January 2001

Dear Mother Earth,

I was just beginning to feel confident about my work as a healer and an intuitive counselor when the rug was pulled out from under me. Trust and faith have been replaced by fear and doubt. I misread my best friend's question regarding what seemed to be a routine medical exam and now she has been diagnosed with a cancer that will claim her life within a matter of months. I feel that I have not been of service to her and that I have given her false hope and undue faith. She is the nicest person anyone could wish to know and does not deserve to die like this or at such a young age. Nothing that I have learned or come to believe feels right and I cannot make sense of this. Where does my responsibility begin and end regarding working with friends? Please help me to understand what is happening.

You are currently experiencing an unfoldment process and it is very important that you participate in it fully. During this cycle every moment is critical regardless of how uncomfortable or how trivial they may seem. Each thought that you have and each decision that you make is important. That is not to say that every moment will cause you to make split second decisions or that each situation you encounter will be a life and death one. No penalty will be levied upon you regardless of any decision you may make or lack of ability to make a decision. It is important, however, that you notice that realities are beginning to shift all around you and it would benefit you to become aware of which realities you will consciously choose to participate in. This is a time of learning and a time of choice. The choices you make now will determine how soon you will shift realities again. Your next shift will place you in a position where others will come to think of you as a teacher. Although this reality may not seem appropriate today that is exactly what you have come here to do and there will come a time in the very near future where precious little will prevent you from this task.

Until now your path has been stable and direct. You have not encountered many detours or "bumps" or even been presented with many difficulties. Because you are a multi-faceted being, there are aspects within your make-up that desire to assist you in reflecting a grander perspective of self. This desire will bring new choices and opportunities as well as new mirrors to gaze in. Each mirror will offer you a variety of perspectives depending upon the angle at which you hold it. The mirror you have beheld most recently can be called, The Mirror of Spiritual/Relationship Responsibility. You have looked into this mirror before but not for as long and not with the depth that this personal experience has offered you. In response to your question I will say this: Your responsibility does not begin and it does not end. You have not had a beginning and you will not end. Your love, devotion and commitment to your friend also has no beginning and it will not end, not even if she withdraws the energy which animates the human form she has chosen to embody this time around. Responsibility, however, is not debt and it is not guilt; neither is it care or devotion. These are all symptoms and side-effects assigned by misguided attempts to define true responsibility which is simply the ability to respond to a given situation or moment's calling.

Your intent to invest your heart and your feelings in your friend filled a void for both of you. In one moment's time a deep bond was forged, one that may very well outlast this sun. This bond renews, recreates and redefines itself moment by moment. The relationship you had last month and last week is already obsolete, but the relationship you create in this moment is unique. Not all relationships are defined by physical boundaries, that is only a choice.

You and many others who will also read these words will be called upon to make many decisions. Some of these decisions will be more difficult to make than others. Each time you will be influenced by several different factors. It is important that you begin now to assess the parameters and the boundaries that will determine what will be asked of you. What need are you willing to fulfill for another? What are you able to give to another? What must you give to yourself? If you do not begin to evaluate this now, you may find yourself depleted later on. Your need for "down time" may increase and you may have a greater need to reenergize and/or repair yourself before proceeding or before you are able to assist the next being who comes your way.

Is your supply of good will interminable and inexhaustible? Yes, but you must care for it and replenish it from time to time so that it will remain so. Surround yourself with compassion and with logic if necessary, you will find that both will support what is being said here. Trust in your own awareness and in the wisdom that your own heart will offer to you. Do not always assume that your ability to respond or to react is being called upon. As your intuition leads the way, compassion and comfort will follow close behind.

You believe that you have given your friend false comfort and false hope because it now appears unlikely that she will choose to remain in her physical body. Perhaps you will define these terms for me as I am unable to do so. You have offered your friend encouragement and comfort coupled with your own desire for her continued health and vitality. Would it have been better to have said, "Dear Friend, I do not wish to offer you false comfort or false hope, therefore, it is probable and highly likely that you will either live or you will die. I cannot offer you anything beyond that." Do you find these words more palatable or any easier to say? Your difficulty is based upon the dichotomy between fact and desire. The first requires qualification but the latter does not. Your intuitive evaluation of your friend required only that you open yourself up to what was made available to you in that moment and this you did quite well as it is seen from this perspective. Please know that there is no false hope regardless of the situation or how dire the circumstance.

There are many beings who currently make their home in ravaged and warn torn cities and countries where famine and other atrocities of war threaten to end their lives daily. Certainly there is good cause for these beings to hold little hope for survival within their hearts, would you not agree? Yet they do not say to one another, "Let us not offer each other false hope, surely we will perish tomorrow." Instead, they look to one another for support. They give and desire to receive the same hope that they in turn offer to others. It is this very faith and hope that sustains them until the next crust of bread or shelter is found. This they give thanks for and pray that the next day will bring the same or better. By way of this example, please know that I do not condone, but merely accept that humanity yet finds value in this form of expression.

How else shall we attempt to define false hope? What of earthquakes, floods and other earth changes? It is hope and faith that allows those who become buried under the rubble to continue to breathe as they await others who may eventually find and rescue them. This is also true of those who search for survivors in spite of insurmountable odds. They do not say at the outset, "It is hopeless, let us give up now." It is not false hope but faultless hope and eternal faith that support these beings moment by moment. This same faith and hope is what your friend received from you and what she currently requires. Are you able to offer this? Perhaps you will allow your heart to offer the answer.

I find this an appropriate time to remind you of some of the more beautiful traits and qualities that human beings are known for. Far too often have humans been reminded of their weaknesses and the poor decisions that have led to untold suffering and countless lessons. Human Beings are wondrous entities with a deep desire and an ability to grow, to know, to learn, to endure, to survive, to surpass, to strive and to move beyond current circumstances, boundaries or restrictions. These very qualities have propelled humanity to the threshold of mastery and sovereignty; an invisible barrier that will soon be crossed.

A master being does not create a circumstance that it cannot overcome, though it may challenge itself in order to grow. Please understand that in various gentle words I have offered you the possibility that false hope cannot exist where hope is present. Where humanity has been concerned, there has always been hope. One of the reasons your dear friend created her current circumstance is specifically so that she could explore how hope could affect and influence a hopeless situation. She is very brave and many who surround her at this time have much to learn and to gain from what she will demonstrate by example.

As we have explored the concept of false hope perhaps we should turn our attention to hope. Hope and Faith are often offered to and welcomed by individuals who find themselves in difficult or problematic situations. Let us imagine that you must make a difficult decision where you are not certain of the outcome. As guidance gathers around you many realities become apparent. Some of these realities will offer hope and faith and some will not. You must decide where it is that you will place your awareness. Situations are sometimes created where an outcome is completely dependent upon faith and hope as well as determination and regeneration because that is what the individual or group of individuals desires to experience. You can choose whether or not to participate in that experience, but you cannot deprive another of their own choice in the matter.

Your friend has invited you to share this experience with her. You have been called upon to offer hope and healing to your friend if you are willing and able to do so. How you evaluate or judge your response to this invitation later on will not alter the reality that your friend has chosen for herself. Your decision in this moment will determine what the next moment will bring and so on. Each moment will offer you new realities and experiences to choose from. Your subtle vision will shift and change as these realities change. In the next moment your friend may decide that she is ready to leave her body behind in favor of another experience. It would be a faulty assumption on your part to believe that your subtle vision has let you down (or pulled the rug out from under you) because in a prior moment you perceived the health of her body as adequate, do you see?

Moment by moment time is shifting and it is also speeding up. Its very matrix is not the same as it was a few months ago. This acceleration allows desires to manifest much more quickly than they have in the past. What previously required years now requires only a few short months. Desires that seemed months away are now only a few weeks into your future. Weeks have become days and days are now only moments apart from one another. You and others like you are unique in that it is your job to be aware of and to perceive these shifts as well as many subtle planes of consciousness. You are asked questions that perhaps others are not, and the answers you offer carry weight with those who have asked them. Because of this you may feel that your integrity has come into question with regard to the advice that you have offered your friend. You may even feel that others who are also a part of this experience will now judge you. These feelings have contributed to the doubt that you have expressed. Your ego which has been silent for some time has now sat up and taken note of what is occurring in case it should need to step in on your behalf. You must ask yourself this: Would it have been better not to have offered your friend faith and hope so that there would be no chance of being incorrect later on?

Until now it has not been a problem for you to recant a statement because it may have been incorrect. Please do not allow this be any different. Perhaps you will find comfort in saying, "I believe I may have been incorrect in my initial assessment regarding the health of this individual I care for deeply. It is possible that my love for her and my own desire for her continued wellbeing may have prevented me from seeing a reality that exists beyond this current moment. I will forgive in advance any and all beings who may judge me for doing so for it is entirely possible that I would do the same given a reversal of roles."

The very nature of your work makes it possible for you to be judged each day and in each moment, but it is you who will determine whether or not that will be so. Will you determine your own worth by the opinion and judgment of others or will you represent your truth by offering that which you are in each moment, honoring your own free will as well as that of those around you? As you are only now embarking upon this kind of work you are more affected by those you think of as family and friends than you will be later on. In the near future you will see that everyone is an extension of your own being, an aspect of your own awareness. It is already thus, but you do not recognize it as such yet. Continue to honor your path, dear one. Take time to slow down the process of growth when it is appropriate for you to do so. Look about and see that you are loved and supported, even by those you believe would judge you harshly. When you are ready, take a deep breath and proceed onward knowing that all is well and in divine.

Copyright © 2001 Pepper Lewis, The Peaceful Planet