The Dance

The Dance

By Penny Lewton Binek

Passion and his beloved Compassion

glide a path together--

sometimes breaking apart,

sometimes framing the other, heart-to-heart--

waxing and waning

'round the floor of the Flagstone Terrace.

They dance through the annals of the ages,

the picture book that is my mind,

to the wildly whirling-twirling,

strangely peaceful dervish

that is my heart,

in rhythm to the song

that is my soul.

Evolving Church Ministries: New Opportunities For Their Communities

I've had the pleasure of recently visiting with friends and relatives from my hometown and surrounding communities, and during our visits one of the subjects was the lack of ministers. One minister is dividing her or his time among three or more communities. I have a neighbor and a niece who are ministers, and through them, I've gained an appreciation of the sacrifices such people make in order to serve their communities. Their job is being on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for not only the weekly sermon, but they provide other community services during the week, and they are there for times of celebration and times of sorrow. Unless they have another minister to help shoulder the duties, it can get really stressful. These are truly giving people, and they are being expected to "do more with less and less and less."

Do more with less is exactly what I experienced in the business world--the corporate world of manufacturing and packaging. It's not a new idea--the Jewish slaves in Egypt in the time of Moses were expected to produce more bricks for building, and in a shorter time with less raw materials. Their expected quota for the day was raised.

I look at the OLD business bottom-line profit approaches and they don't even make COMMON SENSE! Some employees around here in Minot, an area that enjoyed a financial abundance during a short-lived oil boom, are chastised for not bringing in the money now that they did when the community was feeling flush. When oil prices were at their height, the costs of rent and food were astronomical--a ridiculous gouging of the people who made up our community. I was personally frustrated at the lack of COMMUNITY consciousness in these practises--and it wasn't everyone that was doing it. It was mainly being done by unawakened individuals and companies who thought it was about competition and survival of the fittest. They weren't aware of even looking for another way that might benefit everyone involved.

But that's what we have now--a segment of our world population is either awake or in the process of their awakening, and these individuals are starting to incorporate new, more community-service-based (heart-based) practises in their daily lives and businesses. Others are deep asleep in the old hypnosis of the old ways, and they really aren't open to anything new. There is no judgment here--there is a time and a season...and a profound reason...for everything and everyone, just as they are, under the sun.

While listening to my friends tell about church members filling in to do Sunday services on days that their traveling minister was engaged at another church, it suddenly struck me that the dying church of the old ways was creating a new window of opportunity for its parishioners. People who were passionate about learning more about God and Jesus, and understanding and improving their own lives, were actually reading their Bibles and other books surrounding the stories related there-in, and were stepping up to share their own inner aha moments with other people gathered to hear such profundities!

Now this, my beloved human friends, is the type of interaction with other people that gets me excited! I LOVE being with others who are so willing to share their deepest and highest experiences, and the wisdom and compassion they gain from them--and then are so willing to listen as I share my own with them. These are the most rewarding interactions I have ever taken part in. Conversations surrounding sports and reality TV and gossip or political rants do not interest me in the least. But when someone shares with me something from deep within their heart--realizations that set them free and add sparkle to their eyes--I exult and dance it in for hours and days later.

I can see a new type of ministry emerging from the ashes of the old: I see the rows of pews facing a lectern or an alter turning into a circle of chairs where each person in the circle has something to share that everyone benefits from personally if they are willing to listen. Heck, my dad and my brother, Steve, did ministry work having coffee in a booth at the local restaurant. We can create safe and sacred spaces for ourselves and each other no matter where we are.

With much love and celebration and anticipation,
The Benevolent Rebel

Story of the Moment: An Opportunity or a Limitation?

Open and Allow.

I've realized that every story playing in every moment of my present life is an opportunity for me to OPEN myself to going beyond my old limited perception of the drama in front of me. My perception is everything when it comes to manifesting the life I desire. My perception is what determines what flavor of consciousness I radiate out to the energies that serve me in then manifesting the realities I experience.

My Life Is a Gift, Not a Test.

Viewing life from the perspective of it being a gift rather than a proving-ground of self-worth is a key perception in this game.

In realizing that I could CHOOSE to view a seeming dilemma as A GIFT of an opportunity to go beyond an old story rather than being stuck in a same-old, same-old experience--yet again--I felt a blossoming shift in my consciousness and in my personal energy field. I felt my braced shoulders and body loosen up and open up. I felt myself take a deep breath of ease and a smile touch my face.

I have an opportunity to enjoy a trip to another beautiful state, but I felt stuck in feelings of self-doubt, aloneness, and possible failure, with a niggling aspect of lack of abundance. I felt obligation and hurt at past betrayal stories. None of these were really how I personally feel. They were just old and sticky stories cycling back around to see if I wanted to make them mine. They were past experienced possibilities that I could make my truth, my reality. They were haunting me, "Pick me! Pick Me!" they said as they made smirky faces at me.

It was mucking me up. I was feeling stuck, closed in, unable to make any choice with a feeling of graceful ease. And the future date was looming closer and closer without a feeling of resolution other than regretfully having to decline the invitation. I sat on the couch sipping my cappuccino, allowing myself to feel into all of it--all those icky, frustrated old poor-little-me stories. And then it hit me.

Every story is merely a SUGGESTION of potentials I can choose or not choose to make my own experience. Every story is an opportunity to OPEN and ALLOW myself ease and grace in receiving the field of potential energies that serve me. I don't have to plan the logistics--figure out how to make it unfold. I just pick a flavor--like ice cream--something I feel I might enjoy.

I just OPEN myself, my self-awareness, and allow myself to feel at ease; instead of bracing myself in the old way, trying to manipulate and survive what feels like a landscape of emotional and physical landmines out to get me if I make one false move or choice.

Be Grateful--For the Opportunity.

My life is a multitude of opportunities: Replace all my old fears surrounding it with overall gratitude..

View all my stories with GRATITUDE. Instead of trying to figure out how to handle a situation and myself--simply view EVERY MOMENT and EVERY STORY as an OPPORTUNITY to open myself up to receive a GIFT of a life of EASE and GRACE. No weapons wielded offensively or defensively, no armor or protective barriers needed.

Simply open and give heartfelt thanks for the opportunities--even the opportunities clothed as Facebook whines, tantrums, tirades and power games. I have the whole pie, and many pies to play with, instead of just the Little Human sliver I once thought was all that I was. That's a whole lot to be grateful for...and all I have to do is OPEN and ALLOW myself to receive it. No judgment necessary.

Walking On...Beyond Death With Steve, Part III

An Invitation     

I've been holding off on posting this Part III of Walking On: Beyond Death With Steve. I've just been adding anecdotes and dreams I've had about him since he crossed over the Veil of Forgetting. I chose to walk beyond the old concepts surrounding death simply by keeping myself open to potentials most of us humans haven't realized were even possible. I'm allowing it to simply unfold, trusting there is a new way. Do I have frustrating, missing-him-terribly moments? Yes! But I have an unshakable trust in myself that it will all work out. Just keep yourself open, Pen, and allow yourself to receive all the gifts that come your way in this.

Steve often met people for the first time who'd tell him that they knew him--they recognized him as a character in their dreams at night. He wouldn't recall any of it, and was frustrated that he couldn't. He usually woke up nauseated. But he got a kick out of hearing the stories from friends and acquaintances, and then sharing them with me.

We both desired for the two of us to be able to travel and meet in the other dimensions. It finally happened the week he helped us move to Minot nearly eleven years ago. I remembered grinning ear to ear and joyfully greeting him in my dreams that night, "We finally did it!" I made a note to myself to remember it in the morning. I did actually recall it (a grand-feeling feat for me), but Steve once again didn't remember a thing--he just awoke dizzy and nauseated and nearly fell out of his bed.

Note: Dizziness and a bit of nausea are often symptoms of traveling across many dimensions or realities--nothing is wrong with you. You're just not accustomed to the awareness of doing it, and so there is a resistance--a bracing of oneself. The more one RELAXES and ALLOWS it by moving through one's fear about it, the easier and more graceful the experience becomes.

Also: When you want to leave a reality or dimension, SIMPLY CHOOSE this reality, and you're here instantly. You need to know you can't get stuck, not really. Just choose this one, and you're back to a place you know how to navigate as a human.

I've been prone to motion sickness most of my life. And then Adamus Saint-Germain talked about how we, as pinpoints of conscious awareness, don't actually move at all. We are eternal and stationary. Even when we seem to have bodies that move and sense--that's actually energy in the forms of space and time (aka Bon) flowing in patterns to us, and through us. It's basically just like sitting in an omnitheater, in a stationary seat with a surrounding screen of flowing vistas of mountainous peaks and canyons of treacherous turns, where it feels like one false move on my part would have me falling and crashing. Only I can't actually fall or crash because I'm the projector and the light--it's all just a very sensual experience.

Last time I flew, knowing that I was stationary and that the turbulence of the airplane I was on was just energies flowing around and through me, that I really wasn't locked in a moving vehicle traveling through air space--it was the first time I didn't experience motion sickness while flying. It used to take me the rest of the day and a good night's sleep to recover from airplane travel that was bumpy.

I may prove myself to be a complete and utter fool, but I realize I don't care about that. I'm not hurting anyone. This is my gift of a life. This is my reality to manifest and play in. I had to step away from Facebook for a bit because so many of our loved ones are crossing over the Veil and I feel my energies, out of old habit, rush into their stories, holding their pain. It's so seductive that I feel myself caught up in the grief, the loss, the utter sadness--and in some cases, the guilt--before I realize I'm doing it. It made it difficult to keep myself open and the energies flowing.

So, I invite those of you who choose to open yourselves up to connecting with Steve and your other loved ones--humans and pets on the other side of the Veil--please feel free to share your stories with me. I will treasure them. Remember to watch for the simple things, the subtle things...

In the days and months following Steve's transition, amid the bouts of grief and my grappling to keep myself open to see all of this through in a new way, I've experienced, I just realized, quite a number of reassuring winks, dreams, and reminders that all is well:

It--everything--comes to you.

The day after Steve left his body, Laurie and I had lunch at Ruby Tuesdays in Bismarck. I chose to eat there in memory of having a meal with Steve at the one in Minot. While perusing the drinks menu, I'd noted the raspberry lemonade felt appealing, but didn't order it.  I didn't say anything about it out loud to our waitress. I just went with water. As Laurie and I were enjoying our salads, our waitress came by and offered us a raspberry lemonade that she'd accidentally made for someone else. Immediately, I remembered Adamus Saint-Germain devoting a whole shoud, using a simple cup of coffee as an example, to reminding me that everything comes to me. It comes to you...keep yourself open...and just let yourself receive it...

The hawk.

Steve was a school bus driver for a number of years, and along one of his routes he told about hawks perching on a line of fence posts on a regular basis when he passed by. When we buried his ashes on our hill on the farm, a hawk circled overhead nearby.

Another hawk called out to us and perched in a branch almost in reach of us as I was walking around Oak Park in Minot with my Reiki master friend, Brenda. I was telling her about Steve's music and the way that his songs first came to him in other languages which later would translate into English. Of the losses I experienced, Steve's music was perhaps one of the greatest. When he stayed with Kelly and me, I used to feel myself shift into other dimensions while he played and sang. Brenda is aware that birds and animals that appear on our paths hold significance, so it was wonderful to have her witness and acknowledge his presence with me. 

Later on in the summer, another hawk perched in the cottonwood tree in our back yard while I was out with the cats. I had been talking to Steve while sitting on the back steps when it just flew in. This bird had a grand presence--so much so that I gathered my three kitties and put them inside. It stayed for a couple of hours. I doubt it would have harmed my cats, but I wanted to enjoy its presence without any fear. It was easier to keep myself open that way.

My dreams of Steve.

One of my favorite dreams is the one where I approached this woman sitting in a corner booth at a restaurant. She was offering her condolences at the death of my brother. But I was looking at her, inwardly shaking my head. There she was, telling me how sorry she was at the loss of my brother when said brother, Steve, was sitting right next to her in the same booth, eyes dancing with laughter, acting especially clever and silly, widely grinning, sporting a goatee!  I can still hear him belly-laughing at me with that one.

In another dream I remember reuniting joyfully with Steve and Dad. I actually walked into Dad's arms and soaked in a hug.

On the morning of January 12, 2017, I awoke remembering this part of a dream: Steve had returned to this Earth realm and he was playing his guitar and singing all the songs he'd written while he was incarnate here--all the songs I once grieved had been lost into obscurity due to his transition that humans call death.

A synchronistic encounter.

Steve and I shared a love of our local libraries and reading. I had an odd, yet sweet and profound experience at the library last fall. I was perusing the new paperbacks shelves when I realized someone was standing close behind me. I turned to acknowledge the person and to apologize for hogging the space, when I realized he was talking to me and referring to the train going by right outside the window. He told me his father drove the trains in India, that he was born in Bombay, and that later in his youth his family moved to a village of 500,000 in the Himalayas.

He continued on and recited to me a condensed version of his life story, opening his wallet to show me a picture of his American wife and of his daughter. He and his wife met at a university in Houston, Texas. After their three children had been raised, his wife's work allowed her and him to travel throughout China and Asia. After 6 years abroad, he asked her to allow them to return home to their kids and families in the US. She flew back home with him, got him settled, and then returned to China alone, where she's been ever since. Her sons even tried to get a court order to make her stay in the US. Of course, the judge ruled in her favor, while reminding her that the reason her sons did so was simply because they wanted her near.

The gentleman ended his story by opening his wallet one last time to show me his name on his driver's license: "Jayant." He still awaits his wife's return some day, and he said his name reminds him that his hope is not lost: "Jay" means "Victory"; and "ant" means "in the end." 

I admit, it threw me for a few days until I remembered to ask myself what gift he was bearing me...and then it was so clearly and wonderfully there!!! Steve, who loved the library, had his kind messenger deliver my reminder to allow for the something grander to unfold: "Victory in the end."

Reminders that pass through my mind, helping me to smile and keep myself open.

"It all works out in the end, and if it hasn't worked out, then it isn't the end yet."--The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

"Can you allow the twists and turns in your life and allow the grander something to unfold?"--Adamus Saint-Germain

"Just relax! It all happens naturally...Anding and Allowing are the tools..."--Adamus Saint-Germain

"It comes to you."--Adamus Saint-Germain

"You never did anything wrong. Nobody ever did anything wrong. Not really."--Tobias

"Open and Allow..."--Adamus Saint-Germain

My realization about death and perception in my own experiences. 

This is how dense the old mass consciousness of humanity is surrounding death: I've been flying and jumping and staying suspended in the air in my dreams again. I've had many of these types of dreams throughout my life, but I always just wrote them off as just dreams--I didn't view them as real. I have had both Mom and Dad (who died in 2001 and 2003) return to life in my dreams, but I wasn't allowing myself to celebrate and fully enjoy being with them again. Because my HUMAN MIND, which believes this reality where they are dead and long buried is the only true reality, kept jumping ahead into grief and deep, deep sadness. I felt myself braced to lose them to death right away. It totally skewed and distorted my very real interaction with them. I had them--huggable, touchable--right there with me, but I was in a deep state of depression at losing them again, believing it was coming at any moment.

All my loved ones keep appearing in my dream states, but I haven't yet had them show up in this reality, and now I understand why. The density of human mass consciousness and its systematic belief in death here doesn't keep itself open to that possibility. Most of humanity believes that dead is dead, and that we can't interact with those who have left their bodies--and this deeply felt belief keeps us imprisoned in the death story ILLUSION.

We have friends, loved ones, acquaintances and strangers walk in and out of our lives all the time--some of whom we don't see for many months or years--but when we see them we don't even question the reality of their existence with us unless we've been told that they died in the interim.

People pass in and out of this singular--my Earthly dimensional reality--all the time, and when they are gone from my physical presence they travel in dimensions I'm not aware of or even in. Yet I trust in their existence--I absolutely trust that they are alive, even if I don't see or hear or feel them in the usual sense.

Steve sometimes appears in my dreams, and then suddenly I don't perceive him for months. But this is exactly what is happening with my other brothers and sisters who are currently "alive." I love and miss them, too, when we're apart--but I don't get seduced into a deep and mournful depression surrounding their absence. I don't question or doubt their being alive. I am open to seeing them again, hugging them--and so when they appear in my reality, I celebrate and enjoy our time together while I have it, until the next time we get together.

Sometimes the possibility of death gets used by humans as a means to control others.

"You're going to feel really guilty if you don't do what I want you to do, and then I up and die before we get together again."

That's a power play--holding one's possible death over another--and it initially triggers me to get ticked off with the person doing it. But when I step back and allow myself to see we're just role-playing out a fictitious act together, I find myself grinning a bit and chuckling to myself at the funny story we have going.

When I feelingly allow myself to move through that deep inner fear to the other side of it--that this time might be our last together, that someone might die before we meet again--well, there's a light at the end of this old death tunnel story. The mourning and guilt tentacles loosen their hold on me.There is a burden-lifting freedom in realizing that I have never done, nor could do, anything truly wrong. That NO ONE has done, or will do, anything wrong. It's all just an act on all our parts.

Death is just an illusion.

Ever since my mom crossed over in the fall of 2001, I've  remembered the book of Job in the Old Testament. Job lost everyone and everything. In the end, though, his abundant life and all his friends and loved ones were restored. He truly hadn't lost anything, but he had gained a great deal of WISDOM and COMPASSION from all his "I'm just a Little Human" experiences.

We are divine spirits joyfully playing in HUMAN COSTUMES.

It's all just a big fat "Let's Pretend" story that I can allow myself to be released from at any point. Just because a loved one's death was a potential I experienced in the past doesn't mean I can't transcend the linearity of time and space here--for my loved ones are very much eternally alive and well! I just need to remain open to perceiving them and enjoying their company when they come to me, however they come to me.

And so it is...

Related Posts:
Walking On...Beyond Death With Steve
Walking On...Beyond Death With Steve, Part II
Steve's Legacy of Songs: Finding Your Own Words

Steve's Legacy of Songs: Finding Your Own Words

When I was standing on the hilltop this past June, as we buried my brother Steve's ashes, this song of his, "Blow, Oh Wind" kept flowing through my mind and heart. I don't have a recording of it, but I remember it because he always invited me to sing it along with him, even though I hadn't found my singing voice yet. Someday we'll sing it. I just can't do it yet--but I wanted to share the simple and beautiful lyrics. This is music that came to him in the 1980s, which shows how far ahead of his time he was. He often admitted that the lyrics became more profound for him as the years passed. More and more gems of wisdom revealed themselves as our experiences grew. You really don't know life until you live it out for yourself, do you?

I guess, Steve and I would both agree, that one of the most precious gifts we were given in our journeys was when others helped us find our own words, to find that unique way that we could express what we each really felt and knew deep within. It's not nearly as fun memorizing and quoting other people's profound thoughts because that's not your personal expression. I generally don't recall quotes by other people even when they do resonate, but I do remember my own and I apply them all the time.

So, if there is anything that I could give you, it would be to help you to find your own means of self expression, to find your own words...


Blow, Oh Wind!
Song and Lyrics by Steven Richard Lewton


Blow, oh-oh, oh-oh wind--
Blow these broken hearts away, away...
Blow, oh-oh, oh-oh wind--
Blow these broken dreams, I pray.


Whatever happened to the love that we once shared?
Like two links in a chain, no weakness there?
Little by little, the tide breaks away the shore,
And the sands of time become an ocean floor.


Blow, oh-oh, oh-oh wind--
Blow these broken hearts away, away...
Blow, oh-oh, oh-oh wind--
Blow these broken dreams, I pray.


What do we do now, Love, let the sands of time wear us thin?
Or build a new foundation on a rock that won't cave in?
Let's stop this raging river before it tears our lives apart,
And build again that lighthouse in our hearts.

Let's light again that candle in our hearts...







Related Posts:
Walking On: Beyond Death With Steve
Walking On: Beyond Death With Steve, Part II

I Am the Alpha and the Omega In All My Relationships

How many Consciously Aware Beings does it take to change a world? Only one--myself.

And all those scary corrupt public officials, bankers, abusers--essentially the monsters and demons I'd been fighting with back in my conspiracy-fighting days? They were just bits of plasma role-playing for me, the Creator of my own world, aspects of myself that got lost in her/his human experiences. It was just for a limited time, though, not forever.

Whatever I put out ultimately returns to me--that is why CLEAR LOVE will not tolerate being abused by another being, because the abuser is the ultimate last victim receiving his own abuse. It will come back to him many times more intense, and distorted, if it isn't stopped at the first victim. I am the Alpha and the Omega--I am the origin of the consciousness radiating out that determines how the energies serving me return to me and manifest in my life.

This is why it's important for the victim to say "No more! I am done with this story of energy stealing! We are done with this story, you and I! We are done! I set us both FREE!" It's the most compassionate thing a victim can do--set a boundary of love.

Because whatever I put out ultimately returns to me, even across multiple lifetimes. If I am experiencing abuse of myself--playing the part of victim--I was the creator of that abuse that I'm struggling with. It originated with some life expression of my soul, and as such I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN NEUTRALIZE IT. I am the only one who can choose to end that story by setting boundaries of love in which I no longer allow myself or anyone else to harm me.

Whatever I do to another outside of me, I am ultimately doing that to myself...

This is why it's of utmost importance that I accept and love all of me first, so it's easier for me to accept and have compassion for all others. It's not choosing love of another over oneself or vice versa--it's "and," it's both.

Many modern day religions are teaching that you're selfish and narcissistic if you love yourself. "That's no way to be!" they say.

So be kind to oneself...and...all others.

If you're harming others, you're essentially hurting yourself...and...if you're harming yourself, you're hurting others.

The key point in both of those is to be kind to all. I know from personal experience that loving and accepting all aspects of myself first makes it easy for me to compassionately, hands-off accept all others in my life. I allow us all our freedom to be.

To Judge Is To Limit.

"What goes around, comes around."--that's pretty much karma. "I am the alpha and the omega--I am the beginning and the end." I am the ultimate recipient of what I put out.

The funny thing about that karma phrase, though, is that the person often using it is making a judgment about another person, and they aren't aware of it. It's like wishing another person ill, basically casting a spell at the other person, and that act of power eventually returns to the one making the judgment.

"Judge not lest you be judged the same." When we judge someone else, we're actually judging our self. We're limiting our self.

We can dislike what someone else chooses without condemning them, without pointing fingers of blame. "That's a way to choose to be...and...I don't like that so I'm making a different choice." This is an example of using the tools of "And" & "Allowing."

Love Sets Boundaries

CLEAR LOVE will not tolerate being persecuted and abused. Clear love steps out of the story and sees that it was all just an acting job on all parts.

The sexual energy virus--a victim who allows the perpetuation of her abuse is as much the abuser as the one play-acting her persecutor. Just step out of the role-playing.

The ultimate act of playing Victim is pretending others' choices affect you--that is playing in the power game. 

"They" can make all the freedom-nullifying laws "they" choose, but if you're standing in your own sovereignty claiming your own world, your own freedom--you can live out your own FREE life, and those playing in POWER won't even see you. Do NOT compromise or negotiate with them because that is playing in power. Stand within yourself! BE free!

Be a Light in the Darkness

As the source and center of your reality, what you choose is what you get:

Making choices creates your own reality....and....

allowing others to make decisions for you is still you making that choice.

The ultimate Victim is one who believes the choices of others affect them....and....

that need not be so--if you choose....

Your past choices or the choices of others are only suggestions....and....

those aren't the only possibilities....

We each live out a one-of-a-kind reality based on our unique illumination: 

We are the projectors of our perceptions onto the movie screen of life--which is our personal field of energies in service solely to each of us--so we get what we choose and shine out as being our truths....

Though we may not be famous or have a huge social media following, the Light of Clarity we shine within our own day-to-day life and interactions influences our unique world and it becomes a candlelit world shining out among, and benevolently illuminating otherwise unseen potential choices within ourselves and in other worlds around us....

Make your own choices about the life you want to live and the kind of world you desire to live in....and....live it out, moment by present moment, interaction by interaction....

And allow all others the freedom to do the same....

True illumination doesn't hide away, cowering in fear; nor does it beat others over the head in attempts to shame or blame, or force its own agenda....

True illumination just shines out unconditional love and gratitude for all parts played, and highlights and brings forth grand new possibilities....