Homecoming

Home. Except for love, perhaps no word in the English language conjures more evocative imagery. We crave the cozy, nurturing, roaring-fire scene depicted so effectively on film. Home houses our identity. It's less about the four walls than what they represent: "the abode of one's affections, peace or rest," according to Merriam-Webster. At some point in our lives, many women (and men, too, if they will admit it) harbor a fearful fantasy of becoming a "bag lady/guy," carting our belongings out on the street. We see the homeless and quake — "there but for the grace of God go I."

What we're seeking is a sense of security inside ourselves, a home within that can never be taken away. As national boundaries dissolve and corporations invite poets and spiritual mentors into their boardrooms, the hunger for this broader definition of home has never been greater. 

From Me to We

Creating this inner sanctuary will entail a quantum shift for many of us: out of the competitive, "What's in it for me" worldview into a more collaborative, compassionate perspective in which the operative question becomes, "How may I serve?"

For instance: as record numbers of us skate towards elderhood, home care has become a hot topic. What does this mean? On one level, "home care" is about providing caregiving in the home to enable our elders and homebound to remain in their comfort zones. But the larger view begs our attention. Before we can care for our home, we need to know it viscerally. We must embody the place of wholeness that wants to be born in us.

Our own bodies and the planetary body are inextricably linked. Anthropologist Gregory Bateson speaks of "the pattern that connects," the common ground of our unity. We exist in relationship to everyone and everything else on Earth. What kind of home care is our aging Mother receiving? Maybe that's the real key to conscious aging: caring for the personal and the planetary with equal reverence.

Living in Tune with Nature

In other societies, the old ones are the keepers of wisdom. So-called developing cultures that honor their tribal elders also honor the land in which they live. "Home care" is a unified practice for them, as indigenous as the planting and the reaping, as natural as celebrating life's quotidian rhythms with ritual.

In this visionary view, we're all caregivers — Earth stewards, some say. Home care for our elders is rooted in how we create home in our daily lives. What kind of home do we want to cultivate and care for, inside ourselves, interpersonally, and as part of the collective "home body" we inhabit? 

Try this: for the next week, take a time-out from worrying about the economy, your teenager's pierced body parts and the latest virus scare to live into the larger questions about the quality of life you're choosing in every moment, by the way you live, by what you do and don't honor. Does your definition of home serve you? Is it inclusive or exclusive? Will your practice of home care help create a sustainable future for us all? 

Within a decade, for the first time in human history, the number of people in the world aged 65 and older will exceed that of children under five. If you're not already among this exhalted majority, one day you will look in the mirror and see your grandmother's or grandfather's eyes. Will they reflect the wisdom of generativity, of the home that you carry with you always, as a turtle does, caring for it because it is an intrinsic part of you?

Native Americans call this planet Turtle Island. I imagine this is what they mean.

Code Blue: Revivifying the Heart of America

In hospitals, Code Blue indicates cardiac arrest or respiratory failure. It's an apt metaphor for our political emerge-and-see. Time to take a deep breath, revive from unconsciousness and plunge ever deeper into our hearts.

The body politic is broken, yet repairing what isn't working will just keep the existing system chugging along longer. We need to craft a new mythology, a wholly different story for unprecedented times.

Embracing the both/and with both feet on the ground

Early in 2012, when we were preparing for a quantum jump into a reality beyond the tide of prophecy, I referenced polymath Jim Channon, an author and corporate shaman with a military intelligence background (how's that for crossing borders!) who writes, of reimagining our future,

"Between the crack of time and the fold of space there is an impulse to seek the fullness of life. Let there be the slipstream of knowing that penetrates in the flash of an eye to the core of the prize. Let that edge of knowing blaze a trail of pure magic for the spiritual warriors of the galaxy to rise again in the grist of the great surge forward and strike the banner of pure heart into the midst of the fury and bring her all — home again."

It's time to move from being edge dwellers to center walkers, embracing the both/and with both feet on the ground. We're doing it: getting involved, questioning the structure of the Electoral College, connecting with allies we've never met to discover what the new path might look like.

It won't be constructed of asphalt ("at fault") but from pumps primed around the nation and across the globe: the pumps that live inside us, circulating identical blood whether our hearts beat in black, white, brown, straight, LGBTQi, American, Mexican, Muslim, or any other cultural body.

Progress is a process

Our differences are skin deep, and micro-thin. Beyond the clothes our organs wear, we are One. Poet David Whyte, whose words resonate equally in boardrooms and blogs, offers an internal aegis for us all:

"Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into


the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it

pours you a drink, the cooking pots
 have left their

arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last.

All the birds
 and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you."

Or consider the term Steve Rother, five-time United Nations presenter, brought through: "Espavo". Espavo means, "Thank you for taking your power". The ancient Lemurian acknowledgment is akin to the Indian greeting "Namaste", which means, "The Spirit in me recognizes the Spirit in you", and the Mayan expression, "In Lak'ech": "I am another yourself." The distinctive difference is, Espavo carries an implicit call to action.

The Heart of the Matter

And the moment is now. Pragmatic mystic Gillian Macbeth Louthan shares, "The 11:11 doorway begins its activation on November 11, 2016 and closes on January 11, 2017. It is a gateway into your highest potential as a human seeking divinity. Promises present themselves disguised as foxes in a henhouse." (Ahem…)

"When the forces of Eleven become fully activated they have the power to change history and even fate if enough love is globally broadcast. Eleven teaches us every problem comes as a divine opportunity to learn. It shows us how to see beyond what is everyday and boring. It tests our faith and our belief system. It forces us to listen to that small, still, quiet voice within: the silent witness. It reminds us we are all vast beings who have come to Earth to help with the healing and awakening process. It asks you to locate the light within and share it with all."

This is a potent time for powerful pre-emptive magic. Initiated Mayan elder and author Martín Prechtel suggests we engage in "love drive-bys", where we run up to someone, press chocolate into their palm and run away. What a deliciously playful expression of the true meaning of power: that which heals us into our wholeness.

We're on our way to Code Clear. Breathe from deep within your soul, and feel your heart expand to encompass winnovative solutions. Remember, Earth and Heart are anagrams: only the "h", for home, healing, humanity, moves from one end to the other. Espavo.

© Copyright November 2016 Amara Rose. All rights reserved.

We Are the Trump Card

  

"If you bring forth what is within you,

What you bring forth will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you,

What you do not bring forth will destroy you."

~ The Gospel of Thomas

When I logged on this morning, I flashed back to September11, 2001: a sense of unreality, time out of mind, where nothing mattered but connecting with the collective, reaching out to those in shock and mourning for a nation in emotional turmoil.

Energetically, 9-1-1 united Americans; the 2016 election results divide us. Or so it would appear. Today, as someone pointed out, is 11-9, the mirror image of 9-11. Each turn of the evolutionary spiral asks us to reach deeper inside ourselves to access hidden places in the heart. That's how evolution becomes elevation.

It isn't easy.

I've actually had to re-read my own November newsletter to see whether I could assimilate its noble counsel: polarity is illusion, there is only one side, and what we hold as true in our hearts matters much more than what appears real in 3D.

This is one of the most challenging tasks, as individuals and as a collective: remaining open and compassionate to those we "oppose". Danielle Egnew (who six months ago categorically stated that Trump would not win the election) speaks eloquently to what this commitment to overcoming polarity looks like.

Shadowboxing with the Culture of Celebrity

For me, the stunning political upset seems to be a result of our addiction to celebrity culture — Trump himself has made some well- publicized comments about what he is able to do as a celebrity. And, I admit, I get pulled into scanning celeb stories, too.

All of which prompts a necessary period of shadowboxing, as Egnew describes: dancing with our unhealed/unacknowledged aspects, observing how they control us in ways that do not serve our highest good.

The energetic of the new now means living as large as possible every day, not in some shadowy future. It's a continual process of reinvention. We've never been so primed "to boldly go where no one has gone before." This star trek begins in our bodies, minds and hearts, as we burn brightly with purpose and begin to activate our true potential in every realm.

It's time to shake hands with the shadow, unbox its message, and multiply our power exponentially.

The Inquiry

What's shadowing your potential?

·      Someone you need to forgive (including yourself)?

·      A phone call you're afraid to make?

·      A long-standing debt (financial or otherwise) you've not repaid?

·      A health challenge?

·      A family or relationship issue that's quarantined your emotional energy?

·      A job that leaves you too drained to think about anything else?

·      Or "simply" an all-encompassing fear of living your light?

I invite you to face and embrace your strongest shadow. Say hello, ask it in for a spell (one you cast), offer it a chair, open a dialogue.

Conversation not your favorite mode? Go into nature; create a ritual to revisit how this shadow came to be. Dance it, sing it, journal it, paint it, drum it, dream it…

Do whatever it takes to communicate with the part you've been avoiding. What's important is to give it a voice. When our dark side is encouraged to share its gifts with us, darkness and light have a chance to unite.

The Hardest Place to Go

Jewel sings, "In the end, only kindness matters." As issues rise to the surface to be examined in a big way in each of our lives, it's crucial to be kind — most of all, to ourselves. Take time to ground, or center yourself, in whatever way feels best. Do you meditate? Practice yoga? Have you been longing for a massage? A walk in the woods? An evening lying on your couch in the dark doing absolutely nothing? Or maybe a night of full-out dancing? Say yes.

This multidimensional shift is all about frequency: tuning in to the frequency of love, peace and harmony on the cellular level. We are the trump card in our own lives. Perhaps we had to make the shadow manifest in a major way in order to allow our own brilliance to shine.

Much Love to you all ~

Entrenched? Try This.

When we surrender in trust, we are always provided for — perhaps not in the way we'd expect or prefer, but which, at a higher octave, serves everyone involved. I know this. And just enjoyed a refresher course in living it.

The other morning, the a.m. radio personality on the station I listen to shared an arresting story.

Colin Cantwell, designer of the Death Star, described how the most memorable scene in the Star Wars franchise came to be:

"George Lucas gave me the project of designing a 'Death Star'. I didn't originally plan for the Death Star to have a trench, but when I was working with the mold, I noticed the two halves had shrunk at the point where they met across the middle. It would have taken a week of work just to fill and sand and re-fill this depression. So, to save me the labor, I went to George and suggested a trench. He liked the idea so much that it became one of the most iconic moments in the film!"

My trench in disguise

This tale foreshadowed the phone call I'd receive later that day. But first, a bit of backstory:

Throughout late August and into the Mercury retrograde that graced much of September, READ THE REST!