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by Red & the Council of Elders

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Wendy- So, of course, the first question is what exactly is a state of grace?

Red-Well, you know, I'm sure as you did your research on this topic you can see that it depends upon the religion, the philosopher or the person talking about that. We would call being in a state of grace that ability to be connected to your higher self, your greater self, your soul self, at the same time as being connected to the environment that is manifesting around you on the physical plane.

Picturing yourselves kind of like some of your great teachers, which are trees, as being rooted into the earth, to the community, to the environment around you, to what is physically unfolding around you, being aware of the presence around you; and at the same time being connected to your greater self, your deeper wisdom, your soul self. When you are operating in that place of personal acceptance, of what is around, what is manifesting, and at the same time being connected to the greatest potential possible. You will find yourselves in a frequency field that allows potential and possibility to unfold for your highest good. We would call that being in a state of grace.

It's not always easy to bring yourself to that place, to that level of awareness, and you know, sometimes it feels almost impossible to be able to settle yourself, to calm yourself and to hold yourself in that state. The advantage of learning how to do that is that no matter what circumstances you find yourself in you will be able to make it through those circumstances, choose the best course of action in the moment, and soothe your physical and emotional being by allowing your spirit self to offer its compassion and love to all of the aspects of yourself physically incarnate.

In that state of vibration your cells are able to entrain themselves to that state of compassion and love that all of your spirits' hold. Your emotional body is able to find a place of hope, acceptance, peace. Your mental body is able to find clarity and understanding. And as your chemical expression changes; the chemicals that your body releases allow feelings to be calmed, allow mental clarity. It actually stimulates the release of serotonin and other chemicals that allow you to be in a heightened state of calm. We would call that being in that state of grace.

Many peoole live in a state of fear and we understand how hard it is to get out of that state.Lots of people have experienced that, you know, when they get themselves caught up in what is manifesting on the physical planes around them or what is manifesting within themselves, you know, if their balance is difficult to keep. You've got a lot of turmoil going on in your world right now--it's really, really difficult for many people to be able to keep themselves in a calm state when you're in the midst of this kind of turmoil. I really agree that it's tough. And yet some people experience, even in the midst of terrible things going on, some people experience a state of peace where they feel like they're, you know, flowing through with the best possible options at that time, regardless of what's going on around them or what they're feeling. This would be when your personality self, is connecting with your soul self--when your soul self is able to get through and take a parental role in the situation you've got yourself in.

Now, some people have a little more experience with being able to tap in, you know, to their soul self, but sometimes it's the soul itself that has a lot more experience in being able to get through to your personality self like that. Everybody has experienced these moments when it feels like everything's going really bad around you, when all of a sudden you get this calm feeling and you know exactly what you need to do to handle the situation. There's a sense of authority, there's a sense of empathy, a sense of responsibility that comes with that. And you go from quaking in fear to, Okay, we've got to handle this. This is what we need to do. This is where we need to go, and then everything seems to start falling into place around you. That is when your soul self and your personality self have joined a common frequency and you are thus able to be more aware of what is unfolding around you and you are able to have more of an influence on what is unfolding around you. That's what's going on during those states--your soul self was able to find a matching frequency with your personality self, so it was able to come through for you.

Sometimes this happens when many of your unseen friends, your guides or ancestors who are over here; sometimes they will step in and try to hold a physical vibration around you the best they can to try to help you get to that vibratory state where your soul can match frequency and have an influence on what's going on within you and around you. It's a really good feeling when that happens, and most people when they hit that point, you know, they're able to find a way out of a difficult situation or are able to find a way through a difficult situation or come to terms with it if that's what it takes. So, yeah, that's what's going on there.

And you know fear is a state of being, and when people find themselves vibrating within that frequency, the kind of chemicals get released in your body that cause you to not be able to think clearly, cause you to be easily startled and easily reactionary to what's going on in the environment. And that's really kind of the opposite of being in the state of grace. When you're in there's that ability to find your way out of a situation, to find the support that you need, to find what the environment around you has to offer to make this situation resolve back to love. And that's what the state of grace does. The state of fear, you know, when it starts triggering stuff in you, that can help you get out of a situation if you've got to be able to act fast and be single-focussed. But the state of grace can do the same thing without upsetting your entire ecosystem of emotional, physical and mental.

When you are in an overwhelming situation, some people, the way they cope with that level of overwhelm is to choose not to look at the situation that is unfolding around you, not to look at what life is showing you, but to choose instead to look at something like how you would like it to be or how you would like to make it up to be. You know, that is a coping mechanism for lots of people but it doesn't really work, eh? You know? It can work for a short period of time, but, you know, not for your whole life. We agree--sometimes it's a really good idea for people to hold that frequency of fantasy, you know, until they are in a position to be able to really take in and handle what they actually have to deal with. Life doesn't really lie to you--it shows you reality. So when you are bringing yourself to that state of peace and you can be cognitive of that peaceful feeling inside you even though you're looking around and noticing chaos everywhere around you, you are thus able to create almost like a template within yourself for peace, for success, for being able to get through a situation.

Believing that, you know, no matter what happens we're going to get through this, has often been a way for people of creating a template that they can follow. Now that's really different than, I don't want to pay attention, you know, to all of the people standing there with guns and I don't want to pay attention to this threat there and that threat there, and there's a forest fire spreading though. I am going to pretend that my house is safe regardless of all the smoke I see. That's real different than the medicine person that says, Hey, this is a really interesting art I'm going to practice of keeping those flames separate from my house, and maybe I'm going to be pouring water all over my house to make sure that happens. 

So, yeah, people, when they're looking for signs--the best signs that life can give you is, Is it working? Is this creating a positive outcome for you? Is this keeping you in that state of calm so that you can actually have action appropriate for the situation that you're in? Many people look for signs from life to let them know, Am I in that flow? Are things working for me? And life will show you. If you're in that flow, what you need will be shown to you, whether it's a parking spot close by or clear traffic to get quickly where you need to go. Or for some people they've got signs of a particular animal will show up or a series of numbers will up, or life will show something that lets them know, Yes, okay, I'm on the right track--keep going, keep following this trajectory  I'm set on, and you watch for the responses of life, what life says back to you as you're doing it.

So if you're thinking, I'm going to believe that our house is okay even though flames are coming at us. We're just going to sit here and pretend everything's okay, you know--well, if suddenly the winds change direction, then you know, guess what; that was right course of action for you and you were in the state of grace. If life's not showing you that, the sparks are flying; that lets you know, Okay, I'm just in denial and we'd better get out of here. 

Life will show you. It is really an art of listening and of learning you are part of the ecosystem itself. And like we said; being tapped in through your roots to the physical reality, the earth around you, so that you are hearing from the planet itself and all that it manifests in your plane, and you're also connected to your soul self who has that deeper wisdom. Manoeuvring from that space through tricky situations, just through life itself is an awful lot easier than manoeuvring through in constant fear and self doubt. It's just a lot easier to get through things when you are able to spend at least part of your time in that state of grace.

Communities around the world, and many of your ancestral communities, really understood that if you wanted your community to be in harmony together, you know, that there were ways that you could bring a group of people together and create a frequency field that allows everybody to find a way to attain that state of vibration where you are at one with each other, with the environment, and with your spirit.

Meditation assists you personally to come into a state of calm, to bring your emotional and your mental being together with your spirit, and allowing that joining of frequency to permeate through the physical body so your body is flowing with that calm vibration. Regular meditation can help you to learn how to hold yourself in that state. People that practice daily meditation, it's much easier for them to bring themselves quickly to a calm state than those who haven't practiced it; it's not part of their regular spiritual practice. So, it can be very beneficial for doing that.

Ritual, celebration; these are ways of bringing your community together to help you or achieve together a state of being. Prayer, when you're praying together is also meant to do that. Chanting, using music, sound vibration--these are all ways that you can use your emotional and mental self together with spirit. And you know, cultures all over the world have found really different and interesting ways to help people with that. Many cultures use a drum to bring everybody's hearts into rhythm with each other, and when that happens and when everybody is bringing themselves into that vibratory state that the drum will hold, it allows your mental, physical and emotional being to connect with spirit. Some cultures used ants to help people bring themselves into that state of being connected with everything around them and with themselves. The use of prayer or chanting is another way that folks have discovered that can get them to that state. But you know, we even suggest simple things like singing a child's song in your mind or singing out loud to bring all of yourself into that state.

You know, you think about stories that you see of folks who are having to march together towards war, and they'll sing together or they'll drum together; this is a way to combat that, from self from falling into that state of fear and get you in a unified place. You can use those same techniques to bring yourself to a place of calm and peace--just singing out loud can even be enough to help you navigate those stormy times in life.

The state of grace is meant to unify you--you, the personality self with what's going on in life, in your environment, in your community, and unify you with your own spirit so you can be connected better with the support and help from the unseen realms. Any practices that can help you come to a state of calm and peace within yourself, can hold you in a vibratory field that your spirit self can much more easily reach you and communicate to you at, and hold you in a vibratory field that life itself can much more easily reach you and show you options in that moment. However you choose to use these practices that are available to you doesn't matter as long as it's helping you come to that place of love--then it's working.    

by Red & the Council of Elders

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