December, 2014

Something is finally breaking open inside me. It has been cooking for 2 weeks.  Or more accurately, my soul has been nudging to break through, like a bird hatching from an egg.  How exactly, I don’t know yet. But it shows up as a deeper level of feeling and sensing. Feeling too much it seems, feeling raw, vulnerable and emotional.

I’ve slowed down, way down, these last couple of months, leaving my job at the shop, back home after family visits, and now these last two weeks of practically nothing of my old routine. At least on the outer. Well, not nothing exactly, just not the same. The house is in good shape, taxes are paid, the bathroom has been redecorated, and I’ve done some painting. And resting and reading novels and watching movies. Private client sessions and a breathwork. Not exactly nothing, but a big change in pace.

There is a deepening and a softening. Two days ago I tripped over some dog toys and smashed my little toe into the door jam. I did some energy work and took arnica. Not too bad now really, but serving to further slow me down and notice. It has taken this long to stop the internal spinning. I haven’t been unconscious during this time—at least not completely. There is always an awareness, a noticing, as I watched myself doing a bit of this and that, checking in with Source/Spirit/Higher Self for the highest choice in each moment. So I wasn’t blindly filling the time with busy work. It was all pretty much done. Which, I must say, feels really good. Everything is in good order, long put off projects are finally completed. There is a feeling, a sense of a completion of something. A new phase is about to begin. But when, and what, and where, and how? All the ego questions, but with a deeper sense behind the questions—noticing the shift.

The answer is—it shows up when all is ready. And the first step is inner readiness. So back to the breaking open. There is a realization now of a barrier within. Another layer of something somewhere around the heart that is ready to peel back and dissolve. And like the proverbial flower and butterfly, it cannot be rushed. It takes time, stillness and attention.  The courage to notice and feel.  As more and more of the outer activities fall away, the attention is drawn to finer and finer awareness.

It is important to know and remember always, in every moment, that nothing is ever really wrong. Uncomfortable maybe, but never wrong. I’ve had to check on that a lot lately because the normal routine isn’t there now.   But no matter what, everything is useful if we notice and watch. Just watch. Get quieter and soften into the experience of whatever the moment holds. Noticing even what seems to be emptiness, nothingness. Breathing into the heart space and surrendering the mind to the heart. Gratitude for it all, gratitude for presence. It actually feels good physically to do this.

So what lies beneath this next layer? That will unfold. Right now, I just notice how guarded my heart has been. And that’s not wrong. We are all conditioned by our life experiences to protect, to guard, to be wary. We are evolving now. As we dare to open more deeply to our own selves, to become ever more tender, loving and compassionate with ourselves, we notice the pain buried deep inside.   It’s as if our pain had to hide from our own judgment of it. And when we stop judging ourselves, suppressed layers dare to peek out to be dissolved in acceptance and love.  I have found that it is amazing how quickly these feelings dissipate when we stop resisting, allow them to show up and then just breath.

The last couple of weeks, I have been noticing and feeling a lot of really deep pain, loss and upheaval in those around me—family, friends, clients. I can usually not take it inside. As an intuitive and an empath, I work with this a lot, and I know how to take care of myself. But it seemed overwhelming this time—feeling too much, too deeply, wanting to cry and not really knowing why, because in truth my life is really quite amazing.   Perhaps that’s why I bashed my foot. It crumpled me to the floor in tears. I somehow knew the tears were not just for the foot pain. It was too deep. And so as I sit and rest, I allow myself to notice, to open, to feel.
And what’s beyond this unknown layer? More light, greater depth and openness, a greater capacity for peace, love and joy, and a deeper ability to show up for ourselves, loved ones, clients and the world.  It's exciting!

I often recall a quote attributed to Bishop Irenaeus in the first century: The glory of God is a human fully alive. It’s risky to surrender into the unknown, the breaking open, but therein lies what our hearts and souls long for: the freedom to embrace life and love ever more fully.

Hmmm—What I Learned Digging in the Dirt

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I’ve been spending lots of time lately playing in my new garden, fussing around the new plants, arranging stepping stones, adding a few crystals, checking on the progress of the tomatoes, squash and peppers.  (Today I picked the first squash and some basil which I will enjoy for lunch!). 

Sometimes I think I’m just wasting time, or distracting myself from what I should be doing.  Ahem, excuse me?  Should? Should?  Who says?  I have to laugh when I find myself doing, saying and thinking the very things I counsel my clients to give up doing.  Well, at least noticing and laughing are steps in the right direction!

So, what about enjoying gardening is not real, authentic life?  What is it in my conditioning that says I should (there’s that word again) be doing something productive, task oriented, etc?  You know what I mean.  Honestly, sometimes I think (there’s that word too) that whatever I’m doing, the conditioned ego mind just finds fault with it, because that’s what it does.  So whatever I’m doing, thinking, feeling at the moment, it should be something else.

Does anyone else have that program running, or am I the only one, and am seriously nuts?  If so, let me know.  You know what they say about insanity—everyone else can see it but you. 

In truth, that program has been called out.  My mother, of all people—God bless her, she has worked herself so hard all these years, a slave of the shoulds—said one day “Don’t Should on yourself”.

I should make a plaque of that.  And that word should be erased from the vocabulary!

So much of the session work I do includes given folks permission to listen to their hearts and their longings:  validating those longings as information from the small, still voice of their own soul within.  Many times clients will come into a reading asking to hear what they should be doing, whether it’s about a job, a relationship, a move.  I ask them—what do you want to do?  What is the deepest longing here?  What is your heart telling you? Listen deeply within to the cries of your heart and soul.

We are so conditioned by culture, religion, family, tradition to devalue our own inner voice, assume that whatever we think, feel, desire, long for is probably wrong, and that there is probably something else that is our guidance.  Usually we assume that our ‘guidance’ has surely to be something more difficult, more sacrificial, more martyr like.  Surely our inner guidance couldn’t be as simple as listening to the desires of our heart, could it? 

The other big program that runs us is being our own worst critics.  In the New Testament, and indeed in every religious tradition, we are told to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Honestly, if most of us treated our neighbors, talked to or about our neighbors the way we talk to and treat ourselves, we’d be put in jail, or at least brought up on serious charges! 

What is your inner voice?  The critic?  The nag? The one who always makes whatever you are doing, thinking, feeling at the moment wrong? 

Ask yourself this question:  Do you speak to yourself the way you would speak to your best friend?

Whenever you are tempted to should on yourself, picture someone close to you, and imagine you are speaking to them, and speak to yourself the same way.  Would you invalidate their inner torment the way you invalidate your own?  See if that doesn’t shift that program for you. 

Now, I’m not saying that I don’t sometimes use the garden or other things as a diversion or a distraction, but, ultimately, so what?  Notice it, acknowledge it, and understand that maybe a distraction is just what is needed at the moment.  Shift the energy from the shoulds,  enter deeply and fully into whatever you are doing at the moment—surrendering  fully into what is being felt, what you are desiring to get from the distraction and notice it all.  Allow yourself to feel all of what you are feeling.—without judgment.  Enjoy the moment, whatever it is.  Notice yourself enjoying it.  Until you don’t, and then you take a breath, and move on. 

You see, some of what I was thinking I should be doing, instead of distracting myself playing in the dirt,  is more writing and sharing.  Well, guess what?  After I finished putzing around outside this morning, I came in, sat  down and wrote this.  

Hmm--so what if I started to catch myself using the S-word, and changed it to Want, and then really owned it?  Really listened to it?  What could happen?  Wow.  How free my heart feels!  I hope this blesses you as I am blessed by the experience of it!

Summer is fire season in Arizona and, living here, we always hope it won’t be a bad one.  Right now, there is a huge fire burning in Oak Creek Canyon, just a few miles north of Sedona.

I notice that whenever there is a big forest fire like there is now, there is tremendous energy in the air.  Last year there was a fire in Yarnell in which 22 firefighters lost their lives.  I remember feeling that, as I was breathing the smoky air, I was actually breathing in their ashes, their released energies, as well as the energies of the trees and all other living things being consumed by the fire.  They were truly part of me.  I feel that sense now—being part of the whole organism we call Life. 

We humans are so accustomed to managing our environments—our homes, lifestyles, health, controlling the heat and humidity in our homes and our vehicles.  When these big natural events crop up, it is an opportunity to remember who and what we are:  nano-specks in the big picture of the cosmos, of Creation, of the Everything.  And yet, we matter.  It all matters. 

I’ve stepped into experiencing the elements as living beings as well, feeling the presence of fire, wind, water and earth as Life Force,  living expressions of Divine Presence.  And so for the last two days, I’ve felt humbled by this roaring of the earth and compelled to stop and listen.  To be still and listen to what it is saying—the need to clear, to balance to cleanse, to renew.  To trust.

The last two days I happened to be building a new flower and vegetable garden in my back yard.  It has been a vision since I moved into this house a couple of years ago, and now it is a reality.  Yesterday afternoon as I sat with an iced coffee looking at this creation, I thought about the juxtaposition of destruction and creation.  Forest fires destroy, and make way for the new. 

As I sent some prayers for the land, and for those lives affected by this event,  I wanted to make some offering.  Perhaps it was some primordial desire to calm the fire gods rising up out of an ancient memory still encoded in my DNA.   I thought of how we are so clumsy and clueless about so many things.  We take so much for granted—our homes, our lives, things like TV, cars, grocery stores.  We are so plugged into ‘normal’, stomping all over everything and everyone to appease our need for ‘normal.’ 

I do a lot of work with this in my healing sessions.  It has been my own journey of healing and expansion this last years—letting go of ‘normal’ to make way for greater possibilities.  Our souls are wired this way, just like the Universe.  This is that stirring up, that dissatisfaction, that discomfort—it is our souls calling us out of settling for ‘normal’, and daring us into a greater experience of Life and Beauty and Creation.  But it requires us to step through the fear, to let go of  the drama that wants to rise up, and to breath deeply into the possibilities contained in the smoke and ashes of what has always been.  Letting go and trusting.

So I felt moved to simply dedicate my tiny little flower bed, with its new little plants,  to the planet as an offering of beauty and creation in the face of this destruction. 

Yes, fire is a natural process, and life goes in cycles.  And I pray for the safety of those affected directly.  These events are a reminder to look at a bigger picture, to  listen, and to trust in the Ultimate Benevolence, to breathe in the smoke and ashes of what was, bow and humbly say Yes.