Touching the Source

I've just read The Myth of The Great Ending by Joseph M. Felser, PhD (see my LinkedIn review) and, aside from the book itself being a must-read for anyone wondering whether the Rapture might yet be at hand, Felser cites some amazing material from Robert Monroe (founder of the Monroe Institute), whose work I'll read next.

Here's Monroe's description of a holographic, telepathic communication from Source, that Felser calls "a nearly indescribable and emotionally wrenching voyage to the very center of universal intelligence". Though it must have been virtually impossible to step the experience down into language, this poetic transmission resonates in me as "YES":

There is no beginning, there is no end,
  There is only change.
There is no teacher, there is no student,
  There is only remembering.
There is no good, there is no evil,
  There is only expression.
There is no union, there is no sharing,
  There is only one.
There is no joy, there is no sadness,
  There is only love.
There is no greater, there is no lesser,
  There is only balance.
There is no stasis, there is no entropy,
  There is only motion.
There is no wakefulness, there is no sleep,
  There is only being.
There is no limit, there is no chance,
  There is only a plan.

~ from Ultimate Journey

Breakdown, Breakthrough

A poem I wrote during my prolific high school literary period just tumbled into consciousness as an ideal reflection for these tumultuous times. If you're feeling what these words express, know that the breakthrough awaits. I'll speak to this in my June newsletter.


Breakdown

When silver smiles turn to brass
And bronze gods start to rust
A tenuous hold on sanity
Begins to disintegrate.

That's when you realize
Milky Way is merely a candy bar
And you feel yourself
s

l

i

p

p

i

n

g

Into a corner of your mind where

all
that
glitters

Are the gold fillings
in your teeth.

How to Retrain Your Brain

In today's nanosecond business climate, thinking outside the box is too small. Instead, try thinking outside your brain. How's that again?

We use our left brain—the logical, linear, analytical mode—for business most of the time. Yet it's the right brain—the creative, intuitive, emotional side—that can actually help boost your business dramatically … if you allow it the freedom to guide your thoughts and actions when your left brain is saying, "but that's a waste of time!"

Here are 8 mental expansion exercises to catalyze your own brain-retraining ideas. READ THE REST!

Stand! Mother's Day Message for World Peace

This Sunday the United States celebrates Mother's Day, a holiday that was originally not a Hallmark occasion, but a call for women to put an end to war. Poet, author and activist Julia Ward Howe first championed a Mother's Peace Day in 1870. In her Mother's Day Proclamation, she exhorted, "Arise, then, women of this day! 
Arise all women who have hearts … solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
 whereby the great human family can live in peace..."

More than a century hence, women everywhere are heeding the call, via StandingWomen.org. Since 2007, this group has sent out a call for people to join hands and hearts for five minutes of silence on Mother's Day, in service to planetary peace. The global events were catalyzed by The Great Silent Grandmother Gathering, a children's story about two grandmothers whose vigil sparked an international movement.

As we awaken to our responsibility ("the ability to respond") to our Mother, and the beneficent power we can unleash, what shines through is:

It doesn't take slogans and permits. It doesn't take anger or weapons. It takes a village — and a vision. We have, and are, both. We are the ones we've been waiting for. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "I have a dream that one day this nation will wise up…" Let the global upwising begin!

Beltane: Celebrate Your Planet, Yourself

May 1st is Beltane: a time for celebrating the beauty and sanctity of all life. Today is a moment for reclaiming your power, balance, and inner strength.

Beltane is one of eight Shabbats on the Wheel of the Year. The others include the Solstices and Equinoxes, Lammas (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st), and Imbolc (February 2nd). Beltane breathes renewal into our cells as we acknowledge the Nature Kingdom and the advent of summer. For our Southern Hemisphere allies, the Wheel of the Year is reversed: they now celebrate Samhain.

In the West, we often water down our sacred days to become mere children's celebrations: Samhain, ushering in the dark half of the year, becomes a specter of itself as Halloween; Imbolc, heralding the return of the light on February 2nd, morphs to Groundhog Day; Beltane becomes a chance to dance around the Maypole. Yet the deeper meanings reflect our lost connection with natural rhythms, with the seasonal shifts we actually embody.

As Samhain honors the power of death, so Beltane honors the cycles of life and rebirth. Beltane takes place in Taurus, the zodiac's most earthy, sensual sign, and focuses on exuberant sexuality: the pollinating of flowers, the lush cornucopia of fruit-bearing plants and trees, the reproductive cycle of the entire natural world, from birds and bees to humans. It's a celebration of fertility in all its forms — and thus we dance in homage to Aphrodite, the Goddess Herself.

Although traditionally observed on May 1st, astronomical Beltane arrives about the 5th, a nice sync-up with Cinco de Mayo, giving us an entire week in which to renew, dance the fire back into our beings, and open once again to a sacred reUnion of our masculine and feminine selves. Mythologist Kathleen Jenks provides a page rich in Beltane lore from around the globe.

Renowned ritualist Ffiona Morgan says of an anticipatory Beltane celebration, "As I walk through the blooming earth to join friends, I realize that passionate love takes many forms, and that the earth is my greatest lover. I bless my blue planet, vowing unchanging devotion and care for Her. Seeing Earth as a living, breathing female has changed me, and become the cornerstone of my commitment to Her." (from WeMoon Datebook © Mother Tongue Ink)

Radiate: To Emit Light

The Unity Wave is turning fear on its ear, in every sense. Since Japan's cataclysm, the entire world has been sending love to the affected area and prayers for healing. Then I learned about the women of Chernobyl (see Meltdown), who returned to their native land not long after the incident, and have survived against all odds for 25 years, thanks to their love for the Motherland and abiding community, which appear to trump radiation for health and longevity. But in all this, we were still seeing radiation as "the enemy".

To radiate means to emit light. A few days ago, Jean Hudon sent this extraordinary tale via his Age of Awakening compilation: how radiation itself can be a path of spiritual emergence.

During her many years working in the former Soviet Union, and exposure to Chernobyl radiation, Rama Jyoti Vernon discovered one group of children who were doing exceptionally well. She asked their doctors the secret to offsetting the radiation poisoning, and they told her:

"Radiation is light and has a high vibratory frequency. Through our spiritual practices of meditation, prayer, Yoga, eating less dense foods and faith and love of God, we can raise our own cellular vibration to that of radiation to offset the harmful effects.

"'You see,'" one Russian doctor bubbled with excitement, “We are using radiation as our spiritual guide. It forces us to be more fully conscious each moment of every day. If we have a negative thought it reduces the vibratory frequency of our cells and we become more susceptible. If we are angry or critical, our cells vibrate at a slower pace and we can become ill. If we become lighter, we become light and become one with the light of radiation. You see,'" they beamed, "'radiation is our spiritual practice.'"

This flies in the face of everything we believe and "know" to be true; that's why it's all the more imperative to pay attention. Nothing now is as it was, and this is a profound teaching.

I read this story as I was being gifted my own opportunity to put it into practice: not with radiation per se, but in terms of transmuting my beliefs. A week ago I suddenly became very fatigued, and it lasted for four days with no apparent origin; I didn't feel sick, just exhausted. However, given all the evolutionary upgrades taking place in 18-day cycles now, that didn't seem so odd.

Then Sunday night the hurricane hit.

Wrenched from a peaceful sleep at 1 am (which corresponds to liver, the body's main organ of detoxification in Chinese medicine), I was fevered, sweating with chills, and had an overwhelming urge to release from two major orifices (that's about as delicate as I can say it, lol.) On Monday I went for a Network chiropractic treatment. I felt somewhat better by Tuesday (the fever was down) but still very sick. I ate nothing these two days, just some water and grapefruit juice. As I lay in bed, I had the clear sense that I wanted to embrace a raw food diet. I know very little about how one actually lives the raw food lifestyle, and don't own the requisite dehydrator, juicer, etc. Yet I suddenly knew I wanted to eat lighter ("eat light"!) — and I've been eating a healthy, organic diet for decades.

By today, though, my throat was still red and swollen, my tongue bright white, and I spiraled into fear: what if it's strep? I often had strep throat as a child, and took loads of antibiotics. The last antibiotic to pass my lips was 18 years ago when I had pneumonia. It did nothing except give me diarrhea, and I vowed that I would never take another unless it was a matter of life and death — and I was not complete here. My body does not handle drugs of any kind well.

Yet here I was, contemplating a pill. First, however, I needed a throat culture. Muscle testing myself, I got that I did NOT have strep. But I was in memory. Minus any primary care physician or health insurance, I contacted a few local urgent care clinics and learned that the fee for a throat culture for an uninsured individual is — wait for it — $3-400! Excuse me? A discussion about health care in America is a topic for another day. Suffice it to say, I turned them down.

I then called an acquaintance who works with clients holistically, prescribing nutritionally-based remedies that work at the cellular level. Her husband picked up her phone — she's out of town for two weeks! Oh, I should have called yesterday!

Then I began to smile. All the paths to diagnosis, traditional or alternative, are blocked. What's this really about? Radiation! Raising my vibratory frequency! I am ready and willing to emit more light. One of the supplement specialists at Whole Foods says she's been feeling the exhaustion, too, and numerous people have been coming in complaining of severe throat pain. Maybe it's a call to raise our collective voice in service to the highest, to speak our truth and honor all perspectives to a greater degree than we ever have before!

There has never been a year like 2011. We are in the New Earth Birth Canal, and the alchemical fires are licking us clean. I know I can withstand this, even as I surrender to the Light more completely than I ever have in my life — and I've been through the fire a few times!

When I think this way, feel this way, it brings tears of joy to my heart. If you are feeling these or other ascension symptoms, please share your story. It will benefit us all. Because we are, of course, All One.

Be the Wave of Now. Blessings, abundant health and much love to you, Beloveds!

Meltdown

My April newsletter, Nuclear Family, focuses on how to create a "nuclear reaction" that heals all, using "nuclear" as metaphor. But I didn't consider the word "reactor" until I heard Caroline Casey discuss it on her Visionary Activist radio show this week, in which she reminded us that in lieu of being "reactive," we could seek solutions.

"Reactive" is one of those delightful words that lends itself to a subtle shift, like scared into sacred, density into destiny, nowhere to now here: simply by moving the "c", we morph reactive into creative — and we're able to "c" clearly!

One inspiring group of women who see clearly demonstrated with their very lives that love and connection supersede radiation. Known as the "babushkas," this determined group of elders, all past 70, chose soon after the Chernobyl disaster to return to Ground 0, despite warnings that the area was contaminated and permanently uninhabitable. They have survived and thrived in the "Exclusion Zone," eating contaminated food, breathing contaminated air and drinking poisoned water, for a quarter of a century.

On the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl, More magazine did a story about these plucky people who chose their Motherland over fear, proving by example that love can transmute toxins. (Intriguingly and presciently, the interviews were conducted last December, prior to the Japan 'quake/tsunami/reactor breach).

How can we each become a "nuclear creator," choosing from our very core to heal our individual and collective problems through Love? It adds a whole new dimension of meaning to "meltdown," in which we liquefy into the heart of Oneness.

Feel free to Tweet me your ideas! Or post them as Comments here, and I'll relay them to the Twitterverse and beyond. Blessed Be.

Asian Earthquake / Tsunami Redux

We've been here before: the 9.0 Indonesian 'quake struck the day after Christmas 2004, unleashing unimaginable devastation from which the affected countries are still recovering. It's déjà vu all over again. As I look at the images of destruction in Japan, mulling over the meta level lessons of this latest leveling, I revisited the article I wrote six years ago: Watershed.

This is only one of many such cataclysmic events we're experiencing as humanity births itself to a new level of consciousness. Yet context is crucial to understanding what's going on. I did my best to explain the higher dimensional perspective to my dad yesterday, and while he listened, he remained skeptical, because the material is so foreign to his way of thinking. So I wrote him a letter, and realize much of it may serve others as well:

"The times we're living in are some of the most exciting ever (although doubtless people of most eras have felt this way), because, in a very real sense, we're witnessing the end of history. This is what the conclusion of the Mayan Calendar points to; not the end of the world, but our collective graduation into a new level of consciousness as a species. It's a monumental shift that humanity has, in essence, been growing towards since man first walked the Earth. The past few decades have seen a tremendous acceleration in this process, and on March 9th, we entered the final phase, or "step" on the Mayan pyramid, called the Unity Wave. Scholars have been writing and teaching about this coming time for years; numerous books, articles and videos are available on the subject of human evolution and specifically this time period.

But it doesn't entail believing in Mayan cosmology. The Maya simply left good breadcrumbs — a map for what would unfold far into the future. They were one set of guides. Other indigenous peoples, such as the Hopi and Aztecs, have said the same thing. The Mayan system is the one that found me during my own awakening, but it's not a "belief" or philosophy with which you need to agree. The shift is happening regardless; my role has always been to transduce, or step down, energy/information into an available form for others.

Think of it this way: when people thought the Earth was flat, this didn't alter the truth of its spherical nature. Yet the proof that our planet is round galvanized a global shift in awareness and acceptance. Same with whether the sun revolved around the Earth, or the Earth around the sun. This shift in human consciousness is happening globally, and millions of people have been facilitating it.

Now we're at the critical juncture, waking up en masse. All systems are affected: political, economic, geophysical. The riots, the cataclysms, are all part of it. And we will emerge on the far side into a new reality. This will evolve over time; it's not like throwing a light switch on a certain date. The article, The Sky Is Falling – NOT! The Truth About 2012 is one of my clearest explanations.

Having this information offers you a grander context for your life, and for how you perceive the world. Of course, you're welcome to disregard it all. That's always an option, with any new information. But until you have the knowledge, you can't make an informed choice."

∞

We are living a tsunami in consciousness, a tidal wave illumining all. May you live through an open heart, which is the key to all healing, and be blessed as you hold this light for others.

Firework: An Ecology of the Mind

I can't get the lyrics to Katy Perry's Firework out of my head. While the tune is catchy, the first time I actually listened to the words, I marveled at her perspicacity. Who hasn't felt "like a plastic bag drifting through the wind, wanting to start again"? I sure can remember when I had no skin, "so paper-thin, like a house of cards, one blow from caving in." And that part about feeling "already buried deep, six feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing"? She knows the journey, all right.

This is how I felt when I thought no one understood what the awakening process looked like for me, when they thought I looked fine, unable to read the wildness in my eyes. And as I embarked on a three-plus year dark night of the soul, questioning my very existence, I didn't yet know how to "ignite the light and let it shine." Yet this became my life purpose, and the name of my service — Live Your Light — on the far side of this healing adventure.

How does Katy carry such insight at such a tender age? She penned Firework in her mid-20s — a time when I was still fast asleep spiritually. Given the accelerated pace of personal and planetary evolution, it doesn't surprise me that Katy is conscious far earlier in her life than I was. What's exciting is how cleanly she's managed to encapsulate personal evolution into a few spare lines, offering guidance and upliftment to multitudes on their quest.

Another song that riveted me in a similar way a few years back is Crazy, debuted by Gnarls Barkley in 2006. I was driving, idly listening to the radio, when the DJ offered, "Pay attention to this one," and I was astonished to hear, "I remember when, I remember when I lost my mind. There was something so pleasant about that phase. Even your emotions had an echo in so much space. And when you're out there, without care, yeah, I was out of touch. But it wasn't because I didn't know enough. I just knew too much. Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Does that make me crazy? Possibly."

This is exactly how I felt, what the journey looks like: you do "lose your mind," your ordinary, rational mind, as you embrace the multidimensional realms of existence. Everything in your life echoes, because you've pried your mental fingers loose and are free-falling into the depths of your soul. I speak to this in detail on my CD, What You Need to Know Now: A Road Map for Personal Transformation.

How amazing it would have been to have heard such songs in the blackness of that dark night. And, in fact, they were probably there, had I been able to hear them, or known then what I was experiencing.

So as we enter this corridor of global rebirth en masse, know that you are not alone, even when you feel like a plastic bag drifting in the wind, having lost your tether to reason. It's exactly what needs to happen now, and it's all good. Surrender to the journey of a lifetime; on the far side of it, you'll ignite the Light, and let it shine.

Haven't Got Time for the Pain? Try Acupressure

Carly Simon's lyrics are about heartache — but physical aches and pains can often be far worse. If you're in chronic pain, it's difficult to enjoy life. All your energy gets diverted to what hurts.

In modern society, we've relied on pharmaceuticals for "fast, temporary relief," which is an empty promise: the pain will return as soon as the palliative effect wears off.

Holistic remedies, by contrast, focus on cause rather than symptoms, and look for where someone's life is out of balance, which created the pain symptom in the first place.

Don't Cure, Prevent!

In ancient China, prevention was a high art. People paid their doctor to keep them well; if you became ill, the doctor's fee stopped until you were healthy again. What a concept! Small wonder that Chinese medicine has flourished for over 5000 years.

Now we're beginning to embrace this perspective in the West. In 1998, the U.S. government established The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), the first time an American governing body formally recognized complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) as a standard of care.

By far, pain is the overarching reason people choose alternative medicine: 55 percent of those seeking help suffer from back or neck pain, joint pain, arthritis, or migraines.

Acupressure works by stimulating the body's own creative energy, known as "chi". READ THE REST!

More Power to You!

I've been reading two classic books about power: Power vs. Force by David Hawkins, MD, PhD, and Power Through Constructive Thinking, by Emmett Fox. Both authors are master teachers with a spiritual focus; Fox, whose work saw its heyday in the early part of the 20th century, reminds me of Florence Scovel-Shinn, author of The Game of Life and How to Play It, which has helped me immeasurably on my awakening journey.

While there is much useful material in Fox's book, I wasn't finding anything particularly new at this stage of my evolution — until I came to the chapter on Reincarnation.

I've long believed that we select our birth families based on the Earth lessons we've chosen to learn this time around. This is Louise Hay's (You Can Heal Your Life) premise, and she's been one of my foremost personal growth guides for decades. But Emmett Fox brought me up short when I read, "Of course, we do not choose our parents. We go to the parent whose nature and conditions correspond with the state of the soul when it incarnates. And often that family is anything but what we would choose at that time." It's a very subtle shift, but a crucial one.

He goes on to explain how we assimilate the mannerisms and characteristics of our family members, but that there is no such thing as "heredity": instead of "inheriting" any conditions or predispositions from our ancestors, we gravitate to families where similar conditions already exist: like attracts like.

When I got this on the subtle level, it caused a primal shift in my awareness. For many years, ever since I first became conscious, I had evolved from "blaming" my parents for conditions in my life, and instead sought to see how I could heal what did not serve them, in myself first. I felt I'd taken on many of my mother's fears (e.g., deep water, dogs, public speaking) and had been overcoming them one by one in my life, reasoning that on some level, this was also healing the issue for her, since I was her daughter and had received these imprints in the womb or as a young child.

But now I understood that, far from taking on her issues, I had simply incarnated into this family because these fears mirrored my own! In a twinkling all residual feelings of holding my family in any way responsible for anything I experience, dissolved in a pool of Light. No wonder that it always seemed, when I mastered something and shared the details with my mother, that she was innately cheering me on, even as her words barely registered comprehension of the spiritual overlay.

It's challenging — even as a writer — to translate this core awareness into prose for you. If you can, pick up Fox's book and read that chapter, the most powerful (for me) in the book, and perhaps you will experience the same transmutation. It is quite literally, alchemy. I feel a step closer to living from true power.

More power to you, beloved. Blessings!

Your Essence is Enough

Today's my birthday, and I gave myself the gift of a phone call to one of my dearest friends back East, Ellie, who is 97.5 years old and, after a hip fracture a year ago, is once again walking up and down the three flights of stairs to her apartment. She is a spiritual beacon for me, and for many: whenever I call, there's sure to be someone else there, basking in the sunlight of her love.

I phoned her yesterday but she wasn't feeling well, and as I hung up, I beseeched Spirit, "She's lived such an exemplary life, and been through the broken hip; why is she still here when she's so ready to go home? Please make her transition easy and full of grace." And the message I received in response, which I shared with her today when she said, "In 2013 I'll be 100!" is that she is still here because she's helping to anchor the Shift of the Ages in this watershed year for humanity.

With her usual humility, she thanked me for my kind words and said she isn't able to do very much these days, but she thinks of me so often. I said that's exactly the point: it's not in the doing, but in the being, that she serves.

Our thoughts come first. Ellie sits in her small comfy home and radiates the love in her heart as she always has, which is why, after nearly a century and with no offspring of her own, she has, as she said to me today, "More friends than I can count." She calls herself lucky; I call her loving. People want and need to be in her energy field.

She is my ultimate role model. I don't know if I will ever attain the level of selfless Love for all that she expresses simply by living her life, but I feel very blessed to be the recipient of this essence. She thanked me for the gift of the call, saying she felt so uplifted, and I said, "You see, we are modeling where humanity is growing: giving and receiving are one in truth. I am so uplifted from talking with you as well!"

This is my birthday gift to you: know that, as you live the Love that you are, you are enough. Radiating the beauty in your soul is all that's required, though it's often a tall order. What we do in the outer world doesn't matter in the end; only Love is real. Your essence is enough.

Imbolc: Groundhog Day to the nth Power!

February 2nd goes by many guises. In the U.S., it's popularly celebrated as Groundhog Day, when a small furry rodent supposedly either sees his shadow or doesn't, and the result determines whether we experience six more weeks of winter. The day has far deeper meanings than this — but yes, it is a potent moment to watch your shadow!

Celebrated cross-culturally, the day is both a Christian and Pagan holiday, known variously as Imbolc, St. Brigid's Day (Bride's Day), and Candlemas.

In Celtic and Earth-based traditions, Imbolc ("in the belly") is one of the most powerful portals on the ancient Wheel of the Year: the exact midpoint between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

A harbinger of Spring, Imbolc celebrates the return of the Light in a profound sense. It's the first "cross-quarter day" on the Wheel of the Year, which honors the two Equinoxes and Solstices, as well as Beltane (May 1st), Lammas (August 1st), and Samhain (October 31st).

At Imbolc (Candlemas in Christianity), the energies begin to pulse with renewed life and hope. Fire festivals are common. Vicki Noble, co-creator of the Motherpeace Tarot and author of Shakti Woman: Feeling Our Fire, Healing Our World, which affected me profoundly during my own awakening, writes, "Traditionally a time of transformation and initiation, Imbolc brings 'big dreams' and a raised vibration …

"With powerful Pluto in the physical sign of Capricorn (until 2024), we look forward to momentous planetary and personal change. As old structures crumble, inside and all around us, imagine yourself sitting safely inside of Kali's dance of liberation."

In 2011, ten planets and asteroids congregate around the Moon and Sun conjunct Mars, portending a profound surge of alchemical fire power to ignite our dreams.

What most astonished me was discovering that St. Brigid (in the Irish tradition) is the Patroness of Midwives. Since my birthday is February 4th and I've long referred to myself as a midwife for our global rebirth, it was a clarifying reminder of "what we know, before we know that we know!"

Enjoy this poem by Dawn Callan, which symbolizes and summarizes this moment eloquently:

Some By Fire

~ Dawn Callan
from Awakening the Warrior Within

Like a Phoenix from the embers
Ashes to ashes
Burning, burning
Some by fire
Some by water
Until we remember returning.

Some by the arts of the necromancer
Some by the sword
Some in the trance of the Sufi dancer
Some by the word.

Prodigal daughter
Walks the Warrior's path
Some by water
Some by tempting God to laugh.

Woman's body
Warrior's soul
Dance the ancient rite
Free the dragons of desire
Into the Light
Some by fire.

How's Your Sox Life?

Several years ago I was housesitting for a friend over the holidays. Her housemate hadn't yet moved out, however, so Sandra (who was no longer speaking to her) advised me, "Just ignore her."

To be sure, her housemate was not the most congenial person. She was needy. If I looked at her or replied to any comment or question, I'd be listening to her for the next hour. This could be rather discomfiting.

But I wanted to be kind. During this journey, I had a "clothes encounter" with my winter socks, which I'd somehow misplaced. I had eight or nine pair, in vibrant hues. Although I didn't recall packing them in one of the boxes I'd stored months earlier in Sandra's garage, I checked anyway. No socks.

That night as I allowed my mind to relax, I received the impression that my socks were in the external compartment of my green duffel bag, which had been in my car the entire time. In the morning, I looked there. Bingo.

Sandra's housemate heard about the sock caper, and had expressed her yearning for purple socks, since she'd once had a pair that had either been lost or stolen. When I found my sock cache, I walked into the house and held up two pair, one purple, one blue, and offered her whichever pair she wanted (we wore the same size).

Like a starving person being offered food, she grabbed the purple ones and thanked me profusely, saying, "It's like you gave me a house!"

I was humbled, and ashamed of my earlier thoughts. Sometimes — often — it takes so very little to uplift one of our fellow travelers. What we need to know is usually quite "clothes" to us.

So … how's your sox life? If it could use some rejuvenation, you know what to do now. Blessings!

Help! I Need Somebody …

Have we entered the "We Decade"? People are becoming more friendly and helpful than ever — and as always, what we give returns in spades (or hearts). Here's what it looks like:

A week or so ago, a shopper at Whole Foods pulled out an extra shopping cart for me as she got her own, and, delighted with the simple, unsolicited act of kindness, I declared this the year when we all receive what we need effortlessly and with grace!

A day or so later, a young mother with two small kids needed dinner plates; she couldn't leave the eating area to get them, so I went over to the hot bar for her, and she was inordinately grateful.

Yesterday, I parked my elderly car (that has a broken driver's side door handle for which I'm seeking a replacement part!), too close to a high curb, and when I went to open the passenger door to crawl through and unlatch the driver's door, as I've been doing the past few days, I couldn't open it wide enough to get in!

I stood there wondering what to do when a kind man walked by and I motioned to my plight. Without missing a beat he angled his arm in enough to roll down the back window on the passenger side, then crawled through the window to open the driver's door! I was amazed — and amazingly grateful.

These are all seemingly small acts, but aggregated times seven billion, they can add up to a far happier planet.

Let's choose to be helpful — and happy! Blessed Be.

If It's Broke, Should You Fix It?

We're all familiar with the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" But what about when it IS broken ~ is "fixing" necessarily the best strategy?

In the last month, my eyeglasses, car door handle and wristwatch band have all "broken." I was cleaning my glasses when the micro-thin bridge quietly snapped in two. My old Toyota's door handle mechanism, which had been progressively weakening for weeks, finally quit working altogether. And my beaded watchband's elastic cord broke.

From a 3D perspective, we could view these incidents as discrete (unrelated) events that occurred because the objects in question simply wore out. And this interpretation would be accurate, although limited. Since I tend to live on levels other than the literal, I laid in bed one night and wondered what message, if any, all these "breaks" happening at year-end 2010 might be trying to communicate.

Eyeglasses help me see, but have nothing to do with inner vision. My car transports me from Point A to Point B on the physical plane, but can't help me travel metaphysically. And my watch enables me to "tell time" in our linear, third-dimensional reality, but will not assist me in accessing the timeless realm of Now.

The sense I have, especially after participating in an alchemical conversation between Jim Self and Celia Fenn on Winter Solstice, is that these breaks actually signify a breakthrough: in the incipient New Earth, we'll see with our inner eyes, travel at the speed of thought, and live in the eternal present.

It was a humbling and humorous awareness. I've always enjoyed these "object lessons" ~ especially from my car, which has long served as a surrogate "body" of sorts (if you spend considerable time in your own vehicle, I expect you know what I mean.)

Of course, since I am still traveling in 3D, I'm in the process of seeking a replacement part so that I can open my car door; the watch is out being restrung, and I'm going to invest in a new pair of eyewear so I can continue to journey safely while in a body.

With a foot in both worlds, this is one of the most challenging and exhilarating times to be alive. You can read more in my January newsletter, Some Assembly Required, which will be live on 1/2/11.

Blessings and joy to you!

The Mother of All Winter Solstices

Visionary activist astrologer Caroline Casey has been calling it, "The Mother of all Winter Solstices". This December 21st heralds a full moon / total lunar eclipse, making our inner darkness visible. What has been concealed is now revealed, and ready to be healed.

It's a galactic Dark Night of the Soul as we surge down the 2012 corridor into a brand new world, eclipsing millennia of spiritual darkness, says astrologer Allison Rae. She offers one of the more eloquent and inclusive depictions of now, and what it means for each of us. READ MORE

Two no-cost events I'm participating in that are sure to provide groundbreaking guidance and information:

Celia Fenn with Archangel Michael in conversation with Jim Self, Solstice eve webinar from 4-5:30 pm PST

And immediately following, human capacities pioneer / social architect Jean Houston, offering her signature Mystery School as a teleclass.

Join me, and invoke the 2011 you deeply desire and envision.

Taking the Bite Out of Tooth Decay

Frank Zappa once wrote a tune called, "Dental Hygiene Dilemma." The song may have been intentionally tongue-in-cheek, but the poor oral health of millions of Americans isn't very funny. According to the Weston A. Price Foundation, "95 percent of the civilized population suffers with tooth decay and/or periodontal disease." Which might sound pretty shocking — until you count yourself among this group.

Who knew that the very substances I was using to clean my teeth — tap water and toothpaste — were actually creating the problem? READ MORE!

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye's poem is a universal salve; the depths of the Journey we all must make:


Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

The 7th Day of the Mayan Galactic Underworld Begins!

On November 3rd we entered the 7th and final "day" of the Mayan Calendar, which takes us up to its momentous conclusion in this time-space continuum, the much-lauded 2012. According to Mayan scholar Carl Johan Calleman, the end date is actually October 2011. But we're quibbling about minutiae when dealing with cycles so vast: on a scale of 26,000 years (the Mayan long count), 2011 or 2012 makes little difference. Besides, the Maya were not using our Gregorian calendar, but indigenous cycles aligned with the seasons and the stars.

The particular passage is all about balance: fully embodying the feminine after millennia of masculine dominance, and allowing both our bodies and our planetary body to come into wholeness and fusion.

This is not about masculine and feminine as they apply to gender distinctions, but to the energies we all carry: masculine being synonymous with dynamic, assertive, solar, outward, yang energy, and feminine synonymous with magnetic, receptive, lunar, inner, yin energy. Wedding the light and the dark within ourselves is the beginning of sacred reUnion for us all.

For more information on Mayan Calendrics, here's the piece I wrote a year ago when we entered the 6th Night: The Sky Is Falling ~ NOT! The Truth About 2012.