Blossoming

Coming out of a couple of difficult days into the sunshine of spring today. The weather does effect me. Friends have likened me to a plant that needs sunshine for photosynthesis. It is true! Today the sun was shining and I went for a walk with my daughter. We saw trees in bloom that lifted my heart. It is so amazing the way the delicate blossoms can emerge from the rough craggy branches. Seems impossible to me. How do those papery, fragile blossoms come from that rough exterior?

It made me think of our hearts and how they can become hardened and craggy. Yet they can bloom anew with an infusion of love. Love can open the most hardened hearts and allow the softness to flow again. The tiny tendril of love can begin its work, opening up and softening the heart as it grows and blossoms.

We are in a time of heart opening. The planet is being infused with so much love from our universal brothers and sisters. Our hearts are expanding and creating more room in our beings. I actually feel mine physically expanding in my chest. I can feel the contractions as it works to grow with these new energies. There is more room for me to go inside and pull up a seat. I like hanging out in there, looking around at the colors, meeting my higher self and other visitors. I can find a resonance with Mother Gaia's heart from here. I love tuning into her heartbeat. She is so beautiful and it makes me happy to feel connected on such a physical level.

The line that has played in my head for the past year is: Let your heart light shine.

We can all walk around and turn on our heart lights! We are all in need of heart light. It is as important or more so, than sun light. Everywhere we go, we can visualize our heart's light shining ahead of us, waking people up to their own beauty, their own goodness. See it shining out, moving through the craggy exteriors that people can present to warm the fragile buds waiting to bloom in each one's heart.

Don't you love that idea? That we can be nourishment to one another? We can provide heart light! Who knew? We aren't really taught this. We can gift one another with an essential nutrient for our growth and well being. So come on people...all together now......

Turn on your heart light!

Mother Mary

I have been a Mother Mary girl all my life. I fell in love with her during my Catholic upbringing. I only came to love my name last year, at the age of 54 years. It suddenly dawned on me that Linda Marie, which seemed so common for the 1950's, was actually the perfect name for me. Linda means beautiful and of course, Marie is one of the forms of Mary. I am a beautiful Mary! The women who gathered around Mary during the time of Jesus were called Marys.

So...I was gifted with a small unusual rock from my rock man. It is so tiny, less than an inch in height. It was so strange the way it was formed. I immediately thought of a shrine for Mother Mary. I told him that I would have to make a tiny clay figure of her to place inside of it. I could hear my girlfriend laughing in my head as she would tease me that she feared if I had access to old bathtubs, I would plant them in the ground to create Mother Mary shrines. We have all seen them, painted sky blue with the statue of Mother Mary placed inside.

I was holding my small rock and thinking about the shrine. I found an medal of Mother Mary that I had rescued from an old jewelry box. I pealed the metal backing off of the ceramic painting of Mother Mary. It was a tiny bit too wide for the rock opening. I placed some gold foil inside the cavity of the rock and by slightly bending the painting, I was able to get Mother Mary situated in the rock. It totally made my day! I love her! So tiny and so perfect. It is my miniature shrine, very handy for traveling.

A little bit of creativity goes a long way to pleasing this heart of mine. I have to remember this daily as the act of creation is so satisfying.

Time out

(turmeric on the pot from when the peas boiled up, not a dirty pot!)
Wow, I just dropped down into a space of nothingness. Do you have those times when you chose to retreat from the world? I have little daily connection as it is but even that felt like too much. I did not want to talk to anyone. I had had a couple of nights of little sleep followed by a couple of nights of very intense dreams. The dreams were ones that lingered. I knew their message of letting go, moving on. Yet the sadness or weight of them moving through me, was difficult. I was not able to stay in observer mode but felt taken down by the energies. I did not shower or dress. I stayed in bed mode, in my sweats and comfy clothes. I had thought that I needed a nap as I could envision things that I wanted to do, yet had no energy to do them. After the long, lingering nap I still had no energy to move with. I knew intellectually that a walk might help or putting on some music and dancing. Yet none of it seemed possible. I watched a movie on my computer...then another one to round out the day. I ate chocolate and simply gave in to the shut down that I felt. The day ended in tears of frustration. I felt so tired of things seeming to stand still. When would my life begin? I know it is here right now but it felt so long since I had had a sense of purpose and a vision. I could not feel my angels or guides, I felt alone and sad. I said, "Beam me up, I want to return to the land of love. This feels too painful." I could see that these thoughts weren't truth but could not get out from under them.

Today the fog has lifted somewhat. I am back in observer mode. I watch my slowness, my body not moving much (though I did take a nice walk involving some hills) and my mind not feeling very clear. I was able to make a pot of soup to nourish myself on this damp, overcast day. I watched another movie, connected via facebook a bit. Still not taking phone calls or calling out. Not sure what is brewing. Meditated, felt my heart expanding. Still the quiet and the stillness.

Have my markers and drawing pad out to begin a new project. I wanted to walk to the art store for some linen canvas to begin on but it was not in the cards. Everything sits on the desk next to me, waiting. I know that I will look back and see myself in this time and see the bigger picture. I pray that something is being birthed and that tomorrow I awake with the energy to meet it. In the meantime, going to have a bowl of soup and watch one more movie. Thank goodness for Netflix! Dusk descending.....that other- earthly time that feels melancholic to me today. Accepting what is today seems all that I can do.

Free ourselves from the matrix through our hearts

I awoke with the words: "You are in the matrix but can free yourself through your heart. Remember this!"

Earlier in the night (yes I wake up at all hours of the night) I realized that I had been with my higher self who was orchestrating a meeting with myself. She was showing me how something would look from one perspective but I must understand it from another. Folks would say no but I had to firmly say yes and let it be, knowing the bigger plan.

It made me realize how topsy turvy this world has been. We have been trained to function in the matrix, not to free ourselves from it.

Look at what is valued and rewarded in our culture. It is producing physical things and honoring physical activities. If I write a book, run five miles, take care of my car, then I believe that I have value. I have the right to feel good as I have accomplished something.

If instead I lay on the couch and daydream, working in the inner realms of my being, it is seen as having no value. Working to heal my inner wounds, my places of resistance to the present moment, searching out areas of my heart that are not open, these are not given much value in our world. I have "wasted time" and therefore should feel guilty, and strive to not do it again any time soon. It has taken me years to value who I am in my beingness without an identity based on a role or occupation. I can recall lying on my couch in my first apartment of my own after my divorce and saying over and over to myself, "You are safe, you are safe." I felt so untethered, so adrift with no anchoring points. Fortunately I had a huge redwood tree outside my window and he seemed to lend his strength to me or shelter me as the very least. I felt held by him at times.

I recall my older son telling me this years ago when he was a little boy who loved to daydream. He would often disappear and I went looking for him. He was sittting high up in a tree that we had a rope swing attached to. He was almost invisible, sitting in a comfy spot amongst the branches. I was calling him in to complete some task. He looked down at me and said, " Mommy, it is ok to do nothing sometimes. It is good to just sit."

I could not hear those words at that time in a meaningful way. But he was pointing the way as he continues to do so for me.

We are waking up to the fact that our inner reality creates our outer reality. This is true on a personal level as well as a planetary level. So we have it backwards! We have been struggling to change our outer reality from outside, through physical activities. Yet in truth, we have to change from the inside out.

I remember the days of working so hard, so many responsibilites and a to do list that never ended. I felt trapped. Time was always fleeting. Life felt dark and troubled. I believed firmly in the illusion before me and could not see any other realities or options except to grit my teeth each morning and go as hard and fast as I could until I collapsed into bed at night. Yikes! How I survived all those years of living that way is a sign of grace to me. That way of life leads to burnout and collapse which is what happened to me.

As we go within and connect to Source energy, we are renewed and inspired from our authentic selves. We can enter into timeless spaces. I read that one good determination of your mind set is if time seems to be moving too fast, you are caught in the matrix. If you feel that you have all the time in the world to take a breath, to move with grace, to offer a prayer, to flow through your life, you are in your heart. You are in the universal flow of grace and love that surrounds us always.

I am chosing more and more to live in my heart, to see with my heart, think with my heart. It is so much softer and more fluid. It is full of feminine grace. The old mind way of leading my life feels sharper and harder and more masculine. I know that I have been blessed to have this time out of time to move through this personal transformation. In many ways, it would have been easier to have a job, a role to label myself with. But, that was not to be my path.

These days I am trusting my heart more, trusting that as strange as my life may look from the outside, it is the one that I have been called to live. My higher self knows the reason behind it all. I do not. I will continue to trust my heart and follow where she leads me.

Riding the wave to a new perspective

I love this spiral painting. My son, Gabriel did this during his year in Spain. He gave it away to some fortunate friend. Wish that it had been me!

Today my sister and I helped one another (yet again! have to love a sister) shift our perspective. She was telling me that one of the reasons that she wanted to spend Friday night with her boyfriend rather than going out with some girlfriends, was because if she was with him she would not smoke. She has been focused on quitting but had had a few cigarettes lately. She used the phrase, "I was bad and smoked."

I told her, "You are not bad, that was not bad. It is neutral. Not bad or good. Just a cigarette or two. You are already done with cigarettes, they are on the way out of your life. You are not a smoker."

Peggy could feel the ease of that, how she felt better by taking off the negative label and not judging herself as bad. Then she proceeded to return the favor when I spoke of loving myself and being ready to have someone in my life who also loved themselves.

I said, "I feel that I have healed that part of me that did not love myself . I had thought that I was done with those old aspects but I did bring Joe into my world and he struggled with loving himself as well as loving me."

Peggy said, "That does not feel right. I do not agree with that at all. I think it was more about continuing an old pattern of being a caretaker. You wanted to care for him."

That did resonate more deeply. I have been a caretaker all my life. I am loving myself more each day, certainly there was an element of that non-loving in that relationship on my part but it was not the major player. Hmmm...nice to shift and feel a lightening. To be gentler with ourselves. To accept all of our actions as moving us to more awareness, more love.

I was then able to see the beauty of my present situation, living as I am with two of my children. Certainly, motherhood represented a huge caretaking role for me. I did it with 100% of my focus. I homeschooled the three kids for eight years, was with them 24/7. Seems amazing when I look back. So now, I am with my son and daughter and we are enjoying stepping out of our former roles. Sometimes they are the ones caring for me and sometimes I am the one caring for them. Truly we are in that love vibration where we care for one another as we would like to be cared for. The roles have dropped away and my caretaking is focused more on myself. It is more balanced and feels so good!

I love how we are moved to embracing more of our truth, more of our essence. I thought that I would be here for a few days, it has been almost three months. I love being able to see how my higher self is always moving me to greater growth and awareness. Here she is, ( dear Sophia, my I AM Presence) helping me step out of an old ingrained paradigm. So instead of thinking poorly of myself for some reason, a simple shift of perspective can make it lighter and quicker to move forward.

We are all so dear! We strive to be good, to do good, to feel good. We can look at any situation from a multitude of persepectives. I am going to continue to search for the one that feels lighter and more joyful! That way I am adding to the joy of the world and not the weight.

The love vibration

We are beginning to live in the "love vibration". It is such a beautiful place to be! My sister called me this morning to tell me that she was craving a cigarette. She had given up smoking a couple of weeks ago and had been doing fine. Well, she had definitely felt emotional and extra sensitive. Today though, she was feeling pretty agitated. As we talked, it came to light that she had had a difficult encounter with the rental agent for her apartment complex. She has to decide whether or not to renew her lease in two months. The woman was very inflexible and curt. My sister's aha moment came as she described the woman's behavior. She realized that what had upset her so much was not the content of the conversation but the vibration. The woman was not coming from a space of love! As we exist more and more in this space of love and it informs all of our interactions with our dear ones, it is shocking to encounter the old vibration.

My sister and I are both fortunate to not be working in the world at present so we are gifted with this time of being surrounded for the most part, by those whom we love. That is where the majority of our interactions take place. As we all move more into unity consciousness and that sense of deep connection, it is difficult to return to the old surface level interactions. Our hearts crave deep contact and love to live in that vibration of truth and openness and caring. The more we live in this vibration, the more it spreads. We begin to accept it as the norm.

So rather than driving to the store to buy cigarettes, my sister realized that she could watch her reaction to that old energy and let it pass through her. (By this time she was already at the store and asking for a pack of Marboros.) So next time, she could take a different tack.

This is so powerful. Thoughts run through me and my old way was to act upon them or react to them. Lately I have been experiencing this in my heart. The man who I believed, (still believe? ) to be my beloved, recently put out a utube video where he is reciting a new poem while another friend is playing the drums and singing in the background. Hearing his voice hit my cells like a liquid river of light. Everyone of them, came alive. My heart was on fire. Amazing! I went through a bit of panic as a couple of friends can attest to. How can this be after I have moved to clear that longing and wondering about our relationship out of my system? How could it still be so alive in me and have such an effect?

Deep breath. Another deep breath. Then following my daughter's advice (she is the athlete and body person) I moved the energy through my system. Ah...feel it, observe yourself feeling it, then move it through the body and release it. Yes. That felt good! I do not have to do anything about it. Yes, my cells light up when they hear his voice. I do not know anything about our relationship except that he retreated. I am at peace when I accept it as it is. I can watch my reaction but do not need to take any action. No, I do not need to call him. No, I do not need to hurt. No, I do not need to define it. (Yes, I was the one who wanted it all tied up neatly with a pretty bow! What is this messy ending?) No...there is something else. I can note all of my reactions and what came was that I felt love. My heart felt such love that he had created something beautiful. I felt peace as I listened to his voice and sensed a settling had taken place since I had last been with him. My heart could dance in love. I could be in the love vibration by choosing to reside there.

So, today I am taking up residence in the love vibration. Shine on heartlight!

I am sharing Joseph's poetry as it is beautiful and feeds that love vibration in my heart.

Joe Plum Poetry and Oitancan "Oi" Mani Zephier

www.youtube.com

‎(C)2011 Oitancan Zephier & Joe Plumb

Longed for community

Yesterday the energies were shifting and changing. I could feel the electricity around me. A new male friend called me and said, "Good morning, Sunshine!" That started the day off beautifully! I have had little contact with male energy other than my sons for a long time. It made me realize that I need it in my life. It is time to open myself to this. So... first shift.

My older son called as he was walking to work. He said he did not understand this working life any longer. He wanted out but not sure how or what to move to. Just knew that it felt too hard. This was the first time that he expressed this sense of limitation about his work. Second shift.

A friend called and told me that she had gone on line to become an ordained minister who could perform weddings. I guess that there is very little that one has to do to accomplish this in California. She sees a new business potential and I see how great she would be at this. She is so intuitive and clear about seeing things. As she said, the 0nly drawback is that she might have to say, "This will not work out! What were you thinking!!"

She believes that we could make this a business together. The night before as I watched a movie with my daughter that showed a wedding scene, I had said that I would make a good wedding planner. I had said that I could see my friend and I starting a business together.

Third shift.

My younger son came home to tell me that he felt that he could not continue in his present job, it was too sterile, his creativity was not engaged enough. He just did not want to do it any longer. Fourth shift.

My daughter is finishing her month long yoga teacher training and at the end of the week, is ready to begin the process of marketing herself and beginning to build a fitness/yoga business. At the first of the year. she had allowed herself to take the leap from the known working world and move towards her heart's desire. She is primed to shift into the new.

For as long as I can recall of this journey of mine, certainly the past couple of years, I have had the vision of beginning a community where love and creativity and connection blossomed. Not the old hippie community of old, rather a small endeavor where we would have enough land to grow our food and enough buildings to house art making and workshops of different sorts. I see a core group of people who live there year round and many others who come and go. It is part of a small town that we are connected to. It is the way of living that we know in our hearts is what we are meant to have. A place where we support one another and spark one another in creative endeavors. There is music and communal cooking and eating. There is a sweat lodge, there is a place for ceremony on the land. There is dancing and yoga. There are trees and a babbling brook. Yes, why not? I have always wanted the babbling brook! Of course there will be fairies and elementals of all kinds sharing the space with us.

Many people around the world have this. In our modern world of nuclear families, most of us do not have this. Rather we live in our tiny groups of two or three or four and often end up just two or one as kids leave and spouses pass on. I want to live with all ages surrounding me like my forefathers did with extended families living and working together. We are a tribal people. Of course, I want to choose my tribe! I am blessed as my three adult children are ones that are part of my soul family of choice. So we have a nucleus to begin. Others whose vibrations match, will be drawn to us. I can sense these vibrations coalescing and moving together as the time for community is now approaching on a planetary level. We will be drawn to our soul groups and what rejoicing there will be as we come together again!

Yesterday the energies felt alive! I felt the community wires humming. It felt as though it were being felt into being. Our hearts are what will create this. The kids and I have been speaking of it since the new year but now we are all being energetically pulled towards it. It feels like a living thing that we are being magnetized towards and it towards us.

We are alert to the signs around us and beginning to think of the steps ahead. How do I get a mortgage when I do not have a job? Perhaps the kids take out a mortgage on the basis of their jobs? They do not make that much...we have some capital to work with...snippets of ideas. I am new at this and it is unfamiliar territory but I know that the doors will open and I am ready to step through them. I know that my place already exists in some reality and that I can feel my way there. So, I will keep you posted. In the meantime, we stay in our heart space and feel ourselves there.

Old energetic patterns releasing

Today I was surprised to find old energetic patterns of victimhood flooding through me. I was watching myself, knowing that it was not my truth any longer yet it felt so real. I had to remind myself to not attach but rather to let it all move on through.

Now I can laugh and feel the pleasure of knowing that it was old patterns having their last hurrah and then disappearing for good. But when the energies are swirling within it feels intense. There is the panic, "Oh no, I thought that I was done with this long ago and here I am again!" I felt sorry for myself, the voice in my head said that I still did not know what I was doing in my life. I had no friends, no one cared about me. I wanted to point the finger at everyone around me, my kids are not caring enough, my friends have forgotten me. Yikes, it was truly awful! I had not felt such emotions in a long time. Thank goodness!

My sister had the same thing happen as she recently quit smoking. All those emotions that had been held at bay by the habit, suddenly came forth. She felt very emotional and teary. She wanted to point the finger at her new love, he was not caring enough, he was being unkind. Surely it was time to end the relationship. She knew that it was not true, just as I did when I was hit with the old stuff, but it sure feels true when you are in it!

These are the times when we need one another to remind us of our truth. We all know this intellectually, that as we release patterns and move into new ways of relating to the world, our old patterns will return on their way out of our lives. This is a critical time as it is easy to be ensnared again. It is a vulnerable time as you can sabotage yourself. You have to be able to step out of yourself and simply become the observer, watching everything move through.

As we open our hearts to more love and it comes streaming in, it stirs up all the shadow energy within. If you are not in the observer mode, you can attach to the shadows and be pulled back in. That is what happened with my beloved. There was so much love and light that poured in last fall when we were together that all the shadows came rushing up to be loved by that light. All parts of ourselves want to be loved and accepted. I saw it happen, told him that he could move into observer mode and it would all pass on by but he could not. He wrapped those feelings of pain and suffering around himself like a hair shirt. He told me that he was not destined for happiness but rather was to suffer alone for that was the noble path. Three months later and he is still wearing the hair shirt of pain.

Unfortunately, the ego can create a wall that appears too high to scale. It tells you that you made a mistake, so you feel guilt. Then you feel anger at the person who you feel guilty about hurting. The anger may incite another action that is unkind. Now the ego tells you that you cannot undo it as you have gone too far down the road. The other person will not forgive you. So the wall continues to build until it is so high that you believe that you cannot climb over it, you cannot get out from behind it. It convinces you that you are not worthy of love. You are to stay in the shadows.

We stay in our suffering until we tire of it. I sure spent enough years in it, believing that there was no way out. Being so far in the tunnel that I could not see the light at the end. It is hard to believe that I lived in that darkness for so long. I am so grateful to be free and standing in the light of my truth.

Thank goodness for friends at such times who can remind us of our truth and for our hearts which have helped us find freedom.

Another veil falls away...the illusion of suffering

As we expand our consciousness, the veils of illusion continue to fall away. It is amazing how we have been programmed to think the thoughts that continue to imprison us. Ah... a crafty plot! But as we breathe deeply and enter into our heart space, we begin to breathe the air of freedom. Heady stuff as we are meant to live and breathe this air.

The latest veil of illusion that came to my attention was the way that we deal with suffering. We are taught to believe that we must suffer as we view suffering around us. On an energetic level, what does that look like? Suffering is a heavy energy, dark clouds of swirling pain. So if I see a homeless person and my heart identifies with their perceived suffering, I add to that dense energy cloud. Have I changed the person's condition or rather amplified it? That person has chosen the experience of homelessness on some level for the growth that it will afford their soul. Does this mean that I do not feel compassion? No, I can decide to offer money or food or a smile, whatever my heart choses, but from a place of joy.

If I look the person in the eye, make contact heart to heart with a greeting of joy, I have injected a new energy into that dark energy. As Mother Teresa was oft quoted as saying. it was not for want of food that people in the West were starving, it was more often for the want of love.

We cannot help anyone by joining them in their suffering. We cannot help our Mother Earth by feeling bad about global warming. We cannot help the poor by lamenting their condition and feeling guilt for our abundance. So many beautiful souls work for the betterment of the planet, of the poor, of the disenfranchised from an attitude of guilt or a weight of pain. We have been taught that this is the way to uplift, to aid. Yet we add to the weight rather than lighten it. Again, it seems counter-intuitive yet our intuition in these instances has been programmed to keep us enslaved to the old paradigm.

If I truly believe that we create our lives for our highest good, then I can step back and be grateful for what I have chosen to create in mine and accept what experiences others have chosen to create in theirs. This does not mean that we do not feel our hearts opening in compassion. We do. Rather that we can respond in a new way. I can feel compassion for my brothers and sisters in Queensland who are experiencing flooding. I can send money and aid but more importantly, I can be in my joy and picture them dancing in their joy. I can see them living their lives with gratitude and appreciation. I can give of my heart by sitting quietly and envisioning waves of healing light flooding Queensland. I can smile as I do this, knowing that all is well. Knowing that I am adding my heart's love to uplift my brothers and sisters and the nature kingdoms. We are all connected. They are my heart, I am theirs.

We can step out of our small way of thinking and realize the power of our thoughts and feelings to create. We all want good for one another. We want to live in a world where there is abundance for all. We have been taught that it is by "the doing" that we accomplish this. As well we are taught to "do" under the weight of guilt, sorrow, duty. What if we choose to "be" and move to the doing from a place of pure joy. Inspired action from a heart so full of the truth of joy, the truth of beauty. We can feed what we want to see, feed the world with thoughts of the truth of love.

My first teaching job was in a juvenile lock down center. I was young and my class consisted of 16-18 year old boys. They were convinced that this sweet little young woman would run screaming out of there within a week, tops. What amazed me was how the whole system was set up to perpetuate the victim consciousness and the idea of suffering. The kids had counselors and we were to be their friends. I told the boys that I certainly was not their friend, I did not hang out with teenagers and I had no desire to know their histories. I was given huge files in each student of their background but I did not read them. I stuffed them in a drawer. I told the kids that I did not care if someone had put out cigarettes on their arms or beat them or starved them. It did not matter to me. I told them that everyone has had some trauma in their lives and the only question was, what were they going to do about it. I was only interested in being their teacher and seeing what they could do with their lives from here on out.

My attitude did not endear me to the system. If a student decided to end the week by screaming an obscenity at me, I saw that he had chosen a restricted weekend. The counselors would challenge me to change my stance as the "poor kid" had been subjected to this abuse and that. I refused to buy that story, the young man has made a decision to engage in behavior that resulted in a consequence. That would be how he learned to change his behavior and create a life that was more to his liking.

The students came to appreciate my approach and began to believe in themselves in a new way. They had become conditioned to everyone reflecting back victim consciousness as well as fear of their toughness. I saw the yearning of their hearts to be whole and reflected that back to them. The other kids began to call them Linda's brownies as they began to tuck in their shirts, comb their hair and move out of the habitual slouch to stand in their bodies in a new way. They began to know themselves. I did not believe that they suffered, I believed that in each moment, they had the opportunity to begin life anew.

Despite not understanding what I did, the administration began to send new students through my class first. My students would quickly show the new ones what was up and discourage the usual angry postures. If a new student threatened me in any way, my boys would surround me and set the student straight. They protected me on all levels. They knew in their hearts that I did not pity them, I did not feel sorry for them but rather that I loved them. Love is the most powerful force on this planet, in the universe. It is everything.

So when you watch the news or walk past a homeless guy, open your hearts to love and let that be your guide to your actions. Fill yourself with love so completely that it bubbles up through you as a continuous stream of joy. Send that out into this beautiful world of ours. You are light. You are love. Own it.

Love your life and watch the transformation

I read a channeling that really resonated with my heart. It is from the Messages from God through Yael and Doug Powell at Circle of Light. Here is the quote:

"Only as something is loved is it free to change into something else."

This made me think of my kids and the times that I was not seeing them with love but rather anger at their behavior. Or the times with a partner when I felt that he must change for me to feel love. When I lost this basic truth.

We have the capacity to love and accept one another as we are. That is how we gift one another with the freedom to change. All of us are such freedom loving folks, it is encoded in our beings. If someone tries to change us, we put up our defenses. Yet when we feel completely accepted for ourselves, we can let down our guard. We tend to be more amenable to change. As we are gifted with that love, we wish to gift others with love. It is a beautiful circle.

Here is more of the same message:

"And loving your own life, which allows it to change. Wanting it different keeps it in place. To the mind this seems counter-intuitive. But to the heart it makes perfect sense. Love, beloved ones, is alive."

Only Love Allows Things to Change
Transforming Resistance
1-17-11

I can feel the truth of this..love is alive. We can use this aliveness to re energize and ignite our lives.

I was replaying a number of conversations that I had just heard. Folks were talking about how they do not like their bodies, how "bad" certain foods were that they were eating, how lonely they were, how financially strapped they were. So many reasons it seems to not love our lives.

I began to think of this quote and how true it feels to me. I am moving into a space of loving my life. Seeing in it the vibration of everything that I want. As I focus on the love, it brings forth such gratitude and appreciation for what I have been blessed with.

Taking this to heart, we can love the parts of our bodies that are not functioning at their optimum. We can hold each part in love, flood them with love. Sometimes I feel that our body is like a child. It wants our attention. There are so many levels where we want things to be different. This statement is freeing for me as I tune in to areas in my life where I have not been loving myself.

I have a bit of a leaky bladder...not fun you say and I agree! I am now loving her regularly, instead of focusing on her not performing as she used to. I am loving my bladder as she is right now. I recall years of working at such a frantic pace that I might go all day without using the restroom! How insane is that? I literally felt I did not have time to stop and pee! So this dear bladder has put up with being ignored in a major way and now she is insisting on some attention! I can give it to her in a loving way rather than criticizing her for not performing as I desire.

I am learning to be so appreciative of my body and all that she has done for me these many years. I am loving her beauty, her grace, her form.

Our spirit often uses our body to get our attention, to slow us down, to set us on an inward journey if we have resisted guidance coming in another way. I know when my life fell apart years ago, I had to stop everything. It was as if my body simply wound down and I had no ability to start her up again. I am so grateful to my body for stopping a life that was causing me such pain. It allowed me to discover the life of beauty and joy that I live today.

Today I was walking on the beach in the beautiful sunshine, singing a love song to my beloved. No, he is not here in my life. Yet he is in my heart. I was singing and I found a large perfect sand dollar. I love sand dollars and finding a whole and perfect one, makes my day! I feel like a little girl who has been given a gift. I then found another, almost identical in size and perfection! I took this as a beautiful sign from my beloved that he is close to me. Then a wave came up and caught me unawares and I laughed as my jeans were soaked up my calf. Ha, he wanted to play with me! I love my beloved :)

So, today take a look at your life and see what you are not loving this moment. We have been taught to believe that our happiness is to be found in the new job, the big raise, the vacation, the new partner, the perfect body. We have been taught to not love our lives but rather live with dissatisfaction as a constant companion. Let's turn this around. Let us love everything in our lives even if you can find ten reasons why you can't. Try it, experiment. I believe that you will be amazed at what you will discover.

White Eagle and healing of the land

Yesterday, I experienced a remarkable event. I was with three friends and we were doing some work with crystal bowls. There were three women and one man who is an Apache Indian.

One of the women told me her dream of the night before about a white eagle. I had been talking about a friend of mine, Chief Golden Light Eagle which she took as a sign that she was to share her dream with me.

In her dream, she saw a white eagle fall from the sky. It was injured and she moved towards it. Someone came and shot it to "put it out of its misery". My friend was upset and went to find a vet who could help the eagle. She did find a vet and with the help of her daughter, he was able to remove two bullets from the eagle. The vet came towards her holding the eagle in his hands and she had a feeling of lightness, that the eagle would be well.

This dream held a great meaning for her personally.

We formed the four directions as we sat and one of the women played the crystal bowls. As she played the grandmother bowl, I began to cry. My tears ran down my cheeks and turned into a torrent as I began to sob. My friend who had had the dream said that she wanted to come to me to comfort me but was limited by her wheelchair. At that point she sent the eagle that had been flying around her to me to "lift me up".

I began to channel the eagle's words. I saw the tribal lands of Turtle Island (North America) with black smoke rising from them. I saw threads connecting all the lands across our continent. The land was releasing clouds of swirling smoke like energy. The eagle told me that this was the pain and oppression that the Native Americans had endured. It had been held deep in the land and now it was time to release it. Mother Earth is ascending and the land must be cleansed.

I felt the cords of oppression around my neck and stated that it was time for them to be removed from all the Native Americans. My friends used their hands to pull the cords off of me. The pain moving through my body was felt on every level though the words came: "The burden is light". I knew that it was moving through me to be transmuted and though I was feeling it, it was not heavy as I was the observer as well as the vessel through which it moved. I did not see images of suffering and death yet felt its energy. It was black swirling energy lifting into the air. The eagle was spiraling upward and taking the energy up to the light.

I connected to Chief Golden Light Eagle in South Dakota which is the only tribal land that I have spent time on. I saw the elders of the tribes looking skyward. They saw what was happening and added their energy to help release the clouds of pain and oppression. The eagle said that the land must be lightened so that hope and joy can be restored once again. He/She called in the violet flame to transmute the energies.

I then saw rivers of diamond light flooding through, washing the land clean. Oh, the joy of that vision! I begin to laugh with delight at all the sparkles and radiance.

I wanted to chant and sing a Native American song to seal the energies of what had taken place. I called on Chief Golden Light Eagle to sing with me as I toned my notes of joy and thanksgiving.

It is time. Our Native American tribes have knowledge to lead the way home to our Mother. They can help us remember how to honor her and connect to her heart.

I am not Native American but rather of Irish descent. Yet we are all one. We are the white eagle, we are the Apache, we are the Lakota, we are every tribe, every tree, every animal. We are one with our Mother Earth. This memory is coming back to all of us so that we may all co-create the New Earth and walk into her lands together.

I felt such gratitude for the privilege of being a vessel through which some of the dense energies could be released and transformed. I recall my son telling me that it was not for the Native Americans to walk out of that oppression on their own but rather it was the responsibility of those of us who had not lived under such oppression in this lifetime, to help free them from this weight. His words were true.

My Apache friend, Frank has worked for and with Native American tribes across the country for 40 years, never suspecting that he was a Native American himself. A couple of years ago he met an Apache man with a French surname. It turned out that the man's grandmother and Frank's grandmother were cousins. Frank discovered through Indian census records that his grandfather was Apache but at one point in his life had had to hide his identity in order to survive as Apaches were being killed. During this gruesome period of our country's history, Frank's grandfather had had to declare himself Mexican and lose his heritage. Frank has his grandfather's vest which he wore for much of his journey. He allowed me to place my hands on it and I could feel the weight of what he had endured in his life.

Frank now wears his medicine bag about his neck with his buffalo totem on the front. He has reclaimed his roots. It is a beautiful thing to witness.

We are now at a time of reclaiming our roots as star beings and children of our Mother. Say your prayers for the healing of our Mother's heart. We are moved into a time of magic. We can do and be so much more than we ever imagined. Intent is all. Intend the world that you wish to live in; feel it. breath it, visualize it. It is becoming more real each day.

(I forgot to add that the photo is a picture of Lakota Chief Golden Light Eagle from South Dakota.)

Maxie is back and non-attachment

The police called to say that they had found my car. Maxie was not far away and she had not been harmed other than polluted with cigarette smoke. She has a new wider rear view mirror which is interesting. She was full of odd items: a case of bottled water, reading glasses (was it a middle aged joy rider?) a clip on reading lamp, several lighters, joints and cigarettes, bags of clothes, a deck of cards, a plug in computer type item, a cd case, a wetsuit type head covering, a beanie, scissors and a pocket knife. Most of my camping gear was intact. Only missing my panier bag of kitchen camping stuff, my tire chains (bag there but chains are gone), bluetooth, flashlights, my feathers and my rosary and prayer beads. My sand dollars are still on the back ledge and my rocks seemed to be scattered about.

As I wonder about the people who were using her from the evidence left inside, they must have wondered about me in much the same way. Who is this rock collecting, camping gear lugging person with the Native American music and Indian chants and Bert's Bee supplies? It is a funny thought what our possessions say about us. I have so few left.

My treasure is my Mother Mary statue that I have had since my first Holy Communion. She is from Italy (you can only imagine how exotic that tiny sticker made this seven year old girl feel!) She is ceramic and has only one tiny scratch on her after all of these years of traveling around with me. She stands on a snake that used to scare me a bit as a child. I would try not to look at that snake under her feet. I can recall how reverently I would dust her and care for her. She is all that survived my childhood and I am not sure how she did but I am glad.

Yet even she could go as I am connected to Mother Mary in my heart always.

Strange experience. Have to take Maxie in to the car spa tomorrow for a clean sweep. I feel a different sense of her. Unattached. She will not be my home again in the same way. She will drive me where I need to go but more as a tool to be utilized. Funny, I had so completely released her that it seems odd that she is back.

I truly know that our hearts are what matter. Material things have been our trap and it feels so good to have stepped away from so much. I believe that we are coming to simpler times where we will have all that we need and we will realize that we need so much less.

I feel very Japanese in the mornings as I fold up my duvet and my futon and transform my bedroom back into the tiny living room. We have gotten programmed to believe that we need a room for each person. We must have a guest room and all the extras. My trip to India changed my idea of space for all time. Whole families sleeping on straw mats on the earth or concrete floor. Old folks and young, sleeping easily and well together. That experience helped me to prepare me for my months of camping and sleeping on my mat on the ground.

I believe that there will be a collective sigh of relief as we enter into this new age of peace and abundance for all. How much happier we will be with less stuff to care for, less to remove us from the rhythms of our Mother. Imagine waking with the knowledge that everyone of our brothers and sisters on the planet has shelter and food. Has enough. Close your eyes and feel what that thought feels like in your body.

Did you let out a long sigh? Did you feel your solar plexus relax?

We have been enslaved by the pursuit of more. Thankfully we are waking up and saying enough is enough. We are moving into a time of such freedom where we will have enough. All will have enough. Be enough.

Ahhhh........I can hear the sighs now. Hold the vision. Feel the feeling. This is who we are. We are all interconnected and we want all that we want for all. Therein lies our peace. Therein lies our freedom. Therein lies our joy.

Stargate

There is an old deck of cards from the 70's called the "Stargate" that my friend, Jeanette has. The cards have pictures and a word or two on the other side. There is a plastic mat that has outlines to place the cards on in a certain order. It is a very powerful tool as you are forced to go deeply into the images and words and find your connection to them. It is especially powerful if you have a friend to do it with who can hold space for you and encourage you to go beyond the surface hit that the pictures give.

My friend. Jeanette is such a person. I think that she could do Stargate readings for others.

One card is your "issue" and you decide this before you begin.

My issue was: How do I move into my power, purpose and joy for 2011?

This card was the star of impulse which is about experiencing. Below this card is a space for Me Now and that card was a picture of fog...diffused, delusions, enveloping. I will tell this story at the end as it is the main picture represented in the center above.

On the left side of the mat you place 3 cards: your old focus and two things that are behind you. My old focus was a tower which was about focusing attention. The two things that were behind me were a star of seeking and a star of hope which had the word trust.

As I put these three images together to create a story you can see it visualized in my drawing of the tower on the left above:

I am traveling up the steps of a tower in my monk's robe. (yes, so many lifetimes as a nun or monk) encountering stars of wisdom along the way. I carry the star of hope in my heart, trusting the journey to lead me home. It is a solitary journey, alone in this castle.

This speaks to the past year and a half of travel, moving onward, not knowing anything but listening for the next step. Trusting that somehow it would all bring me back to myself in a new way. Difficult at times as my old "doer" self questioned the validity of my journey. What good was I doing in the world? How was I serving anyone? Yet, I could only climb the onwards to the next step, seeking, always seeking. Indeed I have found so many of my soul family during this journey for which I am profoundly grateful.

On the right side of the mat is your new focus and two things that are ahead of you. My new focus turned into two cards as they came together when I pulled one. An image of rain and one of a duck. The two cards ahead of me were a block and a wand.

The story that I created is pictured on the right above with the magic wand:

I am excited about finally building a foundation for my new life with my building block. I am thrilled to be wielding my magic wand (my creative gifts) at last! Tears of joy (the rain) wash over me as I am SO happy to be creating. I will be with my beloved (ducks mate for life) in a setting of natural beauty and we will swim along in peace. Also the expression: water off a duck's back will apply to us as we will not let anything ruffle our feathers or disturb our deep sense of peace.

That story says it all! I am ready.

On the bottom of the mat is a space for something that is distracting you as well as something that is helping you. I pulled a pink rose for my distracting and an egg for my helping. Here is the story:

A pink rose is my symbol. It represents love to me in the highest order. It is a symbol of who I see myself as. My love for Joseph has been distracting me from my path. I could not understand his pulling away with my mind. I see that when I open my egg of creativity by engaging my creative self, my love can actually bloom more fully. The rose emerges from the opened egg. I must express myself in order to fully open to the love that I am.

Wow, did that ever knock my socks off! Time to turn the attention away from Joseph and back to myself. Time to use my gifts and let the love flow through them.

Now I was able to discover the meaning of the fog and star. Here is the story that describes the main drawing:

I am someone who has transcended the fog of delusion. I spent time frantically searching for a way out of the darkness using the old tools that I knew. Finally I was forced to surrender, I was too tired to fight anymore. I laid down in the darkness, allowed it to completely envelop me. I watched as my body disappeared and I was consumed by the darkness. I felt no emotion, rather at peace, observing it all. Then a tiny flame began to glow. It grew into a star of blazing light that seemed to implode from inside of the nothingness that was me. I began to sob as I suddenly knew in every cell of my being that the light and the dark are one and the same. They are contained in one another. The fog is the illusion of separateness/ duality. Yet there is only oneness, unity. Life is one. We are all one with our Creator and one another and the earth and all of her kingdoms.

This was like an earthquake through my soul. I truly felt reborn after this experience.

So who is ready for a stargate party??? Let's do it!

Last night I awoke dreaming of stargates. Yeserday I read a book: Eternal Twin Flame Love, The story of ShannaPra. It had a picture of a stargate on the cover with a pathway leading to it. A twin flame couple was walking on the path towards the stargate.

I am ready to walk through the stargate with my beloved.

Releasing the old

Yesterday was the 1:11:11 portal. I felt that I moved through a gateway, an expansion of myself. It felt like a shiver running through the earth as we entered into a new time.

Lakota Chief Golden Eagle sent out a message yesterday and these lines echoed in my heart:

"The new government of light is sending forth the command to all those that have

been waiting, IT IS NOW TIME TO AWAKE, the awakening of Aquarius..

1-11-11 is the beginning of the fall of all false prophets. All false governments will slowly
decline and will no longer be in service unto themselves. Structures that do not serve the
light will implode and the government of Light will slowly emerge when the Fire of Truth
is revealed. This is the cycle that humanity has created for themselves. It is the rhythm
of life."

Being an Aquarian, I have been waiting for my "age" to begin my entire life! So all of this is happening globally. Transparency will be the new way and all that is old must fall away. There is a purging of the denser energies of the earth as she releases all that no longer serves the New Earth.

Personally, it is happening for me as well.

My car departed (stolen it seems) a few days ago. My "Maxie" was not just any car. True she was a bit older, 15 years to be exact. But for the past year and a half, she was my partner in my earth work. In all that time of driving thousands of miles, she never let me down. I slept in her at times when I was too tired from the drive or no camping spot or motel was in sight. She ran beautifully and fully participated in our work as she laid down tracks of rainbow light behind us as we drove. We seeded the New Earth with light and love every mile. I had never been attached to a car before but I saw that inanimate objects do indeed become animate through our attention and love. Maxie was my velveteen rabbit! I had all my camping gear in the trunk as basically I carried all my remaining possessions in her. No insurance coverage as over the years I had opted for less coverage due to her age. That was ok, I know that material things are just that and can be replaced. I am fortunate to have money to replace her.

But it felt interesting on a couple of levels. Like ha, here I just made the decision to move to Bowen Island near Vancouver, Canada and my way of getting there, my car disappears. Such amazing timing. Definitely significant. I am paying attention to the signs around me.

Next, I had last used my camping gear with my beloved Joseph in Maxie. After having found one another six months ago and recognizing ourselves as twin flames, he retreated into his idea of the noble path of pain and suffering alone in his woods.

Releasing this relationship has been an on-going process for me these past two months.

I had bought Maxie while I was still in my marriage. Was there still some of that energy attached to her? Perhaps it is time for all of those connections to be gone for good?

Yes, it seems that it is!

One of the wonderful things about being on a spiritual path, is that you accept everything as it occurs. You trust that there is a higher purpose at work even if you cannot see it nor understand it.

I have an steadfast faith that is like a river of light in me. For all that I have been through, I can always turn to it for refreshment.

I wonder what is being prepared for me? Is there something here in San Francisco for me? I came for a few days of rest after Joseph asked me to leave and have been here for over two months, sleeping on the living room floor of two of my adult children's apartment. It has been a very healing, inward time. Lovely time of connection with my kids that has had us losing our old roles and enjoying one another deeply. I have been very cared for and my guidance kept giving me the message, "You are in a safe place, rest." So here I am.

Grateful and open to the next step!