As many of you are probably doing, I find myself looking for ways that I can help the worldwide causes that are in jeopardy. Since the health of our environment is one of the areas of particular threat, and a great concern of mine, I have decided to offer my services in exchange for donations to environmental charities. The offer is good through the month of February. In return for a 30-minute energy healing session (distant or in-person), or a 30-minute intuitive reading (distant or in-person), I am asking that you make a donation to a reputable environmental organization. There are so many charities and causes concerned with preserving and improving the health of our planet, I don’t wish to limit your choices. If, though, you need some suggestions, click here for a great list.
To redeem this offer, please email me at aekehas@gmail.com with a receipt of your donation and preferred dates and times for your healing or reading. For more information, you can visit my website at www.aletheakehas.com
I woke from a strange dream this morning, just at the point where I could have let go of the notion that I needed to go “back” home, and surrender into the vast unknowing. I woke with a feeling of constriction. I felt it in the chest tight with held breath. I felt it in my throat clogged with mucus. And, I felt it in my lower abdomen waiting to release the waters processed during the night.
In the dream I had been driving a cat. Of course this might actually have been possible if it had been a wild cat such as a tiger or a lion, and I allowed myself to imagine that glorious possibility for awhile after I woke. In the dream, though, my domesticated cat looked a lot like the one that lives in my physical house, only I had a ridiculous reign around its shoulders, as though I actually believed it would be capable of taking me where I thought I needed to go, which was back to my childhood home. When I woke, my wildcat, a tiger, had no yoke of any form, instead I rode her back and surrendered to where she wanted to go.
The cat, in both instances, represents the energy of the 2nd chakra, where our creative life-force energy is birthed into being through our intuition. In the dream, I thought I was letting the cat lead the way, but of course she was too small and too domesticated to carry my weight. It was a rather pitiful scene of restraint. Before I woke, I was digging futility in a backpack with many pockets, stuffed with everything, it seemed, but the GPS I was looking for. I was convinced I needed it to find my way back home. “Back” home, that is, instead of home. I was going backwards into the past, instead of forwards into the unknown filled with that fiery energy of possibility.
The cat that wants to be a tiger
I shouldn’t have been surprised by this, and really, I wasn’t. Frustrated, yes, as we all are when we don’t allow that full expression of the 2nd chakra to channel into life. You see I had also been tempted by this possibility, in the form of a mysterious lover, who held me close and kissed me, before I made the choice to look for my “car. Yet there was the hint of promise in his words,”You will come back. Next time…”
Why, you might ask, am I telling you about this dream? Why should you care? Because, I realized, upon waking that my struggle against restraint is a universal struggle, which is so poignantly at the surface right now it cannot be denied. You need only to look around you, and within you, to see it. As the inner always mirrors the outer and vice-versa. It is also timeless, but I believe at this point in our collective evolution, the letting go of restraint is poignantly calling for our attention.
How many of us grew up with restraints and constraints? Most of us, I think it’s safe to say. I know that in the rare moments when I dared utter my will, which went against my parents’, a verbal or physical restraint would quickly reach out to hold me back. Of course it’s no wonder I am still struggling with the ties that bind, but oh is it frustrating.
Yesterday, I read a post of Facebook shared by a friend about a young man in Boston who had faced the darkness of uncontrolled restraint in the form of fear surfacing from the energy around this turbulent election process. I believe we all want to be free. Yet, when we act out from the place of fear, we cause harm. When we choose to disempower another, instead of empowering ourselves, we cause oppression and hurt. We are seeing examples of this all around us right now as we are being called to walk with a faith that calls for a surrendering to the light which is love, which is grace, and which is also the vast unknown, and as yet undecided. This, then, requires a breaking down of fear and all its restraints.
The young man from Boston was not caucasian, and this threatened the foundation of “home” of the man who raged at him, as he was holding fast to old fears. Fears perpetuated by the rhetoric of Trump and his supporters, and hence fear that were not wholly his own (as all fears are really, in essence, everyones’). To hold onto his crumbing foundation, this older, white man, raged against the young non-caucasian, telling him to get off the bus he was riding, telling him to go “back home.” In essence, though, he was trying to find his own way home. His lack of restraint, in this case, had become a constraint. He was holding himself back from evolving, while also trying to hold the young man back who trigged this fear within him.
It’s curious how much we fear the unknown, but it’s also deeply troubling when you see all the damage it has, and continues to cause, in our world. A world that is trying, constantly, to evolve and grow, yet we try, in turn, to hold it back by holding ourselves back, and by trying to hold each other back. We cling to the past. We cling to what we are used to, because we think it is the safest way to live. But is it? Look around you and within you. What has this created besides war and suffering?
Constrained energy causes disease. It causes illness. It causes dis-ease. Ultimately it causes death, because the vital life force energy that wants to flow through us is shut of or diminished by restraint.
Last night, before I went to bed, I watched the move “Miracles from Heaven.” In the movie, if you have not seen it, a 10 year-old-girl is diagnosed with a potentially deadly disease of the digestive system. She is literally unable to digest and process the nutrients her body requires for life. The relevance of that, in light of what this post is about, does not escape your observation, I am sure, but there is more.
In the movie, which is based on a true story, the girl comes back home to live out, it is thought, her last remaining days. Instead, her older sister, following what I believe to be a spark of intuitive guidance, urges her to let go of the restraints that bind her and climb a large, old tree in their yard. When the two girls are on a branch together, it starts to crack from their weight, and they scramble toward the trunk so they will not fall. But, the dying girl falls (through a hole inside of the trunk), and in that fall, she finds new life.
A miracle occurs in that moment. In the pit of darkness at the base of the old tree, in which she has fallen, the young girl loses consciousness, freeing her spirit from her body. She meets “God,” and is given a new chance at life. When she wakes, she is cured of her disease and all of its restraints.
As her mother later says during a church service, “miracles are all around us, we just need to open our eyes to them.” And, let go of restraint in the form of fear. The young man on the subway is an example of this. In the face of hatred, he surrendered his own fear to grace instead of caving into fear in the form of hate. In the story of the event, he admits to being filled with an impulse to react by punching the man. To return hatred with hatred. To fight the battle he is being called to fight, but instead, he surrenders to grace. Letting go of his own fears, he opens the gate to life. To a new reality. In doing so, the man entrenched in fear responds in kind, to this new, stronger, energy he is presented with. The anger in his face gradually melts as the fortress dissolves. Tears of release fill his eyes, and he extends his hand to the young man he has just assaulted verbally. And in that moment, a new world is born, at least for him.
We all share these fears, just perhaps in slightly different forms. We all fear, to different degrees, the new. We fear what we do not know, and what we could become. But should we? Restraint, held in the reign of fear, only stops us from birthing the new world within and without. Now, more than ever, we cannot afford to stop the light that is life from flowing into the infinite possibilities of who we are and are desiring to become. A genius, whether in the form of a painting, a poem, a symphony or a breakthrough in science, causes us to look at the world in a new way. We are filled with awe as we gaze upon the manifestation of greatness, but we forget that it lies, waiting to be birthed, in all of us.
More than ever before in recent history, we are being called to walk present in the Now, with the knowing that what we think, what we do, and how we interact with each other will ripple into the future we create for ourselves. This means being in the presence of grace as much as possible, and allowing the light of the divine to shine through us and before us as we walk these somewhat uncertain steps. It is up to us, together, to decide how much light there will be to guide us, and how many shadows we will choose to dwell within.
Each day, we can wake and ask ourselves, “How can I serve the highest good?” Then, set the intention, “Today I will live with grace and kindness in my actions and interactions; in my thoughts, through my words, and through my doing.”
Here are some ways we can co-create a more compassionate and kinder world. A world where unity is strong in the light of love:
*Wake with gratitude for Life and its gifts, even those that are unpleasant, for they are often our greatest teachers.
*Smile often. Laugh. Hug. Love. Always, if nothing else, Love. Even those you don’t like, for that is where we reach the state of grace.
*Rescue yourself by rescuing another, whether it be an animal, a person, or a tree. Extending that act of compassion to another brings out the best part of ourselves.
*Give your time and gifts when the opportunity arises. If someone, or something, is placed in your path that provides you with an opportunity to give of your gifts, and of your time, embrace it with gratitude.
*Extend gratitude: For the food that you consume and the sources that enabled you to have it. For the people and events in your life that allow you to learn, to grow and to love. To yourself. To Source, in whatever definition that manifests for you. To Earth, as your home (and honor Earth by helping to keep it balanced, clean and healthy). To the waters of life. To anything and anyone who is a part of your life, give thanks.
*Honor your feelings in whatever form they arise, knowing that those uncomfortable ones provide you with an opportunity to heal and to grow.
*Surrender to love, knowing that each fear your harbor is a cloak to the light.
May peace, joy and the ever-present light of love be with all of us.
We are on the cusp of change. We have chosen and elected our catalyst in the form of Donald Trump. For many of us, he represents all that we find deplorable. For others, he represents the of power convictions postured in the form of Ego. It came down to two choices, one representing what could be stated as “more of the same,” the other a force-filled symbol of change. We voted for change, but we chose the hard road, as we were not quite ready to embrace the oneness that Bernie Sanders represented.
So, what do we do now? Do we continue upon the divisive road of otherness, or do we band together to find the commonality we all share? It’s not just spiritual jargon to say that we are, in essence, one. It is simply Truth. Whether you believe in creationism, evolutionism, or some other design that got us all here, we all came, at some point, from the same source. We all share the same light and darkness, it’s simply the degree to which we express it that we differ.
When I heard the news this morning, I went through the stages of grief, but very quickly. There was a spark of anger, followed by the shaking of fear. There was a sense of collective mourning, but there was also relief. And peace. Peace is what prevailed. Either way, I knew, we were on a path of change. Electing Hilary would have meant, most likely, a slower path. Donald, on the other hand, will ignite the fire within. It is our choice as to how it burns and spreads.
Inside all of us, there exists the Light from which we arose. We share this. This is what unites us. It is our life force energy, but it is also Love. We are at a time in our collective evolution where we are being called to the frontline, but not to wage another war. Haven’t we all had enough war and strife? This is a cycle we’ve repeated for thousands of years, and it doesn’t work, does it? Someone always loses in war. It divides us. It separates us. No, this is a call to the frontline to hold the Light. To walk with the Light. To be the Light. To spread the Light so that it may ignite the Light in others who chose to harbor fear.
When I let the anger and fear wash through me, I felt the power of this Light. I knew the time had finally come, and it was up to me, and to all who choose to live in the Light to walk strongly with the Light in whatever form we are asked to carry it. This is our time. May we unite in this knowing. May we come together and recognize the Light in ourselves and hold each others’ hands. I see, on the horizon, a beautiful rainbow. Hands raised in the joy of surrendering. When we allow the storm to pass, this is what will come to us. The New Earth is on the horizon, waiting to be birthed. Waiting for us to co-create it. It is our time. It is our calling. We are all One. May we unite in the Light of Love that we all share in our core.
I could have written this title various ways. I could have said, “The Mask of the Bully” or “The Bully Behind the Mask,” you name it. The phenomenon of the bully is in itself multilayered. The bully, a product of layering. Of hiding within, in front of, and behind fear.
I had known him since junior high, although never well. He was even more on the periphery of popularity than I was after the 7th grade. To be honest, I never gave him much thought, and hardly noticed him, except for one thing. He was a fine writer, so fine that my 11th grade English teacher sang his praises to the advanced classes of which he was not a part of, and held special writing groups, just for him.
Over the many years since we graduated from high school, I thought about him on occasion, even asking, once, a friend if she knew what had become of him. I asked if he was still writing. She didn’t know anything beyond what he posted on Facebook. I thought about friending him, my secret motivation to find out if he was still writing. Certainly, I told myself, he could not be denying his gift.
I didn’t have to friend him, a few years later, during the early stages of the current presidential election season, he sent me a friend request. I accepted. I didn’t ask if he was still writing. I didn’t ask anything. I looked on his profile and saw that he had a beautiful young family, and that he had been in the military. He vaguely resembled the boy I remembered. The face, older, but the same.
He didn’t ask me any questions either and I figured this was one of those friend requests that was sent out because he had vaguely remembered me from high school, and wanted to add me to the collection of his list of “friends.” We all do it, right? It’s Facebook after all. I “liked” his posts that featured his children, and the rare musings that showed the ghost of the writer I had so admired. I ignored the Trump posts, but he didn’t ignore mine. In fact they were the only posts of mine to which he responded.
The first one featured an article I had shared from a public site someone else had written about Trump’s bravado, demeaning and harassing women. As a preface I wrote, “Trump is no hero.” In the comments he had responded, “Bullshit.”
The next post I shared was a clip of Michelle Obama’s eloquent and moving speech a couple of days ago in Manchester, New Hampshire. A brilliant mother of two daughters, the wife of the President of the United States, who has been the epitome of grace these past 8 years. A brilliant grace, in my opinion. In the speech, if you have not heard it, Michelle speaks about her feelings about Trump’s treatment and disparaging attitude toward women. Her voice shakes with emotion. She speaks from the heart of all women who have been undermined. She speaks of dignity. Of basic human rights.
His response: “LOL.”
In that moment I realized I had friended a bully. It was not a lightbulb moment. Let’s be honest. The signs were there from the start, but I was holding onto that glimmer of hope that the gifted boy, the sensitive writer, was still living inside of there somewhere. I’m sure he still is, but I fear, he is deeply buried behind and within other masks. I don’t know what his life has been like these many years, I can only guess. I can make assumptions that we probably share some of the same struggles. I was not popular after the 7th grade, a product of the effects of bullying by two former friends that marred my reputation and “likability.”
He was, I had to admit, not my friend. An insidious presence, like Trump, coming out of the shadows only, it appeared, to undermine me and others for standing up for our basic human rights. He was there to intimidate and laugh at what we stand for. Why, I asked myself, was I willing tolerate this. I was not.
It’s as easy to “unfriend” someone on Facebook as it is to “friend” them. It just takes just one click. There is nothing personal to it, except what you make of it. That, I believe is the inherent problem of social media. This impersonal mask we can hide behind. It is a place where we can easily become the bully. The manipulator. The jerk. Our shadow side can easily be expressed behind the mask of a computer screen. Or, we can choose to shine the light.
Yesterday I baked myself a birthday cake. A day late. It came out okay. The children and husband were polite, telling me it was “good,” but I knew they could taste what should have been there. There is a belief held by some, myself included, that the food we prepare for consumption holds the emotions we feel as we assemble it. When I took my first bite of the cake I had made for myself, because I had decided I couldn’t let the occasion pass without one, I tasted a distinct note of melancholia, if not the definitive spice of sadness.
A not so pretty cake before the strawberry sauces was added
Birthdays are never easy days for me. The wounded inner child comes out weeping to be nurtured, loved and adored unconditionally on this day, as well as the cloaked goddess who desires to cast aside the garment of domesticity and shine in all her glory. For at least one day. Instead, reality takes over. The hectic nature of our modern lives consumes the celebratory energy of the day, and the goddess and inner child are squeezed into the spare moments. But they are still there, waiting to be let out, and I find I can no longer deny their presence, nor do I want to.
I don’t think I am alone in my hidden, or not so hidden desires. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re shared by most of my fellow goddesses in hiding on this planet. There was a time, you see, when the goddess was revered. The woman-as-goddess was simply an undeniable truth. There was no question of our sacred power and gifts. We were revered and honored for the divine famine energy we possessed, as well as that awesome ability to create and bring forth life.
“Ancient” artifact of 3 goddesses – Bath, England
I’d like to believe we are gradually coming back to this place, but we’re not there yet. I am not the only woman out there who has to occasionally bake her own cake, and buy her own flowers (yes, I did that too). And, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that. It’s a step toward honoring that inner goddess and child. It is an expression of self-love that is essential to healing the wounded spirit.
The lovely sunflowers I bought myself
Last night I told my own daughter, who, I might add has had at least a handful of pedicures and manicures in her twelve years on this planet, while I have had one, a pedicure, in my 43 year, that life was not always like it is now. I brought back the time of the goddess and told her about how women shone in all their glory in a way that honored their power and truth. A time when we were not something to be feared, but revered.
I told her this is something that needs to be brought back, and that it can start within the home. That it is not a selfish desire. It is, quite simply essential. When we look at the world we live in, it is hard to deny that we are out of balance, and the scales have long been tipped dangerously on the side of masculine force. Notice I said force and not energy, as the true masculine energy is not forceful in its power, and it is always, ideally, balanced with the divine feminine nature that exists in all of us. We have forgotten that we are both. We have forgotten harmony and balance, and the glorious celebration of who we are. We have forgotten the need to bring forth in ourselves and others the hidden energies that lie in wait inside of us, so that we can nurture their rebirths.
The goddess within needs to be brought out. It’s high time we celebrated “her,” and revered her. It’s high time we starting using the name “Isis,” who was once celebrated as an aspect of the divine mother, in the name of love and not war.
So, you see, what I held inside and desired to come forth on my birthday this year, is an energy that exists in all of us. We all hold within us the dark and the light. The yin and the yang. The divine masculine and famine energies. And, there is always, always, the inner child waiting to come out to dance in the sun (or rain). If only for one day, but hopefully everyday.
My children, several years ago, dancing in the rain
Last night I woke around 2:00 am because the sensor light in my daughter’s room was on. Finding her sound asleep, I touched the lamp to turn it off and went back to bed, but could not fall back to sleep. As I closed my eyes, an image of the elephant exhibit at the Oregon Zoo popped into my head, a place I had visited each year as a child when I would go west to see my birth father.
Elephant in Captivity at Oregon Zoo. A haunting sight/A haunted site
Soon images of elephants held in captivity for human entertainment filled my mind. I saw their eyes. Have you ever looked into an elephant’s eyes and read the story they tell? Try it. You will be forever changed. I can recall that day, six years ago, when I took my children to the Oregon Zoo and looked into this elephant’s eyes pictured above and read sorrow. I was filled with guilt. What was I doing? What were we all doing? What had we collectively done to these wise beings?
Born into Captivity
Elephants are highly intelligent animals. Their eyes, and the wisdom they hold, remind me of the eyes of whales. It is widely known and accepted that elephants are deeply empathic creatures who hold the family unit as sacred. They form bonds with others, including humans who show them compassion, which stretch beyond their individual lifetimes. Their psychic connections, along with their ability to remember, surpass our own. When you look into an elephant’s eyes, you get the impression that you will be remembered long after you leave. You, if you are aware of what you are seeing, will never forget the experience. You will be forever changed.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Several weeks ago, while sitting in meditation, the image of that elephant held behind those bars at the Oregon Zoo returned to me. I saw only its eyes and this time I read their plea for help. I had no choice but to remember. Until, once again, I tried to forget.
Sometimes we seek out messengers, sometimes they come to us. Often, these messengers are animals. We all have spirit, or totem animals, who help us along at various stages of our life journeys, and sometimes we are asked to give help in return. In the early hours of this morning, I found myself struggling with the messenger who had come to me again. With the same plea, “Help me.”
An Unnatural Habitat
Please consider donating to the cause of placing elephants in sanctuaries instead of zoos at In Defense of Animals. In return, if you email me a copy of your donation receipt at aekehas@gmail.com, I’ll give you a free, 3-card tarot reading for whatever life question you would like insight on.
Perhaps it is because I live here, but I feel as though the drugging effect of fear is acutely present in the U.S., perhaps more so than the rest of the world at this time. I can see the Lady of Justice holding her scales, and they tip precariously downward. Fear holds a heavy weight. Recall the feather of Truth is weightless. The heart filled with Love holds no gravity. Yet, we are wavering on the brink of awakening to our true selves, so many of us holding onto the numbing effects of fear. I say numbing, because I see fear like a drug. I wonder if Caroline Myss would agree with me?
Recently, I felt called to re-read her book Anatomy of the Spirit, and was struck by her observations about the power of our collective energy. She speaks about the words we use to ourselves, and as a collective nation, and how these words and the energy they carry with them, create our reality. Many of us are familiar with the idea of manifestation and the Law of Attraction. The idea that what we send out, we create.
In her book, Myss uses as an example for this how the Great Depression coincided with the polio epidemic and the election of a crippled president. The Nation was literally crippled by the economic devastation at the same time a crippling disease crippled the health of its people. When the economy turned around, she noted, a vaccine for polio was discovered.
Few would argue that the U.S. is in the midst, or rather mist, of a drug crisis that threatens to spiral out of control. So many of us have elected to “drug” our minds. For many, it seems beyond our person control. We are in the midst of a new election for the leader of our country, and the choices, in some ways could not be more polarizing. When you look at the choices closely, and the rhetoric used, it is almost impossible to ignore that fear plays a heavy hand with many of them. Fear, my friends, is a drug. It numbs the powerful energy of love. True power is not control over another, it is not subjugation, it is the blossoming of the power within. The knowledge and allowing of the true self, which is governed by Love and Truth, to shine forth. True power does not erect walls, it disassembles them piece by piece, and discovers as it does so that love resides within. And with that love, is unity.
Why do we fear? It’s a puzzling thought on many levels. Is it not our natural state to Love? We fear, quite simply, because we are taught to. False power, and those who strive to have it, perpetuate this fear. They shine fear though the glare of the news and thousands of horrific photos (which feed our fears), they write the word fear in its myriad forms in our newspapers, least you forget who is really governing you (or so they like to think). And so many, I believe, who don’t know what else to do, who are so mired in the muck of this plague of fear, succumb to it. Some choose drugs (more than some), in an attempt to numb the effects perhaps, but the result is loss of self-control. Loss of the true self. Loss of the belief that we are, in essence, Love.
The good news, though, is that the true self can always be recovered. Love is an energy, it cannot be destroyed, only manipulated and morphed into another form, but not forever. Love is the absence of resistance. Love is the absence of fear. Love is the knowing that the person beside us, and the person four thousand miles away, is a mirror of our self. It is up to us to see what we choose to in the mirror. It is up to us, individually, and collectively, to decide to perpetuate the struggle for separation. This false belief of hierarchy and “power.”
If you doubt this. Close your eyes. Dive, or walk gently with however many steps it takes to get there, into your heart.Therein you will find the answer. Therein you will find the Peace, Love and Joy that is you, and the knowing that this essence resides in all life. In each and every one of us, even if it is being temporarily drugged by fear. The choice is yours. The choice is ours.
Tomorrow has arrived, and the forest I knew has begun to turn into yesterday. I can think of little else.
The trees by the roadside are being felled first
I want to bare witness to each fall of life, and I also want to stay tucked inside my home. This morning, as if by happenstance, I was given the grace of friendship by my side while I walked the path of memory. We heard the saws long before we saw the evidence, and while I listened to their unyielding power, I swallowed back grief and regret.
Life is a series of sacrifices. Life, by nature, cannot be possible without death, yet I struggle to make sense of loss. Especially when ceremony is replaced with a belief in ownership. This distancing of connection. A forgetting that we are of the land, intricately tied together in this beautifully complex, strong, yet fragile, web of life.
How many days, I wonder, will it take for the last of my friends, destined for death, to fall to the ground? In mere seconds, when we reached the edge of the woods, by way of the field, I watched a whole group of them fall nearly at my feet.
The only people stationed to warn were beside the paved road, as though they have already forgotten that feet pass through the forest often. That life is abundant, even with the leaves have yet to bud into bloom. If we had not been aware, we could have fallen with them.
The Light Behind the Story 