December has begun and I have witnessed more people in the Holiday Spirit than ever before. Lights have been going up everywhere immediately after Halloween. What my husband calls cross-decorating was prevalent throughout our neighborhood. We couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving to pass. Christmas lights with pumpkins and Thanksgiving décor appeared.

Why the demand for the Holidays to be here and be here now? Humanity has an innate desire to be happy, to have joy. It is our birthright and definitely implanted in our DNA. Dr. Ernest Holmes once wrote, “The Original Life is Infinite. It is good. It is filled with peace. It is of the essence of purity. It is the ultimate of intelligence. It is power. It is Law. It is Life. It is in us. In that inner sanctuary of our own nature, hidden perhaps from objective gaze, ‘nestles the seed of perfection.'”

We know it. We feel it. We can trust it. It is ours to see it in ourselves and in others even when it is “hidden perhaps from objective gaze.” I feel a true movement toward this knowing. It might be showing up in the desire to get our decorations up, it might be showing up as we feel the desire to tidy up our homes, or give more smiles to others. It might be showing up every time we say enough to the doom and gloom of the news. Bliss has arrived and it is going viral.

But, what of the suffering, the illnesses, the businesses that are closing one after another. On our Island, the return of the 14-day quarantine for tourists stands to hinder our economy once again. These are the facts, but they are not the Truth. God is greater than all of this and God is manifested in each of us. It’s time to stop the repetition and renew our minds to think of new ways of being and creating. If the original Life is “ultimate intelligence” and that Life is our Life now, there is nothing that we cannot conceive that we can achieve.

Joseph Campbell urges us on in his famous quote. “Follow your bliss and the Universe will open doors where there were only walls.” We have plenty of walls in the world of form, and if we keep reinforcing them with our fears of lack and illness, plenty more will continue to be built.

I believe that I must use this opportunity to continue to follow my bliss in a greater way and bring that bliss into manifestation. I believe that when I follow my bliss, my heart’s desire, those actions that bring me joy, I am powerful. I have witnessed the Universe opening doors where there were only walls, and this time is no different.

It isn’t time to give up. It isn’t time to wait for a vaccine or think it will save us. There will always be something else to block us if we keep trusting the effects of the world over the inner “seed of perfection” that lies within each of us. It is time to individually get in touch with it and allow it to speak to us, guide us and direct our path, to bloom.

Let us go viral with bliss. The Universe/God is on our side and it is the greatest, the true Power. I invite us to trust the invisible and get to work.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita Andriello-Feren, Co-Spiritual Director, CSL Kaua`i.