Tough Medicine

A work truck with an attached trailer drove by. Roped to the side of the trailer was a large teddy bear. Seriously.

I'm reading an extraordinary work by Active Dreaming creator Robert Moss, whose marriage of dreamwork and shamanism delivers a resounding "YES!" in every line. The Boy Who Died and Came Back might be a template for crafting a fully awakened life, using a lot more than whatever percentage of our gray matter is currently online. 

One of Moss's recurring themes, in his dreams and waking life, is communion with our animal kin. Even if we aren't familiar with animal totems, or don't consciously subscribe to the idea that animal medicine can support our growth, strapping your stuffed bear to the outside of a truck is symbolic of the way we live: divorced from introspection and wisdom, fearful of solitude or change, and suspicious of non-linear forms of healing — all of which Bear signifies.

The joy of how Moss lives and teaches is palpably freeing; each creatively named mini chapter is overflowing with dream wisdom and transformative ideas, amusingly presented by someone who understands the cosmic truth that Life is eternal, and the more we connect across realities and beyond belief systems, the more we expand our opportunities for Divine humor. I experienced this often on my awakening journey, which is only one reason Moss's work rings with verity for me.

I began cawing to crows and listening to their replies more than twenty years ago; together with Bear, Panther, and, of course, Snake (the ultimate symbol of transformation), Crow/Raven is one of my power animals. For a time, during my time out of mind, Deer was a companion, too.

Let's welcome our animal teachers home; they have much to share if we're willing to listen, as do the plant and mineral "kindoms" (that's kingdom minus the "g", illuminating how we are all kin; note how Kindom also contains the word "Kind").

Healing — and medicine — is only painful if we believe it needs to be. When we ingest the insights other realities and companions offer us, transformation can be uplifting, even wondrous — regardless of our physical state of health. I know.

I'll be delving deeper into Robert's work and where we are on our collective journey in the September issue of my inspirational enewsletter, What Shines, out next week!

Back to the Future

I'm riveted by the futuristic tour-de-force M.D. Waters has showered on our evolutionary synapses with her twin suspense novels, Archetype and Prototype, in which the protagonist clone displays more humanity than many of her human counterparts.

These are apt reads for now.

While we've transcended our Armageddon apprehension and traveled beyond the tide of history, the past can still be instructive. Since a number of ancient civilizations were quite enlightened compared with our own, it behooves us to ask, "What happened?"

Prolific researcher and author Barbara Hand Clow posits an extraordinary scenario concerning humanity's regression, split from Nature, and imminent return to wholeness in The Mayan Code: Time Acceleration and Awakening the World Mind.

Based on the work of scientific historian D.S. Allan and geologist/astronomer J.B. Delair, she hypothesizes that not only did a cataclysm circa 9500 BC plunge us from unity consciousness into duality and survival mode, which is still encoded in our limbic brains, but that the reconfiguration of the world at that time created tectonic plates, forming a planet with 20 faces: an icosahedron. She writes, "Icosahedrons are one of the five Platonic solids, the geometrical shapes that are the basis of how matter is formulated. In other words, Earth transmuted into sacred geometry 11,500 years ago."

These words electrified me to the core: an ancient cellular memory trigger.

We can only perceive the true nature of power through understanding the power of Nature. Clow states that until we return to the symbiotic relationship with Creation that we once enjoyed, we will not fully inhabit a World Mind, because this unity extends to all life on earth, not just humans.

Caroline Casey touched on the same theme in her radio show, when she spoke of how "respect trumps fear" in the natural world, and discussed the way animals metabolize trauma by trembling, which frees them to resume their normal behavior. Synchronistically, just prior to her show I'd caught the final moments of another program, on which the guest was discussing EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), a technique that enables people to reprogram their brains from trauma.

Kenny Ausubel, co-founder of the Bioneers Conference, suggests we try biomimicry: see Nature as teacher rather than resource, and ask, "What would Nature do? How can we wed human ingenuity to the wisdom of the wild?"

From Egocentric to Ecocentric

What does respect for the natural world look like? Marine acoustician Michael Stocker gives a stunning example of a man living on the Hawaiian island of Molokai who helped a beached shark return to the ocean. The Samaritan explained, "I like to swim out to a distant rock. There are a lot of hammerheads in the water, and now I've got credit."

This is a remarkable perspective compared with the more typical separation and fear to which we're accustomed — and a shift that is becoming easier to embrace as we draw nearer to what Clow calls galactocentric consciousness. She prophesies that within a decade we will transcend our reliance on technology as a means of mass communication and become a truly telepathic global society, just as "primitive" people were many thousands of years ago. Since I've always maintained that the Internet is our precursor to global telepathy, her words were a gratifying substantiation.

If the implications of an ancient reconfiguring cataclysm cause your circuitry to go haywire, download this: paleoscientific research indicates that "early humans showed no signs of being aware of the existence of the four seasons until 10,000 years ago." The cataclysmic event created Earth's variable rotation — or wobble — which gives rise to climatic changes. Our planet Herself underwent a trauma and ever since, she "trembles", bringing us the phenomenon of seasonal shifts. As above, so below.

Clow writes, "I believe the tilting axis inspired a preliterate scientific revolution that we are decoding in our times. The axial tilt changed the way we receive light on Earth…Megalithic astronomy, as well as indigenous astronomy, suggests that the Light is more potent and transmutative for humans during the equinoxes, solstices, and new and full moons. Perhaps that intentional attunement awakens cosmic intelligence. Perhaps a new evolutionary form began when the tilting axis cracked Earth open, as if Earth were a cosmic egg ready to hatch in the universe."

The ultimate key to coming home to ourselves as One people, one destiny, ready to rejoin the Universal collective, may lie in what peaceable cultures have always known: from the pain that cracks our hearts wide open, compassion and kindness flower. Naomi Shihab Nye's poem Kindness eloquently expresses this "proper dose of poignancy," a universal salve not salvo.

Changing the weather of our hearts alters the climate of civilization. It's a subtle shift we're quite capable of making as we travel at Light speed into the Age of Aquarius. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we've had the power to return Home all the time — but we must discover it for ourselves.

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Copyright © 2008-2014 by Amara Rose. All Rights Reserved.

Lammas: Now the Dying Must Begin…

August 1-2 marks the mid-point between summer and fall. Known as Lammas, or Lughnasadh (LOO-ne-sah), it's one of the 8 "Cross Quarter Days" on the Wheel of the Year (the others are the Summer and Winter Solstices, Spring and Fall Equinoxes, Candlemas {Feb. 2}, Beltane {May 1} and Hallomas/Samhain {October 31}). Lammas is a celebration of abundance, the time of the harvest, and a potent moment to bring ourselves back into alignment with the natural world. Although it appears to occur at the peak of summer, in truth it's the first day of fall, and a time to embrace the dark.

An evocative description of this turning comes from a comprehensive mythology site with the delightful double-entendre title, Myth*ing Links, an annotated and illustrated collection of worldwide links to mythologies, fairytales and folklore, sacred arts and sacred traditions, loving compiled and updated by Kathleen Jenks, PhD.

"Lammas...is a hot, lazy, delicious time of the year. Bees buzz in the heat of the day, the air is still, and the force of the sun remains strong, even though its sway over the earth is slowly diminishing day by day. In the cooler nighttime, frogs and crickets keep us company. It is here, in the gloaming, when so many rituals begin...

"This is when the powerful gods of the grain harvests are honored. They are in their prime, sometimes generous, sometimes quixotic, and always aware with a bittersweet pleasure that their time will wane, as it always does, and they will die, as they always do, and yet nevertheless they will return to another delicious summer next year, as they always do, and have, and will, for this is the endlessly circling Wheel of the Year, and they ride it proudly.

"Yet there is a darker nuance, one that surprised me, for I had thought that this was a purely masculine god's festival. I learned however of Lugh's touching and loving devotion to his foster-mother, the royal Tailtiu, whose fate may be even more intimately woven into this season than his..."

Jenks quotes Parabola magazine author Mara Freeman on the further genesis of Lammas:

"...Lugh dedicated this festival to his foster-mother, Tailtiu, the last queen of the Fir Bolg, who died from exhaustion after clearing a great forest so that the land could be cultivated. When the men of Ireland gathered at her death- bed, she told them to hold funeral games in her honor. As long as they were held, she prophesied Ireland would not be without song. Tailtiu’s name is from Old Celtic Talantiu, 'The Great One of the Earth,' suggesting she may originally have been a personification of the land itself, like so many Irish goddesses. In fact, Lughnasadh has an older name, Brón Trogain, which refers to the painful labor of childbirth. For at this time of year, the earth gives birth to her first fruits so that her children might live..."

What needs to "die" so that the new can be born in your life?

Canadian astrologer and tarot reader Tara Greene says that Lugh's festival points Southwest, and resonates to the element Air. "Southwest represents the Place of Healing, of the Dreamer and the Dream. It is the place of both your Personal Dream and the Sacred Dream of the Planet. What is your Personal Dream? What is your Sacred Dream? The Sacred Dream is your Highest Spiritual Dream."

This August 1st, especially if you've never honored Lammas before, remember your relationship with the Earth and her cycles. Give thanks for the abundance of beauty, harmony, peace, love, healing, grace and balance you are inviting into your life and into the collective, and image-in your Sacred Dream.

The quintessential song for invoking Gaia's healing Sacred Dream came through John Lennon. Feeling deeply into these words now, there is a cellular resonance I've not been conscious of before, although I've heard the song hundreds of times:

Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one.

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope some day you'll join us

And the world will live as one.

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.

The Sacred Geometry of Surprise

A few weeks ago I discussed why the people on the periphery matter a great deal in the overall scheme of our lives. I wrote that post from the perspective of influencer. Here's how it looks from the receiving end:

A healer who was recommended by a cyber acquaintance wasn't much direct help, though he did point me to a holistic tooth care company started by a woman whose children had never had a cavity. Intrigued, I began using Tooth Soap® in 2006, and over the years founder Gabriala Brown and I became friends across the (s)miles.

Fast-forward to 2010, when she acted as my dental angel for a mouthful of emergency. I wrote and published several articles lauding Tooth Soap®, but they don't begin to account for the magnitude of her gift. And for which I ultimately have Dr. Jim (now deceased) to thank. Following a thread that began with another acquaintance's book recommendation, to contacting him, to his Tooth Soap® referral, to Gabriala's suggestion of an innovative solution to and financial assistance with my dental crisis, created a tapestry of luminous cloth woven on life's loom.

We are each the warp and weft for those with whom we intersect, a sacred geometry of surprise the originators often know nothing about — akin to a sheepherder having no idea what happens to the wool once it leaves the land to be cleaned, carded, dyed, shipped to a knitting store, and ultimately purchased by a grandmother who will lovingly craft matching mother-daughter sweaters for her child and grandchild.

We weave in every encounter from the wool of our words and actions, seldom knowing how what we share or do may reverberate down the road. I feel this most acutely when I've been out of integrity: when I know I could have been kinder, or more patient, or listened more deeply. As a daily practice I'm helpful and informative, but sometimes that can tip over into invasive. Getting the Hang of It is an ongoing balancing act, often more challenging in these heady times as the world awakens, time wobbles, old structures disintegrate and tempers flare.

When we dress ourselves in the Love that we are, we wear threads that will never go out of style. The sacred geometry of surprise will take us to every connection we need to make along life's path. It's one math course in which everyone can excel.

The People on the Periphery — And Why They Matter

The other evening I was eating dinner at Whole Foods' outdoor café when a young woman turned around and looked at me as though she knew me. After a moment, I remembered. "Oh, you're the twins!" 

About a year ago, she and her sister, both 25, were scrutinizing the produce, wondering not just about organic vs. conventional but also the nutrient value of different fruits and vegetables. I found their interest in health refreshing, and we engaged in a lively dialogue. They told me a bit about their colorful pasts and how they were committed to taking good care of their bodies now. I congratulated them, and we spoke of "bad habits". I said, "Well, no matter what recreational drugs you may have used, at least you're not addicted to nicotine!" There was an uncomfortable silence. Then one sister admitted, "Actually, we both smoke."

Astonished, I said something along the lines of, "Why are you bothering about organic foods if you smoke?" Perhaps I was not quite so zealous, though knowing how I feel about cigarettes (can't abide them from 50 yards) I probably was. Then our encounter ended and I went back to my regularly scheduled life.

I was unlikely to have thought about these girls again. Yet here they were, with Rowan (both names have been changed) clearly itching to share.

"I stopped smoking two months ago!" she crowed. She quit cold turkey, and said even though she found herself craving a cigarette about a month in, she held to her resolve. When I congratulated her, saying, "Your lungs thank you, your liver thanks you, your whole being thanks you! And now you can taste food again!" she agreed, "Yes, you said we had it backwards by focusing on organic food if we were smoking."

"Did I say that? How rude," I apologized. But Rowan held firm: "No, you were right." Her sister Miranda still smokes, but I said with confidence, "She'll quit when she's ready."

As her sister reappeared from within the store, the pair got ready to leave, and Rowan's parting words were," It's the best gift I could ever have given myself!" I felt she was delighted to have the opportunity to share her win with me, to complete the circuit and receive my acknowledgment, because I don't think there are a lot of other older role models in their lives.

Honored, I reflected yet again on what I've come to call "the people on the periphery": those with whom we interact only briefly, perhaps once or twice in our lives and never again, yet who leave a lasting impact. A man who overheard our entire exchange said to me after the girls left, "You instigated that change for her." From my perspective it had just been one of the thousands of casual conversations I have with people over the course of a year. It's a great blessing to realize what we may not realize: namely, that every word matters, every action counts, even, especially, if we never see or learn the outcome.

Here's another example: I've had the same hair stylist for 17 years, though I only visit her seasonally and each cut lasts less than half an hour. But we cover a lot of ground in that time. Nora (real name) is also a hospice volunteer, and several years ago told me about a wonderful book called Deathing, which shows us another way to approach our final passage — including practices you can use, even at distance, to assist a loved one in crossing the threshold. I bought the book and absorbed its teachings. At the time, no one's death was imminent, though I have a 100+-year-old friend and my mother had serious heart disease.

When my Mom was close to the end of her earth journey this past January, I used the Deathing techniques with her. She was unconscious, but/and, hearing is the last sense to go, and medicine has demonstrated that people can hear what is being said even in a coma.

The next time I saw Nora she was telling me about a recent death workshop she'd attended, and how she was feeling she "didn't really know anything," compared with the other participants. I exclaimed, "That's not true! If it hadn't been for you I would never have known about Deathing or been able to use those tools with my mother! You're a blessing in my life." She was grateful for the mirroring.

Perhaps we have the most profound effect on those we see just once in our lives. Perhaps one wise word to a stranger changes the trajectory of their life. The periphery of the supermarket is where the fruits and vegetables are located. Maybe living at the edge (but not necessarily on it) is the healthiest place of all.

Summer Solstice: Ego or Egg?

"Aren't we all just fragile eggs hiding behind bubble wrap and bravado?"

~ Manny on Modern Family

 

Ever balanced an egg on its end? On Summer Solstice, when day and night are of equal length, it's possible to do so, if we're very patient and careful. But we can only attain this exquisite balance twice a year.

It's a humbling thought. Can we learn from something better known as breakfast how to create balance in our hectic lives? Can we become as poised as an egg?

Time for another subtle shift: from ego to egg, poison to poise. Here in Caffeine Nation, it might be more challenging to transmute hubris to humus, and take an earth-centered approach to life. The lightest day of the year is an ideal time to contemplate our dark side. To dive deep. Roam the loam. We're still in Mercury retrograde, a pristine moment to dwell in the Aretha Franklin lyric and "re-re-re-re" our lives: respect (literally, to look again), reimagine, remember, reboot…

Whether we're cognizant of it or not, we're all renewable energy beings: living on Earth for a time, becoming cosmic compost, being recycled back into the collective. This midsummer moment can help us create an eggstraordinary state of renewal and joy.

In her book, Living In Gratitude, a 12-month plan for making gratitude the foundation stone of our daily life, cross-cultural anthropologist, teacher and author Angeles Arrien says, of June, "We experience equanimity, or a state of balance, when we are content with the way things are. We are neither striving nor holding back. There is nothing lacking or in excess. This balance, or sense of acceptance, is at the heart of equanimity. It opens us to the experience of gratitude and the sustainable experience of renewal that comes from being in balance."

So compost the coffee and let it be grounds for eggceptional openheartedness, and the fulfillment of your dearest dreams. Step out of the bubble wrap and shine your magnificence on those who seek the light. When you live with wonder and humility, your ego transforms into a good egg — and that makes a satisfying meal for anyone, in every season.

Do You Create or Maintain?

As I watched a woman in a well-to-do neighborhood open the door to her housekeeper and child at 8 a.m. on Friday morning, I mused, wouldn't we all prefer to be the one living in that house rather than coming to clean it? Perhaps. Yet Nature herself continually creates, maintains and destroys; that's the essence of the life cycle.

While I think of myself as primarily a creator, the world needs daily maintenance — not least because of the mess we bipeds tend to leave behind. I wipe down sinks in public restrooms and often have to clean off outdoor tables before I can sit to eat at places like Whole Foods; even the staff can't keep up with the detritus.

Daily life is one of maintenance, renewal. Poet and novelist Marge Piercy writes,

            "The work of the world is common as mud.

            Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

            But the thing worth doing well done

            has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident."

(excerpted from To Be of Use, © 1982)

           

Yet I find myself disdaining some whose work entails tidying up the universe rather than contributing something fresh. The maintenance manager at a local community center seems comically addicted to keeping the exterior doors locked and "undesirables" (read: homeless people) out. When I've sat inside to use their high-speed WiFi, I witness him check and lock the doors at least a half dozen times within a few hours. It seems almost a pointless exercise, because people stream into the center for classes, meetings and other events all day long.

Directly across the outdoor quad from the community center is a new senior wing. It's ADA compliant in every way — except the architects didn't take into account seniors' diminished upper body strength and agility. Several women have become trapped in the restrooms, whose heavy oak doors are almost impossible for someone using a walker or wheelchair to negotiate. So the community center's counterpart now has the additional responsibility of constantly making sure all eight restroom doors (two for each gender, at opposite sides of a long corridor in a 2-story building) remain stoppered open each weekday from 9 to 5. There's a poetry to this, and a bit of Divine humor as well.

Years ago, metaphysical teacher and author Louise Hay made many tapes accompanied by the musical group Alliance. One I listened to repeatedly was, "Doors Closing, Doors Opening," and while it focused on personal growth rather than physical structures, I find it amusingly applicable to the situations I've described. The main lyric went, "Doors closing, doors opening, doors closing, doors I'm opening. I am safe, it's only change. I am safe it's only change…"

Are you opening doors or closing them? Do you create or maintain? Does your life weave between the two, and if so, are you growing in ways that feed your soul? Mother Nature is always in motion. It's important to clean up our mess and keep the doors to possibility open. And maybe, unlocking what seems a necessary barrier will let in some surprising gifts that may change your perception and release a fresh flow of creativity.

Remembering Angeles Arrien 1940-2014

Yesterday I picked up the May/June issue of Common Ground, an alternative magazine I sometimes read here in northern California, and turned to the final page, Last Words. I found a quote by one of my great teachers, Angeles Arrien, and below her name, two dates with a dash between them. It took my mind several seconds to process what this meant. NO! Angeles can't be gone; she was only 74. She was in the midst of a teaching schedule for her newest book, Living In Gratitude. She's a pillar of wisdom. And now, she is an ancestor.

While so many have transitioned already this year, including my own mother, Angeles' death hits me hard, because it's out of the blue. Judging by the events planned for later in 2014, I imagine it must have been sudden. But though I've scoured the web, so far I've only discovered the date, (April 24^th) not cause. Not that it matters. She was obviously complete here.

What a gift this woman was, and what a gift she had: the extraordinary ability to meld anthropology, psychology and comparative religions to help those of us privileged to study with her learn how to live a practical spirituality, or as she referred to it, to "walk the mystical path with practical feet."

I took her Four-Fold Way Foundational Training at Esalen, on the ruggedly beautiful California coast, in January 1994. I'd read her book, The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary the previous summer, and the talk I attended then convinced me she had much wisdom to share. I enrolled in the weeklong training, though by the following winter I was deep into my awakening odyssey (disguised as serious illness), and could barely function on the physical plane. Nevertheless I made the 5-hour journey, and my emerging state of unreality probably enhanced my absorption of her teachings.

What I learned is how deeply Angeles embodied what she taught. The tenets of the Four-Fold Way are:

Warrior: Show up and choose to be present

Healer
: Pay attention to what has heart and meaning

Visionary
: Tell the truth without blame or judgment

Teacher: 
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.

I internalized these truths into a little sing-song: "Show up, pay attention, tell the truth and let it go!" It's a credo for living that serves us well throughout our lives.

What Angeles brilliantly modeled transcended the personal growth community. Her books and practices have found a place in corporate, academic and medical milieux, as well as the non-profit sector. When I think of her, some of the words that come to mind include authenticity, generosity of spirit, wholeheartedness. And joy.

Heaven has gained another angel, so aptly named. Thank you for shining your Light in my life, dear one. In boundless gratitude, blessings.

Grace Notes: Other Mothers and The Mother of All

I didn't send my Mom a Mother's Day card this year; she made her transition in January. I did send a trio of cards to a beloved 100-year-old friend who's been a spiritual mother my entire life, from the days when I'd paste my artwork on the kitchen window she'd pass on her way to work (and to which she'd respond in poetry), to our adult friendship spanning four decades. Ellie and her husband never had children, yet I don't think that's why so many "young people" (as she characterized those in their 50s when she was 92!) have adopted her as a surrogate Mom. It's because, by her very essence, she engenders the deep love and appreciation we associate with mothering.

I've been blessed to enjoy this kind of relationship a few times in my life. Another was with a woman whose husband I met in the park, not long after I'd graduated from college. He brought me home to meet his wife as though I were a flea market find, and the three of us became fast friends during the year before I moved to California. I was just launching my life at 22, and Sten and Ethel provided the support and encouragement I needed to thrive — right down to lending me their old car for the final weeks prior to my relocation, so I could get around town once I'd sold mine. Ethel had multiple sclerosis (MS), and her optimism and sunny disposition in the face of her illness seem even more amazing to me now. For her birthday that year I sent a singing balloon-a-gram; the center balloon was shaped like a heart. She told me this balloon kept its helium for weeks and followed her around the house! That's the power of Love.

Another spiritual mother for 26 years and counting is Louise Hay. An old friend gifted me with Louise's signature book, You Can Heal Your Life in 1988, the same year I was blessed to meet Louise in person when she held a "Hay Ride" event in San Francisco. Her breakthrough personal growth work has sustained and healed me on many levels since then. Louise is just nine months older than my biological mother, so in many ways she really does feel like my Mom.

Who are the "other mothers" in your life? Mother's Day is a beautiful moment to let them know how much you cherish their love, their support, their wisdom. Whether they know you personally or are a public figure who's helped you via their planetary service (Oprah springs to mind), take a moment to acknowledge this gift. In the level playing field of the digital age we can connect with almost anyone, yet your thank you needn't be splashed across the social landscape unless you so choose. If you send your message via the quantum field, it will be received — at an even more profound level.

If you can and want to connect in 3D, that's always a delight. I'll call my 100+ year-old friend in the morning, and thank her again for shining her Light in my life.

Finally, there is our collective Mother, Gaia, in all her (wo)manifestations. During my awakening journey I realized how profoundly I yearned to nestle into the nurturing archetypal arms of the Great Mother. I found her in trees, in our animal kin, in metaphysical bookstores and sacred ceremony, and in the wisdom of those who had gone before me and could give a name to this longing.

Reaching our Light means daring a descent into the dark, to the ancient womb of Mystery that lives within each one, calling us to awaken and claim our power. Men and women alike are capable of this kind of birth, which knows no gender — only the willingness to open to the immanent truth of our being.

Everything arises from this awareness: how we move through the world, how we effect change, how we define what "matters" (which comes from the same root as "mother".) Uncloaked, we are cut from whole cloth — "material" in its original sense. When we abide in the Mother, who we are matters — and we are always Home.

Mother yourself, today and every day. That's the greatest grace note of all.

~ Much Love to you ~

Beltane: Light Night of the Soul

We're all familiar with the classic "dark night of the soul", even if we don't know the terminology: the last few years, especially these past few weeks, everyone's felt the energies ramped up to gale force as lunar/solar eclipses, meteor showers and a Cardinal Grand Cross (the 5^th of 7 Uranus/Pluto squares plus) buffet the planet and liberate us from old beliefs and behaviors. We're being cleaned out and burnished to roar our "YES!"

May 1^st ushers in Beltane, one of eight Shabbats on the Nature-based Wheel of the Year. [The others are the Solstices and Equinoxes, Lammas (August 1st), Samhain (October 31st), and Imbolc (February 2nd).] Beltane breathes renewal into our cells as we acknowledge the elemental world and the advent of summer. For our Southern Hemisphere allies, the Wheel of the Year is reversed: they now celebrate Samhain. 

As Stargazer Li reminds us, May 1^st also commences the time cycle known as the Night, "to source what is from our own deep dreaming depths... which carries us the following day into the Moon of Liberation, to release the old stories and live at the next level...

As Samhain honors the power of death, so Beltane honors the cycles of life and rebirth. Beltane takes place in Taurus, the zodiac's earthiest, 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 people and trees. It's a fire festival of fertility in all its forms — and thus we dance in homage to Aphrodite, the Goddess Herself.

Are you ready to dive into a Light Night of the Soul, a sacred reUnion of our masculine and feminine selves? The temperatures are soaring into the 90s this week, welcoming the solar eclipse and activating our solar/cellular recognition of the Light we are.

Ignite your Light, and let it shine. As Pharrell sings, clap along if you feel like a room without a roof…

How to Grow New Feet

"My feet are killing me!" "I'm dead on my feet." "Have you got cold feet?" "Don't drag your feet!" "Are you back on your feet?"

We bipeds depend on our locomotive appendages a LOT. So it's only natural that our feet might get weary from all the wear and tear and decide to take a vacation. Not our actual physical feet, perhaps, but the ones belonging to our digital appendages. Such as my laptop.

After replacing the little hard plastic "feet" that keep the machine positioned just slightly off the desk, allowing airflow, I soon noticed that all but one had again gone AWOL. I assumed they were gone forever, like one half of a pair of socks after a wash cycle. But while mischievous socks seem to time travel, never to return, laptop feet apparently visit an alternate universe for a while and then magically reappear.

It might be akin to what happens at puberty: kids have a growth spurt and "grow a foot" seemingly overnight. But even the most ambitious teen has yet to grow three feet in a matter of weeks. That's what my tiny plastic computer feet did.

After at least a year, they began reappearing on the carpet — where they absolutely had not resided before. I don't have pets or children; no one else could have moved them or replaced them. Yet here they were, one by one over the course of several weeks, mutely calling, "I'm home!" (None of them sported a tan or souvenirs, so I can't verify where they'd been.)

I'm waiting to see whether the fourth will arrive, though I'm delighted to welcome the trio home. I discovered each returning foot accidentally, either by stepping on it, thinking I'd tracked in a pebble, or noticing what I thought was a chocolate chip. Amazing and amusing, because of course I was completely unattached to something as negligible as laptop feet. Yet here they are.

It's easy to manifest what we have no attachment to in our lives. I've proven this in my own life time and again with items similar to laptop feet, which can appear as soon as we envision the request. Yet this complete faith that the universe is always answering is the great challenge most of us are still aiming to master — myself included. We believe the grander requests will take a long(er) time to show up, so they usually do.

This is a fulcrum moment to grow new feet — or kilometers, if you choose — so we can leap into parallel realities and timelines and return with alacrity. Stand up for the true magnificent YOU. That's the feat we can all grow into, now.

Worth

Owning our worth, whether as an entrepreneur, planetary change agent or life partner, means standing in our value proposition. This is who I am. This is my worth. This is my wealth. 

What is the connection between health and wealth (which also means well being)? "Misfortune" means you miss your fortune! It's playing with old paradigms (pair o' dimes) until we cut the cord, choose a new path. Read the rest!

Here Comes the Judge...

Distortion …disruption … fluctuating field … these are some of the keywords for now, and while I've just written about the explosive energies April is showering upon us, I was still caught without my frequency attunement wand, because we're all playing the game:

On Friday evening, after singing the praises of the organic hot bar and deli at a food co-op that just opened in my town, I went there for dinner. I sampled a few of the evening's dishes (the menu changes nightly, as the Culinary Institute of America-trained chef likes to experiment) and was ruminating about my choices when a young woman with a nose ring and toddler approached me. I'd seen the child cavorting earlier and smiled when the woman asked, "Are you going to buy something?" I thought perhaps she was going to ask if I could get some cash back for her, so considering in a fraction of a second whether I wanted to do this, I replied "Maybe." Then, to my surprise, she added, "Well, I've just seen you sample everything…"

I said, "Oh, do you work here?" She said "Yes, and we've had a lot of problems with people tasting the food for free and then leaving." Starting to get annoyed (especially as I'd just spent weeks telling everyone in town how terrific the place was), I told her I was a regular, and that she was welcome to ask the kitchen staff to vouch for me. She said, "I already asked them." Incredulous, I asked, "And they said they don't know me?" I then named a certain male cashier, who has been my checker virtually every time I've shopped there. She said, "He's off tonight." At that point I lost it, and went to the kitchen staff myself, asking if one of them could go to bat for me. Rachel (names have all been changed) said helpfully, "Well, you do look like a homeless person" — I was wearing a flannel shirt and loose capri pants.

By this time I was livid, and Melissa (who'd launched the inquiry) had disappeared. Rachel eventually found her in another section of the large market and told her I bought food from the deli "at least once or twice a week", but the damage was done. I ate my dinner in a cortisol flood.

Fast-forward to last night, after I'd regained my equanimity. The sweet young deli worker, who had told Melissa, "Oh yes, she comes in here all the time!", shared an amazing story of her own: earlier on Saturday, she (Celestia) had been "profiled" when she went shopping at our local hardware store, which offers a 20% discount on Saturdays. Celestia has a part-time job as a gardener, and Ace Hardware offers an exceptional outdoor division. The store was very busy, and Celestia didn't need any assistance, yet, she told me, an employee shadowed her while she shopped — even following her up to the register, where she spent $125! Oh, did I mention that Celestia is young, wears dreadlocks, and sports a nose ring and facial tattoo?

So we both saw the humor in the entire episode: I'd thought Melissa was panhandling me because she was young, had a nose ring and a toddler; she'd thought I was freeloading because she saw me sample several dishes, my clothing was loose and casual, and she heard Celestia's "She's here all the time" as sponging! We were all judging from misinterpretation.

How do we grow beyond assumptions based on race, age, appearance, and other external differences that make us the unique souls we are? We have white-collar crime, and blue-collar saviors who create programs that uplift and heal communities. And we're still so quick to cast the first stone.

How do we segue from being nuclear reactors to becoming seedlings for a new humanity, a New Earth Nation, learning from Gaia how to live relationally? It's a challenging time to hold our center while holding change; the more we can appreciate the humor of the moment and respond not from habit but from a story re-write, the faster we evolve to a 5D, heart-centered species.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go get a nose ring.

Novels and Cartoons and Bands, Oh My!

I've written often about what you know, before you know that you know: i.e., the intuitive awareness we all possess that signals the inner wisdom available to us throughout our life, if we pay attention — and trust it.

But I've learned as much from music, fiction and even clever television that's woken me to how much we take for granted, never knowing a term's origins, like the preteen inquiry from a few decades back, "Did you know Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings?"

This whack on the side of the head happened again yesterday when a novel discussed Mount Parnassus ~ the second book to mention the iconic Greek landmark in as many weeks. This time, though, it triggered me to look it up, since I lived on a street intersecting Parnassus for 11 years. This is where I launched my writing career — and the name "Parnassus" in literature is metaphoric for poetry, literature, and learning: Mont Parnasse in France. So I guess it is a "what we know before we know that we know" moment after all.

How about Led Zeppelin? The name was suggested as a joke for a lead balloon, which is how Keith Moon of The Who predicted the new group would fare. But the yoke was on him: Jimmy Page loved the name, the band dropped the "a", and a megagroup was born. Yet I never questioned the origin or meaning of Led Zeppelin while listening to their music growing up.

Finally, how about that scwewy wabbit? The writers of Bugs Bunny cartoons were notorious for embedding adult references into kids' TV programs, so the cartoons worked on multiple levels. In one memorable episode, Bugs is being chased by hounds (nothing unusual there) when suddenly he halts, holds up a sign that reads, "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn," and all the dogs race off in another direction. It's funny to a child — but it was decades before I learned of (and read) A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, a famous 1943 novel by Betty Smith. The title itself is a metaphor for the Tree of Heaven.

So question reality, especially now, when signposts of the new are embedded in everything, and we're attuning to a higher frequency. You never know what you'll read in the music or hear in the words that guide our lives.

What Jesus Never Said

For years, when attempting to explain how I view Jesus as one of the world's great spiritual teachers rather than a religious figure, I've said, "Jesus wanted us to emulate his teaching; he never said, "Start a religion and name it after me!"

Now, to my amazement and joy, Pam Grout, author of E2, echoes and validates my perspective in her hugely funny, on-point book about how we can prove our thoughts create our reality. The book is an easy read and a hoot: Jack Canfield (of Chicken Soup fame) says, "Pam has combined the humor of Ellen DeGeneres with the wisdom of Deepak Chopra."

 Here's the juice on Jesus, p. 34:

"The FP (Field of Potential or Possibility) is a force field that's equally available to everyone. It's a natural capacity in all of us, not an exclusive gift bestowed upon a few. In fact, that is the primary lesson Jesus taught.

"To worship Jesus the way we do is a little like worshipping Benjamin Franklin because he first discovered electricity. Ben Franklin sent that kite up in an electric storm so we could use the principle he demonstrated. He didn't do it so we'd build temples to him, paint pictures of him, and wear little commemorative keys around our necks. He wanted us to take the principle of electricity and use it — which we do to run radios and computers and air conditioners. Had we stopped with Ben's discovery the way we did with Jesus's discovery, we'd all be sitting in the dark.

"Benjamin Franklin didn't invent electricity any more than Jesus invented spiritual principles. Lightning and the resulting electricity have always been available. We just didn't realize it or know how to access it. Galileo didn't invent gravity when he dropped the wooden ball off the leaning tower of Pisa. He just demonstrated it.

"Likewise, Jesus demonstrated spiritual principles that he wants us to use and develop. We've wasted 2,000 years worshipping this idol of him instead of using the principles he taught us. Look through the Bible and nowhere does Jesus say, 'Worship me.' His call to us was 'follow me.' There's a big difference."

So get out your BF key and electrify your life with the Jesus principle: greater things than these shall ye do!

When You're About to Give Up…

"Come in out of the darkness." 

 

~ Stevie Nicks, Bella Donna

We're living our Light more magnificently than ever before, shining our radiance in everyday interactions. It's never been so easy — or, in some ways, so strange. Archangel Michael describes how it looks: "Our peace and comfortableness with the shifting energy will help other people feel more comfortable. We will do this from our hearts...by just walking through a grocery store, the post office, or sitting in a movie theatre. People will automatically feel a little bit calmer, because we are carrying that pivotal, new orientation point inside us..."

I've been noticing that people tend to park next to my car, even when an entire parking lot is virtually empty, or sit next to me when there are numerous other seats available. At first this disturbed me; then I began to understand. People feel drawn to the energy those of us who have walked this road carry, even if they are unaware of it or can't articulate it. Our role now is to listen them into awareness.

An example: our local senior center offers high-speed WiFi, though I don't usually get much work done there because as soon as I sit down, someone wants to chat! The conversation has been desultory — until last week. A woman sat by me, spoke casually at first, then shifted into deeply personal material. I felt called to respond as I would with a coaching client, and watched her growth in the moment as I validated how she was stepping into her power. It was remarkable, beautiful, and thrilling to observe: I was simultaneously participant and witness to the process.

Archangel Michael says, "Instead of taking months or days, it is taking hours or minutes to shift. Our service to the world is anchoring and just staying in that new center point...We are of service to the planet by BE-ing who we are."

Gillian Macbeth Louthan adds a surprising caveat: "When you feel like destroying something that you have worked on or worked for or worked toward — you are at the edge of succeeding. At the very edge of success, there is an 'initiation via potential sabotage'. Many are comfortable in succeeding a little bit, but not totally."

Darkness and Light are a Möbius strip, the both/and of life in 3D. May Sarton's Invocation to Kali expresses it best:

"Help us to be the always hopeful

Gardeners of the spirit

Who know that without darkness

Nothing comes to birth

As without light

Nothing flowers."

Can You Hear the Love?

So you're tone-deaf? Can't carry a tune in a bucket? You can still be a powerful sonic force for Love on Friday, February 14^th: the 12^th annual World Sound Healing Day, which takes place at a throat chakra near you.

Sound is our original sense. The first sound we hear is our mother's heartbeat; the last sense to leave the dying is hearing. On World Sound Healing Day, we each have an extraordinary opportunity to heal Mama Gaia and ourselves with a tool everyone possesses: our voice.

To participate, simply sound a love-filled "AH" for five minutes at noon local time. "AH" is a universal heart sound that, when projected with focused intent, has the ability to heal and transform. It's our sonic valentine for global harmony.

If you're ready to take your sonic sisterhood (or brotherhood) to the next level, visit the Temple of Sacred Sound, an interactive site that enables you to hear yourself within a series of Toning Chambers that resonate to OM, AH, and HU.

This is the essence of 2014: harmony can be as easy as breath, when we approach it with LOVE.

Blessings!