A Course in Miracles Journal (Day 19)

Background: Welcome to my year-long exploration of "A Course in Miracles," where each day unfolds a new layer of understanding and healing using this unique and vibrant text. This blog chronicles my personal exploration through daily text readings and workbook exercises, offering insights into the profound teachings of forgiveness, love, and perception shifts. The day’s text reading and exercise numbers are in the title of the entry. Join me as we uncover the miracles behind healing and transformation into the spiritually powerful beings we were created to be. 

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Today’s ACIM Journal Entry:Text: Chapter 3, Section 3

When is the best or right time of day to study A Course in Miracles? I’ve chosen before bed as the last primary item of my day. I often start between 8–10 p.m., depending on the day.

This has been wearisome at times because my emotions, mind, or something else can get stirred up while reading and applying the text and workbook—often the workbook. Sometimes, I stay up longer than intended writing in my journal or rereading the text, and I miss my intended bedtime by an hour or more.

Sometimes, it’s a nice way to let go of the day and allow my subconscious to settle before sleep. I especially enjoy how parts of it linger as I fall asleep—hopefully making it past the conscious/subconscious barrier.

Other times, I’m tired by the time I get to the text and just want to go to bed.

Today is one of those days.

Text: III. Perception versus Knowledge

Ah, as always, right on time…

I’ve been reading (well, trying to read) the textbook for the Critical Thinking course I’ll be teaching next semester at the local university. It hurts my mind to overly simplify what my brain wants to do so naturally.

I feel like throwing the book of definitions out the window and instead teaching students how to think critically. Whether or not they understand the definition of a fallacy has no bearing on whether or not they can identify one.

The latter is far more of a life skill than the first.

This is my challenge with the textbook. It’s all definitions and bad (and I mean bad) examples. Even I can’t follow the book’s intent!

So, let’s now turn this over to the ACIM text and see what results, lingers, and applies.

My mind keeps wandering. Is it me, or the text? Is it perhaps triggering something within me?

As much as paragraphs 1–3 made sense, they didn’t. There’d be a sentence in the middle of the thought that distracted or deterred my mind—it would break its own reasoning to make a statement.

My mind despised it.

Then, at the mention of visions in paragraph 4, my memory wandered to the many visions I’ve had in my plant medicine experiences. San Pedro, in particular, being the most layered, longest-lasting, and impactful vision trigger in my plant medicine journey.

I sense the truth in the text’s statement that visions are not truth; they are symbolic. They may be a mechanism for right-seeing, also true, but they still fall short of knowledge or truth in themselves.

Not quite how I’d articulate a spiritual vision’s purpose or methodology, but the text is not wrong.

Then, the final paragraphs (5–7) brought me to the plight of individualism plaguing the United States right now. Of course, many right-minded, loving, community-based people exist in this country, but their voices are the least heard in the news and media.

I am grateful this mayhem has shone a light on a weakness and blindness in our society, but I fear how far it may go in one direction before it hits the necessary tipping point.

Fear. I used the word. I own it and recognize that things are as they’re meant to be and that I don’t control them. I have a purpose and intent in my soul’s human experience right now, and I don’t believe the current political picture to be that... though things can change.

I also admit that I could be more open to fully knowing people and judging less than I do. I judge and separate far less than I used to, but that doesn’t mean my work is done.

These verses were a gentle reminder that attacking another is to attack myself. We are all one. I have a responsibility not only to know others but also to be known.

The Reread

In my reread, somewhere between verses 3–6, visions of men in my life came into play. Some were the same ones who have been in and out of my mind lately, and two others who haven’t been.

There’s a man who, visually, could be mistaken for another I know. In this visual mistake, I recognized where my energy stayed the same for both men and where it was different.

In my defenses, they were the same. I felt it in my mid-abdomen, and the recognition of the tension was enough to cause it to shift—like a stranger standing in plain sight all along.

The energies released into my middle, around my spine, and slowly worked their way up my back and into my upper shoulders.

This energy spot is one of my greatest points of undoing and interest in recent years. I’m happy to find it again.

While I’ve found it many times before, this was caught in the act and shifting at the same time. It didn’t fully release, but every shift is beautiful and a step in the right direction.

A miracle in the making.

Workbook: Lesson 19 – “I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.”

The biggest takeaway for me today, as I applied the statements to my debt, my income, my dog Leo, romance, my family, and more, was realizing that my decisions—including inaction—affect others.

My thoughts about public speaking as a career are affecting those who may or may not get to hear me talk. My thoughts about attracting more wealth are affecting whether or not I can take certain vacations with my mother.

My thoughts impact my fears and inactions in such a way that others feel the effect of them.

I hadn’t seen it this way before. I’d heard of it in a positive, affirmative context, and in a business sense, but not like this: “Others are deprived of your gifts if you remain fearful of sharing them.”

I know what this feels like, as I’ve tried to explain it to my father and men I’ve dated, but to be on this side, hearing, seeing, and understanding it, is quite unusual.

I feel an odd sense of liberation and freedom while also feeling slightly bummed—because “shamed” and “disappointed” are too strong—for the actions I haven’t yet taken with the gusto they deserve.

I also connected the dots on how thoughts lead to actions, filling in that gap with this lesson. Whether that was the intent or not, it’s what my mind did.

Okay, I’m tired and ready for bed, so off I go. But this final lesson today is one I’ll continue to ponder as I head to bed. Who knows what other miracles or effects I might discover?

With Love, Acacia

A Course in Miracles on Amazon.

“All quotes are from A Course in Miracles, copyright ©1992, 1999, 2007 by the Foundation for Inner Peace, 448 Ignacio Blvd., #306, Novato, CA 94949, www.acim.org, used with permission.”