Who I Am

Who I am is the possibility of Creativity Expressed!

In one of the Landmark courses, the Advanced Course, participants have an opportunity to decide what they'd like to bring into their lives, into existence. Examples include the possibilities of being love, fun, leadership, joy, inspiration and so on.

I chose creativity expressed. Originally, I thought that choice was specifically about my trying to get MY creativity expressed. Books would finally get written, I'd blog more, I'd finally paint something and hang it on my wall. MY creativity expressed.

Over the course of the last week, I've gotten to know this possibility a little better. We snuggle up together and it whispers it's deepest hopes and dreams to me. Who I am is the Possibility of Creativity Expressed.

That's Creativity with a capital "C". And God said, "Let there be..." God created. Just go there with me for a minute: "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created them." Genesis 1:27.

As humans we have this incredible capacity to create. The obvious stuff are the artistic expressions--poetry, paintings, sculpture. But every conversation, every moment, every version of reality to which we subscribe is likewise our creation. Too bad, that it's usually done on autopilot.

Imagine creating our lives, our experiences, our world deliberately and purposefully. Creativity Expressed.

Who I am is the Possibility of Creativity Expressed.

Transformation...ongoing

Finally, I am starting to get it. Between my Landmark courses, conversations with old friends and the daily process of processing living with an attitude of marvel and wonder, I am starting to be ok with me. The real me that I've hidden under all those warm, friendly behaviors that were designed to make sure I was tolerated with the least amount of interference or undesirable attention.

I post so little because I fear so much. Sure, I'm busy, too. But mostly the reason it takes so long to add entries here is because I am always wanting to edit and sanitize to assure I've controlled the impression left. So I think, anyway. I fear being judged inadequate, flaky, weird, unacceptable, daft. And yet, people who are tempted to judge me that way will do so no matter how well I edit. I wrap my ideas in cellophane and think I'm keeping secrets.

And as much as I all those things, I am also each of their opposites. And, on top of that, a whole host of other things and their opposites. Complicated, complex being.

Time to move on from fear. In the past I've tried to come up with some central theme around which my handful of readers--friends, family and fellow healers--might find acceptable and predictable and thereby be enticed to revisit. Yep, I spent a lot of useless time trying to figure out what kinds of posts should be placed here.

Transformation. That's really the theme that has always been true. The only impediment to claiming it has been my need to share only the things that let me look good as I saw it. Challenges resolved instead of challenges ongoing.

Flaky!!! I started this blog writing about my experiences with Reiki and Crystals and the fantastic ways my life changed for the better. And then, blogs about my passion for writing. And so on and so on. It felt so inconsistent. And yet, the consistency was present and obvious to everyone but me. Transformation.

This is notice that my blogs will be transforming. I won't even predict into what. Let's see what happens.

Financial Opportunities

From today's LA Times:
"With the S&P 500 index down 52% from its peak, it would have to rise 108% just to recoup its losses."

Time is on our side. After the Great Depression, stock values eventually multiplied by the tens. I'm not taking anything out of the stock market. Nope. Leave it all there. By the time I'm seventy or eighty, I'll be super-wealthy!

The article ended:
"The mood is that 'the stock market only has one direction now, and that's lower...Why buy today if you can buy it cheaper tomorrow."

Sounds like a plan. When do the tomorrow's end and that other, always better, future begin?

Transformation, Landmark Education

It is amazing.

On my way to work this morning, I called and left a voicemail for a friend noting that I feel like a different person each day. I wake up and I'm not the same person I was the day before. Almost two weeks ago I took Landmark Education's Advanced Course. I'd gotten fantastic insights and results after taking their Forum. To say that I'd been looking forward to the Advanced Course would be an understatement.

They promised it would offer an opportunity to see your life differently, to break free of old patterns that weren't serving you and all the other usual benefits promulgated by self-help books, seminars and events. And they delivered.

New ways of being are showing up in so many areas. All of them wondrous, marvelous and miraculous. All of them catching me by surprise. It's like all my default settings got reset to something closer to powerful and further from resigned.

Not to give away their process or curriculum, but the course helps you identify a habitual go-to stance developed as a child in response to something unpleasant. It was a response that suited and served a little child trying to defend itself and survive in world not fully understood. Basically, you uncover your ego's main point-of-view.

I'd go into details about my particular go-to stance in the world and the experiences I suspect are at its root, but that would take three entries right there. Suffice it to say that somewhere along the way, sometime in early childhood, I learned to have the attitude "I don't have to" in response to anything unpleasant or potentially threatening. If I might fail, be rejected or found out as someone who doesn't truly belong, then my automatic ego response would kick in--more reaction than response. In the tone of a frustrated three-year-old: "I don't have to!!!" Picture the arms crossed forcefully, a foot stomp and pout as the words are screeched out.

What is fabulous, just amazing, is that having identified that unconscious fall-back ego attitude, I now have the ability to thank it for sharing and get on with whatever action I turly desire, freed from the constraints of what others will think or whether the action helps me fit in, belong and get along.

If you haven't done their course, it's hard to explain. I'll try. You know that voice in your head that drones on and on when there's something you don't really want to do? Imagine hearing it and knowing body, mind and soul that it is an automatic response and not you actually thinking. For example, I needed to attend to my budgeting and had been putting it off for quite a while. I hadn't been getting 10% into charities like I want because I'd been too busy indulging my whims. I needed to take an honest look at what lifestyle choices I can and cannot afford if I want to both save money and give the 10% that I believe blesses my life.

I woke up at 5:14am Monday morning. The old me would have stayed under the covers till 5:55am when the alarm went off. Being wide awake and fully rested doesn't trump "I don't have to" on most days. But this past Monday morning, I heard a little whisper say, "You could have a breakthrough right now." I got up, got my stuff organized and created the budget and financial goals I'd been putting off for months and months.

That can sound pretty basic, even simple, unimpressive and a bit shy of miraculous and amazing. Yet, for me, it was miraculous. My commitment came before my go-to ego-driven "I don't have to". Since the course, it's happening at work, around the house. I take more risks, too. I don't mind being told no or trying something and failing. It's so powerful!

Of course, it is also heady. I'm squeezing more into each day. I'm interacting with friends and family more frequently, less the loner persona that served my "I don't have to" act.

The result of this "success" is that I'm also a little off-balance. I'm me, but I'm a me I don't know very well.

Landmark is about transformation. I've been transformed.

I look forward each new day to getting to know a new me, a more powerful me than the day before.

Bee-ing

I remember being afraid of bees when I was a kid. I know for a fact that one bumble bee got a great laugh as it chased me down the street. It knew what it was doing, knew I was scared out of my mind, and I'm certain it went back to the other bees with a story about a little pigtailed kid who thought it could sting her.

Thirty-something years later, me and the whole bee community are on better terms. In fact, now that I'm clearer on how important they are to our entire food chain, I love them. With all the talk of the disappearing honey bees, whenever I see one, I get excited.

This morning I was on a conference call while I walked my dog. For some reason doing two things at once made me more attentive than usual to little details I normally overlook when I walk Chocolate. At one point, I observed a dead spider on the ground and actually bent a little closer to check out what kind it was. Not that I know anything about the various types of spiders beyond their look, but intuitively I get some sense of them.

Later I happened to glance down and saw a bee. It was wiggling its little body and seemed to be doing a bit poorly. Just following my gut, I leaned down and extended a finger to its bottom half and sent it a little Reiki. It wriggled a little more. I got up and walked away.

A few seconds later, about twenty feet from where I'd barely touched it, the most beautiful thing happpened. He buzzed me. The bee came close enough to buzz right inside my ear and then flew off at a right angle. Maybe I too recently saw the Bee movie, but in that instant I intuitively understood it came close to say thanks. Before I processed it consciously, I sent off a telepathic "no problem" in reply. My heart was full.

Real or imagined, I love feeling and believing that the smallest gestures are grand in impact.

A Brand New Sei...Sei He Ki

When I began my Reiki experiences two years ago, I did as I was told. I did my daily self-treatments every day for the first twenty-one days. Then, not so much. Then again before and after Reiki II and so on. Back in April I was reading Abundance through Reiki and again got in the habit of daily self-treatments. Why do we stop? I guess that's like asking why we aren't "perfect" in the conventionally rigid sense of the word.

(For those readers who haven't read my Reiki stuff, see the favorites and click on the That Cat stories and others in that time period. In short, Reiki is a healing energy most commonly associated with its use in hospitals and spas as an alternative healing therapy. My blog is for a bunch of different audiences, so if you're not into all that alternative stuff, click around to find my usual rants about writing.)

It's kinda like being in the habit of drinking water daily and eating your vegetables and you feel great. But then, there's sweets, fried foods, overeating, a little less water. And after a while, we ask "Why aren't I feeling as optimal as before?"

Well, for me there was another factor, as well. After a bout with some negative energy months back, I saw my own energy healer and she reminded me the importance of cleaning, clearing and sealing after each Reiki session. I get sloppy. I do Reiki here and there on this person and that or for places and situations. It's a very informal practice and so I slack off on the formalaties--like cleaning, clearing and sealing when I'm done.

Basically, my healer suggested I'd left the door open. Evidently, negative energy doesn't wait for an invitation. I wasn't sticking to the routine and it was costing me. Being a wannabe perfectionist, I can easily get the attitude that, "Well, if I'm gonna do it not-so-well, better I don't do it at all." If I was allowing the negative energy I was supposedly clearing to latch on and hang around, then better I just leave it sit around like stale air. Leave it and just move along out of its reach. A bit inconsistent with whole notion of using our healing techniques to be a blessing to ourselves and others.

Sure enough, after a while, I missed that healthy feeling. I've already explored Pranic Healing and TeraMai Seichem Reiki. They have their pluses, that's for sure. But I like the simplicity and effectiveness of basic Reiki. There are at least another 100 flavors of Reiki that purport to increase one's healing powers. Yet, every fiber in my being said that I already had everything I needed with the basic Reiki and their four symbols.

I successfully fought off the urge to dump hundreds or thousands of dollars for a new flavor, when all I really wanted was plain old feels-good, tastes-good and does a perfect job vanilla ice cream.

I returned to doing the self-treatments at night. But then I'd get nice and sleepy and well, back to where we started, I wouldn't particularly feel like doing the elaborate rituals for cleaning-clearing and sealing.

All that to say, I was praying for a simpler way.

Last week I took a moment to relax after walking my dog at one of the huge regional parks. It was a beautiful, clear day, about 80 degrees. It felt like being on a hike in the woods, except for the houses across the street. It was the perfect scene for a little Reiki.

And that's when the symbol, shown above and below, popped into my consciousness. There were some old ideas hanging around in my aura. Just bad habits of thought and expectation. Several small versions of that symbol went to the places in my aura where old energy was caked and lodged. The zig-zag part zapped it out of place and the two semi circles lifted it out, up and into the light.

When I inquired intuitively, I understood the sybmol to be my answer to a quick easy cleanse and clear after doing Reiki. Just use a larger version of same about my entire aura and voila, negative debris taken to the light for transformation. Like the twice sliding hand slap that says "well that's that and it's done".

Being a Leo with a healthy ego, I immediately imagined that I'd received some new symbol from the ethers. Yes, I even contemplated whether I should get a trademark like all the other "inventors" of healing symbols do. Then I decided to actually draw it out, not just see it in my mind. Turned out it was awfully similar to writing Sei He Ki.

Diane Stein's Essential Reiki gives the usual explanation of the uses of Sei He Ki. Additionally, "It can be used for protection and purification, to clear negative energy, to release spirit attachments... I was not taught these uses, and believe they are no longer generally known."

That helped explain it for me.


I'd be curious to know what anyone who uses the Reiki symbols thinks. Have you seen this version anywhere? I'm sure I'm not the first person to become privy to it.

Speaking of Dreams

I've noted once or twice that I want to move to a Caribbean island, yes? I've also lamented my desire for security and my being very keen on continuing to contribute to my current pension system.

And for my birthday...last week a friend of mine shared her intention to go teach in Europe over the next few years. In fact, she'd shared this with me and another teacher over lunch a few months ago. After moving just two years ago to a teaching gig with great pay, circumstances have her back in the job market again. This time, she's considering all her options. Instead of chasing the money, she's going after her truest desires. So, she's applying for gigs overseas.

I remarked that it sounded fantastic and that I marveled at her ability to give up adding more years into the teacher pension system. We're decades in to one of the few pensions with a half-decent chance of surviving the economic upheaval.

She went on to say that she wasn't giving up a thing. The international school program she'll go through let's her keep adding up the years of credit to our same system.

Tears came to my eyes. I sat down my rootbeer to compose myself. You'd think I'd been told I was the winner of one billion dollars. No, not a million, not a hundred million. I was beyond choked up.

The single biggest obstacle to an immediate relocation to the islands was washed aside in one sentence. That was the day after I signed up for the Landmark Forum. That was the day after hearing that life has a funny way of responding to our commitment to our future, that for a lot of people, the moment they commit to the workshop, new possibilities start appearing before they even sit down for the first session. In the prior blog, I mention being spontaneous. I signed up for the workshop on a Wednesday evening. I had lunch with this friend on Thursday. I attended the three-day workshop that Friday. Today is a week later.

I just went to the international school site to see where they have sites--US Virgin Islands, Cuba, Cayman Islands, St. Kitts to name the ones I saw first.

When people have asked which island do you want to move to, I never know. I can tell you which I've been to that I liked, and which I didn't like so much. Loved Providenciales, Turks and Caicos, loved Grenada. Didn't like St. Thomas--too American, too tourist-driven.

Within the last week, as I've mentioned this new possibility for making my dreams come true sooner than later to anyone who'll listen, I've heard time and again that many people who get into this only stay at a given location for a couple years and then move someplace new. Imagine: I start in the Caymans, I do a stint on St. Kitts. Five or ten years later, I'm completely clear on which location feels most like home. Or maybe I come right back to my home here in Southern California feeling complete, feeling like I've had the experiences I needed.

The best part about it all. Unlike years past, when I might have jumped right in, I'm willing to give it due consideration. Actually, I think the truth is that I don't want to move in Fall 2009. The earliest I'd want to relocate is Fall 2010. Options, options.

And one more note on the way things have shifted for me. On the last night of the seminar, a guy sitting in front of me turns around and says, "I can see your passion for the book you're writing. I used to work in the industry. I don't do that kind of PR work anymore, but I'd love to sit down with you for a cup of coffee and help you plan it out, create a proposal, create what will appeal to publishers and can sell rather than you writing it first and then trying to figure out how to market it." His girlfriend was right there. He's really talking about my book.

I couldn't believe it. In a space of just four days, new routes to dreams coming true are walking into my life. Pretty soon I hope to experience Life banging at my door begging me to just say yes to my wildest dreams coming true. I can see it.

There was a spider plant at my front door that was in need of attention. It was sun-scorched and in need of being transplanted and tended. Well, I cleaned up half the plants at my doorstep. I'll take the soil out of the car and tend to the rest of the plants at the door and on my desks by weekend's end.

What accounts for all the change, and the new openings? Is it Feng Shui? Three weeks ago, I bought a new bed. My old one was bad Feng Shu--metal, bars, obtrusive. Not conducive to the flow of chi. My bedroom is in the wealth corner of my home for those of you into that stuff. I also bought some bamboo plants. I used to have them all over my place. I had them around when I wrote and finished Thirteen. Not that I want to be superstitious about it all. Maybe my chi is flowing smoother.

Reiki? I recently started practicing the self-treatments again. I'd stopped. If it doesn't explain the outer changes, perhaps it at least contributes to the energy and mental clarity for blogging again.

Crystals? I've moved these around too. After the new nightstands, I ended up moving them all around throughout my home in new combinations and a few to different rooms. A couple nights ago, I switched around what's in my pillow--no more peridot and charoite, now moldavite and rainbow obsidian.

If you can't buy the feng shui, reiki or crystals, how about my participation in the Landmark Forum? Or maybe it's just the momentum of a new birthday? Could even be just the rhythm of my life. How about ascribing credit to the Gratitude Journal I bought the Monday before the Wednesday before the Friday before my birthday?

Seeing it all here in front of me...I guess it's just who I am, what I do: Always looking for ways to experience more, better and share that possibility with anyone who'll listen.

I blog about it, brag about it, because I believe it is possible for everyone on the planet to be happier, more fulfilled. I share what I do and what seems to work in the hope that friends, family, loved one's or strangers might be inspired. Not necessarily to try what I've tried, just to keep trying.

Besides, someone shared Feng Shui, Reiki, Crystals, Landmark, gratitude journals and on and on with me. (Thanks Angie)

Loving 42

Yesterday a friend asked how I was feeling about my birthday. She remembers the drama when I turned 35. I was no longer able to mark the "24-35" category. I was now obliged to check "35-44" and for some reason that more than anything meant middle age. Hot flashes followed within a few years, so I'd say the mid-life crisis complete with birthday sobbing on my 35th birthday was not entirely premature. Turning 40 was no big deal. Neither was this 42nd birthday. If history is any indication, I'd better plan something spectacular for 45 when I jump to the "45 to 54" category.

My response to my friend yesterday was that I feel like a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old. I feel like I've been spending the last few years getting ready to graduate. And I am in the confident, expectant place where the future holds open all possibilities. There's anxiety too. Well, not so much anxiety as a sense of being clueless about what lies ahead. Sure, I've got dreams and goals and watered down versions of "plans", but I'm really very close to the same place I was in the summer of 1983, the summer before my senior year of high school.

I knew I was going to college. A given. But where??? Probably UCLA. I was absolutely certain I would continue my love of math and science and become some kind of engineer. That was the thing in 1980's. If you were African-American and loved math and science, the engineering programs courted you.

In the end spontaneous decision-making sealed my fate. A friend of my mom's who heard I'd gotten in to Stanford insisted I had to go there. It would be stupid not to go there, he implied, forget UC Berkeley. Not a fan of being called stupid...When I got to Stanford and struggled in calculus, I was so delighted over my first and easiest college "A" that I switched my major to sociology so I could get more of that good feeling and less of the one that made me feel like a loser. In retrospect, I just didn't know much about discipline, sacrifice or nitty-gritty knuckle-down studying.

Impromptu. Spontaneous. I've so often made life-changing decisions based on a whim, a feeling. It hasn't been "wrong" and my life hasn't been terrible. I'm planning to experiment with choosing instead of just deciding. Not UCLA or Stanford, not what I expected to do versus what someone else says is better. This time I'm going into "senior year" with a real sense of Self. I've got an interest in choosing what I want from the field of all possibilities.

I took the Landmark Forum last weekend. It changed my entire perspective on life, on my life. That's a second entry coming soon. I'll be taking the next course in their series in November and will be attending a weekly seminar over the next few months as well. The seminar is on commitment. I can't wait to apply it to my Luzca book, to relationships...a wide open second act.

A huge thanks to all the wonderful well-wishing I received. Blessings!

Chocolate Love

I woke up the other morning with dating on my mind. Not just dating, the beginning of what I hope will lead to my next great romance. A commited, deliberate and purposeful go, complete with dating a while instead of just settling with the first good-enough guy that comes my way, I woke up thinking it'd be a good idea to prep my family and closest friends. I left my bed and headed straight for the computer.

The bottom line is that I wanted to make sure those near and dear to me understood I was serious. I haven't been a big fan of sharing my space. No kids by choice. I've had a few pets, but lets just say they never really worked out.

In retrospect, an e-note saying I'm interested in exploring commitment in a way I've never contemplated before isn't particulary convincing. Nonetheless, the morning started with a journal entry disquised as a email. It took longer than I thought to try to explain myself. Go figure.

With the temperature expected to top 100 (38C), I couldn't put off my walk much longer. At 9am, it already felt like 80 degrees (27C). Off the computer and onto the street. A block or so away, I made sense of my unsent message. The relationship I'm ready to welcome won't be about me. It's about accepting into my life a love that best serves the growth of my spirit, the expression of love on earth and the master plan that created our unfathomably complex universe.

A couple blocks later, I saw a little chihuahua being called by it's owner. He did a dash into a gate that she couldn't enter immediately. As soon as she made her way to it's entrance, his eyes made clear he planned to hop back through the bars to the preferred destination she opposed.

I smiled, practically chuckled. She was not amused and met my glance sternly. Once she saw my eyes and knew I was simply enjoying the dance they were doing moreso than laughing at her predicament, she relaxed a few facial muscles and flashed a quick smile.

For the most part, all the folks around my community are friendly and pleasant. As I continued about my walk, there were plenty of greetings and warm hellos. It struck me that I was being showered with love all morning. Every time someone smiled, spoke or waved it was like a little Hershey's kiss from the universe. Sure enough, as I passed that favorite spot where the muses greet me, I was overcome with a new idea. Flavorsoflove. A new blog. A new series. An accounting of all the kinds of love that flows my way on a given day.

All of us are recipients of instances of love that we take for granted. Or maybe you don't take them for granted. Maybe you notice them all the time and are grateful. For the most part, I think few of us ever recognize the many little ways the universe sends us dallops, drops and kisses of love. We notice the avalanches, the waves, the pools. Noticable patterns point out the streams of love. But every little drop?

Each drop is its own unique flavor. Forget 31! As many flavors as there are moments in a day. As many as their are humans, bees, trees, flowers, birds and the countless creatures that cross our path or command our momentary attention.

Flavors of Love. What an awesome blog, I thought. Inspired, I bounced my way back towards home. Half a block from home, I see the cutest dog running onto the sidewalk after a car stopped to try to guide it out of the street. It was a small chihuahua and looked like the same smart, frisky dog that caught my eye earlier.

Before I go any further, know that I've never cared for a dog. I've had a rabbit, a chameleon, an incredibly smart conure parrot and a mated cockatoo pair. I've only begun to really appreciate dogs over the past few years. Last fall, I stopped by the local dog pound five or six times, but there was never that special click I require to bring anything or anyone into my own.

I remember one in particular came up and sniffed me. He was so cute. Then he turned back around. When a dog facing possible death has the courage to say "we're not a match" you notice. I finally decided to do what has always worked best for me. Leave it to the universe. What's mine always comes to me. If I'm to have a dog, it'll take a might special one for me to open up my home and share my space. Better not take any chances and just be ready to recognize what's mine when presented to me.

The temperature had risen another five degrees, at least, in the fifty minutes I'd been out. Since this striking creature looked like the dog I'd enjoyed watching earlier, I couldn't in good conscience just head on home and wish him luck. I figured I'd at least walk him back to his house.

It was surprising to me how readily he followed me. Folks on the street assumed he was mine. He seemed to have a slight limp on a rear leg, so after a block, I carried him. We bonded instantly.

It turned out I'd miscalculated the distance. It was a little further that I'd estimated. After a couple rings of the doorbell, I heard a dog rustling in the backyard of the home. I began to walk away. It wasn't theirs. The situation was entirely new for me. Now that I'd walked the dog all that way, I'd have to follow through with putting up signs. I'd need to get it back to its owner or take it to the pound or...something.

Before I was completely down the driveway, the woman came out and her pooch followed. Thank God. I wasn't crazy. The two did look substantially alike. At least, I hadn't imagined the similarity. Now that I'd involved myself, time for next steps.

Flavors of Love.

I carried him the half-mile back to my place. He came in and felt natural, comfortable. He was so at peace. Odd that such a beautiful, house-broken, well-trained and perfectly tempermented dog had no tags, no collar, no chip. Too much tv news. I immediately wondered if his owner had been foreclosed upon and forced to move to an apartment that wouldn't take pets. Or maybe, he just got lost and wondered too far from his home for the owner to locate.

I took him to hang out with my family today. They can't believe how perfectly suited we are to each other. It's about accepting into my life a love that best serves the growth of my spirit, the expression of love on earth and the master plan that created our unfathomably complex universe.

Flavors of Love. He's not the first good enough dog that passed my way. He's absolutely perfect for me. More like a cat than a dog. How often I've thought I'd love an affectionate, mild-mannered dog that was as quiet, stealth and calm as a cat. That's him!

I wake up at an otherwise unreasonable hour to make sure he gets a long, leisurely walk before I head off to arrive at summer school by 7:20am. If that don't say special, I can't imagine what would.

His name is K. Chocolate.



Mmmmmmmmmmm. Chocolate everyday.

Is the universe not perfect!

As for that human relationship...Is the universe not perfect! I'll do what I've always done. Go about my life and let perfection land in my lap.


Update: It's been a month. Chocolate is now officially adopted into my home. A friend sent an email exclaiming her surprise that three weeks later I still had the dog. I had to admit to her that it is my own way of speaking of my life that friends and family question my ability to commit. The following is an excerpt from an email to her. I include it here because it is so relevant to my process.

It has never occurred to me that I could take a non-Puritan approach to relationships and assume that my way is just as valid. By "my way" I mean accepting the gift of the lesson of each relationship, embracing it and then moving on. "Moving on" always sounds so horrible in our society. The mover-on is some sort of failure who can't stick it through, who doesn't have the balls, who lacks a sense of commitment.

I remember reading about a Native American tribe in Florida and the Caribbean (my favorite places, by the way). In their culture, when a woman wanted to end a relationship she simply placed all the man's belongings outside the teepee, hut or what have you. When the man came back and saw his stuff outside, he moved along. There's still plenty of room for drama and pain and suffering in such a system, but I was struck by whatever extent this culture, this community understood that relationships should work as long as their working. We are all in agreements with each other. When the agreements don't work any longer, either because they're outdated or because there's a breach on one side or another, why must we continue to enforce it? Why do we hold the agreement as more sacred than the parties?

Which brings me to the owner of the dog that I contacted.

She sent pictures. I shared with Gilbert that I saw a resemblance. It was enough that I planned to at least set-up a meet-to-see. She said the dog's name was Tiberius. I called the name, not a muscle moved. I called Chocolate, he turns and looks and awaits what I could possibly want to do--a walk, room change?

In the end, the dog was not hers.

How long will I keep Chocolate? Who is now K. Chocolate, Kenny C, KC or Sir Kenneth Chocolate if he meets the Queen.

I sadly have to admit that I've never entered anything with the intention of staying forever. I've entered with a commitment to stick with it for the long haul. Room to define long haul, I suppose. Maybe someone who sees lifetimes as one in a series is bound to see relationships the same way.

I've never entered anything with the intention of staying forever. Eternity is so very, very long. Forever seems at odds with evolution and progress.

I wonder if the earth will be here forever? If it isn't...does that mean that God, however conceived, was never committed to her? Then again, I suppose that's still under "till a natural death" stuff like Lola. Or...can anyone else see God packing up the spirits of the dinosaurs and carrying them back to the cosmic pet store and saying, "These didn't work out like I thought. Hey, what are those? Yeah, let me get a couple thousand of those Homo Sapien Erectus cuties and see what they do on that same blue marble."

We're all made in God's image.

As for Chocolate.

He's mine...now. I intend to keep him for the long haul. Thanks to what you inspired, I can take a first deliberate look at the possibility of a commitment that lasts not just one, two or three years, but ten or fifteen.

Which brings me back to when Chocolate came to me. How he came to me in the very spot where, outbound on my walk, I realized that my next relationship wasn't going to be about me and what I wanted, what my ego wanted, needed or felt it could handle. Clear as a blue summer sky, I knew that my next relationship was going to be about God's will, God's plan, spiritual growth and spiritual commitment.

So, I correct myself. Chocolate is not mine. Chocolate and I belong to one another. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh. So glad you inspired all this.

That's what is different this time. This is why your comment about three weeks didn't ruffle my feathers. You were expressing that something seemed different with KC, Mr. Chocolate. Whether you knew the how or why or not, you were right.

Humbled Obedience

With each day I get a little more obedient to the urgings and nudgings of the universe. I was to go to a Borders bookstore about twenty minutes away. I'd taken the time to talk a while on the phone before leaving and was considering a change in clothes to dress a little warmer for the evening.

Destiny, fate--"You'll be going there. No, not that other Borders. Yes, that far. No you can't go later, you should have left already." Still in my summer dress, I reached for my keys and headed out the door.

I get to the mall and entertainment complex and have the nerve to dilly-dally. Maybe I'll buy a jacket first. I go through a couple sale racks of jackets. There was nothing there for me. Back on the path of obedience, I finally head down to the bookstore.

I picked up a copy of the latest issue of Caribbean magazine; a copy of "A New Earth.." by Tolle; and a Creative Visualization workbook I didn't plan on, but which was part of the reason I was there. What was in it for me at the bookstore revealed itself within ten minutes of my being there.

There was a comfortable seating area near the front of store with six comfy chairs spaced in irregular intervals about a large bay-style window. I'd noticed them when I walked and took myself to one of the chairs with my reading material. There was a guy two chairs over who kept making this weird near-giggle sound as he read. I noted he must be reading something funny.

What turned out to be funny was the way his sounds were spaced in regular intervals. I've never known a book to rhythmically place the funny parts so that they're spread every minute or so. What was funnier still, was that as different people came and went in the seating area he would manage to contain his outbursts. It took a long time, till I was nearly done with my reading, before I realized that he was specifically doing it to either annoy me or get my attention. When someone was between us, he hardly made a peep. When a guy was on the other side of him, same thing. Thanks to the distraction he created, I took a moment to look up from my reading and pay attention to my surroundings. In particular, I took a few moments to notice the people in the immediate area. It's almost sad the way I can go through life and not pay the people around me any greater attention that I do the walls. I rarely go a day without thanking and blessing the sun or marveling at a tree. I'm not nearly so good about acknowledging the God in people, let alone making it a practice to see it.

What I saw upon glancing around:
A group of loud teenagers.
A pair of young lovers where the guys shows his devotion by pretending to enjoy sitting around while she reads.
An older woman unable to decide what to do--pick up the book she was glancing at or move along or sit down.

And then it hit me to anchor light into everyone in the store. It's not exactly practicing Reiki. I've been moving toward healing with light in place of the Reiki symbols. It's more intuitive and the energy feels cleaner, lighter. In this instance it was basically visualizing an increase in the white light coming through their crown chakras. I don't force the healing energy on the unsuspecting. Free will means everyone has the right to grow, progress and heal at their own pace. My role is simply to be a vehicle inviting the light down to each person. The light reaches down and is made readily available to any whose souls choose not to refuse.

As I focused my intention on visualing white light descending into each person, I had a wondrous experience. Energetically, I could sense the location and presence of every person in the store. Whether in adjoining rooms, behind rows and rows of shelves. After a few moments, I noticed my vision shifting and I was no longer looking at physical things. My perception shifted from my phyical eyes to, I'm guessing here, to my third eye. The density of people and things in the store shifted to something more akin to clouds. Instead of physical matter, everything thing looked like thick, heavy white clouds--the ones that move really really slow across the sky. There is shape, but no substance.

The funnels of white light that poured into these floating beings, formerly people, became overwhelming. I feared I might slip into a trance and look weird to anyone glancing my way. Talk about a new experience. Basically, it was a bit surreal, even for me.

In that moment, I suddenly understood why I had to go there, to that bookstore, at that time. I have no idea how the universe assembled that particular collection of individuals in the store at that moment. No idea who needed healing energy, who may have needed a blessing, or who may have even received some "miracle" of insight or inspiration by my going there to anchor in a little light for that brief interval. I did know with certainty afterwards, that I'd been of service.

Following an urge and being the means to someone else's blessing is something all of us do all the time. We don't always know it. It isn't always something that stands out to us while it is happening. As more than a handful of cutesy emails have suggested, something as simply as taking a moment to smile at someone and wish them a good day has the power to reverse a mood, change a day, perhaps a future.

After the experience with the light, I congratulated myself on my obedience and felt pretty fulfilled. I returned to my book. Anolder woman that sat between myself and the noisy gentleman for a while had come and gone, so he was back to making his periodic grunting chuckles.

Then a woman spoke above a whisper to ask another young lady if she could use her cell phone. That's a rarity. I can honestly say I've never seen a stranger ask someone to use their cell phone. She explained in tones that alteranted between frustration and agitation that she'd been waiting for her husband for a while now, didn't have her own phone, and wanted to check his status.

I'm fairly certain she was Persian and spoke Farsi into the phone. I don't speak Farsi, but I translated the conversation. "Where are you. You were supposed to be here already. I can't believe you had me waiting all this time." What I'd guess was unspoken but understood by her husband was, "you do this all the time, and though I have no way to get back at you this moment, you should expect to pay for this at sometime in the near future as soon as I can figure a way to stick it to you without jeopardizing the little power I currently have over my day, my self and my life." A loose translation.

She paced back and forth after she hung up and returned the phone to her benefactor. We are all saints and angels in the course of a day. Sometimes little demons, too.

She was so distracting, I couldn't read. I kept getting this image in my head of inviting her to sit in the vacant chair next to me and asking if I could hold her hand with the intention of sending Reiki in this way. Not surreptitiously mind you. Straight out ask, "Excuse me. Would you mind sitting here and letting me hold your hand a while? I practice Reiki and energy healing and would really like the opportunity to anchor some positive energy, some light into your being."

Having just finished being so self-satisfied with my obedience at anonymous healing, I was confronted by the limits of my obedience. Leave it to the universe to keep me from getting big-headed about my willingness to serve. When given an opportunity to step out of the shadows and into the light, to put my pride aside and open myself to a sideways glance or reasonable rejection, I cower and hide and send a little energy anonymously.

Oh, how I agonized. At one point, I thought I'd do it. I'd risk sounding and looking ridiculous. Funny thing, too. At the moment I thought seriously of breaking all social norms, she paced toward me, stood six inches just to the right of me and paused a long while. Long enough for me to have invited once, twice, three times...I wasn't going to do it. And she walked away. As if God, the angels said, "Here you go. Afraid to walk over, we'll make it even easier."

My email signature is a line that I hope becomes part of my current project: "In Heaven, we have a motto: It's no one's job to save the world. If everyone would do the job they're assigned, live their best life, the world wouldn't need saving."

If that was my job in that moment, to just step out of my comfort level and do what I do in the shadows in the light of day...I can see why God has to send saviors.

writing buddies

A short blurb. I was hitting a wall and feeling a little frustrated. I wanted to download more details about my current writing project. I knew two things needed to happen. Both required crystal assistance.

The layout: 12 o'clock--celestite, transchanneling and blue halite. 2 o'clock-opalite. At 4, 6 and 8 o'clock my three moqui balls. Finally, at 10 o'clock-spectrolite sphere.

There was a hang-up. There was someone whose energy kept hanging around me. I couldn't figure out what to do about it. Finally, it dawned on me to send this person healing energy and free myself of the attachment. Fantastic.

I've been noticing that I no longer rely on Reiki symbols, but am progressively more intuitive. More and more I am using light as my primary healing tool. The colors, shapes and uses of different wavelengths of light present themselves in partnership with my intention. I still use symbols on occasion, but less and less so. These come intuitively as well.

I set-up my writing space for sketching out the novels big picture and scenes. I invoked a standard prayer and proceeded to send the healing. It felt successful. I sealed up both our auras and then prayed for my writing to progress.

Did it? I'll spare you the bulk of the details save this: There was one character whose name I couldn't make out. Keep in mind that about 15 characters, including eight of the nine major characters have come to me with names, birthdates and their backgrounds and major story lines. The one major character that held out I'd given a nickname in everything so far.

Tonight, while re-reading some of the stuff I'd written so far, I saw that I had written about her but used her daughter's name instead. I felt ready to hear her name. What exactly had been the block, I don't know.

I began to scribble something on the corner of the page. It was incomprehensible at first. Closer inspection and it began to look like some other language. This character is born and raised in Africa so I figured maybe I was playing around with how I'd expect to see her name in native script.

Further inspection and I began to recognize a couple shapes. Years and years ago I'd taken a Hebrew course at a local synagogue. A crew of African-American guys who were dabbling in Afro-Judaic studies had signed up. It sounded interesting so I tagged along.

Long story short, my right brain had to bypass my left brain to get me the name. I got so excited about it...and a little scared that I'm trippin'...when the name started to take shape I stopped.

Maybe the left brain still isn't ready.

Crystal Companions

A few weeks back, I purchased a large Herkimer piece. The large central piece is nearly four inches long with smaller herkimers partially included. I hadn't visited the farmer's market crystal stand in a long while.

While at The Om my eye settled on a large piece. I can't recall exactly what it was, but it was something new. And it was expensive. Over $100. I didn't get the sense that it was unequivocally mine and that I needed to buy it. It's energy was commanding and I needed to hold it a while, but that was it. After several minutes I sat it down. As I've noted in an earlier post, I can generally tell by energetic scan which pieces are new. My physical eye is drawn to them by the impression they make on my third eye.

After scanning the whole of the farmer's market booth, my eye settled on a very large herkimer. It was one of two they had displayed. As soon as I saw it I knew it was going home with me. It is an amazing feeling that I've described on several occasions. The certainty and clarity of what belongs to us. There are certain stones that as soon as I see them, I know they are meant to go home with me. A favorite story of a friend that helps me act on these moments deals with an item that he saw in a market on a trip to Spain. He loved it at first sight, but hesitated to make such an expensive decision hastily. By the next day, he knew with all his being that it was exquisitely perfect for him, meant for him. Unfortunately some other soul concluded the same and made the decision without hesitation.

The failure to act haunts him to this day. It isn't that his life has suffered because the item didn't make it into his hands. It's the regret of having doubted what belonged to him. A version of the girl that gets away.

Not that the point isn't made, but it also reminds me of a jacket that a motorcycle-riding buddy of mine saw at a huge convention center expo years ago. He'd tried on dozens of jackets at several different booths. Finally, there was one that was gorgeous on him. He didn't seize the moment. The next day when he went back, it was gone. Five years later, he's still in search of the perfect jacket.

Perhaps its these stories of others that enable me to take seriously those moments of certainty and act on them.

This herkimer was what I'd come to the booth to buy. I was delighted that this was the stone. Part of the delight was that it was a herkimer and everyone knows these are pretty cheap. I thought, "yeah, I dodged the $100-plus item". And then I turned over the Herkimer to reveal the price underneath. We know what I found.

No time to be cheap. I'd already committed to it, already acknowledged we belonged together. It has proven to be priceless.

Among the many smaller pieces attached about the larger herkimer was an inch-long and 1/2-inch thick herkimer which sat atop it like a child resting on it's mother's belly. It was certainly my favorite part of the whole to gaze upon and finger. It's citrine-smokey flavor gave a distinct character from its mostly clear and white host.

I bought it a few days before my trip to Turks and Caicos (TCI) and knew I was meant to take it with me. I took it and five others to be cleansed in the Caribbean Sea.

Since purchasing it, I sleep with it every night. Just over a week ago, it managed to fall to the ground. I don't know if it hit the metal of my bed frame or the lamp post, but I know the impact was enough to break it apart. Three pieces came off. The first was this very lovely smokey-citriny flavored piece perfect for the pocket each day. My days have been much more peaceful and protected since I began carrying it around.

The other is a smaller herkimer, the more typical 1/4 - 1/2 inch variety. I'm planning to have it placed in a ring setting so that I can carry this energy with me all the time--either the pocket piece or the ring. The third piece that fell off was a small slab. As for the larger piece, it is with me as I sleep every night and has been since TCI.

Why tell the tale of the breaking herkimer? It feels like a writing companion. Since purchasing the Herkimer, my ability to communicate with the muses collaborating with me on Luzca's story has increased. I had it with me on TCI when the breadth of the story typed its way onto the page while I watched.

I've been writing regularly and have seen an increase in the integrity of my personal boundaries. Beautiful stuff.

Fate went to a lot of trouble to bring that special herkimer from a mine in New York to a farmer's market on the other side of the continent. It arranged an unexpected pocket of time for me to spend ten minutes at the same market the day after I'd booked my trip when I had a ton of errands to run.

It's not always easy to say yes to fate, yes to the universe when it gives us what we want and need. At some point we learn it is even harder on us if we say no.

New life

The front half of my home is being painted as I type. Brighter colors, whiter colors. Clarity and insights.

They painted the ceiling first. It was the primary reason I embarked on painting the living room...again. I painted it a light shade of green four years ago, but left the ceiling the same drab color I erased from the walls.

A short while into spraying the ceiling the white with a slight tint of blue, the primary painter, Filiberto, asked me to come check it out. I did. Fantastic. When I saw the difference it made, just painting brightness onto the ceiling, I realized I probably could have kept the walls their green.

At the last minute I decided to ask him to do the kitchen too. In nine years living here, I never painted the kitchen before today. The nine years worth of yellowing on that tan was in as much need of lighter and brighter as the living room's ceiling. Now the place is so bright. A whole new life.

It is so fitting. Funny how I've been wanting to make my living room an attractive space for years now. The furniture I first bought eight years ago was a good start. For me, it was a good start. The painting four years ago with a light shade of green in the living area to match what I already owned made sense too.

Now, like my new vision of myself as artist
my new vision of myself as destined to live in the Caribbean
my new certainty and vision of Luzca's tale as a completed novel
I've got a completed and certain view of my living room.

The completed view made picking the right color easy. I've already got in view the furniture. When I bought the stuff eight years ago, I was open to whatever caught my eye. In other words, I had no purpose, no goal, no clue. And that worked out ok. Just ok.

Having the clarity of a complete picture works better. Buying new light fixtures will go a lot easier with a clear picture. The best way to describe the mood is light, relaxed and comfortable.

So I keep a clear a goal in my mind. I commit to it, starting at the top. Picking out the right accessory to shine my light becomes easy. The result is lighter living. Sounds about right.

As goes the home, so goes the soul.
As goes the soul, so goes the home.

Success...Shameless Bragging

I stop in the middle of bliss to share my excitement. Finally, heaven right here, right now.

My many entries are testament to my struggle to live a more authentic life, a more God-centered, bliss-filled, confident and artistic life.

This morning, success.

The key. Following my heart, heeding intuition. Oh yeah, and loving, loving, loving everyone. The power of recognizing the love that is already present in our lives. A lot of words to say living a life of gratitude and freedom?

I haven't walked in weeks, not since I came back from TCI. This morning I was in the mood. I'd had a fitful sleep for two reasons. Firstly, it's hot. Not a fan of air-conditioning unless absolutely necessary, I slept with the windows open and ditched the blankets. The only problem with this is that as the air cools, I wake up every couple hours to add a layer of clothing or covering. The second reason would be an entry unto itself, but the sum of it was that the night before brought me even closer to understanding the power of accepting and appreciating the love in our lives in all its varied forms.

This morning I was able to follow my heart, take my walk. When I got home I didn't do my usual. Usually, after a Saturday morning walk, I take a shower while my chai tea steeps and then sit down all fresh and relaxed to read the morning paper. This morning my heart said do something different. I did.

After my long post-walk stretch, I did as my heart moved me, I turned on the computer to work on my book. Can you believe it??? Dear reader. If you've read anything of mine, you know that I talk about writing more than I write on most days. You've probably sniffed out that I am afraid of my power to write, that I fear my perceived inadequacy for the task, and that I come up with a ton of distractions, excuses and justifications for doing everything but actually writing this book for which passion burns in my bosom.

And here I was following my heart. I sat down to type. I don't actually "write" very often unless I'm sketching a scene or working out the plot lines through journaling.

This morning I worked on the writing. The words. This is the part I most fear, most dread. It is such a fine line between writing for an audience and simply writing from my heart while still taking care with word choice. The former creates trite dribble, the latter, when I can do it, creates stuff I love enough to fine tune in the manner a craftsman might work a block a wood until the sculpture waiting to be set free is allowed to display for all its perfected existence.

The intial scene I laid down on Thursday evening. I left work with a pressing need to hurry home and write. I heard and I obeyed. It was thrilling. I sat at the computer and began to type. That is what I was editing and expanding on this morning.

Thursday's pressing urgency made sense as I got home and started typing up the scene that came to me. The true gift I was to receive wasn't the scene itself but, finally, a view to the story's outline and structure.

I'm going to speak my truth and shame the devil: I shook and shivered and then stumbled from my back room where I type down the hall and then fell out on the floor in the center of my home. Dramatic, I know. And yet, it's the truth. It wasn't what I'd anticipated or expected. I thought I was just going to "receive" a scene. Instead, I got the book's structure, tone and a general sense of its organization and style. Unprecedented. It's like praying to God for a good meal when you've been having the same tired sustenance for days on end. You just hope it will be something hot and delicious...and different. He asks if you're willing to do what he asks for it. Desperate, you agree.

In this case, I agree to go home and type.

Having followed what he places in your heart, you open a door that you'd passed day after day after day, never noticing or giving it much attention. He says open it, you do. Inside is the spread of lifetime. Forget buffet. We're talking a refined, handsome waiter who delivers the most exceptional seven-course meal your imagination never could conceive. Only it's all the stuff you swore times past you didn't like. Turns out you like it just fine when the ingredients are fresh and the dish prepared with love. Good thing the chef chose the meal for you and you weren't given the option to dictate your own blessing.

Do you blame me for shaking, shivering and stumbling my way onto the ground in disbelief? The story isn't anything I'd have chosen for myself to work on and yet I am delighted with it. The way it is to be told scares me. (Yes, I'm deliberately evasive as I wait to fully make peace with it and receive a fuller vision.)

On the way home earlier that Thursday evening I listened to an National Public Radio show on books. An author was being interviewed. The universe at work. Something from the show combines with conversations I've had recently with a buddy and I realize I don't have to "like" what I write. I'm not saying I can write something horrid or that I'm detached from it. Just that I can stop waiting to absolutely, 100% love each and every aspect of my story. It isn't about me. It's a story. It's got it's own life. I was open to letting it be what it needed to be. Stumble, stumble, fall.

I've often equated works of art to children, and the co-creators--the authors or musicians or sculptors, etc.--to parent figures who nurse the work into existence, into maturity. I truly believe, even moreso now, that works of art, great or small, good or bad, are no less gifts given for safekeeping and care than children. Of course, I'm childless, so if I offend anyone who believes children are more precious than works of art, you are welcome to indulge yourself by considering it a reflection of my ignorance.

This morning the baby asked to be held. I didn't ignore it or make any excuses.

I sat at the computer and was shocked to see what beauty God had delivered to me for nurturance and development.

Success. The experience of writing. It's own joy. Bliss. Heaven on earth.

Co-creation is a joy.

Done writing about writing, back to bliss I go.

I'm a (true) believer...

It's happening.

God truly places certain people in our lives to help us reach our goals. This isn't anything new to anyone who'd find their way to this blog. As commonplace and accepted a notion as this is, it still amazes me when I reflect on specific folks. Each and every one of my friends are uniquely important to me. I don't have a wide circle. I wouldn't even call it a circle. Not even a web, really. I have very specific individuals in my life who offer unique friendships. They are people who'd only find themselves all in the same room if it was a party for me. What they have in common is a desire to grow, to stretch themselves and to become their best person at whatever the cost.

These are folks who are willing to work at themselves. Continuously!

Tonight I had a fantastic time writing. Last night I went to a session on NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It was sponsored by newest girlfriend's new boyfriend. I went with an open mind. She only mentioned it to me the day before, after joining me for a meal at a Thai restaurant after church. She was such a good sport. I wanted that place and only that place, but wasn't sure I remembered the street. She was up for the adventure. I love that about all my friends.

As we got out she mentions that she'll be going to this gathering about NLP. I'd heard about it before and was immediately intrigued. I asked if it was OK to invit myself.

I share this and the importance of the people we draw into our lives, because in that workshop, they did a goal-setting exercise that included a 24-hour objective and one for a week's time. I set as my goal to allow my fingers and intuition to create at least one new scene within twenty-four hours.

That's just been done.

The week goal is to complete--build-up the details and edit--one of the scenes I typed up on Provo, TCI. I already began that process tonight as well.

It is amazing what can be done with the support of our loved ones.

Last weekend I shared the details for the first time with my oldest friends. Each of them offered unconditional support. The night before going to my new church, my "oldest buddy" spent the night. I have to put "oldest buddy" in quotes because technically I met another buddy eight months earlier. He is literally the oldest, that's true. But I also feel like he's the oldest because we always talk about going back so many lifetimes ago. We laugh about going back so far that he remembers the time I got kicked out of the cave for bringing back a still-on-fire lightning-struck branch. I couldn't figure out why no one else thought it was the coolest discovery. That was the first lifetime he had to save me from myself and from what I make others want to do to me when I go off all excited and blinded to consequences by the bliss of adventure.

This buddy spent the night Saturday night as a quick stopover between celebrating a big event with his family and driving several hundred miles back to the home he and his wife just relocated to a few months back. Like all my buddies, his encouragement was done in a style and manner uniquely his. He challenged me to make the most of this writing opportunity.

Long blog to say a public "THANK YOU!!!!" to all of you for listening to me and encouraging me and participating with me as I embark on this adventure. It is new territory. I spent more than a year fighting fear and doubt just to get to this point where I am willing to set a 24-hour goal to write a scene...and then do it.

Last night's NLP meditation and goal-setting session helped me actually visualize having two completed chapters by September. The funny thing, though, was that as soon as I tried to visualize that, trying to meet the suggestion of "realiztic", I found a deeper part assuring me that the storyline would be completed by then. Mind you, I said storyline. The development of the scenes into a format that has a singular, consistent and narratively sophisticated tone...

The NLP group meets again next week.

Separately...I've found MY new church.
She's been telling me about this church for months. As soon as I came back from my trip, I was interested, it was on my mind. Now I know why. It's exactly the environment I need as I dive into the process of writing this book from a place of commitment and working on finding my way to my island home.

Early into the service and all the way through to the end, I felt like I belonged there. That's never happened to me, by the way. Walk into a church and feel completely and entirely at home. She goes several times a year. I may eventually do so too, but for now plan to go every week for a while. I want to get a better feel for the entire ministry. It resonates with everything about me and my spirituality and beliefs. I'm good for love at first sight. We'll see in a month if it is all that I thought. My ex-husband and I were also love at first sight.

(now that I'm really spending time writing my book, expect my posts to read more and more like the first-drafts they are more and more likely to be. And if you can't tell the difference...keep that to yourself:))

Synchronicities

Since returning from the Caribbean I've been giving serious thought to how I live my life here at home. The sheer joy I experienced being there has overwhelmed my complacency.

More than the centered peace, it was the ability to go at my own pace all day each day that most profoundly stirred reflection. Instead of waking up at six-something in the morning, I woke up at my natural hour of 8am. I'd rest a while, take a shower and then head off to a breakfast overlooking a magnificent turquoise sea. The icon on my blog was the exact view.

I've oh-so-often bragged about the ease and flexibility of the job I currently have. Compared to all the other jobs I've known, compared to all that I'd previously considered, it satisfies. But then I had this other experience. I did what I most wanted to do at any given moment. Freedom, joy, peace and love all rolled up into a timeless experience of pure present

Working has been hardest of all. I question how fulfilled I am with it. From where did I learn to value the lure of security over my present joy? In nearly every other area of my life, I am a risk taker. Not as much as others, but enough that it shocks me that I so readily use the promise of a pension as the reason I can't move on. Then, again, it is precisely because I have been one who follows her whims, that I've learned to value the wisdom of a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Am I sacrificing present joy for an unknown future? Typing here is like therapy for me if you wonder why I do it. Just remembered the job from hell that I left UCLA to pursue. A very bad decision. I got a little frustrated and left something that had the potential to lead me into some sort of deanship at UCLA. Of course, everything I"m saying here suggests that I'd ultimately have left for more freedom and flexibility anyway. Nonetheless, the move looms large as a rash decision I'd like to avoid repeating.

---
Speakers from the local community college were scheduled to speak today. They'd been on calendar for over a month. In fact, they were supposed to speak before I left for TCI, but rescheduled for today. Their presentation was on careers. It was the same presentation I gave my kids a month ago using some websites on estimating living expenses and linking that with occupational choices. It's what my book was ultimately trying to share with teens and parents.

It is the presentation I consistently consider doing a few evenings each month at local churches or for other parent groups...and then don't. I was surfing through prior entries this evening, looking for something related to Reiki, and instead found a reminder about a profound experience. The title of the blog is unchanged from it's original. Ironic. Maybe I mean insightful.

There are no coincidences.

I can do the workshops without it taking away from writing my book. It's even possible that doing the workshops is a necessary and important step that puts me closer to the book's completion and publishing.

And then enters doubt.

What a difference love makes

I met someone in TCI. Someone I became quite enamored with in a few short days. Talk about vivacious. I didn't even realize what had happened until it was too late. After being home two days, all I knew was that nothing was the same. Even if I could live without her, I wouldn't want to.

She enjoys waking up at a leisurely 8am. Follow that with breakfast, coffee and then time to work at her craft--lots of writing. A late afternoon swim in the salty sea takes her straight to heaven. After that a short siesta on the sand. Wake up to a view of shades of green-blue darkening into the distance until a vibrant cobalt touches the sky and softens her soul. It is a pleasure to behold.

It broke my heart when she left. She didn't return home. She left her home to return to the place she's resided most of her partially lived life. I didn't know this woman, this me, so free, was even on the menu.

The me that I was in TCI was on her own schedule, listened to her own rhythm, cared for nothing but each moment's opportunity, fully enjoying the present. All my life I've longed to be her though I never knew it.

That me I met in TCI...I am in love with her. She wants to live on a island. She wants to live that rhythm. The glow of her spirit in that place is too irresistible to allow a dull imitation to linger like stale air around her any longer than necessary. I am committed to ensuring her island dreams come true. It is a crime against her soul to claim to love her and do otherwise. I am in love with her. She is in love with the sea.

I've been talking about my need to visit, perhaps live in the Caribbean for years. Today I'm all the more certain of it. It's a constant movement toward greater certainty.
_____

This me I met deserves to have her dreams come true. Deserve??? That's a funny word to use. How is it that one deserves her dreams fulfilled when the dreams of so many others never see daylight? Does someone "deserve" to be fulfilled, happy, content or at peace? Does it have to imply that folks who suffer must "deserve" their pain?

I can't answer that age-old query. What I do know is that when we love someone we try to do all we can to minimize if not entirely eliminate their pain, suffering, discomfort or even minor irritations. We want for their joy, happiness and fulfillment. For those whom we have chosen to distinguish as "loved ones", we generally are comfortable saying they "deserve" the best life has to offer by mere virtue of being alive, being one of God's beloved. Because we feel something we call love for them, we hope they always enjoy life's best. We want to witness our loved ones in states of joy or contentment if not fulfillment and bliss.

What they choose, accept or settle for is another story entirely.
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I've got nine scenes of Caribbean beachfront up in my classroom. Two more, framed, sit atop my two filing cabinets. My computer's desktop is again a Caribbean beach scene. In my home four of eight framed and mounted pictures in my living area are beachfronts.

My soul has tried to speak to me through images for years and years. And even as I hear its yearnings, I've said time and time again, "One day". Always waiting! It still isn't action time. I'm not ready to leap out on faith, sell my possessions, quit my job, move there and see what happens. It isn't that I doubt God will provide for me. My soul knows he would. But that isn't what Iâ m moved to do.
I have a plan: Finally, a real and serious plan. It's a three-year plan. Here goes.

Sell my home in three years. Purchase an island condo or home, whichever I can afford. I won't move there and rent. If in three years I see a way to live there year-round and earn my income doing something I truly love while living there, then that's what I'll do. Adios and goodbye. I won't need to keep my home here in the states, because it's unlikely I'd return to live. If I do, worry about that then. If I only come back to visit, staying in a hotel for even a couple weeks will be cheaper than trying to hold on to property here for the sake of holding on to a possession out of fear of letting it go.

If three years comes and goes and it still makes sense to earn my money here, then I still plan to buy there and live here on the cheap. I'll live in my slice of paradise summers and long breaks.

"As God is my witness" | God as Witness? More like God as facilitator, instigator and co-conspirator. Who else put this longing into my soul? This dream is at my core. It's phenomenal really! God's fabulous motivating tool to get me to do more than simply rest in complacency. Spending night after night staring at a colorful box is not going to cut it. Selling my soul year after year for the promise of a monthly check when I am too old to enjoy it is senseless since I have no idea how long I'll be around.

Makes me wonder what the face of God looks like when He witnesses the choices we make, choices that add to our suffering and pain rather than our joy and contentment. I speak of those choices within our control, of course. When He views me in this life, this moment, does He wonder why I wait for perfect circumstances before moving to the place that makes my soul sing? To the place where I take pleasure in marveling at His creation? Is He waiting for me or am I waiting for Him?

The artist's doubt

I got in after midnight last night from my trip to Turks and Caicos' (TCI) Provo island. Of course, there are stories to tell and insights to share. I used some of the time at the airport to begin and outline a few entries.

This morning I opened an email from a fellow energy healer who has just finished the final chapter of her book. She is appropriately proud of it. I know that feeling. Unfortunately though, that feeling, for me anyway, comes only after blood, sweat and tears from wrestling with the angels. I am constantly on guard against self doubt.

One of the best parts of this trip was that I actually managed to get quite a lot done on the story. The generations are now complete. It is a chronicle of nine generations of women healers. The first a renowned, respected African Priestess delivered into the slave trade by a rival as a consequence of selfishness, using her talent and exceptional abilities for her own gain at the expense of another.

I always knew this was part of my main characters story, but hadn't been able to flesh it out until this week. Luzca, born in 1991 is ninth generation behind the powerful ancestor. I've always known that the book on Alice Dunbar Nelson was historical fiction--she really existed.

I'm starting to appreciate the extent to which I'll also be incorporating historical accuracy and perspective into this story. It too is turning out to be historical fiction. Lots of work ahead, which I look forward to doing.

The best part about what happened this past week was the way the story took its first unassisted breaths. Additional characters added themselves, their names, major events, how they died, the routes they took, the details on who took them in and on and on. It was more like collaborating with my right brain. My left brain sat typing while my right brain just dictated an already complete story. It really is a heady and wonderful experience that I hope to one day explore in print.

My role becomes much clearer after this experience. It is so clear to me that the story is already done. It exists in some other dimension and has been looking for a friendly human who'll lend themselves and help it grow into being here in this world. Much like music needs a willing musician or lyricist to welcome it through the dimensional doorway into our world, so too do stories and poems and so on. Seeing it this way helps control some of the overwhelming sense of inadequacy that I try to keep at bay.

Which brings me to one of the last experiences I had on TCI. I had a favorite spot at the hotel’s restaurant. It seemed odd that it was almost always available. My spot was at the restaurant’s edge, nearest the sea. It had the most direct view to the color of turquoise they must use to decorate heaven. I’d noticed another woman on several occasions who took her breakfast and lunch at the same times I did. She sat at the next best spot, at the restaurant’s edge but facing the opposite direction.

On this last morning when I went downstairs there she was. “Sorry, I know I took your spot. I thought you’d already eaten.” Now if this was my oldest buddy, he’d be quite certain that she’d wanted to get that spot for days after I made it look so attractive by the way I dawdled and stared out over the sea from my perch. He’d be even more certain that either she indeed tried to time it so that she wouldn’t have to compete with me for the spot or else hoped and prayed that by taking that spot, I’d do what I’d done any of the couple times it wasn’t free and sit in the next space over, hoping to engage me in a little conversation. I indeed sat adjacent. She indeed struck up a conversation.


It was morning, coffee time, and I’m not particularly conversational early in the day. But having opened with, “I took your spot,” how could I resist her? Turns out she owns a consulting business assisting companies who have large populations of downsized or laid off workers. She helps them relocate to newer, hopefully better jobs. When she asked the standard, “What do you do for a living?” I gave her the response I’ve grown more accustomed to over the past several weeks: “I make my money as a teacher, but my passion is writing.” I added my standard caveat that though I'm passionate about it, though I'm dedicated to it, I still question having the requisite skills to make my stories attractive to someone other than myself.

She immediately giggled. One of her gigs included working with a publishing firm that went through a major downsizing. She was assisting a project manager who’d worked with a series of best-selling authors in bringing their writing to market and on to success. (She gave me authors names, but best to respect their privacy.) My breakfast mate set about convincing the publishing executive that she was not only highly marketable but likely to find an even better job than the one she being forced to leave. I didn't ask what kind of "better"--more money, increased responsibility or perhaps greater fulfillment. As the publishing executive began to truly hear what my new friend was saying to her, she suddenly saw a parallel.

This publishing executive then relayed that every author she'd ever worked with thought their work sucked. “Sucked” wasn’t the word she used, but it conveys her point. She then said something about it being expected of artist types. That many artists underestimate their gifts until it is validated externally.

That helped. The universe at work. It was an absolute blessing that on my last morning in paradise, she'd share that tidbit. I rarely consider myself an artist. Seeing my life through the lens of artist fits better than when I insist on trying to view it through conventional lenses.

I recall being surprised when someone walked into my home to perform a service and within just a few minutes asked, “So, you’re an artist?” Since I hadn't owned it about myself yet, I thought she might be highly observant, maybe even psychic. I might as well praised her talent for recognizing that there is cola found in certain red cans with squiggly lines, and fancily arranged letters of C-O-K-E. Saying so might also mean, "next time try a professional decorator." The artist's doubt.

In the context of “artist type” my constant battles against thinking I can’t possibly write well enough to create an entire novel makes sense. It isn't every artist's issue, but enough of us have it.

Or maybe it's just a defense mechanism in anticipation of necessary constructive criticism. Clearly, the doubt doesn't keep me from continuing to pursue it. It just inspires a tendency to whine about it as I go.

BQMGDZ

That was my confirmation. I mean that literally. That was my confirmation for my trip to paradise, to heaven on earth. My blue dream, Turks and Caicos' Provo island vacation. BQMGDZ was the airline confirmation code. I did a double-take when I went looking for it to request an upgrade.

As noted in my last blog entry it's my goal to get some sort of outline for my book while I'm here. I find myself so easily distracted. Some might say it's the work of the devil to keep me from my true task. It's just the ego seeking to avoid any kind of work.

BQMGDZ

Well, I have to be honest here. I was going to write all kinds of other things instead of what is really on my mind. I am in the midst of watching some of my more earthly desires pass away. I'm torn about it. It feels like leaving the world behind.

Or maybe this too is some devilish distraction, a form of procrastination. Make this about larger issues of good versus evil instead of just working on this book.

I bought a book entitled something like The Tipping Point. Very informative and interesting. The guy next to me on the plane asked how I like it. He's read it twice, finds it valuable in terms of being more effective as a marketer of his business. We talk a while. I note that I meet the requirement of "maven" more than the books description of "connector" or "salesperson."

"Oh, an authority."
"I guess so. I'm a teacher and an author."

I introduced myself as an author. It's certainly not the first time I've told someone I wrote a book or that I even referenced myself an author. It was different, though. There was something in the way I said so...authoritatively, so certainly, so convincingly, so much a part of my identity. It was new to own it that way.

I'm an author. I'm here to work on my next book. And it isn't about how many people eventually read it. It is about getting onto paper the the underlying ideas.

Finally, that tipping point has been reached for me. The process is just as important as the result. The book has begun to breath. A few weeks back I dreamt of being pregnant. The tipping point is that this life, this book, will only die if aborted. I can't judge what others do with the gifts of life presented to them, but for myself, abortion is not an option.

With that said, I'm leaving this internet cafe. I'm heading back down Grace Bay beach and to my room where the outlines and sketches await me. I'll turn on the computer and I'll do what I can. I'll get something written.

I'll BQMGDZ. I'll nurture this little life until it can stand on its own, exist on its own. And then I'll send it into the world infused with all the love I am capable of bestowing upon it.

Writing the Light

I've been struggling with my writing. Not so much struggling as tolerating my passive indifference to moving forward with any one of three projects. Until tonight. I've pulled out the story sketches and event outlines and began a scene from Luzca's book tonight.

This is the first day of the third and final week of the 21-day post-attunement cleanse from repeating the Usui Reiki Master attunement. Amazing stuff has been going on. And today I am writing.

This day, just now, I began the arduous process of translating into fixed form these scenes and events that will eventually comprise my first work of fiction. So huge and tremendous. I've been talking about writing this and a couple other fiction pieces for a while now. Today I had that feeling I get when I am ready to brace myself for a long, arduous task. It's really more an action than a feeling. I pull at my hair.

When I pull at my hair while I write, it means I'm serious. It means I'm ready to wrestle with my myself, with my muses, with my vocabulary. It means that my heart and my intellect are going to try to work together, to hear each other out, to collaborate. And what it requires is confronting my ego at every sentence and sometimes at every word. The process of writing is hard for me because I let my ego run my intellect. I try to write from my head and it all sounds horrid. But until I learn a better way, my writing only proceeds from first putting down something, anything on the paper. The ego and the intellect tell a trite story. Then, at some unpredictable point in the future, my heart finds an opening and reworks the story in her image. Then there's beauty and fun, adventure and joy. Until then, and always before then, I have to watch myself put down crap.

I'm learning to appreciate that there are a bunch of steps before any harvest. Getting the initial draft down on paper is like the tedious work of tilling the soil. It has to be done. It isn't exciting. It's necessary.

So what brought on this willingness to dive into it finally? That deeper cleaning I referenced in the prior blog played a part. I should add that I also had a session with my own healer a couple days after the reattunement. A day or two after the session with her, I experienced a new sensation of God's love.

I'm hesitant to share it here. I'm hesitant to share that I had a new experience of feeling God's love out of fear of someone reading this and thinking, "Poor girl. She didn't know God loved her?" I knew it in the intellectual sense that everyone who claims to know God believes God loves them. Isn't the whole basis of Christianity that "God so loved the world..." Being part of the world, I was willing to entertain that God loved me too.

What was different last week, was the sensation and certainty of feeling it beyond knowledge and belief. That God loves me seeped into my soul, my body and my bones. On my evening walk it settled about me like a nourishing and vibrant cloud of light, melting away and transforming the fears that have hindered full pursuit of so many dreams, including writing these books.

For months I've been avoiding acknowledging that I quite simply felt I wasn't up for the task. I feared my inadequacy. I feared being unable to fulfill my own dreams. Nevermind my conviction that writing the Luzca tale is part of my life mission, something I must do, I still felt incapable of seeing it through. Translation? God set me up! He let me take on as my own a task I came wholly unprepared to complete.

Today I feel different. Something about that tangible peace from the greater clarity and certainty that God Loves Me has freed me from the constraints of fear. God wouldn't set me up. If I'm feeling the need to write this book, then I must be capable of doing so.

I feel willing to give it a try. I'm willing to do my best and let it do whatever it does.

Actually, there's lots more to say about it. I'm too exhausted to do so right now. I'll just add that I'm finally taking my Caribbean getaway in a few days and plan to use much of the time to outline this novel. If the process of completing my last book is any indication, this writing retreat will give rise to a clearer outline that will inevitably change beyond recognition by summer.

And that's the process. I guess this God Loves Me sensation has helped me come to peace with the process of writing. I was paralyzed by the knowledge that when I begin writing it won't come out wonderfully...at first.

There's pulling up soil, laying the seed and then the germinating that happens out of sight. Getting something written, beginning the story--that's tilling the soil. Planting the seeds is the details and outlining I do in an attempt to get the big picture and proceed in an organized fashion through the writing.

The germinating...that's when my heart sits back and does what it does in my dreams and in my subconscious. Then I come back to the story and begin to see sprouts of creativity, true love and genius. Then, much tending to the sprouts, lots of love and the plants begin to bear fruit.

It's very exciting.

Topsy Turvy

It's been seven days since I re-attuned to Reiki Master. With all the healing and clearing I'd done after the first series through Usui Reiki, I somehow deluded myself into thinking that this would be a cake walk, that the cleansing process wouldn't be intense.

What surprises me is how deep we can go into cleaning out the cobwebs of outdated thinking. I guess the first round was like taking a duster and taking off all the obvious dirt. This one feels more like taking a damp cloth and a wee bit of pressure to the surface, getting down into nooks and crannies. Even this isn't the deepest level. Stripping down the old varnish to reveal the natural beauty of the God-made material before putting on a fresh protective and attractive coating to highlight and enhance that natural beauty.

I look back and can see how the universe was helping me prepare. A couple weeks prior I felt the urge to clear out a bunch of old energies. My jar of change broke from the weight of the change that I'd let stay in there for years. All that stagnant energy. It needed to recirculate. It broke on the day I treated my home to a thorough cleaning. Even the windows, inside and outside. I knew that I was doing so because I was ready to see my life more clearly.

I've got new motivation to complete the Luzca book. All indications are that it is a life mission task and not to be dropped.

Resurrection, return

Talk about glory hallelujah. Resurrection Weekend. If I still did magical strawberries, I'd get myself to church tomorrow. That's where we go to meet with God, right? That's where we go to get right with God, yes?

For me it was yesterday, about 6:00pm, in the location of what I used to call His alter, the place where now stand four full bookcases.

I was on my way to get a book. Look something up. And on the way I got hit with metaphysical bricks-- well stones, crystals to be more precise--to just go directly God. On earth as it is in Heaven.

"Our Father...thy kingdom come...on earth as it is in Heaven." Funny how that is the one prayer to pray according to Jesus. Hard to believe it's all there. And yet it is.

I got on my knees in what in retrospect was repentance for not just going to Him in the first place. No, I didn't see it coming, even though I'd pulled out A Course In Miracles for the first time in years just a few hours earlier.

I'd let my ego creep back into the driver's seat these last few weeks, driving me crazy.

The most wonderful thing about the whole experience is the certainty of the pendulum motion. No matter how far I swing off-center, I'm heading back. I can count on it. Over time the pendulum swings go less far from center. It still swings. And I can't say that at this moment I have an interest in determining to stop the pendulum altogether.

Let me say that again. My process. Where I am at. I'm still learning from the pendulum swings. For me they feel important. I am fully aware that I could ask for the pendulum to stop swinging. But there's something beautiful about the motion, watching it, learning to trust in center by moving away from it. And then coming back every time.

If I had to guess, I'd say it is riding the pendulum away from center that moves out to the things that I came to own, to deal with and maybe stumble across clues to the keys to my existence. And on the way back to center, perspective shifts, I approach clarity, lessons get integrated.