All of the physical possessions you possess are embodiments of the past. Physical, of its very nature, has it stuckness. What has stopped is of the past. What occurs now is of the present.

A table serves a purpose. A chair has its uses. But it is you who sits at the table, leans on it, writes on it, sits or rocks in the chair. It is you in the present who gives life to the paraphernalia around you through your attention.

You may say, "But, God, there is light in everything. So everything has life." And I would say, "You are quite right." I would also say that it is the physical appearance that has settled. It is the physical appearance that is illusion. Illusion is a cessation. Illusion is locked in mind and, therefore, space and time.

A growing tree you lean against and feel greater love for than a piece of wood cut from the tree. Even in a forest where a grove of trees cover every inch, there is room for every tree. Each finds its place. No matter how crowded, there is not sense of clutter.

You do not possess the trees in a forest. Even if you own the land they spring from, you know that the trees have a life of their own independent from you. You really don't collect them. They are their own sovereignty.

Yet the objects in your home you own as your property, and so they stay where you put them, and they rise and fall according to the attention you give them. You can accumulate the objects until they take over your house. You keep some for no reason at all but to mark time. You perhaps keep some as notches on a belt to locate some durability in your life. And all the while, they are keeping you.

Even one growing tree in a plain all by itself is beauty. A tree serves its own purpose, and along the way, you who view it partake of its beauty. Perhaps you who own less own more. Perhaps everything that presents itself then to you is yours to savor, and then yours to move on from without obligation.

What is this need to possess that My children have? Where did it come from, and where does it go?

In the physical realm, it is easy to recognize attachment and see it in play. How precious this or that object or even a piece of paper becomes to you! The paper may become more important than what it symbolizes. The paper may be money. And you want to accrue it, perhaps without thought given to the energy it represents.

Try this: remind yourself that everything in your domain is energy. We can just as well call everything the energy of love, but when it comes to love, you become a little defensive, so let's just call it energy. When you call to mind that all is energy, you feel a greater lightness than when you think all is material substance.

The paper money that you value highly at the same time you have disdain for is energy manifested. It comes from the same trees that grow in the forest, and now it has turned into this greenback, owned as a possession and loved for what it represents and what it promises to you. But the original energy of the tree, passed from hand to hand — the source of the paper money — has been forgotten. The source of the paper is the tree, and I am the Source of the tree. Now We can call energy love.