Monday, June 11, 2007

So That's What I Love about the Caribbean

I was reading up on a crystal I bought for a friend. It referenced "the many mansions in the house of spirit." (The Book of Stones on pietersite). While holding it I thought about this and I felt like I was there.

It was an ocean front room at sunset, the sky in an uncommon and calmly vibrant variety of orange, purple and brown hues and colors interspersed with sky blue. Amazingly beautiful and serene. The wall facing out to the sea was missing, open air style. Well, actually, it was a variant of the spot I'll be inhabiting next week in Barbados.

And it felt like I was Heaven. "In My Father's house are many mansions." If I had to guess, my room in my Father's house is like my ideal Caribbean room. I miss home. I try to go back to visit as often as I can. If your room, suite or guest house in God's many mansions were a place on earth, where would yours be?


While I spent some time in my Heavenly room, I thought about what's been on my mind a lot lately. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? OK, trite and cliche, I know. I enjoy my job a great deal and it pays well. So much so that I worry that my love of security is keeping me from something I'd enjoy more.

While in my room, I asked myself what would truly bring me joy to do on earth. The answer was surprisingly quick. I'd give parent workshops on education. The thing I'm doing now in my spare time. The thing I wrote a book about to give me credibility.

Why do I run here and there looking for something else? This might be a good time to note the selenite wand I purchased Friday. I didn't wonder why it was that suddenly on Saturday morning I woke up wondering about my life's work. I just did. I called a friend first thing in the morning and we were gung-ho on becoming life coaches. Then, and only then, we'd go into workshops. This friend and I banter back and forth year after year on new ideas for our next great career move or entrepreneurial venture. And year after year we add a few speaking engagements and then settle back into our usual routines.

Every idea, every move and every venture always culminates in speaking to groups. Small groups, workshops mostly. In fact, she and I met while advising students. We didn't really begin to click until we started doing our separate speaking engagements and talked about our successes and challenges. Within a few months we were doing joint workshops...or sitting on each other's.

Back to my room in my mansion...
When I got the quick answer that I'd give workshops, my room was suddenly filled with other light beings. They were fellow soul sojourners offering their support. Prospective parents from future workshops who were letting me know that, indeed, doing that work was much needed.

The difference their presence made was in reminding me that they don't need another expert on the educational system, they need the part of me that takes the time to explain it and who cares from a heartful place about supporting their challenge of raising their children. Not that it was to be about parenting advice. Just someone who actually understands the hassle and challenge they face in trying to do the right thing when dealing with the educational system.

My unique gift. My book is OK. But the place where I get an energy kickback and where I get the greatest positive feedback is when I am speaking to parents, answering their questions.

(Sorry so rough. I'll edit later and re-publish.)

Bottom line (long day, long night)...In that peaceful and supportive place that felt like my room in Heaven, I was able to appreciate that other souls are waiting for me to actually DO my life's purpose, to live it. And that my life's purpose is what I'm already doing, there's just room for me to commit to it. Most important, I can finally get over my book. It was meant to enhance a prospective speaking career, but it has instead gotten in the way of me doing what I'm good at, what I'm called to do, as I focused on income streams and how the experts say it is supposed to be done.


From The Book of Stones on Selenite:
"Selenite can lift one's awareness to higher planes of inner experience, making it possible for one to consciously meet one's spirit guides and guardian angels. It facilitates the experience of receiving advice and information from one's guides in the form of "interior motives."

Makes more sense that the light beings were spirit guides than prospective parents.

"In such experiences, one closes one's eyes in meditation while lying with a Selenite wand resting on the heart chakra and pointing toward the head...As one moves into the meditative state, one is likely to see one or more guides, often in the form that symbolize something about the message. The guide or guides will take one through a 'story' that reveals the message symbolically. Words are seldom used, which makes the guides' job much easier. One might say that when Selenite opens the inner eye, the spiritual world enters."

Saturday, June 2, 2007

The Energy of Love

I had no idea what it was I always chasing.

I used to think it was people, experiences, adventures and so on. Now I know. I'm an addict for the energy of love. I suspect it is true for us all. The only problem is when we confuse the energy of love with the forms it takes to make itself experiential.

A plant taught me that.

Last weekend I cared for the plants around my home. I added a few, changed the soil on others, pruned the ones that needed it and loved them all.

That concluded on Monday. On Tuesday the following email was inspired:
I came home today and there was a shriveled up little plant sitting on my deck. Who sat it there??? Poor thing. My intuition suggests someone is hoping I'll do something to it so it looks more like the plants I care for...work some strawberry majic.

It didn't just walk over and place itself on the edge of the rail at the very top of the stair.

I can see the value in figuring out and owning what I came here (incarnate) for. It'll help me to make the decisions about what I'm open to and what I am not. I can't see the harm in taking the plant in and fixing it up a bit. And yet, I can't deny that there's something wrong with my motivation.

Aaaaah. There's still so much ego in me. Now I know why you accused me of having a Jesus complex, in a twisted way. Saving the plant, helping it grow is not really my motivation. I just want to show off what I can do for the plant. Save the plant, flex my muscles.

No doubt the plant will still be helped in the end, but oh how much sweeter the karma, how much sweeter the joy, and how much richer would my interaction with the plant be if I had a different motivation.


By the way, that insight was courtesy of the palm I bought at Lowes that is sitting right next to me. It is such a beautiful creature. When I look over at it, it pulls at the corner of my mouth and I catch myself smiling. I ran my fingers along the stem earlier. I've never been this open to enjoying the life force of such a creature before, to experiencing the life and wisdom of a plant.

Thanks to that experience with the palm, I can go outside and actually interact with the plant that someone sat on my rail the day after I spruced up and tended to my own garden. Oh, then there's that...the other part of my Jesus complex, coming to the rescue.

So much to be cognitive about. For today I'm just gonna bless the plant because...well...because I'm a greedy little predator pig who'll force myself on a plant whilst I work on learning not to force myself on people.

There, it's been owned. Off I go to partake of some plant lovin'.


After the buddy I emailed to offered some insight and feedback, the next day I was much clearer on articulating the why of being here this lifetime, and really, all lifetimes.

I came here to learn how to love.

With the plant last night I definitely learned/remembered how much I enjoy loving.

My issue is not remembering the natural way endowed me to do it. And, yes, that's true for all of us.

I was clear last night when I brought the plant inside that I was gonna 'love' it--regardless of it being the right thing to do or any of my business. Just being aware of the intention was fabulously inspiring of more curiosity. Of course, the obvious, I thought of love as usefulness. How snobby of me to pretend the connection is "obvious"...as if it hasn't been a lot of work to connect those dots.

I can't believe how much I think I get a free pass for pushing myself on others just because my hope, my goal, my INTENTION is to 'love' them.

While "raping" the plant, I was suddenly struck with it's inherent beauty, even as it was practically dead. It's lifeforce, it's value and worth and character and natural joy. And I felt an undeniable sensation of it reflecting me, reflecting God and emanating an energy of love.

This morning I woke up able to own that I'm an addict for love. I love the energy love and can'y get enough of it.

My work this lifetime is returning to innocence on HOW to love naturally, innocenty, without domination or degradation or hostility.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.


And that plant is still sitting right outside my window on the stair railing just outside my door, across from the door of the neighbor who placed it there. Next to it is the 2nd plant she placed there the following day when she saw the nearly dead plant returning to life. I haven't done anything to the other plant, though.

Unfortunately, I read too late that when giving Reiki to sick plants, one has to be careful about not inadvertantly giving increased lifeforce to any bugs or fungi. The plant has perked up quite a bit. In addition to Reiki, I gave it good old-fashioned plant food. When I got closer this morning, though, there were also more bugs flying around it.

Hmmmmph. Could that have been the hesitation I didn't heed. In taking it upon myself to help that ailing plant, unaware of its infested condition, I have now put in jeopardy the health of my own thriving plants.

Live and learn.

In either case, the experience with the plants served to remind of the joy of exchanging love. That's what stood out. It wasn't just about "giving" the plant love and energy. In allowing it to share it's beauty and wisdom and life, I received the same.

That's what is addictive. The exchange of the energy of love.

Everything else, as a good friend always says, just substitutes.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Anything But Alone

"You make the decision, we'll do the work."

That's what I heard. It was the response from my angels, my spirit guides, my higher self. Call it, call them, what you will.

I've been fasting an outdated habit for the month of May. I've been fasting many things over the past year or so, often to the end that the desire has disappeared entirely after the timeframe of the fast disappears. Over the course of the fast, when the desire for the item or habit surfaces, I take the time to be curious, to wonder about the motivation. What need do I believe, usually falsely, is being met.

Taking the time to question the underlying motivations usually helps me address the lie beneath the desire, the urge, the old habit. Once light, in the form of awareness, is shed on the behavior, the lie has no where to hide. Out in the open, truth swallows it whole. And I become just a little more free than I had been.

My string of recent successes at dropping old, ill-fitting habits, became it's own habit. I was caught off guard when as the month wound down, I was feeling rather tempted to bring this particular fast to a premature end.

I thought I was so much better than that.

And in the struggle with myself to battle the guilt of even contemplating "failure", I was forced to remember the value of fasting. That it isn't about showing how strong I am already. Wrong attitude. It's about remembering that there is help to deal with what seems out of our control. Fasting reminds us to look beyond our ego, our conventional notions, the usual suspects, for support and guidance.

And so I did. And as soon as I did, I heard a voice say "You make the decision, we'll do the work." I committed to my fast anew. I made the decision and I got help with the desire. Someone helped me with the work of combatting, confronting my insecurities.

Related...
I had a dental appointment later that same day. I was having two caps replaced. One in particular needed a great deal of filing down by the dentist to fit my bite. He'd put it on, I'd bite down, grind my teeth. The paper slid between my bite would tell him where and how much to file down. The art of dentistry.

This went on four or five times before it was close to done. When he removed the paper for the last filing down, I had felt the cap getting closer and closer to just the right fit. To my surprise, I heard a voice say in my inner ear, "just another one-third millimeter will make it right."

"One-third millimeter?" Precisely that? Millimeters and not inches?

Knowing the dentist's voice, I can say with certainty I wasn't overhearing his inner dialogue. The voice was distinctly male, and astoundingly confident and self-assured in his assessment.

In the past I'd have doubted the experience. I'd have tried to find a rational explanation--perhaps I heard it in a movie and it just came to me at that moment. In the past, I'd have known better than to try and share aloud the experience and invite speculation that my sanity is less than 100%.

Now that I've spent more time in meditation and less time medicated, I am ready to speak my own truth without worry of the complexes and fears that may be in earshot. I believe I heard the voice of my immaterial community.

We're anything but alone in the world. Anything but alone in our homes. Anything but alone when we go out in the world. Those of us who are Christian claim to believe that God is omnipresent. We take in fear that He sees and hears all that we do. And yet, we hesitate to take in faith that He is always near.

OK. Lets call that one an easy to swallow truth. Here's the harder part. Is He alone in experiencing with us our lives? What do the angels we profess to believe in do all day, all night, all eternity?

In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, there is a wonderful line stated by the character who represents the new material world order personified, "What is immaterial, has become immaterial."

We take it as a given that we can communicate with a soul thousands of miles away instantaneously. Through a video camera on a phone any person in reach of a satellite can share any experience we find ourselves in the midst of enjoying or loathing. The material version of shared experiences is easily embraced.

Has the value, worth and possibilities of the immaterial become unimaginable?

There are angels, spirit guides, old selves, new selves all simultaneously experiencing our moments with us. They have perspectives, truths, insights and plain information to offer us if we are open to hearing them, noticing them and being open to their guidance.


Now that I've typed all of that--my begging in prose not to be declared weird or insane--I'll share that when I sat down in the dentist chair, I immediately noticed a my dentist was distracted, preoccupied. I didn't want to reschedule, but I didn't want his preoccupation to interfere with a positive dental experience. So I invited my spirit guides. If you're wondering why I didn't say that in the first place, well, the truth is, I only just remembered as I was about to write that I didn't have any idea whose voice I'd heard and that it didn't matter.

I made the decision to keep my dental appointment. I made the decision to not try to interfere with the day my dentist was having by overtly or covertly insisting he get with my program. I made the decision that I would have a positive dental experience and that the work would be done without error.

"Just another one-third millimeter..."

I made the decision, they did the work.

And, here's the real fun of it all. Our spiritual support system is glad to pitch in the work. They recognize, even if we don't, that our biggest job as human souls is learning how to make the decisions.

It is incredibly empowering to begin to see myself as part of a larger spiritual community, a larger universe of God's creations all working hard to create Heaven on Earth.

It's so wonderful to know we're anything but alone.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

No past, no present, no future

I had a rather profound experience the other night with the newest members of my crystal community--my Shaman stones, also called Moqui Balls.

I was moved to do a Reiki session with the three Shaman stones mentioned in an earlier blog (Shaman Stone Dreaming) along with two others. The crystals themselves suggest the configuration.

The session began with usual prayers and then, intuitively, a repetition of one of the Reiki symbols aloud. Within moments I felt as if a gateway opened up. Ahead of me, through my mind's eye, I saw my entire future path ahead of me.

What did it look like? Well, there weren't any details like people or streets. It felt more like viewing an energy stream. It was more like standing in a long and seemingly narrow hall in a house of mirrors that projected anfocused image of what is intuitively known as the self infinitely into the future.

It was shocking and amazing, but not at all scary. I was moved to send lots of loving energy and Reiki symbols through to the future me. And then, as if maybe one of my guides noticed I was so awed by looking ahead, my attention was drawn to the stream behind me, my past into infinity. I was lead to send energy there too.


After several minutes of listening intuitively to the guidance on which thoughts and energy to send backwards and forwards through my lifestream, I experienced a spontaneous viewing of a prism of light leaving from my heart in both directions.

Usually, in addition to the occasional blog, I journal all my healing sessions and crystal selections in a handwritten journal immediately. The combination of a busy week and the depth of the experience...it took me two days just to write the short-version here.

Rest assured (I say more for myself than for anyone else), I am committed to just spending some time with the energy healing I've learned so far. There's so much to experience before I add on more layers of training.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

A Mother's Day letter

I just wanted to take a few moments to tell you that your question has really got me thinking. You asked me how it is I am always smiling, always happy.

First, thank you for the compliment, thank you for noticing, and thank you for inquiring about it. I meant it when I said my kids have recently been asking me the same thing.

A couple of months ago, when I was still taking anti-depressants, I’d have probably said they were the reason.

Recently, though, like I’d mentioned a visit ago, I got into energy healing—Reiki healing, Pranic Energy Healing, and my favorite, the use and wearing of crystals. I credit these and my continuing relationship to God with the decision to get off the anti-depressants finally and alcohol and the smoking on occasion after Mr. T and I broke up.

Soon after I got off the medications is about the time I started hearing people ask me about being happy most of the time.

If I had to list a bunch of reasons that, except for the first, are in no particular order:
 Meditation and constantly talking to God
 No medications
 Very little alcohol
 Not the least of my joy is working with my crystals
 Having a core group of friends that have stayed with me, through all my changes of name, views, ideas, careers and lovers for over a dozen years
 Fasting periodically
 Walking 3-5 times a week
 A job around teenagers…all of whom I love and who keep me young at heart
 Not taking my job too seriously (anymore)
 Reading lots of books to help me understand God better, the universe better, myself better and others better
 Not having to worry about my family
--Like cousin said, “She don’t have kids, that's why.”
--No love-depleted other to foolishly believe I can fill-up
--Staying out of the larger family drama when it comes up
--Living in a quiet home with plenty of time to think
--Having been blessed with a mostly healthy extended family
 Knowing that I live a really blessed life
 Remembering, at least occasionally, the contrast that most people on the planet live relative to my comfort, freedom and options, let alone basic needs met
 The mental, emotional, spiritual and financial freedom to experiment in my life and with my life
 Traveling to expand my views and perspectives
 Being too clueless to know I should be afraid of new things
 A grandmother that loves me the very best she knows how
 A mother who deals with my ever-changing self the very best she knows how
 A sister who surprises me with new insights and who knows me better than I know myself…but doesn’t use it against me
 A really good chiropractor to align my spine when it needs it
 A dear, dear friend who challenges me at every turn and keeps me growing…and who works hard himself at understanding others, even me
 The inability to learn that love is about hardship, suffering or pain


In sum, I’m happy most of the time because I work at it.


Or is that I’m just always happy to see you?
Well, if I know the woman who modeled self-determination for me, you already answered, “Well, now that’s true too .”

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Shaman Stone Dreams

Though I primarily buy my gems and stones at collector's faires these days, I still occasionally visit a booth at a local farmer's market operated by a spirit-centered and friendly couple. For a while, at the beginning, I would go almost weekly. As I exhausted the items in their inventory that I had an interest in, I now return only every so often to check out the new stuff. Amazingly, I automatically head to the new stuff. While I can't claim to recognize each piece visually, I do recognize them energetically on some level.

I shared my new Reiki attunements with them toward the end of our visit. The husband casually asked, "You have your Shaman Stones already then..." Now sure, there's sales involved in the question. It is, afterall, their business to sell their wares. However, there was also true interest in aiding my spiritual growth and practice.

"NO...Shaman Stones?" The wife proudly beams as she hands me two, explaining that I should put everything down--wallet, purchases, keys--and just hold them to feel the energy. There was no explanation as to what I should expect.

Within just a literal few seconds, I felt my entire spine begin to shift. It's a feeling I'm familiar with now. My chakras were being aligned. I have a couple stones that do this for me. Actually quite a few of them can do this or something similar either automatically or when directed. These stones, Moqui balls, did it nearly instantaneously and rather forcefully I might add. Not forceful to the point of discomfort, but there was no way you could mistake what was happening or how.


I intuitively bought three. I'd guess they're a ma, pa and kid. When I got home I took pa out immediately. I carried him around most of the day, even around the house. The comfort, the perfect connection, is incredibly strong.

When I awoke this morning I recalled having had new and amazing dreams.

--The most recent before awakening was me performing various healings. Considering how insistent I am that I don't desire to put up a shingle, it goes without saying that last night was the first I dreamt of actually performing healing sessions on folks I don't know. I'll add that my "studio" was adjacent to my home. Oddly this fits a scenario I've often imagined but had let go. I had imagined having a downtown loft with a first floor studio. (I prefer to call it a studio to an office.)

Another idea was my dream beachfront city, an oceanfront home on a cliff, with a healing studio on the first floor with a side entrance. Right now, it makes sense that the location would be oceanfront. The roar and pounding of the sea against the cliffs would be a natural source of energy cleansing to keep released negative energies from hanging around. At the end of each day I could send them into the sea to disperse them...and perhaps offer an opportunity to reverse themselves.

That's the dream. Right there. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

But back to last night's stuff.

When I got up this morning I thought about the irony of dreaming of actually performing healings--in the dream I had three clients in a row. My hesitation to handle strangers creeped into my consciousness. And just as released crap from my body, I was able to release crap from my mind. I don't have to have the experiences I don't want to have with clients. I don't want to hear people's lies, drama and nonsense. I don't want to have that many impure mental/emotional interactions each day.

In the dream, I had done two healings, no problems. Then a third guy came in. Super tall skinny blonde guy. When I mentioned it taking two hours, he didn't have it. He could do an hour. Suddenly, in the dream, I was going through my house getting towels, sprayers and salt water. He was going to need Pranic Healing instead of Reiki. As I went through my house gathering these materials in the dream, I kept wondering why I hadn't had them already ready. Had I done the two prior healings without the proper accompaniments?

Back to my conscious consideration of doing energy healings...I remembered that I do best when I think least. Especially when it comes to healings. My crystals tell me which combinations to use them in. Whenever I look the combination up after the healing, I am almost more than stunned, amazed and shocked at how spot on the choices. Same with healings. I don't plan ahead cognitively when I do a Reiki or a Pranic to utilize my crystals. What happens is I decide to do a healing, then I am lead to either Reiki or Pranic, then the crystals who want to be involved call out to me. While performing the healing, the crystals then direct me at just the right time what to do with them. Sometimes they just sit under my chair collecting negative energies. Othertimes they sit in a particular configuration. At others, one or two choose to become more actively involved and my arms become their arms and they direct the movements and positions.

So I don't have to do impure conversations that are full of defenses, ego's, cover-ups and misrepresentations. For the most part the aloud conversations will be minimal. My higher self will communicate with their higher self and whatever I can and should do will get done.

Awesome.

The other dreams I had can really be summed up as one big one. I had a new daddy. This daddy had a whole bunch of kids. Seems like I recall them all being female. We were each his favorite. And we each knew we were his favorite. And we each knew we were each his favorite.

The one part that I want to share of the particulars is a trip we took to an ancient site. It was a museum built around an underground or cave site. This site was revered and included much spiritual wisdom on walls. It was in a white marble step formation. There were not huge crowds, I recall. There were others there besides my dad and my sisters, but not to many. It was the former site of highly spiritual beings of more than 100 million years past.


And this is the dream I had after holding my Moqui balls, so-called Shaman stones, all day. And the next dream held the clue to becoming a practicing spiritual healer. It was my first dream as a healer.


I should add that last night I experienced a desire for so many of the things I am currently fasting until my Reiki Master attunement next weekend. I acknowledged the desire and made a firm decision that I could have as much of what is allowed as I want to substitute whatever comfort I thought I'd find in the no-no's. And yes, I had half-a-bag of popcorn and some rice dream dessert...Had I not been committed to my fasts, perhaps none of those inspiration-filled dreams would have had happened. Did I say perhaps. Of course, they wouldn't have happened.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

New Relationships

First and foremost, there is a totally new relationship I'm establishing with myself. Par for the course for every human being, of course. Each day that passes, each moment, each choice we grow (or regress). The next day, next moment, next choice we're a new person with a new self-concept and therefore, in a new relationship with ourself.

What's happening on my end is an exponential version of this. I do some form of Reiki, Crystal healing or Pranic healing on myself most days. And every day when I wake up I find that I'm not the same person who went to sleep in the same bed just the night before.

As a result, all my relationships are changing. I'm not talking too much to anyone these days. I feel like I'm too busy balancing on quicksand and could only frustrate. The few people with whom I have stayed in communication with come in two groups. Those I very rarely spoke with in the first place have a new and improved, calmer and more centered me to enjoy. They don't know what's different, don't even mention that anything's different. If I had to guess I'd say they simply enjoyed the experience--a conversation or exchange that didn't leave them or me drained. Very few defenses and a feeling of love being exchanged.

For those who communicated with me frequently, I think the changes are too much. I can't be counted on to stick with the program. Whatever the relationship had been was established with a me that no longer exists. Perhaps the "changes are too much" for me.

I think I need to spend a few days just integrating the new energies, the new self. Somewhere around here I have a crystal for that too.