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

-->

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.   

Breathing Bliss

This is a segment of some writing that came through a couple of mornings ago, as i sat with my morning cup, enjoying the still cool early hours, tuning in to Divine Presence.  Notice that it contains a helpful exercise for relaxing the mind.  It actually feels very nice, so I recommend it highly!

"Beloved, just sit and enjoy the music, the birds, the stillness.  You were wondering what questions or issues to bring up with us during this time of dialogue.  And in that moment when you stopped and heard the soft music, it stirred your heart and we connected and became one in complete love, acceptance and being completely comfortable just being present to each other.  Feel this.  Feel it deeply.  For while it simply feels ‘good’, it is in truth the most powerful force in the universe.  

Remember—Nothing can withstand the power of a healed heart.  And this feeling, this sensation of complete letting down, simply being, feeling the fullness of your heart, the complete calm—that, Beloved, is true healing.  You are indeed feeling the sublime sensation of oneness with ‘us’, with yourself, all that you are,  All That Is.  

Relax even more deeply into this now.  Feel the subtle tensions, which were below the surface of your awareness.  And let them go.  Speak peace to your body, your mind.  And let it reverberate throughout the universes, clearing the energetic grid of you and all your connections through all space, time, universes and dimensions.  

Bringing all into unity and harmony and greater freedom, peace and openness. 

For as you are able to relax into this sensation, you open yourself indeed to greater possibility than you, in your small frame of reference , can imagine.  And this, dear one, is where the great cosmic adventure of your soul lies.  Not in the known, the safe, but in the thrill of surrender.  

What if you let go beyond your ability to let go?  As you continue to say yes, and continue stopping your efforts to move forward, all opens to you.  So the surrender is very deep now.  Sinking deeper into yourself.  Do you see how the mind wants to challenge that?  Do you feel how your brain wants to hold on? 

 You have begin a practice with your clients of having them visualize their brains sinking down into the bottom of their skulls, coming ‘unglued’ from the top of their skulls.  And you see how this produces a physical sensation of relaxation.  This is the brain surrendering.  And now feel that sensation continue down the brain stem all the way down to the tailbone.  And now feel as it spreads effortlessly throughout your entire body, as all the nerves flood with fresh energy and vitality—information and light. 

And so, as you allow your brain to surrender in this way, your very physical being becomes an antenna for the highest vibrations of light and information from ever higher sources, and frequencies. So the efficiency of this vehicle of your human structure changes—in truth, and on a very ‘real’ cellular level.  

You have heard that humans are shifting from a carbon based DNA structure to crystalline based.  As cellular matter compresses through heat, pressure and time, organic matter becomes carbon, and with further compression, heat, and time becomes diamonds.  And so it is with you as humans.  Those of you who have been doing your inner work of noticing, clearing, releasing, surrendering and opening, are transforming your very physicality into something unheard of in your recorded history, especially on the scale in which it is happening now. "

I encourage you to take this message with you throughout the day and practice relaxing your brain, feel the sensation of Divine Light flowing throughout your body, transforming cells, balancing body chemistry, clearing your DNA, healing, renewing and refreshing you!  Enjoy!

New Original Painting

This is a painting I completed a few months ago, and is part of my Masters Degree project in Shamanic Intuitional Practices which I received from Venus Rising University.  I've included the writing piece I did about this painting, the process of creating it, and what I observed through the process.

The painting, entitled Shaman's Cave, is a gift to my dear friend and mentor, Linda Star Wolf, in gratitude for her teaching, support and friendship.

 

This painting is an example of taking a less than satisfactory work from its dark place in the back of the closet and looking at it with new eyes, fresh energy and a fresh perspective, and then finding that the painting takes off in its own direction.  I originally relegated it to the “maybe I’ll take this up later” pile because of dull colors and an awkward composition.  I brought it out again recently, brightened up the palette and added some additional elements to the design in an effort to redeem it. 

I usually have difficulty naming my paintings.  I just paint them, and only name them if they are being shown, and something needs to be on the card.  This one was different.  I saw from the beginning it was a shaman’s cave.  The interior of the cave was in darkness—kind of a black hole in the center of the picture, which artistically wasn’t desirable.  As I worked the texture and the color, standing back to look at the effect, I noticed two eyes emerging, in perfect placement. 

The “walls” of the cave became her headdress; she became a shaman goddess.  The darkness in the depths of the cave became light.  Color, form and features appeared.  And, as so often happens, she became me.  The cave is within me.  The inner shaman emerged. The painting took form in its own time, as the artist was ready to be the instrument of its emergence into form.  In the same way our own inner shaman appears out of the dullness and awkwardness into the fullness of light and beauty that is its destiny.  

The Spiral Journey-Once More Around

Just before the arrival of 2012 I moved into a sweet little house in Sedona. It was the completion of a cycle that had begun more than a year before, when I had moved out of my first home in Sedona.  It was an unbelievable journey that included a bout with breast cancer, camping out with friends in guest rooms and on sofas—even living in a camping trailer for a while. 

This little adventure took me from the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, to the beaches of Kauai and included completing the training to become an ordained Shamanic Minister, certified Shamanic Breathwork Facilitator, earning an MA in Shamanic Intuitional Practices and a PhD in Shamanic Psychospiritual Studies. It also took me to depths and heights of myself I didn't know existed.

Finally I ended up where I began—back in my beloved red rocks of Sedona. Where I began, but not—meaning I’m not the same. Life is a spiral, not a straight line. So, as I took that year-plus turn around this spiral of life, I arrived back at the same spot, but from a higher perspective, wiser yet humbler, stripped of much I thought was essential, freer, more open, lighter, and a lot more courageous.

I’m far from the only one experiencing bizarre life rearrangements. However, I will say, that as a good Scorpio and 4 on the Enneagram, I’m pretty much wired to take things to extremes and be a bit of a drama queen.

But seriously, at every turn I see and hear about lives in upheaval. Aspects of life we have so taken for granted are shifting, being lost, shaken up, disappearing. We are being challenged to our very cores to step into these upheavals, to let go of so much that is familiar, and recognize and trust that in the letting go, we are being ushered into places of greater freedom and limitlessness. All those parts of our lives we thought we couldn’t live without—when we dare to let go, we find we can expand into something more—more free, more flexible, more courageous.

It’s a lot like the story of Moses and the children of Israel when they were being prompted (nudged by the hand of God) by decidedly uncomfortable circumstances in Egypt to launch out into the unknown of a “promised land.” We so often hold on to situations, circumstances and relationships that are less than ideal, but are comfortable because of their familiarity, when our souls have something more for us.

I’m learning a lot about the brain these days, and there is a definite physiological component to staying with the familiar, even when it is uncomfortable. We become addicted to the familiar, to the particular cocktail of neurotransmitters that releases in our brains around patterns of behavior, circumstances and relationships, even when those patterns no longer serve our highest good, our growth and evolution.

So all of that—both the spiritual and the scientific- is what I fall back on when my own circumstances are shaken, when life takes a turn that is decidedly not on my wish list. I’m grateful for the teachers who have shown me the tools that allow me to see the good, to breathe, to surrender and to trust. And I can now say I am grateful for the circumstances that have allowed me to move from an intellectual understanding to a gut level, life on the line, experiential knowing.

One such teacher phoned me recently, inquiring about my journey of healing breast cancer. The dreaded C-word had struck in her close family, and she needed to know what I did, how I handled it, the healers I’d worked with and, how I was now—was it all still working for me. She is someone whose wisdom, training and teaching have inspired and informed me personally, and in my own writing and teaching.  In fact, it was much of her teaching that enabled me to handle the cancer the way I did.  So no matter who we are, how much we know, we are all taking our turn in going deeper into release, trust, surrender and growth. I was grateful that my experience could serve.

There is another Old Testament story I remember and refer to a lot: during one of the battles, Moses was instructed by the Lord that the Israelites would prevail  so long as he held his staff up over his head. Of course, Moses' arms grew weary, and each time he wavered and his arms started to droop, the battle would swing toward the enemy. The story is that his sister Miriam and brother Aaron stood on either side of him, and helped him hold up his arms.

They could not take over his job for him; he had to do his work. But they could stand with him and support him as he did what he was called to do.

So it is with us. As our family members and friends step into their own unique life experiences of learning, surrender, growth and transformation, we stand with them, lending strength and compassion as they in turn do their divine work.

One more OT reference comes to mind. When I began my own spiritual journey, I took with me a verse from Jeremiah: I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans for good and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. I’ve held on to that. So far, so good. As I sit typing this in my lovely office, surrounded once again by beloved belongings, in the cozy tranquility of my new home, healthy, happy, freer and oh so grateful, all I can say is Thank You—to the Divine, and to all who stood with me as I did the work of this last year and made one more turn around the spiral of life.

What’s a Good Catholic Girl like You Doing in a Place like This?

Last week I was ordained a Shamanic Minister. When I told my mother she said, “Wow, from Catholic to Shaman, that’s really something.” Yes, it is something. And while I don’t pretend to come close to the title of Shaman, part of this path is awakening the “inner shaman”—not really so different from the Holy Spirit, or the kingdom of heaven Jesus spoke of. And it’s about helping others awaken to their own inner shaman/healer/counselor/teacher.

Part of the ordination ceremony was to write a Statement of Intent for my ministry. I’d like to share an excerpt with you. It’s a bit longer than usual, but hopefully you’ll read it to the end.

On a much earlier segment of this life path, I was a charismatic Christian. A group of like-hearted seekers, perennially suspect by ministers and church elders, we diligently studied the Bible and applied it to our own lives. When Jesus said “Greater things than these will you do, for I go to the Father”, we took it literally. We simply did what the Bible said: laid hands on the sick, cast out demons, saw miracles happen in answer to our prayers of faith. We told mountains to move, and they did. When I became disillusioned with the form of Christianity practiced in churches, I walked away from all of it. I had not yet found the Divine outside that form. When I left the church, and much of my spiritual practice, I did so deliberately. I told God: I want the truth of You. I am sick of following this path or that path, only to be disappointed in what I find there. If you are real, if any of this is true, show me.

I took two verses from the Amplified Bible with me. One, from Jeremiah—“ If you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by you.” And the other from Hebrews, talking about the 40 year wandering in the wilderness: Because they did not have an “experimental faith”. So, I challenged God. I had an experimental faith. And for ten years I wandered in the dark. When I moved to Arizona, I had nearly destroyed my back, was on 2 antidepressants, several anti-inflammatory meds, and morphine for pain. I wandered into a Tai-Chi center, discovered energy, meditation, and God. I bumped into God while stumbling around in pain and darkness.

I’ve been on a superhighway of learning and transformation since that day. What I learned in the early bible study days has come around full circle in a much deeper and fuller way. And I’ve seen and made my own this Golden Thread of Truth that runs through all the great spiritual teachings

All that is to say, that this ordination, is a culmination of the journey. Now, to take all the “stuff” I’ve collected along the way, and with the blessing of my teachers, and my community, alchemically transmute it to healers gold.

My conviction is that we are evolving into a new kind of human –from Homo Sapiens to Homo Spiritus, to borrow a phrase from David Hawkins. As we evolve, we change the species, the planet, the cosmos. Just by doing our own work, just by tending to our own evolution. It is also my understanding and conviction that our evolution into the Oneness of our Divine Source, of necessity includes all of us—all the bits we’d rather leave behind—the ugly, the shameful, the hurtful, the uncomfortable, the wounded; past selves, aspects of us that exist on multiple dimensions simultaneously, our future selves. We, all the parts of me, become One, and One with All That is.

Through the work I’ve done with the Venus Rising Association for Transformation, as well as a lifetime of inner work, I’ve reclaimed much of that lost and abandoned soul territory. And while I’m far from finished, there is in my being immeasurably more peace and wholeness now than ever before. And it is for this that the world is crying. And so it is to this that I am called to speak, teach and most importantly, to live.

Thanks to divine grace, and so many teachers along the way, I’ve stepped into much more of who and what I really am, and, to a much greater degree, out of a limited, fearful, self-sabotaging life picture. As I step more fully into my own healing, and into the experiential knowledge of myself as a limitless spirit being, I am being recognized and sought out by others as a teacher, mentor, healer and guide. This ordination provides a framework and a platform from which I can better fill these callings, and step into an even greater expression of the package known in this lifetime as Meredith Star Raven Davis.