved, expanding to include all associations with that particular Event or Person. "Any friend of yours is a friend of mine" might be a simple, familiar phrase to capture that Ring. Appreciation then leads to COMPREHENSION, or the Fifth Ring. This 5th Ring of Love is associated with the 7th Chakra, or Higher Intellectual Center. This is the Ring in which all Events, People, and Self are seen as quite simply having a part in THE TRUTH. In other words, this is the Ring in which you realize that absolutely nothing is "wrong," that everything is dancing a part in the scheme of things, and you grasp that Truth. You begin to Comprehend that Events and People exist for "their own truth/reason," and that these Events and People do not require your understanding. This is also the first time the Self becomes fully integrated as itself in relation to the Event or Person being Loved, but recognizes these external factors as PART of the life, not as defining it. There is no longer a distraction with attachments to external factors as being the only definitions of "You." For instance, if a relationship ends, this is seen as an experience, not as a blow to your identity. To move from Appreciation to Comprehension, one simply begins to experience Awe. Everything seems to begin to "make sense," despite a lack of logic. Comprehension leads to ALTRUISM, which is the Sixth Ring of Love. Altruism relates to the Higher Emotional Center or 6th Chakra. While Comprehension sees the Truth of an Event or Person, Altruism experiences the deep compassion for how life may be experienced by Others. There is an encompassing acceptance of the "human condition," and an emphasis on the fact that life is never experienced exactly the same by any two points of consciousness in Time or Space. This Ring of Love is the first time you feel Human, or feel a full part of your Species with acceptance of that position of Sentience. As the Fifth Ring of Love loses any emphasis on your Self as being fragmented, the Sixth Ring loses emphasis on Events or Issues as distractions. There begins to be seen only a vast sea of experiential paths that are interpreted by everyone differently. It is the simultaneous understanding that while you experience your world quite particularly, another fragment may never have experienced or interpreted it the same way or even remotely similarly. It is the realization that it has never been the Events, or Parts of Self that defined or created the Life, but simply, how well you loved it all. To move from Comprehension to Altruism, one would tend to experience True Compassion, or Empathy, for that which is being explored. And finally, the Seventh Ring of Love is AGAPE, reached through Altruism. At this Ring, there is no emphasis on anything. Complete acceptance is experienced, with absolute loss of condition, meaning, reference, and definition. As the Sixth Ring developed a lack of emphasis on Events, and the Fifth Ring lost emphasis on Self, this final Ring removes ALL emphasis beyond the allowance of EXPERIENCE. Agape is PEACE. This Ring is related to the all-encompassing, boundless Higher Moving Center, or Tao. This is the Ring of realization that ALL of your life was Created by you or Allowed by you, and that not only is there nothing Wrong or Separate, but that EVERYTHING IS PERFECT in its own way. We will add that the Fifth Ring of Love is marked biologically through the experience of Crying, or Tears, as this is the realization of Truth on some level. To acknowledge the Truth of anything is a higher Ring of Love. Furthermore, True Hate can be included in the Fifth Ring, as Hate is a powerful form of Intimacy and recognition of Truth. The Sixth Ring of Love is marked biologically through True Pleasure and what most would call Happiness, as these states are an experience of lacking fragmentation and self-acceptance in the moment. The 7th Ring of Love is marked biologically through the experience of True Laughter, or the recognition of Oneness among all. The power of Tears, Pleasure, and Laughter are simple, accessible experiences to allow these Rings of Love to be experienced in many instances within the life, yet these biological interpretations of those Rings are difficult to sustain, understandably. (Note from Kasia: I've included relevant comments with additional channeling from the original post.) Comment by Geraldine B on February 15, 2010: Note to all those who attended either the Feb 14th 2010 Chat or Workshop, this is the article that was originally posted on the TLE group list. (Snickering at Troy -- you couldn't find it here, either???) Note to those who didn't attend either event, nor the NYC Live group, there is a wealth of material that is part of the chat transcript and I can think of no topic more fraught with imprinting and false beliefs than love, yet so fundamental to the very structure of life itself. I'm going to jump the gun, so to speak, and publish the transcript in here -- and let Troy publish in the regular Transcript forum with whatever edits and tweaks he might want to add for the permanent record. Geraldine Note from TLE Admin: Geraldine is referring to this transcript: Michael Speaks: on Love
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MMW - December 17, 2016 - Getting The Most From 2016
Bobby posted a topic in 2016 Open Michael Workshops
MMW - December 17, 2016 - Getting The Most From 2016 Hello to each of you. We are here, now. We can begin. What we share today is not a method that is exclusive to extracting the most meaningful from 2016, but can be used to extract the most meaningful from any day, any month, any year, any lifetime. The first thing that is important to know before looking back over a period of time to extract the best is to own the reality and the fact that not all of it was "good." You will fail in extracting the best if you think of it as a competition against the worst, or as a means to escape or ignore the impact of the worst. What we mean by "the best" and "the worst" is the difference between those experiences that brought you meaning through pleasure and those that brought you meaning through pain. All of it is meaningful. In order to extract the most from any given period of time, the "good and the bad" must be considered as equally valid. That is not just a depth of consideration for the good and the bad, but is an additional consideration. There can be no competition between the good and the bad. It is not a competition. It is not a point system. Imagine that you are at the theater and enjoying your movie all the way through to the end with friends. As you get up, someone spills his soda and candy all over your clothes and shoes. This can "ruin the whole night" for many people. The good is forgotten and the bad is amplified in importance. This is a vestigial function of the brain. You are programmed to amplify any threats or danger, and the brain does not know that spilled soda and candy is harmless, but it knows when you recoil in shock and surprise, and now the cause of this is a threat. But you are conscious beings who can override programming. It was an accident. It does not have to ruin the entire evening. It is inconvenient, it shocked you, it changed the course of your plans, and none of these things are "good," but they did not negate the entire evening of experience that came before it. Some days, some months, some years, and even some lifetimes are like this. So it is important to not only to allow room for both the good and the bad, but to return them to equal ground. Your good times cannot be used to make the bad times better and your bad times cannot be used to strip you of good times. This is vital for those days, months, years, and lifetimes where the experience is not just a spill near the end, but is the equivalent of someone talking throughout the film and throwing sticky candy in your hair. The point being made here is that, regardless of the ratio between "good" and "bad," there will always be both and both are important, meaningful, and part of the spectrum of your experience. So to get the most of 2016 is not an exercise in only finding the best, or only working through the worst. With those details in mind, the first method for extracting the most from 2016 is to utilize NOSTALGIA. Nostalgia is an Emotional Intelligence that can extract the most meaningful and core values from any event, person, or time period. Nostalgia is not sentimental. Sentimentality is attachment. Nostalgia is gratitude. Nostalgia is appreciation. Let yourself look back over your year and remember the most meaningful and valuable experiences. List these if necessary. Your Nostalgia, or Emotional Intelligence, can sometimes surprise you. You may have found someone in your life to be quite challenging, difficult, and even painful to endure, but once they are "gone," your Nostalgia points to everything you appreciated about this person, or what you gained or exchanged of value, and it is an odd feeling. That Nostalgia is not in place to undermine the challenges or struggles, but to ensure that the food for your emotional evolution is clean and clear from the debris of hurt and anger, sadness, etc. So look back over 2016 and make a list of what and who you knew had to go, had to change, but that you will miss, and remember with fondness all that you can. For a year like 2016, Nostalgia is one of the more important of the methods for extracting the most. The next method for getting the most of your previous year is to BE HONEST. It could be said that this is the Intellectual Intelligence you will use, or Truth. Experience is not always Honest, or The Truth. For example: You are standing in the street and are hit in the face with a baseball. No matter what, you were hit in the face with a baseball. It hurts. You do not know where this baseball came from or why it hit you. The only thing true at that moment is that you were hit by a baseball. Everything else is speculation. There are many experiences in life where you are hit by a metaphorical baseball to the face and then construct elaborate stories about how and why. Sometimes even the obvious is not accurate. To continue the analogy, you see a boy with a baseball bat with his friends down the street. Your mind immediately creates the story of irresponsible kids and set out to scold them. It makes all of the sense in the world that this is how and why it happened. But what you missed in your focus on the "obvious" is that an elderly woman on the sidewalk threw the ball. The children's ball had rolled to the sidewalk and she picked it up. Now that you know it was the elderly woman who threw it, you soften, consider her condition, and forgive the situation quickly. She just does not have a good throwing arm, or course. But what you did not know is that she simply did not like your face and she intentionally threw it to hit you. We are telling this elaborate tale of a ridiculous situation because this is not unlike how many things happen to you in life. The stories you tell about why and how things happen are not always true. And this is important to know when trying to extract the best from a time period. This is why Honesty is vital. If you DO. NOT. KNOW. THEN. YOU. DO. NOT. KNOW. You may never know. But you were hit by a baseball in the face, and this you do know. This you can work with. Tend to your wound, stay alert, and watch where you are going, and if you find out how and why, then that is a bonus. But until then, you must allow room for not knowing. You must tell the truth that you do not know. Be honest. Next, you must CREATE BEAUTY. This is the Moving Intelligence. In short: what happens TO you matters less than what you DO with what happens to you. NOSTALGIA, HONESTY, and BEAUTY are your tools for getting the most out of any time period, relationship, event, lifetime. You had many experiences across 2016. There are plenty of moments worth appreciation and gratitude, there is a lot that you do not know in terms of how and why, and you can create something from all of this. You can list 3 things that 2016 prompts from you in terms of how to make your world, your next year, your relationships, your life a better place. You can expand upon your list, of course, but simply naming 3 things helps you to set the patterns for building on the value and meaning you extract from 2016. Maureen: On our own, Michael, or do you want us to list them here, now? For this workshop, we are going to ask each of you to do something that puts all of the above into helpful package for later assessment. Maureen: OK. Thanks! Treat "2016" as if it were an overleaf term, with a Positive and Negative Pole. Take a few moments to stretch 2016 into a spectrum with a Positive Pole that reflects how it added to your expansion of choice, and a Negative Pole for how it helped to narrow, focus, or restrict your choice. Do this in two rounds: as in, let *anything* no matter how charged and exaggerated come to mind for each Pole, and then do a second round with more consideration. We know everyone is not a wordsmith, so this is not a test. Use any phrase or colorful wording you like. Even something symbolic, such a color or sound. As each of you come up with your 2016 Polarities, you can share as ROUND ONE, and ROUND TWO. If you only get one set, call it ROUND ONE. Troy is participating by relaying to us his polarities: ROUND ONE: +PASSION/-ANGER Maureen: That helps... Thanks! Janet: I only have one: ROUND ONE -LOSS / +POTENTIAL Troy: ROUND TWO: +INSPIRATION/-DEFEATED Bobby: ROUND ONE: I actually tied mine to an Overleaf: Observation. There was much Surveillance through out the year but also some Clarity. Johanne: round 1:+volunteer work/-conflict The two rounds are only for the sake of letting your mind move through reactionary descriptions to more thoughtful descriptions, but not all of you will need the two rounds. Maureen: Allow/Control, Action/Anger, Expression/Passive, Clear/Dark Clouds. Claire: ROUND ONE: +Potential/-Restriction Johanne: round 1:+volunteer work/-conflictr Claire: ROUND TWO: +Action/- and + Surprises Johanne: round 2: +engagement/-struggle Maureen: ROUND TWO: +Possibilities/-Stuck Bobby: ROUND TWO: +Compassion / -Disappointment In looking at your polarities, whichever set works best for you, the Negative Pole you chose describes your blind spot, your more insidious and oldest wounding, and/or your more specific fear that was unlocked for full exposure in 2016. Your chosen term for your Positive Pole your path to awakening, your path of healing, your path of transformation. These two terms for your year hold more insight into your 2016 than anything we can say. DianeHB: ROUND ONE: +INTIMACY / -DISTANCE Maureen: This fits: +Gratitude/-Inconvenience All of 2016 was likely your move through the Negative Pole. The Positive Pole is what you used to get to where you are today, and this term you chose describes what you intend for 2017. When you take time to make the lists we suggested, or off the top of your head, you can look at the more painful or "bad" experiences of 2016 and see how these prompted focus on your blind spots, your wounding, your fears, and then look at the best of your experiences and see how these reflected your conscious intent, your healing, your transformation. Maureen: I can see it was a hugely painful but transformative year, for many. We won't ever forget 2016. Claire: Heavy, man ;-) Having this session in mind as you move through 2017 can help you to navigate more cleanly so that you do not get to the end of the year with a great deal of emotional, intellectual, and moving weight that has no bearing on the value and meaning of what you experience. If it helps, create a quick reference of the information we shared here and check in with it occasionally so that you distribute the weight of experience evenly and uphold Nostalgia, Honesty, and Beauty while allowing the struggles and pain to represent the work to do, and pleasures and joys to represent the work done. We will take a few questions now. Yes, Janet. Janet: Is it likely that the negative and positive poles we listed here will be reflected in our coming 2016 reviews/2017 previews? Janet: Maybe that’s a silly question. I suspect they certainly will. Only through your own extrapolation or correlation. We will not determine these polarities for you. Our "quick review and preview" look at other factors from our own perspective, which should find relevance in your own assessment. Yes, Bobby. Bobby: Would you be able to give a sentence or two as far as what 2017 may hold for us if that is appropriate Bobby: I know this was a Turning Point year so something similar along those lines for 2017. For each of you? Bobby: No, just generally will suffice We understand. 2016 is best understood as the Year of Turning Points, while 2017 can best be understood as the Year of Altruism. It is a year of deep empathy and profound sensitivity that begins to shred any veils and reduce any distance and soften any defenses between SELF and OTHERS. Many of you already feel you are empathic, sensitive, and proactive, but this is a year where these terms can no longer be used as clever terms to describe yourself. They are capacities that will likely be called upon for all who have any capacity for such. Many of you are already feeling the drive of Altruism. Maureen: It's been overwhelming, the atruism, even throughout this year. I don't know how much more I can stretch. I guess I'll find out. I guess we all will. You want to DO something, to help, to reach out, to stand in solidarity, losing your sense of protection, privilege, or position or wanting that protection, privilege, or position to be of benefit to others. Altruism is here to stay, but it is finding its footing in 2017. The paths for action and contribution and care have been fairly limited and tend to either be fairly useless or so involved that one cannot truly make a difference without full commitment. New paths are in the works that allow for quite clear and fairly immediate impact. For many it is not that you are not doing enough, but that the paths for Altruism were limited by standards set by Young Souls. We see 2017 as an overhaul to that particular layer of humanity. Next, Johanne. Johanne: can you tell us a little bit more about Create Beauty? What we do with what happens to us That is up to you, but the point would be about how you can make the best of the worst. Using the rather silly analogy of the baseball hitting the face, you cannot do much with this, but you can laugh about it, look at it as comical, let it be a dramatic and funny story in your life, or even warn others that they may get hit if they walk near where you walked. It is the same for any experience. Can you laugh about it? Can you learn from it? Can you teach from it? Can you own it? Can you grow from it? Etc. This is Beauty. These are examples of Beauty. Next, Claire. ClaireC: Hi, Michael, a few TLE members have begun studying the feasibility of purchasing an island in the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland and launching an experiment in self-sustainablity. Any thoughts on the probabilities of this happening? The probabilities are low at this point, but that is no indication of its possibility. If the intent grows, so will the probabilities. At this point, it has not started the Initiation Stage, the first of stages that would indicate follow through. Last question: Maureen. Maureen: Michael, would you elaborate on “New paths are in the works that allow for quite clear and fairly immediate impact” for 2017 or will you be addressing this in next year’s Energy Report. It sounds like we will all have opportunities that move us closer to an Older Soul’s form of Altruism. Older souls will certainly tend to have more sense of resonance to paths created over 2017, but the standards will likely be that of Mature Souls. Mature Souls need real impact, fairly immediate results, dramatic change, and intense investment in outcomes. The current paths are Young and help one to keep his distance, to keep his territory, to keep his privacy and privileges and conveniences. These would not be thrown out for Mature paths, but built upon because there is nothing "wrong" in securing one's own position while using it to help others. The difference is that the priority shifts toward the impact of the help. However simple this may sound, it would require an overhaul in bureaucracies, a streamlining of processes, and an advancement and accessibility in technlogies. We cannot say how this will unfold, but it is a priority in the masses, and we do not see how 2017 can conclude at this point without some tremendous advancements in capacity for one group to help another. We will conclude here for today. Each of you have done Good Work across 2016, and we do not see this changing across 2017. Your Life Tasks and personal Agreements are not only active, but expanding. 2017 is a Year of Humanity, and this will either be embraced or fought with great fear, or both. But more of humanity wishes better for humanity and this matters. Good day to each of you. Goodbye, for now.
