Today I am feeling the burden of a release waiting. The tension is in my neck and left shoulder, where the weight of an energy that I need not bear is ready to be freed. It is an old, stubborn weight; a habit carried over from childhood. These cords that bind us can be hard to cut. They are stubborn, they chafe and rub at our comfort, reminding us that their energy is still there.
I have learned that a verbal cutting of the ties that hold us is quite different than an energetic release. We can say we’ve had enough, we can even shut the door on welcoming more, but until we let go of the history, the accumulated burden we bear inside our cells, we have not truly let go.
The release can be layered, in fact it often is, as our bodies are not designed to deal well with a rapid, sudden change. I peel away my layers as though I am molting outgrown skin. I am a snake, uncoiling into spring, leaving behind the lacy ghost of my former self, but I am also a bear, shedding an old coat of energy in patches that leave me temporarily unbalanced. What remains, holds on the tightest.
I passed the pine tree before I turned to go home this morning. The creak and whine of the burden it bore called to me as the dogs stopped to sniff and pee. There were two pines, to be precise, one dead, one living. The living pine bore the weight of the dead, which had fallen into its arms. With each breath of wind, a moan was released at the place of union between the two trees, as the weight they shared shifted but never fully let go.
As I studied the two trees, joined by a death, I saw how the burden from the dead pine was creating a wound in the live pine. At the crease of its limb, the bark had rubbed raw, the orange skin below exposed. I imagined it felt like my left shoulder. There was a parallel between us, the pine was my mirror.
On Easter I had shut a door verbally, but it was something I had tried to do before. I’m still waiting to see if I will allow the door to be opened again, in some form, while my shoulder and neck remind me that my body and soul is waiting for a true death and resurrection. And, I cannot deny my dreams. Last night I dreamed I was trying to find what I had intended to let go. Before I got there, I had been delayed by the purchase of an over-large ice ream that was supposed to be the color of a rainbow. The total of the dripping expanse of sweetness was $12. I scoffed, I angered. It was all too much.
Joanne Scribes writes on her site, Angel Numbers, that the number 12 represents the combined energies of 1 and 2. One, is the number of beginnings, 2, of unions. Combined into 12, the energy of the number calls for the release of old habits and burdens so that the soul can begin anew, fresh, unencumbered. Resurrected in truth. When this occurs we are free to live out our soul’s purpose without the trappings of old attachments.
The male cardinal
A pair of cardinals appeared later, nestled together in the azalea beside my driveway, at the conclusion of my morning walk. Here again was the number 12, in different form. Ted Andrews writes in his book Animal Speak that the cardinal’s cycle of power is year-round, reflecting the rhythm of the number 12 (symbolic of 12 months, hours, days, etc.). These birds, Andrew writes, “remind us that regardless of the time of day or year, we always have the opportunity to renew our own vitality and recognize the importance of our own life roles.” (pg 124).
When we let go of the dead weight, the burdens of the past we need not carry, we set free the energy of our true self. We allow ourselves to live in a free, unencumbered form, to shine bold and bright in the light of our truth. This is what we all strive for, whether we know it or not. This is the yearning of each soul, and it is a gift to self when we let go of the ties that bind.
It appeared to me at the end of a dream last week. I held the large metal sifter in my hand as I surveyed the boxes of artifacts from my past on the floor of my childhood basement. The sorting and discarding was finished, or so I thought. But, left in my hand was a sifter. What do I do with this? I wondered.
When I dug out my kitchen sifter to take a photo for this post, I noticed how similar it was to the one in my dream. As I studied the metal holes and edges, I realized this sifter, although cleaned after last use, was holding onto debris stuck stubbornly to its meshwork. Instinctively, I started to scrape away at the stuck residue with my nails, then stopped. There’s always something left behind, lingering, isn’t there? Whether it is an actual artifact we can feel through the caress of our fingers, or a memory tucked into the folds of our brain. When we clear the clutter, it never really disappears.
It can only transform. Before my dream of the sifter, I had spent weeks sorting through past fears. Have you ever noticed how the Universal Spirit has a way of kindly dumping a load of our fears at our feet, not one-by-one in a gentle fashion so that we might lightly skip over them, but in a pile so large we have no choice but to notice it? We have no choice, but to make a choice.
We can try to climb the pile to get over the top, then down the other side, but chances are if we do this, its jumbled contents will cause us to trip or fall. We’re likely to get hurt and bruised with the effort, and the pile is still there, slightly less neat, waiting behind us.
Another option is to bury ourselves inside of it and hide. The task of sorting being too over-whelming to accomplish, we simply let it enclose and crush us. How many people do you know who look like they’re carrying the weight of an invisible world on their shoulders?
Years ago, before I started healing my past, I realized it was no fun to carry my fears with me all of the time. It not only weighed me down, the effort made me physically ill. So, I started sorting and shedding. I’m still doing it today. That’s what I was doing in the weeks before I saw the sifter in my dream.
It started with the uncomfortable weight of fears presenting themselves in various daily circumstances. Not fun, it never really is. But, thankfully, I’m learning to take a different perspective on these periods of learning that Spirit sends to me. Ah, ha! I say after I get over my state of grievance (lengths may vary ;-), It’s time to shift! Lets do this!
Yep, that call for sifting is a cue to us that we are ready for a spiritual shift. Our soul is calling us to release a particular burden of fear and transform it into light. So, after I grudgingly accept this (again, the length to time it takes me to do this often varies :-), I now say, Bring on the joy! I’m ready to receive!
The end result of first sifting through our pile of fear, then shifting it into light, is joy! We have now opened ourselves to receive more of the Universal Source of Abundance, that I call the Light of Love, Joy and Truth. Let me give you my most recent example:
For weeks I played with my little demons called fears. In my daily life challenges, and in my dreams, I worked with shifting the energy that clutched my heart and throat, going to the source of the pain, and bringing it out to light. It wasn’t fun, playing with this last patch of fears. As I sifted through them, they brought me back to my childhood in this lifetime, they brought me way back to distant past lives. They danced in my dreams and I woke up to a heart thumping with exertion.
I even shifted the energy in my home, with the help of a gifted friend. I burned clutter that was weighing me down, asking the fire spirits to transmute its energy. I rearranged and sorted, nothing too drastic, but all with the intention of bringing in more “light” and abundance.
As the shift started taking effect, the metaphorical pile, with its bulky weight, lightened, transforming into a path of abundance. 4 crows and a hawk appeared in the sky while I walked, followed days later by an unexpected surprise in my email box. WordPress had Freshly Pressed one of my erasure poems. I was pleased, but didn’t hold on too tightly to the tether of hope, instead I released it and a few days later my inbox was flooded. 400 pages views in one day on a single poem (I was lucky to get 10 before), over a hundred likes, numerous comments and reblog notices appeared, and the flow has continued with each day. My audience has grown by hundreds, without any direct effort on my part. I simply cleared the clutter abstracting the path. I brought in more light.
Often, when I am feeling lost, confused or in need of direction, Spirit takes me back to school. I call it night school. In that often blatant, but still cryptic manner that Spirit has, I return to the scene of my high school, college or graduate schools while I sleep, yet the characters and events are exaggerated, twisted, and labyrinthian in nature, like an M.C. Escher painting. Usually, it’s not a very pleasant experience. Who doesn’t feel, at least at times, lost and over-whelmed when they’re at school, especially in the school of dreams?
Spirit though, has a way of hammering a point home until you get it. Two nights ago, I found myself back at Brown University, only it was vastly different from the Brown I knew for only a year. The campus had changed into a congested city of buildings hugged by the sea, and I found myself following my husband (who had not attended Brown with me). I was losing track of him as he wandered through the city on his way to class, and suddenly I was alone, by the wild ocean, with only his black cell phone. Naturally, the phone did not work, and I found myself panicking as I punched in numbers to no avail. I was lost and bewildered, unable to find my own way to where, I was not sure.
Instead of exploring all of the symbolism in this particular dream, let me take you to last night, where I again returned to school. This time I was at Bowdoin, where my husband and I completed our undergraduate education together. Bowdoin, when I attended the school many years ago, was a place of mixed blessings for me. My husband took full advantage of his time at Bowdoin, and found the rigors of the education and social environment fulfilling. I, on the other hand, found it hard to adjust to an environment I found to be, in many ways, a repeat of high school, only here everyone was an over-achiever. I couldn’t find my place in the sea of cliques.
It was no surprise that the Bowdoin of my dream last night was an exaggerated scene of what I had experienced years ago, there were even characters from high school. Here I was in a crowded cafeteria of sorts, filled with tables and people figuring out their schedules and where they needed to go. In my personal confusion, I was trying to follow their examples. A confident and sure friend was going one way, my husband another. I tried to follow him to an early biology class, but I was late, twice.
The dream changed, and I was in a metaphysical store. A woman was making miso soup. I told her I loved miso soup. I could smell it. I could taste it in my mouth. The colors in this scene were vivid and more real than life. I was wearing a natural face devoid of make-up, and a peach-colored shirt. The walls were hung with hand-bags, just out of reach, and in the center of each was the rounded form of a globe. At the counter 3 or 4 women poured over a map. I approached them, looked over their shoulders, and watched their scenes unfold. The map came to life, characters interacted in scenes, which the women understood clearly, yet I struggled to make sense of.
Suddenly, in this room, my senses were becoming dull and tired. My face swollen, and my eyes heavy, as though I was taking on energy that was not mine, and in the process, draining my own. When I woke, this lyric from Fleetwood Mac started playing on repeat inside my head, You can go your own way. Go your own way. You can go your own way…or was it find your own way?
Both versions, it seems, I needed. I thought of The Fool card in the Rider Tarot deck, blithely skipping along his own path, unhampered by the potential of danger ahead. I thought of the 2 of Wands, depicting a traveler holding the world in his palm, and I thought of the dreams I had just left.
That map on the counter was not mine, nor were those paths I was trying to follow at the revisited school(s). The world held inside that wall of handbags, which had seemed just out of reach, was waiting for me to reach up and grab it. To find my own way. I thought of Goddard College, the literal school in this life in which I found home. When I dream of Goddard, I dream of paths in nature, I dream of mysteries waiting to be found. At Goddard, I found my own way, through the gentle, nudging guidance of its faculty, my peers, and its wonderful connection to Spirit. I found home among a place where everyone was going his or her own way. There was no path of convention to follow. Instead, success was measured by the mostly personal barometer of finding and embarking on the creative journey of the soul.
I graduated from Goddard nearly 3 years ago. My environment, and the characters within it have changed, and I have been challenged by their individual lessons. There have been paths I have been tempted to follow, like the path of martial arts, which led me to the painful (yes, it is often painful when we uncover our truths and shed the weight we no longer want to carry) truth that it was not the path intended for my spirit. I have had to let go of judgement too, realizing that a path (martial arts was one) may be right for my husband and others at this stage of their journeys, even though it is not right for me.
There has been that struggle to find connection to others, along with the courage to travel my own path. Even though I am on my soul’s journey with my writing and healing work, I have sometimes struggled to stay true to my own voice and trust that my individual path will unfold it its own unique way. It seems to be the quest of humanity, to find that balance between connection and individual truth. How many of us have tried to follow a path of “conformity,” while forsaking our soul’s truth? We can too easily forget that we are all here to do something unique, perhaps radically, or only slightly different, from someone else, yet none-the-less, a purpose that is only ours. This is why we are here, to blend our own voice of truth to that universal breath we all share. This is how we balance the world, this is how we balance ourselves.
I am a writer and and a spiritual/energy healer, I have a path that is not, by nature conventional. I often find myself in places where I feel more alone than connected, yet when I fall to the temptation of conformity, I am quickly reminded that I am on the wrong path. I doubt I am alone in this feeling. How many of these people around me are trying to follow a path of conformity that doesn’t make them feel blissfully happy and free? I think, sadly, too many.
It is indisputable that the world, and its inhabitants, struggles in a battle for balance. We are striving for destinations that are not our own, we are walking paths of conformity that cause crowding and strife, and we are, in this sea of masses, often left with a feeling of loss.
When I opened the curtain of my bedroom window this morning, I saw the blue feathers of truth worn by a jay, flying into the evergreens. When I opened the door to my house to step outside, 3 crows flew in front of me, calling out to me in that loud, unmistakable voice of magic. Later, as I walked the dogs, those 3 crows became 4, and I was reminded that to follow the magic of individual creation does not mean we must leave those we love behind. That, in fact, each path will merge and mingle in the mysterious song of harmony when sung in the vibration of truth.
Often, when I look to the sky these days I see the majestic form of a great blue heron flying a silent, solitary search for the next body of water. In flight, the great blue heron evokes the image of a prehistoric bird from a time when dinosaurs ruled the land and sky.
The great blue heron is often seen alone and there is a sense of awe instilled when we are lucky enough to glimpse this shy bird who walks and flies soundlessly through the elements of air, water, and earth. It is a bird of great grace and beauty with long appendages adorned in watercolor feathers.
The heron, when its presence graces our lives, reminds us of our inner strength and ability to adapt and survive on our own. That when we live a life of quiet grace, our inner beauty radiates and affects those around us.
Although it is not a water bird, the heron is a wader of shallow depths in the areas where land and water mingle. Here, the heron walks with stealth and grace on long legs, bending with ease to find sustenance in the form of fish, frogs, or other small animals living in or near the water.
The heron not only moves between the elements of land, water, and air with effortless ease, it is a master of balance, able to support its large, slender form on one long leg. Balance comes to the individual through wisdom and the ability to go within to find harmony. The heron evokes ancient wisdom. It is a sage for the soul who seeks balance and the harmony of inner truth, as well as a guide for the individual who finds peace in solitary endeavors.
The photographs in this post were taken by a good friend of mine who dances with heron. Much love and gratitude to you, Rachel, a woman who embodies the grace and beauty of inner strength. The journey of the heron can be lonely at times, but offers great rewards.
Last night, before bed, my son asked me, “Mom, do souls ever die?” Had he asked me this question six years ago, I may have given him a different answer. My own journey of spirit in this lifetime began with a childhood of doubt, and the silencing of my inner voice. Many of us begin our lives (in this incarnation) this way. Few, I suspect, have had the gifts of nurtured guidance from our caregivers, for our world has yet to fully embrace the untethered spirit.
I was born into an unhappy marriage between two young, hippie parents. The hippie lifestyle outlasted the marriage, but it was not a free, loving lifestyle. My “spiritual” edification was early and short-lived. When I was two, my mother fled with me and my sister to live on a series of Hare Krishna compounds for 6 months. Other than the comic books my mother kept, and a few other relics, nothing remains of this early life. It was a mode of escape and of hiding, a journey based on fear and not the quest to find spirit.
When I was growing up, my mother and step-father shunned organized religion, and I had almost no knowledge of biblical stories, or other religious texts. Mine was an agnostic household at best, tending toward atheism. Yet, I do recall my mother speaking about the possibility of reincarnation – a “concept” I secretly embraced, as it felt “true” to my soul.
When I prayed, I prayed silently to an unknown, untouchable God inside the muffled walls of my mind. My prayers were desperate and laced with my childhood fears of death and loss. When I thought of death, and my body and “mind” disappearing forever, my heart would leap into my throat.
This way of living went on for many years, well past the time I left my childhood home, despite the nudging of my spirit, which wanted to be heard. A spirit that struggled for the full-bodied voice of Truth. Despite fear’s best attempts to close my third eye, I was an empathic child with psychic gifts. Everywhere I went, I felt the imprint of energy. Unfortunately, I absorbed fear and and pain more than anything else.
My parents labeled me as a “moody,” “overly-sensitive” child, not realizing that I was an empath, and was absorbing and feeling their own fears, as well as the fear-energy that permeated my environment. This is not to say that I didn’t feel love and joy too, I did, and often I shared in the joy of others. Somedays, I would find my mind open to this energy. While sitting in my classroom, there were moments when I connected with a classmate’s inner joy. These were blissful, unexplainable moments for me, as my cells hummed with unexpected joy.
And, I had dreams. Prophetic visions that played out in the ensuing days that I learned to doubt. When I left home, the voice of spirit called louder, urging me to leave the path of ego I was following. In the summer before I began graduate school for a doctoral degree in the biochemical sciences, I was plagued with these visits, which I found terrifying at the time. As I drifted off to sleep, many a night (or day), I would wake suddenly to a loud voice, calling my name into the hollow of my ear. This desperate call to be heard went unheeded, I followed the path of ego for one more year.
It was a miserable year, of which I’ve written about to some degree in other posts. Had I not taken this path, though, I would not have learned its lessons. I would not, perhaps, have known how much it contrasted with my inner truth.
Yet, still I was lost. That 5-year-old girl who secretly knew she was born to write and help the world with her gifts, was still hidden in the cage of fear. It took, in fact, motherhood and IBS to bring her out into the light.
When we have our own children, we are given an opportunity to see a new perspective that extends beyond the limited view we may be used to. We also see the world through our children’s eyes. Again, the nudge of spirit came back to me with urgency.
Before my daughter was born, I knew she would be one of my big teachers in this life. About six months before her birth, she appeared to me while I slept. I saw her full round face, framed with the same brown hair as mine. My blue eyes were mirrored back at me, their shape larger and more pronounced.
My daughter learned verbal language early, and by the time she was two she was asking me some tough questions. While her father was at work, she would peer into my eyes, “If daddy is a doctor, what are you?” she would ask. “But, what are you?” she persisted when I told her I was her mommy.
Her words lingered and probed the recesses of my mind. What was I? Her questions dug under the detritus of fear.
By then, I had both of my children, who are less than a year-and-a-half apart in age. My life was consumed by the joys and stresses of motherhood, and it was laced with holes. I could not deny that I was, in many ways, miserably unfulfilled. Yes, I had always yearned for the time I would be a mother, but this was not a role that completed me. There were huge, undeniable gaps.
Still, I ignored them. After all, I had young children to raise, a busy, working husband, and the idea in my head that I would not let anyone else be the primary care-giver to my son and daughter.
Welcome in a new night-time messenger, this time in the form of IBS, which began suddenly and in painful earnest. Let me take a moment to talk about IBS and how it relates to fear and empathic tendencies. When we spend a great deal of our time feeling and absorbing energy from our surroundings, this energy often gets trapped inside of us, lingering and growing into a dark mass of fear that blocks our inner-light, and creates an energetic imbalance inside of us. The result is often a disease or dis-ease of some sort.
I was a child plagued by stomach ailments, so it should have been no surprise that I developed IBS (a common dis-ease of empaths). My mother (who is in the medical profession) was the first person to suggest this was what was causing my adult ailments – episodes of such intense intestinal discomfort, that I would be up for 3-5 hours during nights when it flared.
I shunned this diagnosis, which I found both embarrassing and unsatisfactory in its inability to be medically “cured.” Two years passed, during which I made trips to doctor’s offices, tried various antacids, had tubes shoved down my throat and blood tests, and passed many a day feeling completely depleted of energy, which made me unable to properly care for my children.
Then, on Mother’s Day of 2008, I had my last episode. You can read the story someday in my memoir (when it’s published), but for now, let’s just say, I had had enough. I was ready to heal. Healing from a dis-ease such as IBS, or any energetic imbalance, comes from a deep-soul-level desire for health. The mind, body and soul must sync in this desire and embrace the truth that we each, inside of us, hold the capacity to be healthy and balanced – that, in fact, this is our natural, steady-state. For more on this, you might want to read Deepak Chopra’s book Quantum Healing.
I may have not known, intellectually, why I was ready and able to heal then, but I knew I had made that determined choice. A change inside of me had occurred – I had decided to heal, and in the process, to finally, heed the desperate, loud calling of my inner voice.
Within a matter of weeks, I was looking at graduate schools with creative writing programs. And, painfully, for it was a struggle, I began to write – really write. That voice that was so deeply buried was starting to emerge. At the turn of the New Year, I packed my suitcase with a week’s worth of clothing, snacks and various other necessities, left my two young children in the primary care of their father, and headed two hours north to a small town in Vermont.
Goddard College, was, in so many ways, the doorway to my voice. Here, for the first time, I was in an environment that felt like home. I quickly found 5 soul-sisters, and a setting where my spiritual and creative voice could sing without fear. Those two years, filled with the challenges of balancing motherhood and being a full-time, low-residency student, were the happiest, to-date, years of my life. There was no turning back. I had embarked, finally, with eager and unwavering feet, along the path of my soul’s truth.
When we find the bliss of our soul’s truth, how can we turn back? I can’t say that after I left Goddard, and the structure of regular deadlines, which “forced” me to write, that I have maintained a steady forward trek. Everyday life has a way of taking over when we let it. Now, though, I stop to listen, take inventory, and find a way to get back on the path.
When I look back at what where I have been in the last five years, I can hardly say I’ve been sitting still, or going “back-wards.” I have not only written many lines, I have nurtured and grown my spiritual calling and path. To help heal others, I have learned, we must heal ourselves. This isn’t to say that we have to be completely “healed” of fears, for this takes most of us many lifetimes, but we need to have an understanding and acceptance of the fears that have a tendency to make a home inside us, and we need to work at healing and letting them go.
Along with Goddard, and the many individuals and gifts I encountered by being there, I have met, and continue to meet wonderful healers, teachers and fellow soul-travelers. This part of my journey began with conversations with a friend, whom I met while our daughters were in preschool together, and gradually grew to include various energy healers, gifted intuitives/psychics and teachers of spirit, and soul-travelers who have merged into my life. When we open ourselves up to our spirit’s truth, doors open to the teachers and companions we need and seek. The world, suddenly, becomes unbounded and filled with the magic of discovery and joy. There is no looking back, except for remembering how far we have come, and the lessons we learned to get here.
May you, if you have not, find your own way to travel your soul’s truth, for it is the only, “true” path, to bliss.
I find myself inside wait, yet I am not unhappy. Between the sprints of life there is that chance to breath before we run through the next event. During the periods of waiting, we can open ourselves to receive the gifts of silence. If we go deep enough into that silence, reaching what Deepak Chopra calls “TheGap,” we find our answers. We find peace. We find love.
When the Universe gifts us with these moments of pause, it is not perhaps our duty, as much as our best-interest to receive. Instead of looking for something to fill the empty space, we can step inside of it. Alone, inside that stillness, we find connection.
Close your eyes (or leave them open, unfocused), quiet your body and empty your mind. Let your breath lead you to that place of solitude and open the door. When you reach “The Gap,” you will discover that, in reality, you are not alone. Your cells hum with the song of the universe; you are not wholly of yourself, but a part of everything. This is your oppertunity to reprogram and realign with your truths.
Inside silence we hear the answers to our questions, for there is nothing to muffle the voice of our higher selves. In wait, find what you seek.
“When you feel a peaceful joy, that’s when you are near truth.”
–Rumi
I graduated college with two degrees, one in English and one in biology, and three different graduate programs/schools to choose from. Looking back it’s easy enough to see that I was confused about what direction I wanted to follow, but instead of looking inward for the answers, I did what I was used to doing. I looked outward. I chose prestige. I accepted the PhD track program in molecular biology and biochemistry at the ivy league school, telling myself as I did so that I could go anywhere (5-7 years later) with that degree beside my name. I lasted a year, during which I was mostly miserable.
Dropping out of that program was one of the hardest things I had ever done. I felt I had failed myself and my family. I had yet to fully realize I was trying to live someone else’s dream. Of course, if I knew what I know now I would not have gone. I would have heeded the voice of spirit that would often startle me from my dreams by shouting my name, “Alethea,” in my ear. Ah, that call to Truth ignored!
Some of us choose detours full of bumps and hurdles before we finally start walking our true paths. Ask a five year old what she wants to be when she grows up, and pay attention. It’s likely she’ll answer from her soul’s truth – that place inside of her that still knows without the trappings of ego or other people’s truths, why she came into this life. When I was five I knew without a shadow of a doubt I was here to be a writer, a mom and do something bigger than myself to help the world. But, I held tightly to two of those truths, afraid to follow their songs.
Today, I was reminded, as I often am these days, how important it is to listen to my heart’s song. I spent the morning talking about poetry and writing erasure poems with my daughter’s third grade class. Time flew, and I left with more energy, so much more, than I awoke with. This is what happens when we follow our soul’s truth. We feel energized and alive. We feel wonderful.
Each time I write a piece of prose or a poem with the lyrics of my heart, my being sings with the energy that I have allowed to flow. A few years ago, when I went to graduate school again, this time for writing, I experienced this sensation, which I also call “home,” nearly every moment of each day. I never doubted I was where I belonged. For my teaching practicum I followed the internal tug drawing me to the state’s prison for women, and was rewarded by the sensation of walking on air almost every time I would pass through its doors to return home. Not only was I teaching what I loved, I was helping women like me. Women who had lost their voices by going down the wrong path.
Even though it took me many years to follow my heart song, I feel fortunate and grateful each day that I have found my path of Truth. The trappings of the ego, of guilt, and of fear, can be strong and over-powering. It can take great courage to break free from their holds. Although I take pleasure out of my own children’s successes in life that are ego-based, I desire above all else for them to find and follow their own heart songs.
If you have not yet followed your own path of truth, take a moment to go back to that five year old self still inside you. Ask her what makes her sing. If you end your days depleted and cranky, you are probably on a detour. In contrast, if most of your days are filled with energy and light, you are listening to the lyrics of your heart song. When you do this, you nurture yourself and the universe. You are living your soul’s purpose.
Today, embrace the amazing being that you are. Even in those moments when you feel less, know that you harbor an amazing soul. Give gratitude to who you are and sing your truth until the light shines strong again.
Today the universe reminded me to heal. To listen and receive the signs it is sending. I spent last week in a heavy fog of judgement, the energy I was raised in. Today, while listening to Rikka Zimmerman, I am reminded that this heavy energy is not mine. That it is within my power to dissipate it for myself, and in the process, there is the hope that I will also dissipate it in others. As a parent I am reminded that to judge your children is to suffocate their individual power and truth. Their divine lights. When I was a child I knew from the time of memory, that I was incarnated in this life to write beauty, to participate in the healing of the earth and humanity and to raise a family structured on love. It’s taken me many years to begin to step into my power. Judgement is a limiting force. When someone judges you, they judge themselves. It’s a ripple effect of destruction.
A way to remove oneself from judgement is to step back and to let go of emotional attachments/reactions to a the scene or situation. To watch it as an unbiased observer and say, “this is as it should be.” It may seem strange and foreign to do this, but if you let yourself it will feel right to you. A big weight lifts. For when we judge we feel heavy, awful.
Two days ago, while my children were in karate class, I was attempting to read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Relin, when two well-intended parents saw my copy of the book and proceeded to remark on the unfortunate findings that came out after the book was published. Suddenly the book was tainted for me, until I returned to it later in the solitude of my home. As I opened the book again and read its words, I realized it did not matter to me if the rumors of corruption were true, what mattered was the gift inside the cover. The reminder that within each of us is the capacity for living from the heart in a place of truth and love. That when one does this, the universe opens to all possibilities and miraculous things happen. Living through a place of love, in the heart, transcends fear and ignorance. It shatters terror(ism). This is the gift of the book.
My own book, which is waiting to be received by the world, I know in my heart, is also a gift for our time. A gift of the ability of the body and soul to heal from an environment permeated by fear and judgement. It reminds us that we as humans can transcend past this heavy energy that resides within our cells, carried down from our ancestors and our past lives, and multiplied and reactivated in this life. It is our choice to change this program to one of truth and love.
I acknowledge today that doubt and fear, and specifically that cord of energy that ties me to my childhood family, has held this book back from publication. There is an energy of resistance and fear surrounding the publication of my words that is not mine. I cut the cord. I give it to the universe to dissipate. The world needs my words. There are many, like me, who need to understand that we each have the capacity to heal. The universe, I accept and acknowledge with infinite gratitude, has given me this gift of truth to heal. I accept and acknowledge that it is, and will continue to ripple through our collective beings with the vibration of truth and love.
I extend immense gratitude and love to the Universe and all divine beings, in particular, my higher self, Rikka Zimmerman and Jennifer McLean and the Healing with the Master’s team for reminding me of this reality.
The greatest gift we can give ourselves and others is to see our truths, and through this allow ourselves to be the beings of love we are.
This morning, after a night dreaming about wearing yellow and talking to a lollipop; after a weekend trying to neutralize my daughter’s emotions while we were at a hotel for a conference of my husband’s, I finished the manuscript for my memoir. At least, that is, to the point where I am ready to start sending it out to agents/publishers. I had finished my last round of revisions last week, but had one more poem to write. This morning I allowed it to appear. I called it “Truth” and felt satisfied with the simplicity of the lyrics that took form on the page.
Now, as I sit here, there is the part of me pulling for action. That restless ego that doesn’t like to sit still and let the universe string together the pattern that will shape the outcome I want to manifest. But, I have learned, and am still learning, that in the quiet space of allowing we are given the gifts we desire. That everything we need comes to us when we release the pull.
Yesterday, I came home exhausted and irritable, and found a package waiting for me from a dear friend. I put the house in order enough for the anxieties inside of me to settle down, and then opened. For the second time this year, a friend had given me exactly what I needed, at the perfect moment. This friend (a different one than the other instance), had sent to me her medicine cards not knowing how perfect her timing was. I didn’t tell her that today I would be working with animal totems in class, but her heart knew that I would use this gift. She didn’t know that I had been wanting my own set, only that I was learning the language of animal messengers.
And, of course, her gift, which came at just the right time, saved me just that. Time. I had no idea what “animal” I was going to bring to class before the gift arrived. Yet, something inside of me knew to wait. So now, I feel the struggle to let go of the rope, to trust that those spiders in the last post will burst out of their orbs and spin their webs. It’s not that I don’t want to work at getting my manuscript published, but there is the understanding that often when we try too hard at something we fail, or at least do not achieve what we could. The idea of “paddling upstream,” as Ester Hicks would say, when we can just let go the oars and allow the current to carry us where it will. I am not sure yet how this will happen in what is normally perceived to be such a cut-throat, competitive industry, but I am willing to trust that the act of letting go of the “struggle,” even just a little bit, will make the journey easier. Will make the destination more fulfilling. It has, after all, happened this way for others.
So, here’s to allowing with the intention that my words will soon heal so many more souls than just my own.
The Light Behind the Story 