Clothes Encounters: The Gift Hiding in Plain Sight

I noticed that the middle button on my chartreuse cardigan had disappeared, and mentally added, "buy new sweater button" to my to-do list. I'd recently discovered a sewing notions shop in the next town, where I was headed later this week.

As I scooped the sweater from the car to carry on my quest, the wind blew it inside out. There, thoughtfully sewn into the inner seam by a wise tailor, was a spare button. What I needed was literally right there with me all the time.

It's not the first time I've had this experience. One summer several years ago, when READ MORE

Excess or Express?

I wanted three pieces of purple plaid wool clothing: the sleeveless thigh-length tunic, matching skirt, and pants. Mom thought two pieces were sufficient, but capitulated and bought all three. I ended up wearing the tunic as a jumper, traded off wearing the pants with a sweater — and never wore the skirt at all. My mother's wisdom was lost on me; at ten, I was already a master of excess.

It took years and a long dark night of the soul, when everything I'd thought defined my life was unceremoniously yanked from me, to begin to relinquish my reliance on acquisition as a means of identification, to begin to express rather than excess.

And mine was a comparatively mild case. How many people pile on the pounds to protect themselves from abuse, or to avoid having to face some other disturbing life circumstance? How many people buy 300 pairs of shoes, or a fleet of fast cars, to drown the call to awaken in excess, rather than express their true essence and risk ridicule? Much safer to blend in than stand out.

This is the moment to get real, in every sense of the term. The August issue of What Shines will focus on the theory of REAL-ativity, and how to become real so that you live from the depths of your power, passion, and purpose. Please subscribe, and let me know how the newsletter serves you on your journey to express the deepest truth of your being.

Where's the Survivory?

Welcome to the second year beyond prophecy (which ended when the world didn't, in 2012). We are now in a time unwritten, and everything is possible — although, as I said in a recent radio discussion, Embodying Your Deepest Truth, not necessarily easy. 

Fourteen in numerology equates to 5, which has always been "my" number. The fifth element is about going beyond: the ancient Greeks called it quinta essentia, the pure and concentrated essence or invisible connector that allows earth, fire, water and air to communicate. While the grounding energy of four is significant, five takes us into unexplored territory. It's pure Spirit, the marrow, the core of creation.

There's a lot of power in five, which configures a star. Cross-culturally, five is a centering and balancing element. As the center of the Native American medicine wheel, five signifies the place of transformational possibilities. Five symbolizes access to the Spirit world in the Mayan tradition. Coming to balance and resonance means learning to honor the both/and, becoming inclusive rather than exclusive.

In her January newsletter, Gillian Macbeth Louthan nails it: "Number 14 is a karmic number and not the easiest of energies to walk through. The receptive quality of the 14/5 allows change and freedom.

"2014 will offer the opportunity for magnetic communication. Both gains and losses are temporary, due to the strong currents of change. In 2014 you will need to rely on self. It's a mistake to rely on others. Everyone is in their own wind tunnel. Rely on the intuition of the self, the voice within."

All of this is prelude to this morning's brief encounter. Since I wrote about how we can learn to listen at a deeper level in my January What Shines newsletter, this was especially amusing. As I was walking back to my vehicle, parked around the corner from the library, a woman in a wheelchair rolled by and asked, "Where's the Survivory?" I micro-processed her inquiry, translated what I thought I'd heard, and pointed, "It's right there!"

She had asked, of course, "Where's the library?" But pondering the medical drama unfolding with my birth family, along with some of my personal challenges, I was in my own wind tunnel. Seeing someone with a disability approach, my creative brain heard what resonated with my thoughts. Fortunately, I mentally clarified (like butter) or I might have answered her with a bewildered question of my own.

So be prepared for this astonishing and potentially rewarding double-seven year. Macbeth Louthan says, "Seven in all of its forms is the vibration of the spiritual warrior. One who walks a fine path within self and Soul. Seven works for the light, by the light and with the light. Seven is a place where wonder, magic and miracles are seen as natural events. Seven is your natural state of being. In 2014 see all this times two, opening unpredicted doorways of opportunity."

Birthing a New World: As Above, So Below

I've been playing with the Mayan Calendar since it first engaged me on my awakening journey 15 years ago, yet I NEVER grasped the incredible cosmic connection Gregg Braden elucidates in his compelling new book, Deep Truth: Igniting the Memory of Our Origin, History, Destiny and Fate. Braden says the Mayan sacred cycle of 260 days, known as the Tzol'kin, approximates the length of a human pregnancy — this much I knew. But he then points out how this 260-day cycle is a fractal (a pattern that is the same at every scale) of the grander 26,000-year cycle that is now concluding: the precession of the equinoxes. 

This is the true value of Mayan calendrics: they provided a "map" of what to expect; it's only been our inability to correctly decode it that has led many people to believe the world is "ending." Cycles do not end; they simply repeat, albeit at a higher level along life's spiral. This is why our birth, and Earth's rebirth, are One.

Braden writes: "The Maya knew that for each birth, the conditions would shift to make way for the new life. In the case of world-age cycles, the shift is the breakdown of things that don't work in the face of the changes, in order to make way for the things that do. This is precisely the way our indigenous ancestors thought of our time in history: as a cosmic birth into a new cycle of life."

He goes on to explain how in light of this awareness, we can better understand that "the world of the mid-20^th century was a stepping-stone, a point inaugurating a learning curve, which has led us to another way of life. We can't stop the change, but we can guide it to a gentler landing.

"This is where Deep Truth comes in. We're all better equipped to make the choices that define our future when we understand the cycles, failures and successes of our past."

I highly recommend this book. Braden's scientifically supported findings will blow your circuits on many levels, such as: humans did not induce climate change — but we ARE responsible for creating a sustainable environment now! — and, perhaps even more astounding: we are not a product of evolution, but of an intelligent design (ID) put into place at once.

Never before has the aphorism, "We are the ones we've been waiting for" been so abundantly clear.

The Sky is Falling — NOT! The Truth About 2012

On November 8th, we enter the next phase of our global evolutionary upgrade, known as the Sixth Night of the Galactic Wave Movement, according to Mayan scholar Carl Johan Calleman. It's a demanding time, and a bit messy, as planetary birth processes tend to be. But is it cause for alarm?


Until recently, comparatively few people were interested in Mayan culture or ancient prophecies. The Mayan Calendar, popularized in the West by authors such as Jose Arguelles (The Mayan Factor), Barbara Hand Clow (The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind) and Carl Calleman (The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness) touched a relatively small audience.

With the release of the doomsday movie 2012, however, that's changing dramatically. Now that the end date of the Mayan Calendar — December 21, 2012, on our Gregorian calendar — is a scant three years away, people are beginning to panic. Is the world going to end? Is this like Y2K, only infinitely worse?

It depends where we choose to place our focus. Our culture thrives on fear, READ THE REST

Abundance Is On The Way!

As I was writing the May 22 post about all the gifts I received on Ascension Day, (May 21st), Aluna Joy was channeling the following message from the Star Elders, which I think we'll all be grateful to hear in these challenging times:

Abundance Is On The Way to You

Abundance is on the way to you. It has been written and activated into the ethers and the creative force of the universe. If you listen, you can feel the energy of abundance, prosperity and resources are returning. A corner has been turned. You can feel this as a lightening in your heart. Something, some burden has been lifted from your shoulders. Once abundance has been activated in the creative force of the universe, it is also the law of the universe that it has to manifest in the physical world. Be patient. It is coming.

The abundance issues you are emerging from were just a bump in the road ... a bump on our spiritual path. It was only a test to see if you could hold fast to the truth that you do in fact create your reality. A greater number of beings in the collective consciousness have held fast to this truth even in the dark face of the opposition of this truth. This has shifted your reality from one that manifests limitations to one that manifests freedoms.

When large masses of humanity in the collective consciousness begin to comprehend a new universal truth, the next event that follows is a test. This test will root that truth deep inside of humanity, so it will no longer be a simple belief in your heads, but a knowing that you feel in your hearts. If you did not have the test, you would not realize the importance of the truth which you just acquired.

The truth IS that you create your reality, and you are personally responsible for your own abundance level. This is not a new truth. Masters, Saints and Sages of the past have known this truth for eons. But this is the first time the majority of the masses of humanity have been exposed to this universal truth. Everything you have in your life right now is something you created. I know a lot of you do not like to own this, because it means that you created the abuse, the lack, the pain, and the suffering. But abundance is on the way to you today. You can use this abundance however you please. It is an abundance of creative energy. Put it to use wisely.

The second truth that you have been tested on is the truth that you are all connected, yet solely responsible for your personal actions. Geographical location, religious beliefs, social status, age, educational level, and culture do not separate you. You are all children of God. What happens to one, happens to the all. What happens to all, happens to the one. There is no escaping this fact. If the masses feel joy, you will feel joy. If the masses feel fearful, you will feel the fear also.

Once you understood the fact that you are all intimately connected, the event that followed was yet another test. Your test is to feel ALL that is being experienced in the world, but to take conscious action in a way that will uplift humanity; not add to its darkness. You cannot help feeling what is going on the world. You are all connected at the heart with universal love. It is a beautiful thing. If you feel fear, work to erase that fear from your consciousness. This not only helps you, but it helps everyone. If you feel joy, find a way to add more light to that joy. What you can do about energies that you sense are negative is to stay positive. By staying positive, you starve the negative. By universal law, it has to dissolve because you refuse to feed it. Remember you are beings of light. What you do with that light either adds to the light, or counteracts it.

Also in this test you have realized that just taking care of your personal survival is futile. Thinking solely of your own personal gain has left you feeling empty and unfulfilled. Humanity is moving toward a greater level of conscious community that is globally based, but locally acted upon. You are finding that the tasks ahead of you are too big for you to tackle by yourself. You are discovering that you truly do need each other, and that community is not just a nice ideal ... it is essential.

The most important reason why we wish to share this message with you today is because when you believe good things are coming, they will come to you quicker. And in the spirit of "we are all connected", we are also connected to you. We know that when we use our energy to uplift your consciousness and ease your fear, it helps everyone ... including us.