The Magic of Autumn

It's Autumn, but instead of knowing that by the natural changes around me, I know it only by the date on the calendar.  Autumn is my favorite season of the year and I'm missing it this year.  September is always a reflective, melancholy time of year for me but, this year, is actually more so, in no small part due to the lack of noticeable Autumnal changes around me.

I'm on the Southern Pacific coast of Costa Rica, having moved here from France in April.  I go where Life calls me, where the energy pulls me, where it lights up for me.  But, that does not mean that I don't miss the places I've left, or long for things I've known in places other than where I am.

Costa Rica is very close to the equator.  Because of this, we don't experience much difference in temperature or length of our days throughout the year.  The change of season is determined by whether it is the rainy (green) or the dry season.  Right now, it's the height of the rainy season.  It's pouring torrentially outside as I write this.  I'm hearing huge booms of thunder and seeing great cracks of lightning out my window.  The sound of the rain hitting the roof of my little cabina can be deafening.  The electricity blinks on and off.

One of the advantages of travel, and the kind of continual movement that my life has been, is that I get to know many different people and locations and types of culture and lifestyle.  There are things to discover and love, no matter where one is, but there are also places to miss, and things to long for that one has known.  I've learned that you can't really go back.  Things change, people change, we change, and even when we do go back to places where we've lived or visited before, it's never quite the same.  I've learned to do my best to enjoy each place as much as possible in the moment, because it won't come again.  I've learned to do my best to appreciate where I am while I'm there.

Right now, though, I find myself missing the change in the angle of the sun, the way the light becomes softer and more diffused in Autumn.  I'm missing the coolness coming back, the relief of the relentlessness of Summer.  I'm missing the leaves changing and the brilliant, fiery colors of Fall.  I'm missing putting on long pants, socks, and jackets again; putting duvets back onto the bed.  And, as I look forward, I'm already missing the snapping cold of Winter, the bare trees, warm drinks, hats and gloves and boots.

I miss the seasons and the friends I've known and the vistas and the ways of all the places I've ever lived.  I realize that I appreciate them all in hindsight so much more than in the times I was experiencing them on a daily basis.  This doesn't mean I was unaware of each place's, or person's beauty and value, but familiarity tends to dull our senses a bit.  Try as we might to stay present and mindful and grateful in each moment, we're not always fully successful in that effort.  Distance, memory, and difference give us a particular frame of reference that allows us a deep appreciation for what has come before.

Sometimes the aching sensitivity and intensity with which I experience Life is a burden and, at other times, it's a gift.  As with all things, there are different aspects we experience on different days and at different times.  We're able to process things differently on different days; we're focused on different things at different times.  Because Life includes all things, no day is the same.  We never know the gifts and/or the sorrows that will knock on our door on any given day.  The vast level of variation we are able to experience in one minute, let alone over longer periods of time, is what makes Life so complicated and interesting.

I'm experiencing Autumn as a memory this year.  I'm reliving all the ways I've loved it in every place I've been during this special time of year.  And, I encourage us all to enjoy wherever we are as deeply as we're able.  To drink it in and absorb it and be grateful for it.  Life is ever-changing, and the fleeting beauty of our days is something to be cherished.  I'm grateful for where I am, I'm grateful for where I've been, and I look forward to wherever Life takes me next.

I Can't Breathe

 "I can't breathe."  These are famous words now.  Words we will never forget, uttered by George Floyd just before his life was taken from him.  He said it for himself and he said it for all of us.  They are words I utter too often these days, in regard to myself.

I have experienced varying levels of asthma since my late twenties.  I'm seventy now, so that's over 50 years of difficult breathing.  The masks we must now wear because of Covid exacerbate my breathing difficulties.  I feel like I'm suffocating all too often.

Energetically, the lungs are affected by grief.  It has not gone unnoticed by me that my buried grief has been expressing itself through my congested lungs for most of my life; that my grief is so overpowering that it inhibits my breathing.

The grief I carry is complicated and many-layered.  I've managed to process some of it, but not enough to free my lungs from the burden they carry.  I might or might not ever manage it in this lifetime.  But, I continue to focus on expanding my awareness into my grief in an effort to see it fully for what it is, accept it, and love it free.  It is a life's work.

Lately, I've been thinking about Covid in regard to collective grief.  Covid is a virus that affects the lungs and stops people from being able to breathe.  "I can't breathe."  We put them on respirators, hoping that a device will be able to bridge the gap between not being able to breathe and being able to breathe on their own.  It works sometimes, but not all the time.  Sometimes the lungs just can't manage it anymore.

We each carry a lot of collective sadness.  We have perpetrated a lot of horror upon each other throughout history.  And, most of the time, life has just continued on without even a small pause to consider what has happened.  Cultures rise and fall, governments come and go, belief systems form and adapt and crumble, and all the while, the sadness just builds underneath it all.  Generations and generations of sadness.  How often has a culture or a government that rose out of horror and blood turned around to acknowledge the devastation left in its wake and to say we're sorry?  We misperceived a situation and overreacted.  We took offense to something and overreacted.  We perpetrated cruelty, pain and death over those who believed differently for centuries.  We thought we were better than those we conquered, ruled, suppressed, and enslaved.  We thought it all belonged to us.  We lacked the ability to care for our fellow human beings and all other life upon this planet.  We wanted to think we were the best.  We wanted to have it all to ourselves.  We wanted others to work for us and do our bidding without being compensated for their efforts.  We wanted to own land, people...everything.  Mine, mine, mine.

The collective shame and grief associated with millennia of aggressive greed and narcissism is a lot for all of us to bear.  It occurred to me that maybe Life gave us a pandemic that affects the lungs as an effective way to release a lot of the grief that has built up within us, all of us.  And, that a virus might be an effective way to affect and upgrade our collective DNA.  We all carry all the grief.  None of us are outside of it.  We've all perpetrated the horror.  None of us are outside of it.  It's in our genes, our DNA.  It's passed on through the generations.  We've been on both sides of the horror.  We've experienced all of it.

It might feel too big to be able to acknowledge and take responsibility for what has gone before and what is happening now.  We question what we can possibly do to affect change, release the sadness, and relieve our continuously weeping wounds.  There is a practice that I've used for many years now that is sublimely simple, yet profoundly effective.  It is called Self-I-Dentity Ho-oponopono.  It comes from Hawaii through a Hawaiian shaman named Mornah Nalamaku Simeona, who is no longer in the body, and through the work carried on by her student, Stanley Haleakala Hew Len, who is still living.  There are books and videos about it, if one is interested; but, I will give the basics of it here, that anyone can use to great benefit.

No matter what is occurring within oneself or within one's surroundings that is disturbing one's peace, sit with that in mind.  Center the self by taking a few focused breaths.  Then, the first statement one says is:  "I love you."  The "I love you" opens a field of love in which the process takes place.  The "I love you" is said to oneself, to whomever or whatever might be disturbing one's peace, to all Life.  It opens the heart.  Sometimes I have to say it a number of times before I feel I can continue to the next step.  The second statement one says is:  "I'm sorry."  The "I'm sorry" is all encompassing.  I'm sorry for anything that exists within me that would be causing this situation, disagreement, ignorance...whatever...all encompassing.  It's how we take responsibility for whatever is happening.  If something didn't exist within us, it would not be able to show itself in our 3D reality.  So, "I'm sorry."  Truly sorry.  Sometimes, at this point of the process, I weep uncontrollably for a while.  I let myself have this release and truly feel the "sorry" before moving on to the next step.  The third statement one says is:  "Please forgive me."  The "Please forgive me" is to oneself, to anyone or anything that one has been blaming, to all of Life.  Please forgive me.  And, the last statement one says is:  "Thank you."  The "Thank you" accepts the process being done and complete.  It gives thanks to oneself, to anyone or anything that one has been blaming, and to all of Life.  Thank you.  All is well.  It is done.  Thank you.

I'm not saying that using this process will reap instant results, although it can.  This process can be done over and over, if need be, until one finds peace.  And, if peace comes after using it once, then so be it.  There is no timeframe that can be superimposed onto it.  Peace comes in its own time.  If you have no resonance with this process, then move on.  You will find something that you will resonate with and that will be effective for you.  We have a bottomless toolbox from which to choose.

No matter what process any of us use to process our pain or help us through difficult times, I would posit that it would be beneficial to all of us if each of us could acquaint ourselves with our sadness and take responsibility for our collective situation.  It's so easy to blame someone or something else for our pain and hardship.  It's easy to blame one man, or one group of people, or one country, or one situation, or one pandemic; but, the blaming won't get us any further down the road.  The blaming will only keep us stuck.  None of us like to see ourselves as guilty, and yet we are all guilty.  We are all innocent and we are all guilty.  We are all things.  We are all capable of great compassion and love.  And, at the same time, we are capable of deep hatred and alienation.  No one is all good or all bad.  We are all wounded.  And, our unaccepted and unloved wounds cause great difficulties for the entire collective.  As we each accept and love ourselves, in spite of and because of everything we carry, we will help the collective to find peace and acceptance as well.  One person at a time.  One step at a time.  I love you.  I'm sorry.  Please forgive me.  Thank you.

The Transcendence of an Exceptional Book

I finished reading "The Garden of Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng this evening.  I read it slowly, until I got close to the end.  It's not the kind of book to be read quickly.  It is a book that wants to be savored, both for the writing itself, and for the story.

Some books transcend the ordinary, and this is one such book.  Both through the language and the story, one feels uplifted by the reading of it.  It is a book that triggers deep thought and that pierces deep emotion.  It is a story of love and memory, of tragedy and healing.  It is a story that has its way with those who read it, in a way that only few books manage.

I wept my way through the last few chapters.  Not because they were sad as much as that they touched my own truth and experience so deeply.  The tears were tears of surrender and recognition.  Tears for myself and tears for all of creation.

Our world is one that holds such extremes of experience.  There are times when my love for the world and the experience we are afforded by our time here is so strong that my being finds it hard to contain.  Reading this book has illicited this deeply loving response from me.  When I reach this place within myself, the love I am filled to overflowing with is unlimited and all inclusive.  I am able to look at the world with total acceptance and gratitude, both for the beauty and the horror.  It is a place within me that is able to see and receive all that life has to offer.  It is a place that is strangely quiet, with no edges or angles, only complete expansiveness.

The book reminds me of all those whom I have loved in my life and the gift each one has been to me.  Those who have gone and those who remain.  Those I have walked away from and those who have walked away from me.  Those who have hurt me and those whom I have hurt.  Those who have given to me and those who have taken from me.  Those who have enriched me and those who have left me empty.  This love extends to everyone I have ever come into contact with and had interaction with, no matter for how long or how briefly.  Each one has contributed to me in ways I have not always understood or been able to receive.  And, my life would be less without each and every one.

A book that takes me to the depths of gratitude and remembrance that this book has taken me is exceptional indeed.  It is not often that we are gifted with a book that transcends the dimensions of life and allows us to access our unlimited nature of being.  This book has done that.  This book has changed my reality.  This book has changed my perspectives and modes of thinking.  This book has lifted me up and helped me to see differently.  This book has left me better for the reading of it.

We forget sometimes how we are able to affect each other.  How what we say to each other is able to either uplift or crush the receiver of our words.  We forget how impactful our actions can be to another.  How we are able to increase them or diminish them with what we do.  We forget the power of our love and our attention.  We forget the impact of small kindnesses.  We forget the scars we are able to inflict upon another due to our carelessness and our selfishness.  We forget the wounds our own unhealed wounds can cause in another.

We are living in a time when many people have forgotten their connection and how their actions and their words are able to affect the entire collective in very hurtful ways.  In such a time, it is of primary importance for those of us who are able to remember our connection to all life, and our ability to lift each other up instead of tearing each other down, to help remind all of those who have forgotten.

It is my dream and my prayer that we are all able to remember how powerful we are and how deeply we affect those around us and the whole collective.  None of us exist in a void.  And, it is my dream and my prayer that through the remembrance of each of us we trigger remembrance and awareness in those who have forgotten.  May we all align with the oneness of all Life and live our days in love and acceptance.  May we each see this Life for the gift that it is and live our days in that knowing.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.     

Peruvian Banana

Today, I ate a banana from Peru.  I'm in France and the banana came all the way here from Peru.  It was perfectly ripe and beautiful.  I was so struck by the miracle of that that I wept.

I'll admit that I'm in a bit of a vulnerable state.  I'm at the end of a particularly difficult migraine episode.  When that is happening, I can't eat, for the most part.  My body won't take in any food, and there are only a few things that I'm able to get down, a banana being one of them.  I haven't had any, and finally felt good enough to go to the store today and get some.  In the store they stood out to me, like someone had dramatically lit them in special light.  But, no, it was just their own internal light shining through.  Beautiful, yellow, ripe bananas.  I stood there speechless while I took in their gorgeousness before picking a bunch to take home.

I'm not always so emotional about my food, but maybe I should be.  I don't always remember to say grace before eating, but I know it makes a difference to do so.  I am so grateful for all the people who grow and transport and sell the delicious food that reaches me and allows me to support my body with nutrients that sustain my life.

I'm fully aware that the bananas that came to me in France from Peru were grown by some corporate farming entity.  And, I'm grateful to that entity.  I do think that corporate farming has gotten too big and out of control, and I know there's a balance in regard to making it work at its best that we haven't reached yet; and, that said, I'm deeply grateful for the food that's grown for the collective of humanity by corporations that have forgotten the fullness of the sacred service they provide and have let greed take over.

We're in a process of the crumbling of the old paradigm.  What we built wasn't working in the highest good for most of us.  And, new systems and ways of doing things that are better for everyone need to be put into place.  But, we don't necessarily need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Some things will need to be created anew from the ground up.  And, some things can be adapted and improved upon while utilizing what's already there.  Corporate farming needs a big overhaul, but there's probably a middle way that will serve us all the best.  And, I think it's probably a good idea to try to follow a middle way in regard to all the changes that must take place in our world in order for us to come back to a way of living that supports the planet and all life upon her.

Grocery stores are miraculous.  Farmer's markets are miraculous.  I can't thank the people who produce, transport, and sell the food most of us eat enough.  And, I'm also very grateful for all the people who grow their own food.  There's not much that's more essential than food production and transportation.  I look forward to the day when all the food is grown organically, and is plentiful, and we collectively make the decision to feed the whole world.  I look forward to the day when starvation is a thing of the past, when no one on the planet ever has to go hungry.

For now, I'm grateful for my beautiful Peruvian banana and all the food that nourishes me.  Next time you eat something, give a moment of thought to what it took for it to be in your hand, or on your fork, and send out a "thank you" to everyone who had anything to do with it.   

The Gift of Acceptance

I'm reading "The Garden of Evening Mists" by Tan Twan Eng, reommended to me by a friend.  Before that, I read "The Gift of Rain," also by Tan Twan Eng, and also recommended to me by the same friend.  These books have touched me deeply and, through the labyrinth of their words, ordered and organized in their particular pattern, and carrying the energetic transmission of their author, have triggered awarenesses in me that are new and revelatory.

In "The Gift of Rain," a couple of sentences uttered by the character of Aunt Yu Mei, stopped me in my tracks:  "Who can look back and truly say all his memories are happy ones?  To have memories, happy or sorrowful, is a blessing, for it shows we have lived our lives without reservation."

As all of us do, I have memories that are painful, shameful, and regrettable.  I have judged these events, and the memories of them, and judged myself for actions taken and decisions made and carried out with less than loving intentions.  I have allowed myself to feel like a victim, to feel helpless and hopeless, and to blame others.  I just couldn't stop myself from judging the past, even though I know it to be destructive.  I've been haunted, limited, and paralyzed by certain memories for my whole life.  Those memories, and my perception and judgment of those events, have entrapped me.  My journey into energetic healing was prompted by my desire to free myself from these entrapments.  I grew through it, expanded through it, gained some relief through it, and gained some acceptance of myself through it, but didn't find the freedom through it that I sought.  The wounds lived on, and the physical reflection of those wounds continued.

What it's taken me most of my life to realize is that we never heal, at least in the way I had thought of healing.  Healing doesn't mean we are able to let something go, to release it, or to move on from it.  Healing, as I see it now, means to accept the wound, to give it space, to love it, to honor it, to incorporate it.  Our acceptance of ourselves, and everything that has happened in our lives, all of it, is the key to peace, which I see as healing.  Acceptance is the gateway to gratitude, which leads to peace.

I've struggled with acceptance.  I've struggled with what it is and with how to do it.   There are things in my life that I just couldn't find acceptance for, until I read the sentences uttered by Aunt Yu Mei above.  Somehow, those sentences managed to slide past my resistance and judgment, and acceptance opened up for me through the grace of those words.  Suddenly, I was filled with gratitude for everything in my life without judgment.  The gratitude just came flooding in, unbidden.  And, thankfully, it has not abated.

There is a line from "The Garden of Evening Mists" that struck me, contributing in the same vein as Aunt Yu Mei's sentences from "The Gift of Rain."  A character is remembering a quote from a poem recited to her by a character no longer living, but which has stuck with her for many years, since the moment of the recitation:  "Though the water has stopped flowing, we still hear the whisper of its name."  And, it made me think about how the whispers of our pasts can be so numerous and so loud, that living in the present is not possible.  Our unaccepted wounds, and the memories of them, refuse to be forgotten and pushed away.  They whisper to us so we won't forget them.  They whisper to us asking for acceptance.  They whisper to us asking for space, to be acknowledged for their contribution to who we are in this now.  Until we are ready and able to hear them, really hear them, and acccept them, we remain prisoner to their whisperings.

We think of memory as being linear, but it might be more helpful if we could allow it to be circular.  The shape of our galaxy, and of our energetic beings, is a tube torus.  It's like a big donut, and the energy cycles through it, never ending.  Each and every experience we've had, throughout all creation, gets added into our energetic field, our tube torus.  We are increased and expanded by everything we experience.  As humans, in this 3D frequency we currently inhabit, we tend to judge experiences as good and bad.  We want to hang on to the "good" ones and forget the "bad" ones.  But, without judgment, everything becomes unburdened experience and expansion, contributing to our growth through our acceptance and inclusion of it.  Memory is the way we value what has happened, in the way that grief is the way we value the loss of what we love.  Memory helps us to be grateful for all that has contributed to the creation of us being who we are.

When humans come to the end of their embodiments, they often seem to focus more and more on their pasts.  If you sit with someone at the end of their time here, they often want to reminisce about their life.  It is a great service to them to listen, to really listen.  By their reminiscense, they are honoring their experiences and the shape of their embodiment.  And, by listening, we are able to give them validation and acceptance.  They are passing on their knowledge and their wisdom through the gift of sharing their memories and, by hearing their memories, we are expanded and increased.  We become recepticles for what should not be lost.  We accept and allow their stories to then live in and through us, to contribute to us and to the whole collective.

The scientist, Nassim Haramein, says that it is memory that creates time.  And that, without memory, there is no time.  That might be true.  But, I think memory exists outside of time.  I think our memories, once accepted and incorporated into our being, always exist in the now.  The core and the essence of our being, the part of us that is eternal Life, is forever increased and expanded by our experiences, and the memory of those experiences is the repository of their value and contributes to our wholeness and the upliftment of all creation.

With true acceptance, forgiveness is not an issue.  Through acceptance, forgiveness happens.  It is a by-product of acceptance.  Acceptance overrides judgment, resentment, and blame.  Acceptance frees us and allows the full flow of Life to move through us unencumbered.  Acceptance brings peace and gratitude.  Acceptance brings understanding and compassion.  Acceptance is inclusive, honoring and loving.  Acceptance opens the space for all the split-off parts of us to come home.  Acceptance happens in the now and is the essence of truth.

When one is at a point where one is able to receive a knowing, that knowing will come to us through whatever means necessary and possible.  Grace uses everything to bless us.  Since all Life is sacred, all Life is a vehicle of and for the Divine.  The vehicles for my ability to finally understand and expand into acceptance were two books recommended by a friend.  It is never too late.  We are never past redemption.  We are never lost.  We are never alone.  Peace and grace are always there.  We are never abandoned.  And, we can open into acceptance in an instant.  One tiny shift in perception and we are there.

Quiet Joy

The demon voices in my head have softened over the years.  Their grooves of influence worn deep, they continue to babble, but their effect is of no real consequence anymore.  I’ve ignored them long enough, while allowing them to continue their litany, that they don’t even expect me to listen at this point.  But, babble they must, and babble they do.  Bla, bla, bla…  It’s like white noise in the background.

For years, the voices in my head that drove me forward ruled my existence.  I didn’t know they weren’t me.  I didn’t know they weren’t true.  I didn’t know I could ignore them.  I didn’t know my own voice, or whose voice I would hear if I did ignore the voices.  Or, would I hear a voice at all?  What would life be like if actual choice could happen?  What would life be like if I was free from their influence?

I just finished reading a book by Bryce Courtenay called “The Power of One.”  It’s a novel set in South Africa during and after the second World War.  It’s about a young man growing up in this time, the influences that shaped him, and how he grew into a man and set himself free of the demons of his past that drove him.  It’s a very well-written book and got me to thinking about the demons and voices that have driven me for much of my life.

The current stage of my life is a simple, quiet one.  I have lots of time alone and plenty of time for reflection.  A peace often comes upon me unbidden, I just sit—or, sometimes walk--and commune with the sounds and sights of my surroundings.  I haven’t always been able to be as present with the immediacy of my days.  It is a gift of grace.  This is not my constant state.  I can still get pulled into the effect of things that take me out of presence.  But, I’m better at being present than I used to be, and I notice it more often than I used to, and I’m grateful for it when it happens.

I’m not a formal meditator.  Meditation, for me, is more a communion with Life wherever I am.  But, this kind of surrender has been traditionally more illusive than it’s become in recent years.  Sinking into Life, instead of running in front of it, is much more familiar territory now.  I no longer bear guilt born of pleasure.  I no longer push myself forward out of some need to feel that I am enough or to matter or to be seen.  These things hold no further ability to drive me.

Today was the first day of daylight savings time in the US, although here in Europe, it won’t happen for another couple of weeks.  But, it felt like Spring today.  The temperature was mild and I opened the door to my terrace and sat and read in my loggia.  I could hear the sounds of cars and motorbikes on the street a few blocks away.  I heard the birds singing and talking to each other.  There was a voice talking over a loudspeaker announcing something of which I had no awareness.  There were clouds in the sky and a breeze blowing through the still bare branches of the mulberry tree in the yard below me.  My cat, Sophie, sat curled up beside me, and gratitude for the peace that enveloped my heart filled me.

Joy has been a very illusive experience in my life for a long time, but it is starting to creep in very subtly.  For so long I had some concept of joy that kept me from it.  I now think joy is a result of presence, that it comes from a surrender into life and the gratitude that is a result of that surrender.  This joy is quiet and warm and fills my empty spaces.  It is not something to strive for, or that is the result of anything I might or might not do.  It’s more about my acceptance of life and what it holds.  It’s about a lack of resistance.

There might come a time when I am moved to change the way I live my life or the place in which I live it.  Life is like that.  Change comes.  But, for now, I am grateful for things exactly the way they are.     

"I Am Not Your Negro"

I just saw the film "I Am Not Your Negro" by Raoul Peck.  It is about James Baldwin and Negros in the United States.  It was inspired by James Baldwin's unfinished novel, "Remember This House," which looked at the issue of race in America through the lives and impact of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  It is a brilliant film, and is a knife to the heart.

This film made me realize how much we are the product of the culture in which we are brought up, the lens we are taught to view life through, the values we are entrained to by our families; how imprinted we are in ways both large and small by our surroundings, what we see and what we hear, what we are encouraged toward or discouraged from.  I do not consider myself a racist.  I was brought up in a liberal family, in a city that was racially diverse, to believe that all people are equal.  I still believe that, but I also realize that, as much as I'd like to deny it, racism rears itself within me.  It's subtle and can still be unconscious and, as an adult, I'm more aware of it and more able to recognize and override it, but it's there.

My father held and practiced the most liberal view between my parents.  My mother had racist views that she mostly tried to hide, but instilled within me none the less.  A whispered word here or there.  A warning given.  An action taken.  Children are very observant, and my mother's behavior affected and shaped me, as did my father's.  A certain fear was instilled, erroneous perspectives handed down, ways of being taught.  I'm a combination of my father's acceptance and liberalism, and my mother's fear and closet racism.

I'm an adopted child and am descended from the Native American Southern Cheyenne tribe.  The pure Native American blood was a few generations back, but my mother at one point admitted to me that she had worried that I would look "like an Indian" when I grew up.  She was afraid that my skin would turn too brown, that my eyes would darken, that my nose would become too prominent, that any number of things she deemed "Indian" would make themselves obvious in my appearance.  How strange to tell your child these things.  How strange to burden a young mind with these types of distinctions.  These concerns from my mother in terms of what I looked like, and therefore how I reflected upon her and who she was, were only the tip of the iceberg in terms of inappropriate things she decided to share with me as I was growing up.  I've often looked back and wondered what she might have been thinking when making the choice to so negatively impact me.  But, I've come to think that it wasn't a conscious decision on her part to inflict damage.  It was just who she was and she didn't realize that some restraint and discretion in terms of what she told me might have been prudent.

There are images in "I Am Not Your Negro" that are painful to see.  I was born in 1950.  I remember what was going on racially in the fifties and sixties.  Memories of injustice and violence will always be with me.  But, it's not all in the past.  The film helps us realize that, as much as we'd like to think we're farther along than we are in terms of racism, it is still very much alive.  The backlash of those who were so threatened by the election of a black President of the United States is being felt right now.  President Obama and President Trump are two ends of the spectrum.  The conservative pendulum has swung back with a vengeance.

The United States is a country built on slavery, racism, greed and genocide.  These are things that can not be denied.  We all carry this legacy in our very DNA.  We've been shaped by it and continue to be shaped by it.  And, in large part, it continues because there is such denial in our culture about these influences.  Awareness is the first step toward change.  And, in order to change the racial, power-over-others, mentality that pervades the United States, we must become aware that it's operating and how it impacts everything.  None of us are innocent.  We're all responsible for the culture of our country.  We're all complicit in how our culture is shaped by what we allow and what we don't, by what we condone and what we punish, by what we encourage and what we discourage.  Each and every one of us must look within and root out the causes of our own contributions to our continuing racist, power-over-others society.

The question James Baldwin says that each of us must ask ourselves is, "Why do we need niggers?"  What does it say about us and our society that it was built on such inequality, such disregard for our fellow humans, such a lack of respect for Life itself?  How did it ever become acceptable for one human to own another?  What makes it possible for one human to perpetrate violence upon another and excuse it due to a difference of skin color...or sexual orientation, or religion, or economic status, or gender, or any number of issues?  The list is long.  Why must we put ourselves above anyone for any reason in order to make ourselves feel better?  Why do we have such a difficult time with those who are different than we are, on any level?  Why is it so hard to accommodate a difference of opinion, or way of life?  What is the fear that makes us want a homogeneous society?  These are some of the questions that are in front of us.  How are we to go forward as a country?  What values are important to us?  Who are we as Americans?  What is it we want for ourselves?

James Baldwin moved to France and lived in Paris for many years.  In the film, he says that by doing so he was able to eliminate the terror of racial violence that he lived with every day on the streets of the United States.  He says that he didn't miss the United States at all.  But, what he did miss was his family, and black culture itself.  And, he was ultimately drawn back to the United States because he felt it was his destiny to be a witness to and document the stories and issues of the racism of the society out of which he came.

I live in France now; not for the same reasons that James Baldwin did.  But, I do understand the freedom from racial violence he experienced while he was here, even though I am not black and can't even begin to know the level of fear he did.  But, when violence is present, it affects people of all races and persuasions.  It is absolutely true that violence to any one of us is violence to all of us.  In a society where violence is as prevalent as it is in the United States, everyone lives in fear.  For some that fear runs deeper than for others.  For some that fear is denied.  But, it is present, and it affects all levels of life.

The United States is in crisis.  Many of our traditional values are at risk; values that have been held so dear they've been written into our Constitution.  Much of what shapes our identity as Americans is in question.  Our present trajectory, which continues to be based in racism, violence and greed, will only create our ultimate destruction; and, due to our global impact, the possible destruction of our planet.  I'm not being dramatic.  According to many scientists of varying disciplines, we have already crossed the threshold of destruction from which there is no return.  But, I remain an optimist.  I still believe in miracles.  I still think it's possible to turn it around.  We just have to decide to do it.  We have to decide what is really important.  We have to decide that our planet and our values are worth what it will take to initiate and sustain the change necessary to pull ourselves back from the brink of destruction and learn to accept each other and work together for the common good.

We are at a choice point that is writ large for each and every one of us.  Racism and violence and a fear of diversity are pieces of the pie.  We've pushed ourselves into a corner where the decisions we make now will not only affect the generations that will come after us, but the very life of the planet herself.  I'm not sure why humans need a crisis in order to change, but here we are.  This is no time to deny or hide or think things can either go on the way they are or go back to what they once were.  No.  This is a time for awareness, responsibility, creativity and change.

The old ways are dying.  New ways are being born.  Old patterns of power, greed and destruction are leaving as those who hold them die and take them off the planet.  Children who are wired for this change are being born and bringing with them new solutions to old problems.  Our society seems to be doing a very good job of trying to suppress the difference and the brilliance of these children, but it is a losing battle because the new Life will prevail upon the old.  There is a lot to be done, and a short time in which to do it, but I remain convinced it's possible.  Humans love the last-minute save.  We love the drama of pulling it all back from the edge.  Well, we've created a doozy for ourselves this time, and the clock is ticking, but I'm convinced we're going to make it.

If you have not seen "I Am Not Your Negro" I would highly recommend watching it.  It's a wonderful, intelligent and thought-provoking work.  It will move you and touch you and challenge you.  Allow yourself to open to all that it triggers within you.  Thanks Raoul Peck.  And, thanks James Baldwin, for all you were and are...wherever you are.  You're still reaching through and teaching us and lifting us up.  On wings of angels, Brother!    

 

Grief

My tears flow freely this day.  It is a gray and rainy day here.  My friend just lost her beloved dog after many close years together.  It has touched my heart and triggered my own sadness and some needed grieving.

Grief and sadness have been my constant companions in this life.  I was born with this shade of gray that has always colored everything, inherited from my mother in whose sadness I gestated.  I used to think that this overlay was something that I could work through, or release, or transform, or transmute, but I no longer think that.  I now realize that it just is what it is.  It gives me an empathy, a compassion, a deep sensitivity that I might not have otherwise.  It has shaped me and informed me and grown me in ways both large and small.

It's an interesting choice to come in and live a life through the lens of sadness and grief.  But, how else to know these feelings intimately?  How else to understand their impact?  How else to have the measure of joy and happiness, than in contrast to sadness and grief?  I have fought the sadness and grief for most of my life, but today I surrender to them.  I let them truly have their way with me.  I let them move and fill me.

What does it mean to be fully human?  I've come to feel that it means fully embracing all the experiences, all the feelings, all the sadness and grief as well as the joy and happiness, all the disappointments and frustrations as well as the victories and successes, it is love and loss, it is the full gamut of gifts that Life can bring and lay at our doorstep.  It might seem counter intuitive to welcome in the sadness and grief, the pain, but life is not complete without it.  When embraced, there is an exquisite sweetness to sadness, grief and pain.  In not denying them, we can open to their gifts.  Gifts of remembrance, of lessons learned, of regret and remorse, of deepening, of expanding, of understanding, of letting go.

I grieve the loss of all those I have loved who are no longer with me, human and otherwise.  I grieve the loss of opportunities not taken.  I grieve decisions made from ignorance and fear.  I grieve mistakes that can not be made right.  I grieve the times my heart was closed and could not be pried open.  I grieve the loss of my country and all that I thought it to be.  I grieve cold-heartedness and cruelty.  I grieve stoicism and endurance that suppress the authenticity of experience and dull its intensity.  I grieve resistance and denial to what is true.  There is so much that deserves to be grieved.  And, it is only in opening the dreaded floodgates to what can feel like overpowering grief, that it is able to have its space and move through and bring its gift of understanding, cleansing and release.

I have no answers this day, only the empty relief of allowed grief.  My system feels spent and oddly quiet.  There is a kind of peace that is starting to extend itself.  I find solace in watching the wind blow the trees out my window, and the birds flying freely within it.  The soft gray light of the afternoon is soothing.  The warmth of the room I sit in cradles me.  The bells tolling in the distance comfort me.  I'm relieved that this day has been given over to what is moving through me.  I'm grateful that nothing calls me to it this day but this grief.  I'm grateful for no distractions.  I'm grateful that I've grown large enough to contain what lives in me and makes me who I am.  I'm grateful for the gift of this day.  I'm grateful for the tears that continue to flow unabated.

More Than Enough

This liminal space between Christmas and New Year feels like a gap in time.  Like I'm between worlds.  If you're aware of numerology, you probably know that 2016 was a "9" year, which means an ending.  And, 2017 is a "1" year, which is a new beginning.  But, it doesn't feel like a normal ending and beginning, it feels like more than that, it has a deeper gravitas to it; not so much like the end of another year, but the end of an era.

I'm feeling some sadness for what has gone, for what will never be the same again, for what is irretrievable; and, some excitement for what's coming, the unknown, the unforeseeable.  I'm grateful for this week of quiet interlude in which to rest and reflect.  Uzes is very tranquil and fewer than usual amounts of people walk the streets.  Most of the restaurants and lots of the shops are closed now.  It's cold and clear and the wind is blowing.  The trees are bare and everything seems like its hibernating.  This is the Uzes I love.

The older I get, the more I love the winter.  When I was young, I loved the sun, the heat and the activity of summer.  Fall has always been my most favorite time of year, but summer held great resonance.  Now, it's fall and winter that speak to me the most.  I enjoy the cold, in a way I didn't when I was younger.  I like the internal nature of winter.  The starkness of it.  The essential bareness.  There is a rhythm of life and seasons that I'm connecting into here that I've been missing for a long, long time.  Modern life, in all its relentlessness, can blind us to the natural rhythms of life.  To find those rhythms, to feel them and flow with them is a great gift.

This move to a new country has required a certain amount of focus and study...new language, new ways of doing things, new people, new everything...and, this much newness takes a lot of energy.  This week I have no classes or anything that has to be done, which is a wonderful relief.  I've spent time with friends and allowed myself to just sit and enjoy the open space of not having to do anything or be anywhere.  I've started to focus some energy in a new direction in terms of my living space.  For those of you who know me well, to say that it feels like time to move again will come as no surprise.  It hasn't been my plan, and it still might not happen, but I'm looking.  After a year in my current space, as much as I love it, things have been revealed that either need to be addressed and amended, or a move needs to happen.  I'm not sure which it will be yet, but looking at some other housing options has been interesting.  I'll stay in Uzes, but am looking for quieter and cooler.

I love to bake.  It's a very relaxing and soothing thing to do.  I just took the last few chocolate snowball cookies out of the oven to cool and the apartment smells delicious.  Laundry is going through its cycles in the washing/drying machine, the sound of which is punctuating the afternoon.  I'm looking forward to cleaning the floor...yes, looking forward to it...weird, I know.  There are days I can't think about the floor, but today I'm looking forward to interacting with it.  Today, I'm feeling grateful to this floor that supports me so beautifully in my life here, and I want it to be clean and shining.  The dust bunnies try to hide themselves in the corners, but they aren't safe for long.

The soft light of mid-winter angles in the windows and shines patterns of brightness on the wall where no art but the art of life makes it mark.  For the first time in many years, my walls remain blank white canvases.  The open space of them invites contemplation and rest.  Sophie, my most beloved cat companion, sleeps on her warm electrical pad that I've recently bought her and slipped into her favorite cat bed on the sofa.  She's barely been off of it since it arrived.  It's so satisfying to give someone a gift they enjoy so much, cat or human.  Today is one of those days when I'm very aware of the simple richness of my life.  Today is a day when gratitude has taken over and pushed everything else aside.  Today my heart is at peace.  Today I'm aware that all is well.  Today the absolute brilliance of Life in all its forms shines upon me, and it's good.  It's enough.  It's more than enough.  

The Power of Art

One never knows the vehicle that will transport one to another awareness, or deeper awareness, or release, or transcendental moment.  Tonight, for me, it was a book called "A Sudden Light" by Garth Stein.

I was in the process of reading when I suddenly felt free.  Free, as in unhinged from the normal strictures of my being.  Free from efforting, or trying to be anything, or accomplish anything, or heal anything.  Just free.  I'm in the residual energy of this moment of striking clarity, and so I'm struggling a bit for words.  Because this moment was outside of words.  It was as if the title of the book became a reality for me.  In this moment, in this light, everything was okay.  All the anxiety slipped away.  All the concerns, all the thoughts, all the veils let go.  Everything opened up into this deep expansiveness.  I had no limits.  I was everything and I was nothing.  I just was.

It was like some gear shifted into place and the lock clicked open...in one second.  And, all I was doing was reading.  Yet, I don't want to discount what I was reading or its power.  The character in the book was having a transcendent moment, and it's as if the book transmitted that moment to me.  I have read other books that are transmissions of energy and/or information, although it's more unusual for this type of transmission to be embedded into a novel.  But, that's just it.  We never know where the keys are.  You decide to read a book and your reality changes.  Such is the power of art.  In this case, the art of writing that is so connected, so deeply felt, so authentic, that it has the ability to touch you and change you at a cellular level.

Another work of art that has changed me recently, releasing me from a wound so deep I thought I might never be free of it, is a painting that I've been in relationship with for most of the last year.  When I first saw it, it pierced my heart and brought me to tears.  The vibrant life it held reminded me of the life I had stifled within myself for so long.  I'd go in to the gallery to visit it, even before I bought it, and was always reduced to tears when I saw it.  After I bought it, when I'd go in to make a payment on it, because I'd put it on layaway, and the gallery owner would offer to bring it out to show it to me, I often would turn her down because I knew I would be reduced to tearful incoherence.

While the painting was waiting for me, a friend who reminded me of the person in my past who I felt had inflicted the wound I was unable to resolve, triggered an awareness within me that allowed me to forgive that person.  And, that allowed me to forgive myself for blaming them for something that wasn't their fault, but that had pushed me into a limitation of my own making that had lasted for years.  A pain that had been so all-encompassing that it had shaped my life, suddenly opened up and lifted off.  I was free.  And, the person I had held responsible for my pain and perceived loss for decades was free as well.

After this long-time pain moved through, I no longer cried when I saw my painting.  It no longer pushed me into my pain, because the pain was no longer there.  Now, when I look at my painting, it only gives me joy.  It makes me happy.  When I see the life in it, I feel the life in me.  And, I'm grateful to the painting, and to the artist who painted it, and to all art everywhere.

We're going through a global transformation that will push us to the limit of our endurance.  But, it's an alchemy we must be forged through.  We are in the birth canal, using all our strength to push ourselves into a new way of being.  And, we're going to be in this process for a while, so we're going to have to get used to the pressure.  We're literally reshaping our reality and creating a new world.  No small task, but this is what we came for.  And, one of the things that will help us through it is art.

Art reminds us that there is beauty when we've lost sight of it.  Art lifts us up and helps us see the best that Life has to offer.  Art lets us express the deepest parts of ourselves in ways that heal not only the artist, but the ones who receive the art as well.  Art crosses all boundaries.  It pays no attention to nations or races or religions or to any of the things that separate us.  Art brings us together, opens our hearts and connects us in ways that nothing else can.  It's amazing the power that a song or piece of music has to transport us and inspire us.  Sometimes, all it takes is a look at a photograph or a painting to lift us out of despair.  A few lines of a poem or a good book can touch our soul.

I'm grateful for every person who continues to create art and express themselves in a way that lifts us all up.  I'm grateful that artists are able to imagine and create in ways that are able to set us all free.  I'm grateful that artists can see into the essence of things and bring them into being in the world in a way that benefits us all.  I'm grateful to every person who lives their life as a connected whole, whose life is art itself.  Each and every person who is able to live life in this way is an inspiration to all of us and lifts us all up by their example.

I know there's a lot going on in the world right now that is hard to make sense of.  But, there is also beauty and kindness and compassion and understanding.  There is love.  And, there is love incarnate, which is art, however it shows up...in a person, in a painting, in a song, in a book, in a dance, in a look, in a touch, in a leaf, in a snowflake, in a wave.  The ways of love and art are endless.  Love and art are always expressing.  And, all we have to do is open to receive and perceive them.

My heart has been breaking over and over and over, day after day after day recently.  It has been pummeled and cracked and worn away and smashed into mush.  But, maybe that's what I needed to be able to open it, to be able to let the hardened parts of it be chipped away, to be able to feel the pain that has kept it closed for too long.  An open heart, and the inherent vulnerability that comes with it, is not comfortable when one is used to numerous layers of hardened protection.  But, for Life to be able to flow through us unobstructed, the protection has to go at some point.  Life has been brutally cracking me open lately, and I'm on my knees in gratitude.  Sometimes it's "A Sudden Light," and sometimes it's a long-time-coming light, but however the light comes to us is exactly the way we need it.  Hallelujah.            

And Now, It Begins

I found out this morning that Trump had won the presidential election in the US through an email from a friend.  I immediately felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.  I got suddenly nauseous as adrenaline moved through my system.  I wanted to deny that it was the truth.  I wanted to think that my friend was mistaken.  We love our delusions.  I didn't want to admit that the bubble had burst.  Burst completely wide open.  But, no matter what I'd like to hold on to, life as we've known it is done.  We have been launched into a period of transformation and transmutation that would seem to be the Armageddon that has been talked about for eons.  We have reached the final confrontation of light versus dark.  It is now in stark relief.  But, that's the point.  We are shocked.  The blinders have been ripped off.  The shadow just punched us in the face...hard.

As the initial rush of adrenaline fades and moves through my system, sadness takes over and I allow myself to cry tears of bitter disappointment.  I didn't think Brexit could happen.  And, I didn't think Trump could be elected President.  But, the rose-colored glasses had to come off at some point.  Right now, I'm feeling a bit daunted by what I know is going to be required of us in the four years to come.  I'll get over myself.

I'm on the older side of things.  I've been digging deep my whole life, working to transform myself and transmute my shadows.  I'm tired.  But, I know I can only allow myself the briefest bit of rest.  I've been feeling that I'm only just now starting to really come into my own.  I've been feeling that I'm only just now starting to walk into the deeper purpose for which I came to this planet at this time.  I've been feeling grateful for all the personal, internal work I've done previous to this moment in the knowing that it has prepared me for what will be required of me in the now.  And yet, the shock of today has not moved through yet.  I've not stabilized from the stunning realization of a Trump presidency and what that means for all of us.  But, tomorrow is another day.

What I know, beneath the tiredness and the shock, is that I will rise to the occasion.  We all will.  We will all recover ourselves and stabilize.  We will pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.  We will join together.  We will do what needs to be done.  The best in all of us will prevail.  We're going to be called upon to rise up in ways we could never have imagined.  And, we will rise.  We're going to be called upon to be strong.  And, we will be strong.  We're going to be pushed to the limits of our stamina and focus, but we will dig deep and roll up our sleeves and do what we came here to do.  For many of us, this is what we've been preparing for.  We're just entering the birth canal.  It's going to take us four years to get through it, and we're going to be asked to be more than we ever thought we could be, but we're going to birth ourselves into something better and brighter as we come out on the other side.  Breathe.

Difficult times bring out the best in us.  It is in difficult times that we are called upon to rise up and be the best that we can be.  It is in difficult times that we find our strength and our courage.  It is in difficult times that we find out who we are and what we're made of.  We are heading into such difficult times.  It's going to take everything we have to turn this crazy runaway train around, but we will do it.  We are up to the task.  Yes.  We are.

As I read on Facebook recently--and I apologize for not remembering who said it--we are in an Evolution, not a Revolution.  Things must change, but not in the way they've changed before.  This time, we must walk the path of the heart.  Violence is not what we want.  Confrontation and resistance is not going to get it done.  This time, it's the feminine joined with the masculine.  This time it's going to look different than anything we've seen throughout our historical past.  Trump, and everyone who voted for him, are standing in the mirror of our shadow so that we can see it in undeniable form.  We have to see it so that we can own all of what is being imaged for us.  So that we can accept it within ourselves.  So that we can love it free and integrate it into our wholeness.  As Matt Licata would say, we need to slow down, slow way down, and get deeply, quietly curious about what's showing itself to us.

Our nation is soul sick because we've been in denial for too long.  It needs all the love we can muster so that we can see our way forward.  This is not a time of division and separation and isolation.  This is a time of coming together and union and compassion.  And, we are going to find our way.  We are going to reshape things and find solutions that work for everyone.  We are going to work even harder to protect our planet, because we have to.  I don't know why humans seem to need to be pushed to the brink before we jump into action and pull ourselves back.  Maybe it's our seeming love of drama and the excitement of a last minute save.  But, whatever the reason, we're here.  And, we're going to pull it out.

Take a day to mourn and wallow around and scream and rage.  Let it all move through.  And, try not to project it onto everyone and everything around you.  But, tomorrow, we need you.  We need your heart.  We need your prayers.  We need your good deeds.  We need your strength.  We need your perseverance.  We need your truth.  We need your engagement.  We need you to show up in the best way possible.  How each of us is going to be asked to show up will vary.  But, we'll know it when we see it.  Some of us will speak out and say the things that others are not able to say.  Some of us will notice things that not everyone sees.  Some of us will pray without ceasing and be the container for all that needs to happen.  Some of us will be the feet on the ground.  Some of us will protect the children and animals.  Some of us will run for office.  There are endless ways that each and every one of us will be inspired to act, and all of us will merge together to bring about the world we know it's possible to create.  Together.

We've received the invitation.  Show up.  Rise up.  Lift up.  We can do this.  This is what we came for.  This is our work.  All of us are needed.  All is well.

The Sacred Service of Standing Rock

Those of us who came into the planet with what we now refer to as The Baby Boom, I call The Transition Team.  But, I'm now realizing that we were only the first of what will end up being a number of Transition Teams.  We came in to shake things up, to shake them loose, to initiate change, to crack it open.  I was 18 in 1968 and can only say how grateful I am that I got to be on the planet at that time and be old enough to be involved in the initiation of change that we brought about.

For my generation, there were extremes of expression that contributed to the cracks in the system we needed to create.  There were the militant ones who were very vocal, and sometimes violent, but whose voices were so needed in the equation.  We needed those who were able to express the anger and repression that we'd collectively experienced for eons.  We needed to hear the issues spoken out loud that were up for all of us.  We needed those who channeled the collective anger and got things moving.  And then, there was the other end of the equation with the "hippie" movement that initiated a big shove toward the idea that love was the answer and that it was important to "get back to the garden."  As active as some of my generation have been, it's now time for a new Transition Team to shake things up in a different way.  And, apart from shaking things up, the now generation also has solutions to bring to the table that weren't able to be put into play previously.  Because of what we did, they're ahead of where we started and will take us further forward in the direction we need to go collectively.

Standing Rock is part of this process.  My 3X great grandfather was Ochinee, a sub-chief of the Southern Cheyenne tribe, and he was killed in the massacre at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864.  I'm very activated by what's going on at Standing Rock right now.  Not only because I feel my DNA stirring, but because of the deep wound it brings up for all of us in terms of how we've collectively treated Native Americans since the beginning of our country.  The USA is founded on the genocide of Native Americans...because the immigrants wanted what they had; wanted to live where they lived; wanted to own land which, to the Native Americans, was impossible to own; and, who were driven by greed and wanted to profit from the land instead of care for it.  Those who came to this continent pushed the Native Americans back as they marched forward from the East Coast to the West Coast, agreed to treaties they never honored, and slaughtered and marginalized the native people.  These issues are not gone.  All of this is alive and continuing today and being brought into the collective consciousness through the events at Standing Rock.

I think there is a collective agreement in place with all the souls involved at Standing Rock to play out these issues for the benefit of the awareness it brings to all of us.  There are centuries of abuse and trauma being enacted yet again, only this time on a world stage with global awareness.  Only this time, we're all involved.  Only this time, we get to choose to handle it differently.  Even President Obama, in his detachment and concern for the monied interests, is playing his part.  The choice he's made to "let it all play out over the next couple of weeks" is made from the same mindset that the powers that be have had in regard to those on the front lines in conflict after conflict.  The idea that the harm that is happening to those involved is less important than rerouting a pipeline that should never have been built is the mindset we're in the process of changing.

Things have to be shaken up.  Some people need to yell and confront.  Some people need to pray and act as containers.  Some people need to sweat and smudge and purify.  Everyone at Standing Rock, on both sides, is fulfilling a very sacred purpose for all of us.  These roles must be played out for all of us to see so we can come into awareness about the issues and energetics we still carry that these events are embodying.  No matter who you relate to in this conflict, or where you are in how you feel about it, we're all being healed by it in the long run.  No matter how little things look like they're moving around it, they are moving.  Minds are being affected, hearts are being affected.  Some people, on the military side of the equation, have quit their jobs because they are refusing to perpetrate atrocities in the name of greed.  Movement is happening.

Vibrationally, things need to get stirred up.  This type of event, such as Standing Rock, starts the vibrational resonance that builds and results in real and deep change.  As upsetting as it can be...and, believe me, I'm one of those people who's intensely upset and affected by what's going on there...it's performing an important service.  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are also serving us.  I'm the last person who wants Donald Trump as president, but he's bringing up and initiating vibrational change in regard to a number of issues that would otherwise have stayed suppressed.  Life has chosen a very good change agent.  Because of Donald Trump's inability to act in a civilized manner, he's been a continuous well of richness in terms of all the issues he's activated.  Because of him, women are joining forces and saying "no more."  Because of him, we're looking at our election process and seeing that reforms are sorely needed.  Because of him, we're looking at armament, financials, violence, racism, xenophobia, bullying, irresponsibility and obstructionism in government, and the list goes on.

Hillary Clinton is also serving in another way.  She's bringing up issues of integrity, female power, greed, corporate investment, using political office for personal gain, and again, the list goes on.  Both of our current candidates are perfect for the time, as uncomfortable as they both make us in different ways.  Without either of them, we wouldn't have the chance we are currently being given to look at all the issues they both bring to the fore.  For those who pray, endless prayers are needed for all the players now on the world stage of awakening, on both sides of whatever situation you might be aware of or involved in.

It is my feeling that we have some years ahead of us to become aware of the issues that have been sleeping and to wake them up and move through them.  But, I feel that in about 4 years, we'll start to see things tip in a way that will allow us all to move forward differently.  We have to be strong in this interim period of transition.  Those of us who can, need to hold the pole of where we're headed collectively and form a compassionate container for all the change that needs to and will be taking place.  It is not an easy task to balance all the chaos and confusion that this type of monumental collective change requires.  It is not an easy task to witness and be present for all the horror that is taking place.  But, the darkness has to be seen.  The darkness has to be owned, integrated, accepted and loved free.  This is exactly what so many of us came into the planet to do.  This is our work.  We were born to do this.

I have personally, just within the last week, finally come into an awareness of things I've been holding and hiding from and suppressing for most of my life.  Things are moving that I wasn't sure were ever going to show themselves in a way I could understand and own.  My heart is opening in ways I could only have hoped for previously, because it is getting broken day after day after day.  I'm getting worn down.  The type of pounding we've been experiencing, in the election and in numerous other worldwide events, is necessary in order to wear us down, to wear away the resistance we have to all of what we need to see.  Even though it's not easy or comfortable or pleasant to confront, all the issues we see in the world exist in each one of us personally.  They're different for each of us.  We all get triggered by different things.  We're all involved in or aware of different issues and situations.  But, for all of us, in whatever way it's showing up, we're being given a golden opportunity to move through a huge backlog of misperceptions, constrictions, resistances and limitations.  We're being given an opportunity to leap forward in a quantum way.  And, even though this type of vast and substantial change might be challenging, it is a gift of immense proportion.

What's needed?  Notice where you're triggered and what's being brought up for review.  Notice what you're feeling drawn to in terms of where you feel you might be of benefit.  Witness what's happening with compassion for all involved.  Do whatever you feel drawn to do to help balance the energies at play.  Be present to what's happening without numbing to it.  Pray, do ceremony, create rituals, form groups, discuss, be curious, engage.  Each of us will have to discover the ways that work best for us.  Each of us will be called upon to confront our own issues in our own ways.  Each of us will change and transform in ways we can't even imagine right now.  Step up when you're called to and in whatever way you're called to do it.

The Native Americans at Standing Rock are serving as a wonderful example in terms of how they are dealing with the violence and imperialism and greed they are being faced with.  They are being peaceful and relying on prayer.  They are dealing with the issues at play in a deeply sacred way.  They are embodying principles for all of us to be inspired by and to follow.  They are sacrificing themselves on the altar of collective change and awakening.  Honor them for their amazing service.  Honor them for their personal sacrifice.  Honor them for what they've held for all of us for time immemorial.  Honor them for their strength and courage.  And, honor the perpetrators of violence as well, because without that pole being held, this mirror couldn't exist.

We're going to see amazing and wondrous change in the next few years.  We're going to be called upon to step up in ways that many of us won't see coming.  To use a term that Glennon Doyle Melton coined, we're all "Love Warriors."  We came in to play this out.  We came in to heal ourselves and our planet.  It might look dark right now, but it's true that it always looks darkest right before a breakthrough.  We're on our way to a breakthrough.  And, we're going to make it.  We've taken everything to the brink, but we're not going to go over.  We're going to pull it back.  We just need to keep going.  Hang in there.  Trust the process.  All is well.

Time to Turn it Around

I just watched a documentary on YouTube called "The Burning Times."  It's an important film for anyone who would like to understand how the misogynistic society we now live in came to be.  And, the first step toward changing something, is to understand it as deeply as possible.  Ignorance is not bliss.  Ignorance and denial only perpetuate the continuance of ignorance and denial.  It's time to climb out of that rabbit hole.

Many of us lament the current state of things and wonder how we got here.  There are reasons, and all of them are based in fear.  Fear of the thing that is unknown or different.  Fear of an idea.  Fear of being wrong.  Fear of not having enough.  The list goes on and on.  Fear has managed to gain quite a strong foothold.

The mystical, from which Christianity arose, and from which all organized religion has arisen, has been desired and feared and misunderstood by the majority.  Those who have mystical experiences and then try to explain them to others, have often misconstrued and mistranslated such events.  Or, the consciousness of the one who has the mystical experience, is different enough from those around them that, no matter the language they choose to use, they are bound to be misunderstood.  We can not bottle mysticism, it is individual to each of us in ways that are very personal.  We can only teach or share that which is of personal value to us, which doesn't mean that it will be of value to another, or that another will be able to understand it or put it into practice and get the same result that we have gotten.  And, real mysticism is alive and growing and changing all the time.  Real mysticism is of the now and connected into Life as we live it day by day.

Those who want what the mystic has had--a connection to and experience of the Divine--will often attempt to organize the experience into steps that are achievable for others to follow.  We try to make rules for the mystical.  Ten Steps to Happiness, The Five Things That Will Bring You Peace, Keys to Success, etc...these are not real book or video titles, they are titles I've made up to make a point, that we're still trying to capsulize what is essentially an individual experience.  And, once enough people believe our version of "how to get there," then anyone who tries another way, or believes another way, is often made wrong.  Such is the way organized religions begin.

We're coming up to the time of Samhain, All Hallows Eve, or Halloween as most of us now call it.  Many will choose to pretend to be witches when they dress themselves for Halloween.  Many children will be frightened, yet again, by people costumed as witches, pretending to cast evil spells on those around them.  This interpretation of a witch comes out of the Inquisition.  It is misogynistic, and creates a negative connotation of women based out of fear of women's inherent connection to the Earth and to Life.  And, however innocently, continues fear and misogyny for generation after generation.

Witches were, historically, those who were connected to the Earth and to the Divine.  They understood the laws of nature.  They used herbs for healing.  They birthed babies and tended the sick.  They comforted and served those of their tribes.  They were wise and were honored for their wisdom.  At the time when witches were honored as wise members of the tribe, the tribe was more connected to the Earth in general and followed the seasons, and lived by the natural cycles of Life.  Their rituals and traditions arose out of the organic celebration and honoring of their connection to the life they were living.  Sacredness was connected to all of Life.

Christianity has historically brought about more death and destruction than possibly any other belief system.  As it has been co-opted by those who want power over others, who are afraid of belief systems different from their own, and who seem to want absolute control over those within their domain, it has turned into a vehicle of limitation and abuse, especially of the feminine.  Yes, there are those, in spite of everything, who have found the Divine through Christianity.  And, we have much to be thankful for because of Christianity and what it has wrought.  But, it is necessary to look at and accept the wholeness of its influence, which includes many horrific things done in its name and the name of the one who inspired it.

As we need to see and accept all aspects of ourselves in order to be whole and free human beings, so we also need to see and accept all aspects of our institutions and belief systems.  In the same way that personal shadows control us, historical and institutional shadows control us in a larger sense.  If we are not able to look at the horror of our past, and accept and understand what has caused us to be truly evil to one another, then the horrific behavior will continue.  What are the fears and misconceptions that drive us to abuse and kill each other today?  Why, when we know better, do we continue to abuse our Earth and all of the species who inhabit her?  Why are some people driven by a lust of power and greed that is insatiable?  The answers to these questions lie within each of us and are individual.  But, they also lie within our societies and our collective histories, and must be addressed by all of us together.

How do we do this?  We do it by being open to each other and communicating honestly.  We do it by being curious of our differences and by being desirous to learn from them.  We do it by finding our own authenticity and then by sharing it through our vulnerability and willingness to reveal ourselves to each other.  We do it by lifting each other up instead of trying to control each other.  We do it by listening to each other and honoring each others' experience and perceptions.  We do it by agreeing to disagree and by allowing each other to live freely.  We do it by celebrating Life and its seasons instead of trying to control them and frightening each other because of it.  We do it by walking into the unknown and expanding ourselves instead of shutting down in the face of it.  We do it by being polite with each other and treating each other with respect.  We do it by remembering that we are all one and that we each carry the hearts of our brothers and sisters in our hands.  We do it by each act of kindness, understanding and compassion we are able to give each other in every moment.

We've all seen and experienced enough horror to last many generations.  It's time to say no more.  It's time to say enough to fear and death and destruction.  It's time to turn this runaway train around and take back the connection and sanctity of our lives.  Let's do what we can, each and every one of us, so that we can look at our world and not lament "how did we get here?"  But, so that we can look at our world and be proud of what we've created.

Our governments, our corporations, our institutions and belief systems are us.  They are not separate from us.  Things are the way they are because we've made them that way, or allowed them to be that way.  It's up to each one of us to create the world we want.  It's time to stop complaining and get busy.  It's time to grow up and accept responsibility.  It's time to stop blaming others and expecting someone else to do what needs to be done.  It has obviously taken the state of things the way they are to wake us up.  But, now we've got to get out of bed and get moving.  We are on the abyss.  No one will save us but ourselves.  We can do this.  We were born for this.  It is our destiny.      

A Great Love Affair

I listened to the recording of a channeling of Martin Luther King, Jr. from March 2007 by Michele Mayama of www.lightsmith.com yesterday.  I found it most inspiring.  His gift of power, authenticity, and inspiration are still alive through the words he speaks even though he's no longer embodied on this planet.

There were two things he said in this recording that especially touched me.  The first was that the dynamic of slavery exists throughout the cosmos.  It's not something that humans on Earth thought up, it's something that was brought here and has been practiced in many other places and in many other life systems.  The second was that Earth was born out of a great love affair!

In regard to the first point, of slavery not being unique to Earth, I realized the far-reaching importance of healing that dynamic.  Because, by healing it here, and fully realizing the oneness of all Life, and the equality of all souls, and choosing against the enslavement of any being--human or otherwise--we would contribute to the healing of slavery throughout the cosmos.

But, it was in regard to the second point, that Earth was born out of a great love affair, that truly rocked my world.  Many of us acknowledge and are aware of the fact that Earth, or Gaia as many of us call her, is a living being.  But, I had not taken that awareness farther into the wholeness of what it means in the context of our larger reality.

Two beings, two energies--or maybe more than two?--came together in great love; and the Life that came out of that communion was Gaia.  Why Life would be created any differently in the larger sense than it is in the human sense had just never occurred to me.  But, it brought home to me in a way that I had not realized before, the oneness of all Life.  It's difficult to articulate the impact this statement had on me.  When I heard it, I had to stop the recording and just sit with the statement.  I sobbed as I processed it into the deeper levels of my being.  I'm still processing it.  I might have more to say about it later, but for now, I wanted to share it with everyone.

I heard the Martin Luther King, Jr. channeling 9 years ago, when it was first recorded, but I don't remember hearing this statement about love at that time.  Obviously, I wasn't ready to receive it then.  And, I'm most grateful to have been given the chance to listen to the recording again now, so that I could receive the gift that this statement of love carries for me.

Our bodies are small and human.  But, other bodies are large and the size of a planet, or a solar system, or a galaxy, or something else of which we have no concept.  And, Life loves, whatever its body looks like and however it takes its expression.  And, more Life comes out of great love.  Love births Life.  And, Life is the expression of love.  There can be no Life without love, because love is the essence of Life.  I need to come up with new vocabulary to express what has opened for me.  Just as we need to create new systems by which we live together on Gaia, we need to create new words to express our continuously expanding awareness.

The Earth was born out of a great love affair.  Yes.  And, that love surrounds her still, and those of us who live in, on and with her.  She is made of love, as are we.  It is the essence of who we are.  It is what breathes us and lives us and expresses through us.  Love is not an action.   Love is.

 

Let Freedom Reign

Today is Independence Day in the United States.  A day in which we celebrate the reality and concept of freedom.

Our country was formed in an effort to allow people to be able to practice their religion and spiritual beliefs without fear of persecution.  Those who started this new country wanted to be sovereign over themselves and not under the rule of a person or class that had more and wielded power over others, often not in their best interests.  In order to obtain the freedom that was so highly desired, it was eventually necessary to break away from the structure of society that had ruled up until that point.

The United States, by taking its freedom from the United Kingdom, said "no" to the class system, based in birth.  A system that prohibited anyone born outside of it to rise to their highest potential, and to be accepted for who they were and not to whom they were born.  This was a radical departure.  Although one that had to happen to break the chain of power over others.

It is specifically because of the fact that anyone in the United States is able to rise to their highest potential in freedom, that has inspired so many all over the globe.  And, it is my fervent hope that the United States is able to remain a beacon for freedom and creativity and open-hearted acceptance of all those who come to her desiring a better life for themselves and their families.

Many of us seem to have forgotten the principles upon which our nation was founded...freedom of choice and the equality of all men and women.  We are a nation of immigrants, and our diversity has been one of our strengths.  A large number of us have grown afraid and want to limit the very diversity that has made us strong.  We have started to believe in lack and limitation; in the idea that there's not enough to go around.  But, in reality, there is more than enough for everyone.

Right now, things are out of balance.  A small percentage of people at the top of the economic chain have managed to gain control of the lion's share of resources.  And, in the process, have convinced those from whom they've taken their advantage that they're too small and powerless to fight back.  We have a capitalist system based in slavery of the masses that continues to this day.

Democracy and capitalism have been valuable tools for a certain time.  But, times are changing and new systems and ways of being need to be called forth.  The old systems are corrupt and crumbling, and it is up to us to create new ones that work better.  We must not be afraid of the change that is needed in order to maintain our freedom and the ability to manifest our highest potential.  We can not give ourselves and our country and our lives over to those who have the most money, or the most power.  It is time to remember the values upon which our nation was founded and fulfill them once again.  We must be the Phoenix and rise from the ashes of the past and what is clearly not working any longer.

Freedom is a big responsibility.  Taking full responsibility for ourselves and our creations is not as easy as allowing others to have power over us, but it is much more satisfying and fulfilling.  It is much more exciting.  The time of power over others is done.  We are now in the time of creating together, collectively.  We must remember that each soul is precious and has a valuable contribution to make, and create a society that allows that contribution to be realized and received.  We must embody the foundations and concepts upon which our nation was built, and reclaim the freedom that is the right of all life on this planet.

We are becoming a global community.  There is no denying this or resisting it.  It is the reality.  It is what we've created.  Now is the time to start realizing that there are no borders and boundaries other than the ones we make.  We are all members of this global community of Earth.  There is enough for all of us, more than enough.  If all the money was being used and circulated for the benefit of all the people, prosperity and opportunity would exist for everyone.  The answers lie in the collective contributions of all of us.  There are solutions, right now, to all the problems we are facing.  And, we are facing problems of such global magnitude that it will take all of us together to solve them, but the solutions are there.

I was devastated by the Brexit vote of the UK to leave the EU.   It is a last gasp of fear and contraction that will negatively affect so many.  But, it is also a wake-up call to the rest of us to not allow fear to be the controlling factor.  We are in a time when borders need to be opening and free movement on a global scale needs to be implemented.  We need to transform our identities within a national structure to expand into a global structure.  We need to acknowledge and accept all Life, in its myriad forms, as part of our community.  We need to value and support each other in being the best we can be.  We can not shrink from what is before us and retreat into fear.  We must rise to meet the challenges we are facing together.

We can do this.  We came here to do this.  By transforming our current out-dated system of "capitalism based in slavery"* to one that supports and encourages each of us to be our best, we will have healed a deep wound that exists throughout the cosmos.  Let's rise together and let freedom reign!

*The words in quotes were taken from a channeling of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Michele Mayama from March of 2007 and which can be found on www.lightsmith.com