ancestral stream

My maternal grandmother has been incredibly tired of late. Dehydrated, too. After spending three days in the hospital to recuperate and rest, she returned home exhausted from all the interruptions to check this tube and that medication. When I called the evening she returned home, she sounded somewhere between drunk and delirious from the exhaustion.


When I called to check on her a couple days later, she sounded more like herself. Chocolate and I went by to visit. For whatever reason, I'd never given her a reiki attunement.

Normally, I prefer to do reiki attunements with crystals selected just for that particular client and almost always include my moqui balls. It was an impromptu attunement. Fortunately, there was an amethyst and quartz point there given to her as gifts a couple years back.

Crystals under the chair, Chocolate laying at her feet, I swept her aura and then began to pray before the attunement. That's when I saw them in my mind's eye. It first looked like white light. It wasn't a solid white light. Not a beam nor a flood. It was fluid, undulating and composed of individual parts.

The feeling was of so many spirits. Ancestors would be my guess. They came to share, welcome, comfort, guide.

More like a welcoming than visiting team. They surrounded her like a wall. I was behind her and I felt them streaming in at her front and sides, a couple feet out from her body. Like brilliant stars dancing downward and then back up.



I wonder how long they've been visiting. Wonder what they're telling her about heaven.

"In this moment, I can say that what would make me feel like I've done my job on earth is if I mastered an understanding of the interrelatedness of the 12 dimensions; the ways and means of how crystals, Reiki and other alternative energy healing techniques work; past lives...etc., etc..."

I wrote that on Wednesday, March 28, 2007.

Bold, huh?
It comes to mind again today.

I'm fasting. Again.

Usually, I have something I want and then I turn in and "hear" when and what to fast along with prayer to make something happen. Kinda like a prescription. "God, I'd like a new home...huh?...fast, you say....fast for ten Fridays? done." And then, voila...a home! Not kidding!

Except, there's this other thing that happens when I fast. I lose weight. Sure one of the two pounds is back the next day, but when done week after week, versus when I don't do it week after week...fasting one day a week (water and tea only for 24-30 hours, gets long term results).

So the last couple weeks, post New Year's resolutions, I decide I just want to take on fasting for the weight management aspect. But I can't. I can't just fast and not pray, too.

Only, there's nothing I'm motivated to ask for. Go figure. Not saying I got all I could ever want, but there's nothing I'm moved to ask for just to be asking for something. My experience is that you'll be allowed to get it. It's just that when you ask, in my experience mind you, God hands it to you. When you grab hold, it's yours. The price tag, though, is underneath.

"God, I'd like a relationship that works."
"No problem. Fast 20 Mondays."
I'll tell you this. When you fast and pray. You really are in a space to confront yourself and hear God's voice.
And, yes, I'm very much in love with Mr. 20 Mondays. Thank you, God!!!

When I can't think of anything I want, I decide to dedicate my fast. I dedicated my last one to Mr. 20 Mondays, aka Steve. My prayers for him were answered.

This morning, I decided to do something new again. This time I asked God what I should pray for. Boy oh boy. Wasn't expecting it, but how did I not? He suggested praying for the world.

"The whole world???!"

Long story still longer, I did. But it was confronting. I had to confront that deep down, or maybe not even so deep, I didn't really think the world could work. Cynical? Just a bit. People never learn, governments always do the wrong thing, and love rarely triumphs. I didn't realize just how jaded I was. I knew I was jaded. Just didn't see how much so.

A day of prayer for planet earth.

Those books I'm always talking about writing. I'd forgotten that it was an opportunity to fulfill on my own fulfillment.

I'd forgotten that it was worth writing because what matters to me is worth sharing. It's worth sharing because the world is worth healing.

I'd forgotten that God loves this world, whether I do or not.

And I'd forgotten I love it too! The whole of it. It's imperfect governments, its irresponsible but still-striving human beings. It's easy to love dolphins, whales, mountains, wind and sea. Easy to love double rainbow days, buzzing bees, sunsets and even super-early sunrises. Harder to love the presence of hate, ignorance, greed and intolerance.

Fasting and praying for the whole world forced me to imagine a world that works. I imagined the world the way God knows it could it be. A world that works. A world of love.

return to bliss

Aaaaaahhhh. Return to perfect bliss.

Long walk. Tea with the newspaper and the radio. Noon comes. For no reason than that I can, orange juice and patron. Yep. Followed by a short nap.

Short walk while Chocolate relieves himself for the evening. Short phone call. Off to Enriques for an authentic Mexican meal. Mmmmmmm.

Come home, putter around. Turn on the sauna. It took thirty minutes to work up to a steady sweat. Thirty more minutes of drenching sweat while I read bell hook's Wounds of Passion. Getting inspired. She shares the story of her writing life, her connection to the divine, her search for a path beyond organized religion and the final choice to live a life in love. She writes of the experience of being female, of being black of being black and female and educated and a seeker and sexual, feminist and straight and the struggle to reconcile it all.

The evening ends with a shower. Exfoliate with the new scrub my honey bought me and then slather on the body butter.

The experience of loving myself. What a gift, a blessing, to be able to tend to me fully and completely, to cherish my body, soul and spirit with pampering.

A perfect way to end the holiday season indulgences.

Tomorrow morning begin again the three mile walks, the regular sauna sessions, the planned meals of wholesome not-so-fattening foods.

a lense

I write to see. Sometimes I forget that.

I lost my focus. Couldn't make out the signs. Wandering. Aimless.

Thank goodness. I've stumbled back on the path. Turns out having to complete online traffic school was a blessing.

I got it in just before the deadline. Seven months after the citation. And I finish it 23 hours before it's due.

Winter break is at the end of its 2nd day. Time, space, breathing...reading.

The pleasure of time to read Bell Hooks--Wounds of Passion. Writing, for me, is not passion.

I just write to focus in, to see.
The world's been blurry.

2010

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but why not start looking at what fabulous plans can be made for 2010. I went online to register for a creative writing course at the local college.

How crazily busy I've been this fall. Such a far cry from who I used to be, the little I used to get done. If you don't know, I really lived like the quintessential loner. A few close friends. Not too many engagements. Lots of time reading, contemplating, and, of course, a few favorite television shows.

Just recently, I began to accept that my life isn't changing back to the slower pace I used to embrace, revel in and hold sacred. My time was so precious to me. Not the kind of precious that leads to active living and loving. More like the kind of precious that has you guard, protect and enjoy as observer rather than participant.

Over the past year I've been busier and busier. Sometimes I'll tell myself, "I'm just going to continue this pace until..." and then, presumably, go back to that more restful state where I value time alone above all else.

I still love time to think and contemplate. I just don't love it more than time doing and being in action around what matters to me. How I loathed anything that interfered too consistently with my long evening walks. Now, I take them each day with Chocolate. More times than not I'm talking as well. So different. So lived. So wonderful.

This afternoon I was in between calls and a cousin from Texas rang. He wanted help with an algebra problem that he was helping his girlfriend solve. That was fun.

There's so much living to do. I still love time alone, time to contemplate and time to allow my body to regenerate itself. I just no longer love it MORE THAN all there is to do in life.

Writing classes.
Writing.
More healing classes.
Healing and sharing healing in classes I teach.
Loving my lover.
Cooking. Experimenting with cooking.
Drinking wine and enjoying it leisurely.
Time in my infrared sauna. Oooh-la-la, sweet healing heat.
Playing with my dog, Chocolate. Walking chocolate and enjoying the scenes.
Talking to my family, talking to friends.
Talking.
Listening.
Hearing the world. Hearing others.

Hearing, Healing
Talking, Listing

Writing.

Winter Wind's Kiss

A cloudy evening walk with Chocolate through the neighborhood. As usual, I was also on the phone. As usual, talking with my buddy Gilbert.

"I have to stop. I can't move. I have to just be with something right now. Something's calling me."

I stood at the corner of a nearby street transfixed by the path. I stared down the sidewalk. There was no one walking, no cars driving. The only movement were leaves. The wind gently but with great intention, blew through them. It reminded me of scenes shown over and over and over during a particularly bad hurricane. e

The trees weren't bent over and the sound of rustling more melodic than foreboding. It only seemed alarming because of the contrast to five months of stillness.

It was winter wind's first hello. I had to stop and experience it, enjoy it. The light gray sky was a perfect nondescript background to winter whispering its coming.

Flashes of cold walks, falling rain and long, cozy evenings came over me.

All lovers should greet with such a captivating kiss.

Roots: ling qi, reiki

I love research. I like discovering what others take for granted. More so, I enjoy finding the overlooked connections that explain what others have glossed over in an attempt to avoid uncomfortable uncertainty.

Ready to take on Reiki as an enterprise, I've been diving into it for a thorough understanding. There's a spiritual element to it. What's that about? When I tell a Christian that Reiki is a complement to any faith or no faith, I need to know what allows me to say so.

Without too much effort, I've learned that Reiki came to Japan via China and that it is most likely related to ling qi. In fact, I'm very comfortable asserting that this is highly probable.

So then, how did the Chinese get it? I love Ecclesiastes' refrain that there is "nothing new under the sun". So then, what was reiki before it was ling qi? Of course, there are many who point to the Egyptians. Yummy. More research.