Category: Reflections

You Can Leave it all Behind

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Memoir, Reflections4 Comments
Behinds and Baggage
Behinds and Baggage

I was looking through photographs, hoping for an image of baggage and hit the jack-pot when I stumbled upon this one. Baggage and behinds. Perfect! The idea that these kids (mine) were waiting for the school bus, also seemed to fit with the message I was going for. I couldn’t resist.

But this is a post about dreams, in the broadest sense of the word, and for quite some time I’ve been having a dialogue with my dream-self in an effort to shift my realities both at night and during the day. As many of you probably know, I’ve got a manuscript that’s been sitting in wait for awhile that I’d like to have published. There’s another one in the works. The finished one I wrote out of a need to heal myself, realizing as when I finished, that it had a universal message about voice and truth that applies to, well, just about anyone.

So, there’s this theme of healing and writing. They both, in my opinion go hand-in-hand. I I write to heal. I heal to write. This is a big part of my life’s journey. I’m here to incorporate both gifts in a life that involves truth, freedom and letting go of entanglements.

For those of you on a similar journey of healing, you will know that entanglements are of the self, and therefore it is up to the self to release and set free. Easier said than done. We cling to our baggage like we would cling to a life-raft at sea. Well, I do anyway.

If you were to flip through my dream journal, you would see a reoccurring theme of baggage. Our dream-selves love to use symbols and metaphors and some are rather blatantly obvious to get the point across. Quite frankly, though, I had had enough of these dreams about baggage. It was almost a guarantee that I’d go to sleep at night only to be immersed and a scene of frantic search. Usually I’m about to embark on, or leave from, a journey, and I’m in a frenetic race against time to collect all of my baggage in the form of clothes and various belongings I think I need for the trip. Things are often scattered in a cluttered room. There is too much of what I am looking to take with me. There is not enough time to collect it all. Heck, sometimes I’m even trying to wear it all. Crazy, I know. But, telling.

These last several nights I’ve been having a dialogue with that dream-self who is holding onto the idea of necessary baggage. “Give me a new reality,” I tell her each night before I succumb to slumber. For several nights I’ve refused to record her dreams, rebelling against the repetition of messages. “Show me a new reality.” And, last night, she did.

The funny thing is, I almost forgot the dream, and then I remembered.

It began as it typically does. The chaotic search for my hotel room and the things I think I need to take with me. I won’t bore you with the details, but it sure did seem to drag on endlessly. Then it shifted. There I was outside, doodling on a pad of paper, while a spirit guide with an Irish or British accent (hard to recall now) chattered in my ear. I glanced across a dirt road and saw belongings piled under a tree. They were not scattered or bagged, just a small pile in wait. A test.

“You know, you can leave it all behind,” she told me. And so I did.

It was effortless. Easy. There was no turning back. I simply left it. The female spirt guide became the physical manifestation of a man, who reminded me of the character Kane in the ’70s TV series “Kung Fu.” (For those of you who don’t know, I was named after the Jodi Foster guest character in an episode called “Alethea” that aired before my birth in 1973). I followed this Kane-like figure across the countryside and found myself without a scrap of baggage on me. Together we dove inside a hillside cave where a wondrous home was unveiled to me. Picture Dagobah mixed with Tatooine mixed with a Shaolin Temple on steroids and you’ll have an idea of what was offered to me. Suffice it to say, it was glorious. It was so worth it.

When we “leave it all behind,” we open the door to the magic waiting. Leaving the baggage of our pasts behind does not mean that we will forget that we had it. The life events still shape who we are. We learn from them, knowing that someday we will no longer need to hold on. When we strip bare the trappings in a bold release of freedom, we realize that what we thought we still needed was just baggage weighing us down. It has nothing of value, only the lessons we take with us, which are weightless. Last night I became The Fool in tarot, starting again at 0, only, unlike the fool, I carried nothing with me.

You Can Leave it All Behind
You Can Leave it All Behind

My Life is Beautiful

On By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections6 Comments

In fact, it is infinitely beautiful. This, quite simply, is Truth, all else is an illusion. Let me show you why.

Flower of Life
A Flower of Life

Like you, I am the embodiment of Light. This is the the truth of all life, yet sometimes we choose the path of shadows. Years ago, I made the conscious choice to walk the path of light. It’s the path we have all agreed to walk, whether we realize it or not. A shadow is a barrier of illusion, its purpose is to give definition to light.

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The Birth of Life-Light

Yesterday was a beautiful day, as each day is. My day brought me the gifts of friendship and the love of family. It showed me the infinite glory of life in the state of becoming. Spring blooms abundance and joy bursts forth in song from winged beings. Each moment holds everything offered, and since that is all there is, it is always enough.

Winged Being
A Winged Being

I was reminded of this yesterday. If you asked my ego, it would tell you how it suffered two major blows. That the hopes it held onto for weeks had been crushed. Two punches to the gut. And, I crumbled into its energy of defeat, until my dreams brought me back to reality. I woke this morning remembering that my life is beautiful.

Fearless Abundance
A Symbol of Fearless Abundance

Mother Nature called to me to join her in the state of becoming, and I listened. I walked into her embrace. Here she showed me life is always beautiful when we choose to see it. to feel. To allow. That at any moment we can choose to embrace the light, or stay in the illusion of shadows.

A Beautiful Grump-Stump
A Beautiful Grump-Stump

There is even humor, and therefor light, in the symbols that show us shadows. Today, I laugh at doubt, knowing that it is an illusion. That I can shake its frumpy clothes free and run naked in the light. This is my destiny of becoming, and it is, always, in each moment, enough. It is beautiful. My life is beautiful.

Life Being and Becoming
Life Being and Becoming

The house as body

On By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

It seems I cannot decide which house to claim as my own. This is clear in my dreams. Too much clutter leaves the residue of frustration and anxiety. Unstable walls and floors, the fear of collapse. Some nights I build palaces that rival Versailles. I walk gilded halls and call them my own. The rooms are endless, each floor more brilliant than the one before. I am a vessel of unlimited creation, before I crumble back into a buried fear.

Last night, my house made me uncomfortable. The bedrooms extended into living rooms without doors. The kitchen needed updating. There was a graveyard outside my son’s window. My own bedroom opened into a balcony of trees, and my heart filled with joy as I imagined waking to the ever-changing scene of wildlife, until I saw the gaps under the floor, and the futile attempts to secure a house against the elements that would inevitably pervade the constructed space. Who was I fooling? I could not live here.

Yet, I could not leave. This was the house I had chosen. It was mine. So, I began to clear the rooms, freeing them of the energy called fear. I did it alone, using my hand to feel the unwanted vibrations, my breath to clear the energy into light. There was no sense of discontent. I was not discouraged that each room seemed to hold pockets of energy that needed to be cleared. I simply did what I needed to do to make my house my home.

Perhaps tonight I will build a palace again. I’ll use my hand to paint the forest on the walls, upon the ceilings I’ll map infinity in stars. When I am done, when my hand is tired and my palace is complete, I’ll let it crumble. I’ll watch the walls recede into the body of the Earth, the ceiling dissolve into the heavens, and then I’ll know I’ve come home.

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Home and the Struggle of the Mind

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections6 Comments

It’s funny, this struggle of the mind. How it strives, always, to take us over, chattering through the silence and forever searching for the spotlight, when there is a river inside that  waits to flow through the unencumbered space devoid of thoughts. Here the water is warm and healing, it travels upon the air of our breath, reaching the deepest cells inside of our being until it finds home. Peace is a mere pause, yet rarely do we allow its presence.

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Instead we follow the bumpy road of thoughts, tripping along the way. We diverge, often, down paths that are not ours to explore. The prattle of others scatters our focus, and like circus beasts, unable to break free, we cannot realize the inherent freedom to go our own way. That we must, in fact, break free to find home, which is self.

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We are not here to follow orders. Think of the child before she succumbs to reigns. Think of the two year old dancing in all her glory, waving her limbs with abandon. Her emotions spark action. She is anything and everything at once. She is free in the finding of self. You were her, you still are.

Now think of the child, perhaps she is now 9, sitting in a queue of chairs. She is silent, waiting for her chance to speak. If she speaks out of line, she will be punished. This child knows rules that are not her own. When her eyes stray from the lesson she must learn – a template she has not written – they search through the window where life grows free. Her ears perk to the song of the bird. They can’t help it. It sings the lyrics of truth. Her soul knows the verses.

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You are that girl. Or boy. That child waits inside, patiently, for you to come home to self. “Who are you?” she asks. For she knows the answers. She has never forgotten.

“Return to me,” she calls. Her voice is quiet, but strong. There is conviction in her words. There is power. Her call is steady, an echo, repeating until you pause to listen.

And, oh, the moment that you do, the doorway to pure joy opens, as wide as you allow it to. It is not a door that locks shut. It is not a door that opens only once. This door has no limitations, beyond what you give it. For it is the entrance to your soul. When you enter, you find reunion.  “Are you ready,” she is asking. “Are you ready to come home to me.”

“Together we will birth glorious things.”

“Together we are magic.”

The true, aligned self, you see, knows no bounds. The river of truth flows in a continuous heartbeat, aligning to and seeking only joy. Only love. It wants only for you to come home to the gifts of your free soul.

“Who are you?”

Pause. And remember. Return.

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The Mamma Bear Comes out of Hibernation: The Feral Drive to Protect Our Young

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections2 Comments
Photo by Lara Wilson
Photo by Lara Wilson

Perhaps the scene could have played out differently. In the light of infinite possibilities, of course it could have, but it didn’t. It appeared, if you will, almost as thought it were pre-scripted. The right characters were absent. The others, who needed to be there, present. I, unknowingly, had agreed to the role of the lead character, whether it be hero or villain, is a subjective matter.

The setting was a large metal building, devoid of natural air and light, aside from the wafts that make it through the heavy swinging doors when the players and their families enter and exit. Even though it was school vacation week, the place was packed with the energies of competitions.

My daughter was one of the competitors that day, and she stood nervously with 4 of her teammates, wondering if the others would show. Their parents, standing nearby, wondering the same. There was talk of a scrimmage and sharing players, the girls were, after all, playing against their classmates – girls from their school with whom they have played the same sport together, on the same team, in other seasons. But, this was just one half of the scene, and I was not privy to the conversations going on amongst the opposing team before the game.

By the time the whistle blew, my daughter’s team was still short a player, which meant they had to play at a handicap the entire game, requiring them to cover, together, more of the field, and their were no subs to give the girls a break. Although the other team may not have been aware of it, some of the girls were also recovering from illnesses. One from a stomach bug, my daughter, from a cold, a third was in the midst of a respiratory infection nestled inside her chest. At least 3 out of our 5 girls were not at their peak, and I, and other parents were wondering how they would hold up playing soccer for an hour with only one, brief, rest at half-time.

The other team, having known ahead of time that they would be short players, had pulled girls up from younger teams. They had 7. Enough for a full team, plus one to sub in. Seeing this from the side-lines, I thought for sure they would offer my daughter’s team their extra player, or, perhaps play a more relaxed game, a scrimmage, for fun and not points. Maybe 4 V 4. I heard other parents wondering the same. We were, after all, from the same town, our daughters friends and teammates from other seasons.

But, that’s not how the scene played out. We scored the first goal. Our girls were fresh and energized. By half-time the score was 6 points in the other team’s favor, and our substitute coach (our coach having succumbed to the stomach bug his daughter was getting over) was desperately trying to give the girls breaks by rotating them in goal. It was obvious to all observing, that the deficit of players on our team was causing exhaustion and frustration for our girls, who were now moving in slow-motion.

My own daughter, frequently admired for her tenacity and toughness, took a ball to the head and shook it off. Then, at about 10 minutes left of the game, I looked after and saw her limping. Her face was crumpled. Was she crying? That was the moment I entered the stage. The moment the mamma bear inside came out of hibernation. I had simply had enough. My daughter, my girl who was tough as nails, was hurt and no one else seemed to notice. The game kept playing around her.

I entered that scene in a blaze of heat, telling the spectators on my way to my daughter, what I thought of the game being played. Mothers agreed, including those on the other team. Including those who were married to the coaches on the other side. That was, though, before I yelled at their husbands. This bear was not happy. Her cub was hurt.

From the other side of the plexi-glass, I yelled to my daughter, interrupting the play of the game. “Get off the field. Get off the field.” With tears streaming, she limped, unassisted, off the field, while I ran around the perimeter to meet her.

To reach her, I had to pass the coaches from the other team, that was the shortest way to her. I hadn’t considered the barrier I had to cross. It didn’t matter. Or, it did. It seems it was meant to be. Here I was before 2 men, fathers of my daughter’s friends, whom I had nothing against before this game (have nothing against even now, just disappointment), raging my thoughts about their lack of ethics in the game. I won’t share their words, they are not, really, mine to share.

I had to pass into the field, briefly, to reach my daughter on the other side of the barrier. The game played on, my daughter’s side now playing at a 2 player deficiency. I felt like I was in a dream, or a nightmare. Was this for real? Was this really happening in the town I lived in, with people I knew and were friendly with?  Was this what I should be expecting from a children’s sporting event meant for fun? There was no fun being had well before the second half was being played, but the game had continued until the end. I had heard whispers from parents behind me that the points earned were counted toward the final standings. Was this the reason why we were not offered that olive-branch of good sportsmanship. Really!?

My daughter, when I reached her, was sobbing. She was hurt and embarrassed, as I would have been at her age, for her mother’s display. Only, my mother had never played the role of mamma bear. There was that part of me that was not remorseful. It is there still. I was pleased with my strength. Pleased that I had taken the role of fierce defender in a crowd of whispering protestors. I was unsupported, yet I stood my ground. That is not something I have always had the courage to do.

Would I do it all over again. Absolutely. Do I have regrets. Not really. That’s how the scene played out.  I think there was something to be learned by all. Sometimes waves are needed to get the boat to the shore. I’m an idealist. I have a low tolerance for perceived injustice. I believe that true victory is played through the heart, and sometimes the win is worth giving up.

Knowing how the scene would play out, of course I would do it differently. I would have asked, calmly, our fill-in coach and the coaches on the other team to explore other options. A scrimmage instead of a game for points. To share members from the teams. To play for fun and not for the win.

An Ego’s Stream of Consciousness

On By Alethea KehasIn Poems, Reflections2 Comments

Sometimes I crave a glorious battle

To rage and wage a war with another

But to what end? To inflict my pain on

the other whom I believe has caused it?

To even a playing field that has been

trampled on one side? Then we can be

equal in vengeance and strife. Equal

players in the game of justice. To achieve

peace inside. Fool, I say, you harbor

malice for no purpose than to starve

love. The light inside dims to hatred

the desire to show another who is

right and who is wrong; who is better

or worse; who deserves glory when

what you really want is more love

Look inside. Shed the armor. Who

are you protecting? Why do you hide?

No one can stop your light from shining

except the darkness of your own demons

Selfies

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections6 Comments

A friend of mine just wrote a post that moved me into that place of contemplation. In the quiet space of self, she had allowed herself to explore and love who she is in the moment of Now. Perceived flaws broke open beauty as she found the true light within through touch and acceptance. How many of us, I wonder, hold onto a false sense of self? How many of us want to be beautiful in a way that doesn’t truly define us?

I rarely take selfies. I can count the number of times I’ve tried to on one hand. My face, I have always believed, is not loved by the camera. It is small in size, with a set of teeth that I’ve always thought too large and pronounced for the thin lips and narrow frame. When I smile too wide, I see wrinkles. When I don’t, I see a glaring over-bite.

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Sometimes, though, in the private reflection of a mirror, I can find beauty and the parts of me I love. The blue, blue eyes that look like a kaleidoscope of truth. The eyebrows I’ve never plucked and the frame of hair that tends toward unruly. There is a wild me that I love, but what about the rest?

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How do we find acceptance in those places where beauty hides from us? Can we love the body of self we have chosen for this life, knowing that this is the only perfect vessel for the journey we are on? We must, I believe, to travel light and in the light.

How often have I pushed against my front teeth with my hand out of rote habit, and wondered how my appearance would have changed with braces? How many times have I longed for full lips and lashes? There have been so many parts of me that I have imagined changed, but for what purpose? To me loved more? By me? By others?

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So, today I took the phone resting beside me, and took a look at this self that I have always seen as imperfect. I shot from the angles I could reach and then loaded the results. It all came out on the screen. The camera mirrors our beliefs. There was the over-bite spreading the lips too thin, the wrinkles in the brow and under the eyes, the face trying to find a smile. But, there was also the light, shining in the blue, blue eyes. There was the truth of who I am and that body of love that also shines. There was me. The unaltered me. I’ll take it as a gift. It is what I asked for in this life.

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Distractions

On By Alethea KehasIn Reflections3 Comments

The roof is coming down as I write, and I can’t help thinking about how easily the creative mind can be pulled away from its work. At least for me. I am a bit restless by nature, and sitting for any length of time for the soul purpose of writing is a bit of a challenge. I hop up to let the dogs in and out, to steal a snack from the fridge, or make one if I’m unsatisfied with the contents. I grab at the pauses between inspiration to check my emails and Facebook and reply to messages. This is how the minutes slip by before I can reign them in again and use them for the purpose I set out to.
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Now, the roof is coming down outside of the window where I usually sit to write. I could move, but I don’t. Instead, my eyes pull toward the sounds of shingles sliding on plastic tarps and the shadows they make in their reckless descent toward the ground. My mind pauses between my character’s thoughts to worry about the cloths hanging on the line precariously within reach of the avalanche of shingles that once adorned the peak of my home.
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Suddenly, it’s nearly time for the school bus to groan around the corner of my street to deliver my son home and I realize the 70 page mark may not be met today, or at least not during me kid-free hours. Oh well, there’s alway another moment to grab.

Sound

On By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, ReflectionsLeave a comment

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I am listening to the gurgle of rain as it slips into crevices in the earth and the eaves of my porch roof. The sound is gentle and soothing, fitting for a cold fall day with weather that makes you want to nestle under covers and dream of light.

I can hear the wind too, along with the blue jay, who both on occasion break through the steady pattern of rain so their voices can be heard. Inside my house, the furnace hums in the basement, reminding me of warmth, while the clock ticks away time. Just now, a flock of geese is harkening winter through the gray sky, but it soon passes.

Sound. Its vibrations bare the spectrum of extremes. I am trying to understand how our bodies learn to love and hate the music of sounds. How some sounds fill us with light, while others make us recoil in fear or loathing.

Over the past several weeks, I have born witness to the impact of sound on my 9 yr. old son. We are, it seems, living on the edge of extremes, any sudden variation in tone tipping the emotional weight of endurance inside of him. We are living in the breath of rain before it falls, wondering when each sound will shatter the surface of his body.

Because I understand what my son is going through, doesn’t make it easier. I don’t have the answer to peace for him. I cannot step inside his moment of intensity and turn on the silence he craves. Sound cannot always be stopped. Life must go on. Pets need to bathe themselves, meals need to be eaten.

When I was a child, my sensitive body would often recoil from unavoidable sounds. At night I would toss restlessly in my bed, stuffing pillows over ear plugs in an effort to block out the song of crickets outside my window and the chaotic symphony of my sister snoring in the bunk below me. During the daytime, it was usually my stepfather’s habitual sounds that would trigger me, tying my stomach into knots of swallowed rage. The piercing dissonance of his whistling, the near-constant clearing of phlegm from his throat…it was nearly insufferable for my young body.

Now, I watch my sensory sensitivity mirrored in my son, whose tolerance is even more fragile and volatile than his mother’s. I understand his suffering, but the magic cure to help him is eluding me. I learned early to suffer through sound by silencing my own voice. I see the irony in this as I write. Perhaps this is why I welcome, in some ways, my son’s outbursts of frustration with his noisy environment, knowing too well the consequence of swallowing voice.

I want to show my son that sound can be a balm. I want to show him how to push aside the barrier of resistance and open the door to joy, which is always waiting. Yet, this door is not always easy to open, I know. Sometimes, when I listen to someone chewing food, I can reach his or her place of inner joy, and my body will fill with the soft prickles of shared light. Other times, though, like my son, my skin recoils in irritation, and I find myself clenching my muscles in frustration. I am still learning that there is always light to be found within sounds. That we can reach that space between rain, or that space between the chewing of food and hold onto the silent music of peace.