Wishes for my Grandson

 

My grandson, Gershon, is 7 years old.  He has a difficult life right now.  His parents are divorced and do not get along with each other.  His dad’s parents do not think that my daughter is a suitable parent and subsequently spend a great deal of their time and resources to take him and his sister away from her – Gershon is caught in the middle.  Being caught in the middle is a really rough place to find yourself when you are 7.  When you are 7 you should be happy and carefree.  The biggest worry in your life should be where you left your backpack and when your next snack is going to come your way.  You should not have to worry whether your grandparents are going to take you away from your mom and when the police are going to get called next.

I wonder what my inner landscape was like when I was 7.  By 7, I had already been the object of my brother’s sexual exploration and had experienced quite a lot of chaos and several moves.  My mother was present in body but not in spirit.  My dad worked day and night trying to build a successful real estate business.  My oldest brother had been kicked out of school and sent away to live with relatives and my younger brother hardly showed his face around the house.  I don’t remember much about being 7 but I imagine that I had more than my share of stress as well.

I think to myself that a “normal” kid life should be happy, free-spirited and stress-free but maybe that is a perfect picture that really doesn’t happen on this planet.  Maybe just by being born as a spark of the Divine trying to manifest in an animal body on a classroom planet into a family with generations of cracked and broken DNA – maybe we will all automatically struggle to handle what we are given to wrestle with and heal.

Maybe true happiness does not come from being born into a family where the marriage is stable, the care is reliable and fair, all the extended family is supportive and helpful and the schools are excellent.  Maybe true happiness comes from the journey:  the willingness to look fairly and honestly at what you got and what you didn’t get as a child, the courage to accept it and get help with the healing, and the faith to believe that the Universe doesn’t make mistakes and you are in your right place and in your right process.      

It is hard to watch Gershon struggle, but it is exciting to watch he and his mother go to therapy, grow stronger through the process and still grab all the joy that they can between hard times.  I can’t see his future – he may fall into anger and resentment toward a father and a set of grandparents that were willing to sandwich him into the middle of their trauma and drama.  We all have that choice when we have tough stuff happen to us during our early years.  However, I believe that there is also a great chance that he can use the healing of these difficult times to build a solid foundation for a great life and a lot of joy. 

My step-daughter sent her dad this quote by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:  “The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” 

This is what I hope for my grandson.  This is what I hope for us all.

Honoring the Elders

I last posted a blog almost 4 years ago.  At that time, I was seeing 8 to 10 clients a week, writing almost every day and enjoying my husband, my house and my 15 pound Havenese.  All of this suddenly changed when it became clear that my husband's parents, Mike and Lee Loewen, needed more help than was available to them in Harrison, AR and we moved them in with us.

Care for elderly parents, especially in one's home, is far more difficult than I could ever have imagined.  Mike had fairly advanced Parkinson's Disease which included difficulties with balance and mobility and Lee's dementia made many tasks very difficult for her.  Living alone was no longer an option for them, but living without their own home, their own car and the friends and church that they were used to was very difficult for them. When their frustration blew up into anger it tended to spew toward me - the one who was home with them.  As they declined and I became weary of the extra work, we hired more and more help which eased some of my physical stress but added extra people and extra chaos to our already invaded home.  I felt exhausted and battle-weary with every nerve in my body crying out for solitude and deep rest.

Lee slowly declined and passed away on hospice in our home on October, 14, 2011.  Mike, lonely and lost without his wife of 64 years lived on for another 7 months until he also passed away on May 18, 2012. 

After living under these trying circumstances for almost three years and then losing two parents in seven months, my husband and I struggled to recover our lives, move through our grief and make sense of our shock.  We took a couple of nice trips, held each other and spent a lot of time asking the Universe for help in our recovery process.  Then, in October of 2012, only 5 months after Mike's passing, my mother became ill and again needed more care than we could provide long distance.

On December 11, 2012 we moved my mother in and again began the journey of in-home elder care.  This time things moved much more quickly and Anna E Perkins, passed away in a hospital bed in our living room on January 15, 2013.

For the last 3 1/2 years, I have not blogged, I have not written, I have not gone to yoga, I have not had my own space or much of my own time.  For the last 3 1/2 years I have been present for and honored three dear elders as they passed to the other side.  I have cried with grief, I have cried with frustration.  I have begged God to help them die more quickly; I have begged God to help them stay longer.  It was the hardest thing that I have ever done; it was the sweetest thing that I have ever done.

I am recovering.  I am working again, I am writing again, and I am beginning to feel normal once more.  I am still trying to process the last 3 1/2 years and make sense of all that has changed for us.  Besides the obvious changes of losing three parents in 15 months, my husband and I are deeply and dramatically forever changed.  The process of stretching ourselves in order to help others in such an intimate way changed us on every level - we are emotionally stronger, mentally more flexible and spiritually more stable.  I feel so blessed and honored that each of them trusted us and our home as a safe place to come at such a vulnerable time.  I feel humbled that my husband and I are now the elders of our families and I pray for help in taking their places as the wise ones.

My mentor and friend, Lee Kaiser, once said that when we pray for patience God responds by sending us many difficult people and difficult situations so that we might have the opportunity to learn patience.  Then we respond by complaining.  I have to admit that the last 3-plus years gave me a lot of opportunities to grow in patience, kindness and compassion.  I also have to admit that I did a fair amount of complaining.  I was not perfect as I moved through this time, but I have grown and for that I am deeply grateful.

Perception

As a small girl, I felt very alone. I was a late-life pregnancy for a mother who worked as a hospital nurse. My brothers were already pre-teens when I arrived and my father was busy trying to take care of a small ranch and juggle three other jobs in order to keep the family afloat. At a very young age, I remember laying in the feed trough and feeding the cows one piece of straw at a time and feeling that they and the barn kitties were the only ones that kept me from drowning in loneliness.

As an adult, I revisited some of these old childhood haunts with my middle brother who was almost nine when I arrived on the planet. As I talked about the feelings of loneliness and vulnerability that I had experienced as a child, he was shocked. He had a totally different perception of our childhood. He saw me as the spoiled baby sister whom everyone doted over while he saw himself as the awkward, overweight pre-teen who couldn't compete with me for adult attention. As we continued to talk, I discovered that I felt angry at our father for being so absent while working so many jobs. My brother, on the other hand, felt angry at our mother for driving our father to work so hard. It was like we had grown up in totally different realities - and indeed we had.

Birth order, gender, societal conditioning, parental conditioning, religious conditioning all heavily influence how we perceive the world. As we look out of our eyes at the world, we look through our physical needs and pain, our emotional needs and pain, our mental belief systems and conditioning. It is like looking at a psychiatrist's inkblot - we project our stuff out onto the world and then perceive what we have projected. Because of this, we all live in our own realities to a greater or lesser extent.

I watched an interesting movie lately called, The Shipping News. The main actor, Kevin Spacey had grown up with a fairly abusive father who had attempted to teach him to swim by pushing him into the lake and then yelling at him. Throughout the movie, which depicted a significantly difficult passage of his adult life, he viewed everything that was happening to him through the eyes of the little boy who was drowning because he had failed to dog-paddle. His reality, therefore, was all about failure, not being lovable and not being worthy.

Embracing this idea of skewed perceptions and living in one's own reality, I ask myself, "What do I do about this?" My first realization is that I need to be aware that my perceptions are skewed as I move through the world. I need to realize that the realities of others are not the reality that I live in. . . therefore I need to be very careful of any judgement or any advice. When I attempt to help someone, I must attempt to get out of my own "stuff" and pass over to "the standpoint of the other" in order to be helpful in any way.

Secondly, I realize that I need to do all that I can to clear my space as much as possible in order to clear my perception as much as possible. Getting my physical body as healthy as possible, making sure that I have had the therapy and healing work that I need, and working with a Spiritual director who can help me see what needs to be cleared - are all helpful. But the most important thing that I can do is to spend time in spiritual practice. Prayer, inspirational reading and especially practicing silence and connecting to the Divine all develop our ability to perceive more clearly.

We have all experienced looking down through water and trying to see what is below the surface. The clear ocean water in the South Pacific allows us to see the fish and coral below us quite clearly, while the muddy water of a large river such as the Columbia or the Mississippi keeps what lies below completely hidden. How clearly do you perceive the world?

(Photo thanks to photosearch.com)

Paying Attention

Last night, I finished a thought-provoking book by Glenda Green called Love Without End. On the last page, there is the following statement: "In the end, one's ego is the source of all failure, because it will bring about its own demise through resistance." Glenda's book is full of wisdom and beautiful thoughts, so I find myself wondering why this one sentence has stuck with me like glue . . . there must be something within this statement that my soul is calling me to pay attention to. So, I begin my process by contemplating on what I know about the concepts held within these words. . .

The concept of the ego is spoken of by many spiritual teachers. We start out as a thought in the mind of God - an infinite possibility. This little spark of Divine Intention comes down and merges with a physical body and forms a soul. We are not born with an ego. . .our egos form as we begin to interact with environments and people around us. We are given a name from a baby book or one that honors a family member - not a name that honors who we are at a soul level. We are told that we are good or naughty, smart or challenged, beautiful or not but none of these things have anything to do with who we really are. By the time we are young adults, we have a well defined structure around who we think we are - our ego. Because the ego is a "false-self", when we try to find happiness through chasing after the wants and desires of the ego we will only find ourselves feeling empty and confused. True happiness is never found by listening to the ego. True happiness only comes through the deconstruction of the ego and the reconnection of who we are at the level of the spark of Divine Intention.

The idea of resistance is like a puppy sitting at the end of his leash. He doesn't understand that a leash is an opportunity for a safe and happy walk with his beloved owner. He only understands that it is a new and unwelcome tether. . . therefore he goes into resistance and refuses to move. Our egos are much like that puppy. New ideas, new ways of thinking or looking at things often sends our egos into fear and resistance. We then find ourselves sitting stubbornly at the end of our leash instead of moving forward into a happier walk with ourselves and The Source of Love.

When I think of times of great resistance in my own life, I think of times when I "knew" that something in my life was no longer working and desperately needed to be changed - yet change terrified me. All the "what ifs" and the projected ramifications of such changes upon my life and upon the lives of my family would flood me and paralyze me. It would sometimes take years for me to come to a point of willingness where I could finally rise above my ego, let go of the resistance and allow Source to move me forward. Many times that willingness came only when I was experiencing pain beyond that which I could bear.

So, once again, I ask myself, "What am I trying to learn from Glenda's statement?" "In the end, one's ego is the source of all failure, because it will bring about its own demise through resistance." At this point, I enter the next step of my process - opening up to Divine Wisdom for help with learning what my soul is inviting me to see in this statement. I quiet my mind. I quiet my emotions. I quiet my physical body and sit with the intention to attract help. I wait patiently.

During my quiet time over the next few days, I begin to see some patterns in my life. At this point in my journey, I don't see any areas of obvious failure but I do see areas that continue to be difficult even though I have held long-time intentions that they grow healthier and become easier. I begin to become aware that much of the difficulty in these areas is caused by resistance . . . resistance to what the Divine has in mind for my life. I can now be more aware of and say hello to any egoic resistance around these issues and begin to turn them over to Spirit for help and release.

This process of watching for statements in books or lectures that seem to jump out and grab me, spending time contemplating or meditating on the words and concepts, and asking what my soul is asking me to learn from them has prompted tremendous spiritual growth in my life. Even if we are not able to audibly hear God's voice or communicate directly to our souls, our souls are working to direct us and help us. We just have to pay attention.

(photo thanks to photosearch.com)

Increasing Good Will in the World

From Two WorldWisdom School's list of 108 spiritual laws, The Law of Good Will says that we are responsible for increasing the amount of good will circulating in the world. When I put on my work hat, I call myself a "Soul Coach", a "Spiritual Coach" or even sometimes a "Spiritual Director" therefore I spend several hours a day within a circle of prayer with people who are seeking spiritual growth, healing and wisdom for their lives. During these hours it is easy for me to feel like I am increasing the amount of good will in the world. However, what about all the other hours of my day? Am I able to increase the good will when the pond maintenance company charges me for five hours of labor when I know that their young worker was only here for 2 1/2 hours? Am I able to increase the amount of good will when I am around people who are full anger and negativity for prolonged amounts of time? I find it much harder to increase good will in these difficult situations.

As I was thinking about this, the visual of a puppy came to my mind. Have you ever noticed that puppies are "negativity eaters"? It is very difficult to be grouchy, angry and full of negativity around a bouncy, happy puppy. This is why they use dogs and other animals as therapy tools in hospitals and long-term care facilities. It is as if the unconditional love and acceptance of an animal who is truly living within the moment without judgement is able to pull most people up to a new level of positivity.

So this week, as I have held this law in my heart and have spent time on building an intention to send good will into the world even through difficult situations, I have kept this visual of the puppy before me. Then as I dealt with the pond care company, I tried to stay in the moment, have no expectations of the outcome, be cheerful, accepting and loving and just state the facts as I see them. What I have experienced in return is a happiness within myself that I have increased the good will within that particular situation, mostly kindness and a willingness to be helpful on the other side of the situation and a contentment that even if I don't get a decrease on my bill, I have spoken my truth without adding negative energy into the situation and the world.

My husband and I attend a Spiritual book club that meets before the church services at the church where we attend. During the summer, we discuss a pre-chosen movie instead of a chapter of a book. This week, our selected movie was "Pay it Forward" with Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt. The story follows a young boy's attempt to change the world by doing something difficult to help three people and then asking those people to "pay it forward" and help three more people. This seemed to be a great movie illustration of this Law of Good Will. What I found the most interesting about the story is that the boy, for much of the movie, felt that he had completely failed to increase the amount of good will on the earth - whereas, in reality, he had begun a great movement that touched the lives of hundreds of people for good. Therefore, it is very possible that we will never know how much impact we have on the world by simply living in a manner that seeks to add good will to every situation in which we find ourselves.

Seek to increase the amount of good will in all the situations that you find yourself in today. It will not only make you feel better emotionally and physically, but you just might make the world a more pleasant place in which to live.

Father's Day

When I think of the ideal of the word "father", words come to mind such as protector, provider, role-model, teacher. I think of words like strength, resourcefulness and integrity. I think of the character of Charles Ingalls, Laura's father in "The Little House on the Prairie" series. The resourceful Mr. Ingalls could build anything, fix anything or seemingly grow anything. He would get up at dawn, work hard at physical labor all day, yet keep everyone safe and still have energy and patience left over to spend the evenings playing his fiddle, singing, telling stories and teaching life lessons to his daughters. It seems that he was able to be all things masculine and strong while still being safe, wise and loving. . . a seemingly perfect example of a father.

Whether Laura's father was really that perfect, or whether those were just her near-perfect memories of him, the truth is that most of our fathers were not present in our lives like the Little House father was in his children's lives. In order to make a living, most dads need to spend a great deal of time away from home. There is way too much knowledge in the world at this point for any dad to know everything or to be able to be capable in all areas of life. Dangers are not as clear as wolves slinking around the cabin. . . it is much more difficult for dads to keep their children safe and unharmed. Life is just way more complex; therefore fathering is more complicated.

When I was a very small girl, my father maintained a small ranch plus juggled 2 or 3 other jobs in order to make ends meet. In fact, my father worked very hard during all of my growing up years. . . to the point where I felt almost abandoned. Yet, on the evenings that he made it home and when he was not too tired or too stressed, my dad truly knew how to play. He taught me numerous card games. He would wrestle and chase, tickle and laugh. He would get in the car for no other reason than to go explore a new place. He was the one adult in my life who could really let go and have fun.

For many of my adult years, I have focused on how absent my father was from my young life. . .this focus was necessary in order for me to understand my pain and to heal it. However, there comes a point where it is time to rewrite the past - to stop focusing on the bad and refocus on the gifts that our fathers were able to give to us.

Therefore, I would like to honor my father for giving me the gift of laughter and fun. I would like to honor my children's father for giving them the gift of nature and the love of outdoor sports and activities. I would like to honor my husband for giving his kids the gift of music and play. I would like to honor all fathers for the gifts that they were able to give to their children in spite of the fact that none of them could attain that ideal of the "perfect" father.

Happy Father's Day, 2009!

Trust

When my son was quite small, one of his favorite games was to jump off of something and have me catch him. In fact, he grew to love this game so much and he possessed so much trust in the fact that I would catch him each and every time, that he would throw himself off of something in my general direction with little or no warning. Of course I loved him and did everything within my power to catch him every time so that his intense level of trust would be well founded - but human mothers are fallible and can not be one hundred percent trustworthy. Therefore I, like all of our mothers did to us, eventually was too busy or too slow or too distracted and was not able to be there for him in the way that he wanted me to be. I let him down.

As an adult in my fifties, I have not only had parents who weren't there in the way that I needed them to be, but I have been let down by numerous people whom I trusted - siblings, friends, teachers, husbands. . . it is difficult to trust after being let down so often! Yet that is what a relationship with the Divine is all about - Trust.

I have a set of meditation cards that have words on which you are to meditate and a beautiful picture depicting that word. The last three times that I have drawn a card from this deck - I have drawn the card "Trust". The picture is of someone soaring through the air without a parachute and with no ground in sight beneath him/her. Just the picture on this card used to cause me to break out in a cold sweat and have shortness of breath. Yet as I progress on this path of connrcting in a deep way to the Divine, I am beginning to see that it is when I find the ability to jump into the unknown with abandon and child-like trust - that is when the Universe conspires to help me with synchonistic events that I could never have envisioned or foreseen.

I just got off the phone from just such an event. My husband and I had invited a spiritual teacher to come to our community to give a weekend workshop. The date for her arrival is fast approaching and I found myself with only a few people signed up for the class. Being new to the community, we don't know a large number of people and have not known how to advertise her visit. An advertisement in the weekly paper in town seemed an impersonal way to draw people to a small group workshop, but at the prompting of my husband, I wrote up a short add. With a large amount of trust that there are many people in our community that would benefit from and enjoy this class and that those who could be helped by it would be drawn to us. . . last week I emailed the add to the paper. A short time ago, the phone rang. It was a very apologetic woman from the paper. She said that she had overlooked my email when it arrived so that it had missed the deadline for being published in last week's paper. She added however, that she attended a large church in town where many people attended who would be interested in such a workshop. With my permission, she said, she would forward my email to several people who might want to attend and would also forward it to the editor who was in charge of the calender of events - also published in this same paper.

While hanging up the phone I felt chills run down my spine. What I could not do for myself had obviously been taken care of by someone larger than myself. . . because I had moved forward with trust that the people who needed to attend would be reached. As these kinds of synchronistic events show up in my life more and more, I am able to trust a bit more the next time around - as if trust is a type of muscle which must be exercised.

What are you struggling with today? Is Spirit asking you to choose a direction to go and move forward with trust that the help that you need will be there when you need it? Exercising your trust today will make trusting a bit easier tomorrow!

(Photo courtesy of fotosearch.com)

Fire in the Heart

Spiritual practice, especially meditation or contemplation that quiets our minds and opens our hearts and souls to Spirit is deeply transformational.

Growing up in a fairly conservative Christian home, I didn't know anyone who had any kind of contemplative practice. Going to church once or twice a week, prayers before meals and bedtime, along with varying degrees of Bible study and reading of inspirational materials are all I ever witnessed of the spiritual life. As a teen and young adult, I began to develop my own spiritual life by emulating what I had seen as a child. I found these spiritual activities to be meaningful to me up to a certain point but I always felt frustrated and wanting more. But I had no idea what was missing.

The summer after my first year of college, I worked on my dad's farm moving irrigation pipes across huge fields of wheat and soy beans. My nearest friends lived over an hour and a half away so evenings were quiet to say the least. Therefore, on those quiet, lonely evenings, I began a practice of climbing the hill behind the house, sitting in the spot of sand that had the best view of the western horizon and the rolling fields of green and gold, and silently watching the sun set. This practice calmed my spirit and soul and filled my heart in such a way that made me feel connected to something larger than myself. Sometimes I would think about life and its complexities but often I would just sit and be. Little did I know that I was experiencing my first meditation practice.

Later years brought career, marriage, children and the busyness that life seems to pulse with in our culture and I lost touch with the practice of silence and connecting. Still later, when my marriage was ending, my kids were on their way out of the nest and I was realizing that my old head-based religion could not help me. . . I once again turned toward the contemplative.

Now, after 5 years of daily meditation practice, I find myself deeply transformed. Most of my life I have struggled with depression, whereas now I rarely experience a blue feeling. Instead of having wildly swinging moods, I feel content with what life brings me from day to day. My relationships are deeper and more stable. My spiritual life is more fulfilling and meaningful. I have a deep sense of inner peace and well-being. In many ways, I am living a whole new life.

I have noticed that most movies have at least one character that goes through some kind of major transformation during the duration of the film. The story begins where the character is stuck in some area of his/her life and then a new person or event becomes a catalyst that precipitates change. I like to call this phenomenon - "Fire in the Heart". I had longed most of my life to have an ongoing fire of transformation burning in my heart. . . yet my childhood religion hadn't given it to me, therapy hadn't given it to me nor had a host of different kinds of relationships. What finally turned the smoldering desire for change into a full-blown fire of transformation in my life was being still, connecting to The Source of All That Is, and getting a vision of who I could become.

Now, as a spiritual coach, I ask people what they want more of in their life, I explore with them what might be getting in the way of having these things in their life and then coach them on how to invite a transformational fire into their heart through a deep and quiet connection to the Source of All That Is. For you, it may be a regular practice of hiking up a hill and quietly watching the sun set, for others it may be doing visualization meditations with a group, meeting with a group of spiritual explorers in a wisdom circle or creating a sacred place in your house which is set apart for contemplation in which you can quietly sit with the intention to connect to the Source of the Transformational Fire.

What do you want more of in your life?

(Image by Kathleen Cavender)

Reflect Divine Light

When I was a little girl, my parents took me to the children's classes that were held before the main church services at our church. Because we attended church on Saturday, the classes were called Sabbath School and it was a happy place for me to be. One of my favorite songs that they taught me was titled, "This Little Light of Mine." It was all about how I was to let my light shine out to the world. On one of my favorite lines, we would all shout, "Hide it under a bushel? - NO! I'm gonna let it shine!" Back in those days, I had a vague sense that my "light" had to do with God shining through me out into the world in a way that made the world a bit brighter place. This idea lit up a sense of purpose in my very young heart and inspired me to try to be kind, helpful and honest whenever I could.

Today, more than ever, our world is in need of light and I find myself with a renewed fervor to let my light shine and to be a real "lightworker" for the kingdom of the Divine. But now in my fifties, I know in my heart that there is more to this idea than doing random acts of kindness, even though kindness and helpfullness are still wonderful. I have come to see that at the spirit level, we each carry a spark of the Divine. This spark is seeking to ignite into a flame of bright holiness in each of our lives. This process, however is not a simple one seeing that the Divine spark is trying to manifest and grow inside of our very dense animal bodies. So, how do we become bright lights that illuminate and transform the world? What is our part in this process?

Early this morning, as I took my small dog out to do her morning business, the heavy clouds over Spokane thinned in just the right spot to reveal the moon in all her splendor. Winters are gray in Spokane and any glimpse of the moon or sun brings light into the body and joy and hope to the soul. As I stood gazing at her lovely light, the moon reminded me of this idea of being a lightworker in the world. The sun produces its own light from its own essence. The moon, however, is merely soft and receptive to the sun's light and then reflects it down to us. What a beautiful metaphor for us and what we can do for the world. In our animal bodies, we may not be able to produce much light from our own essence, but we can be soft and receptive to the Divine Spirit in a way that absorbs and then reflects into the world a soft but beautiful reflection of the Divine Light. Then just as the moon waxes into fullness, as we do this more and more, our animal bodies will begin to clarify, our tiny spark will begin to grow and we will be able to shine more and more brightly.

I invite you, as you create your empty interval today, to consciously open yourself and be receptive to the Divine Spirit. Then, throughout your day, simply "be" the reflection of the absorbing of that light. Done every day, this practice will not only be transforming in your own life but will bring transformation to the world around you. "Let your little light shine!"

Winter

A lovely book called The Circle of Life by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr includes this paragraph in its introduction: "The seasons invite us to honor the earth out of which new life germinates, sprouts, develops, blooms, blossoms, and grows. Listen to Earth's song of the seasons passing through her sacred body. Listen intently to these seasons for they reveal our story of unfolding growth as well. They are reflective of changes in our life. In nature's pages we can read of our own evolving passages from death to life. They repeat themselves over and over as we become more true, more whole, more free with each seasonal turning."

This beautiful book has helped me to realize that tuning into the seasons will connect me more deeply to my own cycles of dying to the old/being reborn to the new, resting/growing, reflecting/doing or creating/destroying. Realizing that each new season holds it own challenges yet its own beauties has helped me to be more patient with the cycles that constantly wax and wane in my own life.


Today is the first day of winter, December 21. As I do at the beginning of each new season, today I reflect on winter. The first thing that came to me as I reflected were childhood winter memories. In most of my memories, I was totally oblivious to the hardships of winter. . . I was only focused on the adventures of trekking through deep snow, ice-skating with friends late into the long winter evenings, sledding down to the car on the mornings after my dad was unable to get all the way up the hill to our mountain home and snow days spent with my grandmother. Then with further reflection, I realized that in my early adult years, I lost that sense of wonder with winter and began to dislike it. . . the cold was too cold, the snow too heavy to shovel, the snow-covered roads too difficult to maneuver upon, the days too short, dark and bleak.


We all have spiritual winters in our lives. . . times when cold doubts and/or fears seem to blanket us and send us deep inside ourselves in search of our connections to Source. We miss the rich, full seasons of growth and the bountiful days of harvest. . .seasons of winter can be difficult to maneuver our way through. But just as in my perceptions of winter as a child, spiritual winters can also be times of adventure and beauty. Just as the earth needs winter as a time to rest and replenish to get ready for another big growth spurt in the spring, so the human spirit needs times of stillness, solitude and going deep within.


Today, as we enter the season of winter, I invite you to dwell, not on the harshness, the cold or the difficulties of winter. Instead, I invite you to see the long dark evenings as invitations to be still; to go within and search deep within yourself for forgotten or never explored aspects of your soul. Take this time to reconnect with your Source of wisdom and strength so that you will be refreshed and ready for a new explosion of growth when the season of spring comes once more. See this time of digging out from under old fears and doubts as getting ready for rebirth and new life in the spring.

Balance

When I was in college, a very long time ago, I was in total conflict with my feminine side. I had experienced sexual trauma at a very young age, had numerous father issues that had convinced me that I would have been more loved and accepted if I had been born a male and had consequently lived most of my childhood as a tomboy. Then at the age of seventeen, I met whom I "knew" was the masculine side of my soul and totally fell in love. . . only to have him break up with me a few weeks into my freshman year of college in order to go back to his previous girlfriend. The end result was me trying to navigate my way through college and major life decisions lost in a wounded soul. . . in conflict with what I viewed my "vulnerable" feminine side and over-developing my masculine side.

Throughout my freshman year and into my sophomore year, I rebelled against wearing anything feminine or soft or doing anything special with my hair. I developed friendships with males but overall shied away from even second dates with anyone. About half-way through the fall semester of my sophomore year, a Sadie Hawkins party was announced - it was the once a year chance for the young women on campus to be in charge of finding and inviting dates to attend the gala event. I am not sure what aspect of this party piqued the interest of my holed-up and wounded feminine side, but suddenly I became bold. I dialed the number of the best looking guy on campus and asked him to be my date. When he accepted, I suddenly found myself shopping for dresses with ruffles and lace, lovely shades of make-up and shoes with heels. I even found someone in the dorm to fix my hair up on top of my head with soft curls falling around my face. On the night of the party, as I descended the staircase of the dormitory to meet my date, I felt a bit strange and out of place within the femininity of the clothes and hairdo. . . yet in some way that I did not understand - deeply powerful.

The young man that accompanied me that evening, did not turn out to be the love that I had been searching for yet the sense of power behind my femininity that I experienced that night was the beginning of a journey. Our male-dominated society and our even more male-dominated churches have wounded the feminine side in us all - whether we live in female or male bodies. We have been lead to believe that the feminine aspect is weak and vulnerable therefore in order to feel capable and to have a sense of personal power we shame this part of ourselves and overdevelop the masculine side only to grow more and more out of balance.

Real power lies in the perfect balance of our feminine and masculine sides. The feminine side is like the moon - reflective, receptive. . . a soft light in the vastness of all that is. The power in this aspect of who we are is the ability to receive and reflect upon vast amounts of intuitive "knowing" that tunes us into people and situations at a deep level. The masculine side is like the sun - projecting, radiating, penetrating. . . a powerful light. The power in this side is more obvious but penetrating just for the sake of penetrating can be destructive - like war. The true power is the balance between the two. First, letting the feminine side receive and reflect upon the true nature of the situation, the needs of all involved, what would serve the highest good of all that are involved then allowing the masculine side to kick in and radiate into the situation what is needed whether it is love, instruction, discipline, or healing. It is very much like breathing in and breathing out. The feminine side breaths in the situation, reflects on it and "knows" what is needed. The masculine side breaths out whatever the situation needs projected into it.

I believe that this perfect balance of feminine and masculine was seen in human/Divine form in the life of Jesus. He was able to answer the real question when the person didn't even know how to voice the real question.

What would our world look like if we all, men and women alike, stopped trying to over-develop our masculine side in order to have a sense of power and instead strive to find true power in the perfect balance of the feminine and masculine aspects that exist in us all. There would be no war, no destructive anger, no climbing over others to get to the top of the heap. We would honor all life on this planet and strive to serve the highest good of all life forms.

Weeping Rock

As a side-trip of our trip to Las Vegas, my husband and I drove the two and one-half hours to Zion National Park outside of St. George, Utah. Like the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon, Zion lies on the edge of the Great Colorado Plateau. Unlike the Grand Canyon, visitors to Zion visit the park from the bottom of the canyon instead of looking down from the top. As I had only experienced the Grand Canyon from the top, Zion gave me a whole new perspective of a deep canyon . . .sheer rock cliffs rising straight into the air, plants and greenery growing right out of the rock walls, a beautiful river running between the two sheer cliffs of the canyon and the incredible beauty to be seen in every direction.

We found many beautiful and sacred spots, but my favorite was Weeping Rock. About a half mile, rather steep hike from the canyon floor took us from the middle of the desert up to a shower of water droplets coming right out of the rock wall. The hiking path took us through the water droplets to the other side where we could stand in an indention in the rock wall. From here, we could look out at the majestic view of the canyon walls and the desert blue sky through the water droplets. Because of the extra moisture in this area of the canyon, instead of desert plants, the greenery around Weeping Rock was lush with plants such as Oregon Grape and ferns. All of these factors added together created for me an amazing experience.

There is a scientific explanation for this unusual phenomenon. It is something about . . . the rain that falls at Zion is able to soak its way down through the layers of sandstone that make up the upper part of the canyon walls. However, the water is not able to make its way through the more dense rock under the sandstone. Therefore, the water runs horizontally until it finally escapes out of the rock in this dazzling display of sparkling clean water droplets. The science made sense to my mind, but to my heart this place was much more than that . . . it was a place full of hope and encouragement.

To me, the Source of All That Is has a very masculine aspect that is penetrating and powerful like the sun and there is a very feminine aspect that is nurturing and receptive like the moon. Gazing out at the hot desert sun and sheer rock cliffs through this refreshing, sparkling water droplets at Weeping Rock seemed to take me straight to the heart of the Divine Feminine. Life is tough. Problems in the world, our country and even right in our own homes can make us feel like we are trying to find a way to thrive and grow in a deep desert canyon with sheer rock walls on both sides. Yet, Weeping Rock reminds us that there is a Mother God who wants nothing more than to be invited to come alongside us on our journey, nurture us, refresh us, and encourage us to grow. . . like water droplets coming out of the rocks to nurture and refresh a lacy fern in the desert.

The Shack

Last week, while in Las Vegas for my husband to attend a medical conference, I read the book The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. Even though the book is a work of fiction, I got the feeling that I was reading the heart of one man's journey from deep personal pain and anger at God toward wholeness and peace.

The protagonist is a middle-aged father of five named Mack who has worked hard to be a good, loving father in spite of many unresolved father issues of his own. Traditional religion is difficult for him but he is fairly happy and fulfilled until the unthinkable happens. His youngest daughter is abducted and apparently murdered in an old shack deep in the wilderness of Oregon. For four years, Mack is totally engulfed in "The Great Sadness". His guilt over not having been able to keep his precious child safe creates anger and rage not only toward himself but toward God. Suddenly a note appears in his mailbox inviting him to return to the old shack for a weekend. The note is evidently from God. The weekend that follows transforms his life.

Any time that you make the statement, "God is . . .", it matters not what word follows that statement - that word will limit who God is. So, in a way, Mr. Young's personification of three aspects of who God is, his descriptions of how God moves through the story and the protagonist's conversations with God, are all greatly limiting to who God is. On the other hand, if you can accept that this book is not attempting to teach doctrine but is sharing one' man's heart on how to reconcile that God is a loving God even when there is great suffering on this planet - the book is greatly touching.

I found that the protagonist's struggles with God brought to the surface some of my own unresolved pain and anger. Do we not all have father issues? Do we not all struggle to understand how God can be a loving God when we experience pain and suffering in our own lives? If read with an open heart, I believe that this book can be a catalyst for healing some of our own unresolved wounds and resentments.

I invite you to read The Shack. I invite you to allow your own unresolved pain and anger to emerge as Mack's emerges. I invite you to listen to your own soul speak to you as Mack converses with God. I invite you to struggle with God as Mack struggles. It just might bring healing and transformation to your life as well as to Mack's.

What a great book!

The Sacred in the Ordinary

Because we live in the third dimensional plane on this planet, our days get filled up with a lot of ordinary. Besides the daily tasks of fixing meals, making beds, personal hygiene and going to work, my list usually includes things like yard care, house cleaning, laundry, mending, etc., etc. In fact, our days can be so full of the ordinary that the sacred gets completely squeezed out.

Many years ago as a young, busy mom, I was completely caught up in my to-do list. As I did one chore, I would be going over the rest of the list in my head and feeling stressed that I would never get everything accomplished that everyone needed for me to accomplish. By the end of the day, I couldn't even sleep because I was over-tired, over-stressed and my mind was continuing to go a hundred miles per hour over the seemingly never-ending list of chores. When I tried to create time for the sacred, I found it very difficult to completely stop and to completely focus on the Divine.

Then I learned about the empty interval and began to develop a spiritual practice of creating a period of time where I completely set aside the ordinary - releasing my feelings, releasing my thoughts, releasing my to-do list and creating an intention to be an open receptacle to be filled with the Divine. Difficult at first, but powerful, these set-aside times allowed me to feel peaceful and serene for the first time in my life. Often, however, the serenity lasted as long as it took me to get up and get moving and then it flitted away - like an illusory butterfly.

Eventually, with time, I learned that most tasks of my day took very little to no deep thought to accomplish. . . and I began to develop a way of being present with the tasks while at the same time being empty and open to Spirit. Suddenly, most of my day stopped being ordinary and became sacred. I now find myself in cooking meditations where I sense sacred symbolism in the mixing and blending of colors, tastes and textures to create a satisfying meal. I find myself doing weed-pulling meditations where I see myself not just pulling third-dimensional weeds but see myself removing the things from my life that could choke and kill the beauty that I am trying to enhance in my life. Most of my life has become a meditation where ordinary chores have become symbols for what I want to have happen on the level of the sacred in my life.

Find the peace and serenity of the sacred throughout your day - explore the sacred that can be found within the ordinary tasks of your day.

Surrender

On dictionary.com, the word surrender is defined as "the act of giving up one's person, one's possessions, or people under one's command to the authority, power, or control of another." The visual that comes to my mind along with this definition is that of the white flag tied on the end of the musket in an old war movie. It is what you are forced to do when you no longer have the wherewithal to keep fighting the battle.

Yes, there is this aspect of surrender on the Spiritual path. There are always times when one must acknowledge that they are fighting a battle that is way over their head, surrender it to a higher power and then completely let go. Early on in my journey, this was a very familiar cycle to me - I would grow unhappy with some part of my life, fight tooth and nail to change it for weeks, months or even years and then finally fall exhausted to my knees and turn it over to God.

Slowly, with time and wisdom, a new concept of surrender began to come to me. The visual of deciduous trees feeling the first twinges of the approaching winter, begin by surrendering their greens to yellows, oranges and reds and then silently releasing their leaves as if they understand at a deep level that holding on to the old would make them vulnerable to damage during the snows of winter and would keep them from being able to be reborn in the spring. What a beautiful metaphor for the Spiritual path! What if we, like the trees, moved through life with an ongoing attitude of openness and surrender which allowed Spirit to point out what is no longer serving us well, what is going to make us vulnerable to the storms that are coming and what is going to keep us from being able to be reborn in areas that are in need of transformation.

I have a new favorite prayer: "I am open to healing in this area," or "I am open to learning a lesson in this area." Does this openness and constant state of surrender release me from the sometimes painful process of releasing the old and accepting the new? No, but it does invite in the abundant help that the universe is anxious to give. . . and it allows me to move more smoothly through the seemingly endless process of letting go of what no longer serves my highest good.

This time of year, as the deciduous trees turn lovely shades of yellows, oranges and reds and begin to slowly and steadily release their leaves - what a great time to ask Spirit what is ready to be surrendered from your life?

Affirmation

I grew up in a day and age, with busy, over-worked parents, where no one paid much attention to anything that I did until I did something wrong or produced something far below my potential. Therefore, when I became a parent, I created strong intentions to shepherd my children more with affirmations of what I liked about what they were doing and less with reminders of what they were doing wrong. However, to my surprise, I found this far more difficult than I expected it to be. I found that it was much easier to ignore happy, productive, busy children than it is to ignore children who are making poor choices with their time and energy. With time and effort I got better and better at affirming behavior that I wanted to encourage in my children while ignoring behavior that I hoped would be extinguished. And what I found is that affirmation is powerful!


Yet, everything that I learned about affirmation through parenting two children seemed to be lost on myself. When I began my journey toward wholeness and began to listen to the self-talk in my head - I was astounded by its negativity. If affirmation was so powerful in helping children grow and transform into higher functioning beings - what was I accomplishing in the area of personal growth with constant negative self-talk?



For several years since this revelation, instead of saying to myself "I am never going to get well - this cold is going to hang on forever" - I try to say, "I feel my body fighting this cold - I am going to be well soon." Or I choose to tell myself, "the fifties are the best years of one's life." "Wrinkles are a sign of wisdom and saging." "That wasn't a mistake - it was just another opportunity to grow into who I was made to be." "My soul is drawing these difficult things to me so that I can grow and better serve the highest good of the all."



Do I always talk to myself in positive affirmations? No, like all humans, I have days of discouragement where I slip back into negativity. However, learning to monitor my self-talk and to speak to myself in positive, affirming ways has been transformational for me.



My daughter's church is having a "No Complaint" campaign where you wear a pink plastic bracelet on one wrist. Whenever you catch yourself complaining out loud you have to move the bracelet to the other wrist. The goal is to make it 21 days without having to move the bracelet. When she was explaining it to me she said, "The Rabi says that if you catch yourself and don't say it out loud - it doesn't count." I wanted to say, "It's great to monitor and be in control of the words that you speak but it is harder and more important to monitor and control how you talk to yourself in your head."



Is your self-talk serving your highest good? Are you positive, affirming and compassionate in the way that you talk to yourself? If thoughts and self-talk are transformational - what are your messages to yourself bringing into your life?

Parents

A spiritual idea that has been really helpful to me is the concept of the Soul Covenant. The Soul Covenant is an agreement between the soul and Source/God/The Universe. The contract is made before the soul enters a human body and comes into existence on this planet. This agreement defines what you have come here to learn, what you have come here to do and who you have come here to serve. After the soul agrees to the covenant, it then chooses the time in history that it needs, the place that it needs and the parents it needs in order to best fulfill its covenant with Source.

When I first heard that my soul chose my own parents because I needed them, in order to become who God needs me to be, I was frustrated...but then as I sat with the idea - it began to bring me a lot of peace. The ensuing questions were fascinating: What was it about an absent, too busy father that was necessary for me to become who I needed to be? What was it about a shut-down, overwhelmed mother that was necessary to teach me what I needed to learn?

Until I have clear, unobstructed communication with my soul, I won't have access to all of the answers to these questions. However, I do know that a lonely, difficult childhood connected me early and steadfastly to nature; it connected me to the very old and to the very young, and to other outcasts of society; it connected me to the God who seemed always present no matter who else was missing. In trying to understand my soul covenant, I have found that all of these deep connections formed in childhood have opened up areas of ministry as an adult. I have grown more fully into God's hands and feet on this planet.

There is a movie that my husband and I like called, Smoke Signals. The theme of the story is that everyone has to forgive their fathers. All fathers, and mothers for that matter, were there too much or there too little. They gave too much or they gave too little. They loved too much or loved too little. We all have to make peace with our parents. What better way to do that than to realize that our souls actually picked exactly the right parents, in order for us to learn what we needed to learn?

The Law of Service

The law of service, according to Two Worlds Wisdom School, says, "You only grow through serving others." In the cosmology of the law, it goes on to say that as we do what we can to bring light to this world - we create space that is then filled with more Spirit. This new down flow of Spirit allows us to broaden our service and ministry which then creates more space that again is filled by Spirit. This creates a beautiful spiral of giving and receiving where we can never out give God/Source/the Universe.

As our circle worked together on this concept last night, many of us had personal stories of times where we were invited to do something or create something that felt outside of our abilities or outside of our comfort zone - but when we moved forward in spite of not really feeling "capable"we became a part of something larger than ourselves.

I thought of the time that I had volunteered at my children's church-affiliated school to do some classes for the Gifted and Talented. As I went from teacher to teacher to ask of their needs, I repeatedly got the same response, "Where I need your help is with the students that struggle to read at level - not my gifted and talented students." I didn't know the first thing about teaching reading to those who don't learn easily by traditional methods but I decided to do what I could and began to look for some training. Eventually I ended up in California taking a three week intense course on reading tutoring for students with specific reading disabilities. At the end of the third week, I felt totally overwhelmed with all that I had learned and totally unable to successfully use this method with real students who had real reading issues.

My weak self-esteem filled my emotions with doubt and my mind with all the reasons why I couldn't facilitate this program in my children's school throughout the long trip back from California. Finally, it came to me: I might feel totally inadequate but I was the one that at this moment had more training in reading disabilities than anyone else in the entire school. If I didn't at least try - who would help these kids? By the time I reached home, I had a new resolution in my heart to try to do what I could. I soon learned that this is all the Spirit really needs from us. Many people had heard of my trip and the taking of the class and by the end of the first week after arriving home, I had five students who wanted my help. And even more surprising to me - they all improved rapidly!

The last paragraph of the cosmology on the Law of Service says, "If you only have a small piece of bread, share it with those who hunger. You will then be rewarded a whole loaf. You can't out give God." God is not asking you to raise the dead if you have never seen yourself as a healer before. But maybe he is asking you to try to enhance healing in the people in your personal circle by lovingly applying the healing salve of acceptance and no judgement to the areas of their wounds. All you have to do is step forward and try and the Spirit will empower you and show you the way.

A New Level of Commitment

I was raised in a Christian home where we went to church every weekend, confessed and truly felt love for a God that we believed cared for and loved us in return but who was distant and did little to transform our lives. The spirituality of my childhood worked for me for many years until I approached the turbulent teens. It was in those tough moments of change and peer stress that I knew that I needed more than a weekly visit to a far-off God. I needed a God who was up-close and personal in my life and who had a significant impact on who I was trying to become. It was at that moment that I knew that I needed a new level of commitment or I needed to give it up and be done with the whole thing.
I was thinking about this concept of the spiritual walk's periodic demand for new levels of commitment while I was hiking one of my favorite trails on the Oregon Coast. There are many different trails to the top of Cascade Head. My favorite trail begins in dense green ground cover and old-growth timber, includes steep rocky sections, slick muddy sections, the crossing of streams and the maneuvering around giant tree roots. Finally, when it feels like you are going to wander forever through the dense forest, the trail breaks out onto a treeless head. Eventually, you near the edge of the cliff and can see the vast ocean before you, the mouth of the Salmon River to your left, the Cascade Mountains behind you and the high point of the head to your right. From there the trail turns into steep switch-backs that seem to go on forever toward the highest point of the head. Besides the usual challenges of the hike, there is often heavy weather and dense fog to complicate your climb.

On my last trip to the Oregon Coast, as in the spiritual life, I had picked my trail of choice - in truth, like the most of us, I was born onto a trail. I began to follow in the steps of countless feet that had walked before me. I felt committed. I felt like I was doing a good thing. Yet, it was not long before the steepness of the trail and the dense fog made me breathe hard and I had to find a new level of commitment within me to keep moving, buckle down, and move with new energy and determination. This occurred many times on my way toward my goal but I finally reached the edge of the cliff. The thick fog encircled me. There were no breathtaking views. There was only the trail extending on and up to my right - seemingly forever into the fog. Again, I had reached a point where I needed to make a new level of commitment to continue on and up. But, this time, after sitting for a while, I couldn't find what it would take within me and I headed back down the trail.

The analogy of the spiritual life being like a hiking trail breaks down easily when pushed too far, but I believe that it has value. As in hiking, I have reached the point many times in my life where, for one reason or another, my spiritual life no longer worked for me: dark times of illness and depression where I lacked the required level of surrender to a trusted, nurturing God; times of transition where I lacked the grounding in a firm, unwavering God; times of loss where I lacked wisdom to know that what was happening was for the highest good of all involved. Each of these times - it was not God or Source or The Universe that was lacking. The problem always was rooted in my level of commitment, surrender and/or groundedness. Each time, I grew angry. Each time I grew tempted to give up on a Spiritual life. But each time I eventually found my way down to a new level of commitment and thus found a new level of relationship with the Divine that saw me through the fog and on up the trail.

Is your spiritual life working for you today? Does your God feel too small? Does he/she feel too far away? Too powerless to handle what is happening in your life? Check your level of commitment.

Abundance

I teach special needs language arts two mornings a week at a tiny private school. Because school started only two weeks ago, about all that I have gotten done so far this school year is individualized testing to see who needs my help. Last week, as I was pulling my things together to head off to school, I felt compelled to grab some healthy snacks, some colored paper clips and a set of tuning forks.

Entering the front door of the school, I found the principal talking to a small first grade boy, whose clouded face told me was having a very difficult day. This young one (I will call him Pauli), if diagnosed, would probably be labeled ADHD. But to me, he is just a bright little one who probably needs another year to run free in nature. School seems to be torture to his little soul and seems to become more difficult each new day. My heart went out to him as our eyes met.

I don't really have a set schedule yet, so I said, "Pauli, I brought some special things to show you - would you like to come with me for a little while?" The Principal's eyes filled with gratitude as Pauli whined something like, "sure," and slid out of his chair to follow me into the room where I work.

Little ones with focus challenges will often calm down and focus better if you can get them to listen to a tuning fork from the time that you tap it until the time that it stops vibrating. Pauli and I played with the tuning forks until he had forgotten his unhappiness and was calm and settled down a bit. I got out the colored paper clips and let him look at the bright colors. I told him, as I laid out five in front of him, that these were going to be my signals to him. When he was focusing on the words and trying hard to match the letters with sounds and words that I would every once in a while lay another one out for him. But when he forgot what we were doing or refused to try to figure out the words then I would signal him that he was not engaged in helpful behavior by slipping one on the clips back into the sack. I then asked him if he was ready to try a few pages of his book. He looked at me skeptically but said, "ok".

The book was difficult but it was interesting and the paper clips coming and going kept him engaged until suddenly we were on the last page and he had read the entire book. He grinned up at me and said, "Would you like to see the rock in my pocket?" I of course said, "yes", so he pulled a small green rock out and told me that it was a piece of jade that he had found. Because of my love for rocks, I truly was interested to study it and appreciate it. Then I asked him if he would like to see the rock in my pocket and his eyes got huge. As I pulled one of my favorite rocks that I often carry with me out of my pocket, he gasped as if he had never found a kindred spirit before. As he looked at me and then at my rock, a little bit of unnamed magic seemed to fill the room and our hearts. I thanked him for his hard work, gave him a healthy treat, hugged him and walked with him as he skipped back to his classroom - his rotten day completely forgotten.

The next evening, our Wisdom Circle was discussing The Law of Abundance. In our culture, the idea of abundance usually calls up thoughts of monetary abundance or wealth. As our group members read quotes from famous authors about how to attract abundance into one's life, I suddenly remembered my time with Pauli the day before. Wasn't my time with Pauli a perfect example of abundance flowing into a situation? First, I prepared to go to school to serve in a loving way the highest good of whoever I got to spend time with that day. I then paid attention to something higher than my conscious self when it prompted me to grab some unusual things and take them with me before I walked out of the door. Next, I recognized a need and did my best to fill that need without an attachment to what the result would look like. The end result was an abundance of wondrous occurrences: an entire difficult book read, a feeling of pride and accomplishment, a magical connection between two kindred spirits and the total release of a bad day.

The universe is made in such a way that abundance is always trying to flow into our lives. We can either open to that abundance with high intentions to serve in whatever way we can, not being attached to the outcome and paying attention to the inner "knowing" that always moves to help us. Or, we can put a kink in the abundance hose with fear, self-doubt, or lack of attention to the leading of the Divine.

Are you living a life of abundance? If not, what is kinking up the hose that is trying to bring that abundance to you?

Surrender to the Moment

The New Mexican desert surrounding Santa Fe and Taos is full of inspiring and beautiful natural scenery as well as man-made wonders. One day last week, on our recent trip to the area, we encountered a unique and beautiful site. El Santuario de Chimayo sits in a green valley in the middle of the desert north and east of Santa Fe. It is known as the Lourdes of America. Legend has it that early in the 1800’s people found healing and miraculous cures in the dirt of the hills surrounding this small chapel. Testimonies of the miraculous spread over the years until today hundreds of thousands of people make pilgrimages to this spot every year.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I could sense that we were entering a special space where countless people have come with hope seeking healing and peace and have left a bit of their essence of faith. As we walked through the grounds, the rough hewn sculptures of wood and stone stole my heart and pulled me deeper into the feeling of this place. Walking into the sanctuary, the too-warm stuffiness of the small dark room that might have otherwise made me want to retreat was quickly forgotten. The inside of the chapel was just as rough hewn and quaint as the outside but again completely stole my heart. My husband and I sat on a rough wooden bench toward the back on the left side, closed our eyes and just surrendered to the moment. I cleared my mind, my emotions and my connections to my physical surroundings, visualized a grounding cord descending from the end of my spine down into this unique piece of earth, visualized a beautiful golden cord of light ascending from the crown of my head up to the Divine and just tried to be with this place.

Where did the legends of the healing dirt begin? What prompted the first pilgrims to be so drawn to this spot? What continues to bring over 300,000 people per year to this place? As my heartsong began to vibrate with the heartsong of this place, I did not receive answers to these questions but I did deeply “know” something wonderful. . . my deep desire for healing and transformation into who I am meant to be resonated deeply with some kind of help that resided in this simple but sacred spot. Almost an hour passed before I felt full, satiated and ready to move on.

If we pay attention, there are sacred places and/or sacred moments that are trying hard to help us. Whether it is the hopes, dreams and faith of those who walked there before us or whether the place itself holds some kind of special feeling or essence – these moments and places abound. Yet we can completely miss the blessing if we don’t stop and surrender to them.

The universe and/or the Divine provides us daily with a rich environment full of help, wisdom and love tucked into obscure circumstances, places or encounters. Do you watch for them? Do you find them? When you encounter them, do you surrender to them?

Attraction

Have you ever felt strangely attracted to something? A pine cone by the trail that just seemed to need to come home with you? A painting in a gallery that you just couldn't seem to walk away from? A place on a map that you have always yearned to go visit? A certain type of bird or animal that you have always loved for some unknown reason? A book that seemed to jump off the shelf and into your hand?

These seemingly random attractions are not random or silly at all. These are Sacred Heartsong moments that are trying to catch your attention. When the essence of who we are finds resonance with the essence of what something else is - there will be an attraction. By paying attention to these attractions, we can learn a lot about who we are at our soul level and who we are trying to become in our daily lives.

I have always loved rocks. As a kid, I would constantly pick up the ones that caught my eye until I had quite a collection - a piece of Marble from high in the mountains of Colorado, a piece of basalt from a field trip with my Earth Science class, a piece of petrified wood from Ginko National Petrified Forest, etc. Then as an adult I discovered an amazing thing called a Rock or Crystal Shop. The first one that I fell in love with was near the Oregon Coast - south of Lincoln City. The feeling, as I walked into the store, felt almost holy - like an old cathedral. The beautiful colors and delicate structures of the crystals created a lovely, full feeling in my heart. But almost without fail, there would be a single one or two that would really attract me and pull me in.

The Heartsong Moments created for me by these precious stones each contained a sacred lesson. I caught a glimpse of my own Heartsong as I understood the lessons...the rose quartz cut into a heart shape beckoned to me to open up my heart more to giving and accepting love...the black obsidian sphere invited me to become more connected to the center of the earth and to be more grounded...the stunning piece of clear crystal inspired me to clear my space of old toxic emotions. These stones that I have loved, and many others, have helped me to open, ground, clear and heal into a version of myself that is just a bit closer to what God had in mind when he created me - my true essence.

To what are you attracted today?

Joy

My husband and I live one row of houses away from the "Little Spokane River Nature Preserve" … from every window of our home we look out upon hills covered with forest. I love the 70 foot pines surrounding our house, the hiking trail being a block from our front door and the wildlife that comes and goes on an ongoing basis.

At the beginning of this summer, I decided that I would begin to feed the birds to see what I could attract. My immediate favorites were the tiny American Goldfinches with their bright yellow bodies, and their black wings, tails and skull caps. I was filled with joy by their bright happy color, constant chatter and the swooping funny way that they fly, but their visits were only occasional and they never stayed long at the feeders. Then one day I noticed at the feed store a bag of bird food called "Finch Lovers Blend". It is a premium mix of sunflower chips, thistle and Niger seeds and the label claimed that finches and other small colorful birds love this mixture. I decided that if I wanted to attract more of the joyful little birds then I needed to provide what they loved - so I purchased a bag. The new food first filled the feeders about 3 weeks ago and today my yard is filled with yellow birds. Now there are usually 5 to 7 Goldfinches (or Pine Siskins) on the hanging feeder and there can be as many as twelve more on the covered feeder, a few feet away. The trees close to the feeders are also filled with birds and the air seems to be alive with them.

Life is much like my bird feeders. Consciously or unconsciously, we decide what we want to attract – joy and abundance, or scarcity and pain. With our decision, we put out the energy that will attract those things into our lives. If we fill our internal space with fear, anger and negativity, we will attract more circumstances that will make us angry, fearful and unhappy. But, if we first set our intentions to live a life of alignment with our heartsongs, and then fill our "feeders" with thoughts of acceptance, openness to Spirit and a happy expectancy - we will attract all the good things that God so badly wants to give us.

What is in your feeders today?

Passion

Travel is a very spiritual activity for me. To get out of my regular routine, visit new places, experience new cultures and expose myself to new ways of being in the world always leaves me a larger version of who I was before the adventure and I find it transformational.

One such trip was taken with my first husband and four other couples to the island of Moorea in French Polynesia in 1997. Moorea is a stunningly beautiful heart-shaped island just a short 30 minute ferry ride from Papeete, the capital of Tahiti. There were many wonderful things about a February visit to this magical island: the eighty-something degree air is almost exactly the same temperature as the eighty-something degree water; the island is completely surrounded by a coral reef so there are no waves crashing on the beach - it is much like swimming in a pool; the scenery, hiking, snorkeling, jungle, cultural center and the activities available made every minute full of beauty and fun. But my very favorite part of the trip was the people who are native to this enchanting place. The first thing that I noticed is that most of the people were quite poor according to American standards, yet I rarely meet anyone in America that radiated the kind of joy that I saw in these faces. They were fiercely proud - they took offence if you tipped them for any of their services, and they were full of passion.

I heard it in the voice of the man who ran the "Swim with the Sharks" tour. He knew the sharks intimately, had each of them named and loved introducing them to you - the tourists. From the way that he talked, you knew that he was passionate about the sharks, the ocean, his island and the fact that he wanted to break the bad press that sharks around the world receive. He was full of passion.

I saw it in the face of one of the girls that befriended us and took us all over the island in search of a certain trinket that my friend just had to take home with her. She barely knew us but she loved us and would do anything to help us. She was full of passion.

I watched it in the work of the two guides that took us on a snorkeling adventure to another small island. They paddled us to the site, showed us where the best snorkeling was and then cooked us a traditional meal of chicken and breadfruit cooked over an open flame and sashimi, a raw fish salad. They did everything from their heart with a deep passion that I rarely see here in the states.

After spending a week with these amazing and wonderful people, I came away a different person - one determined to live from the heart as I had seen these people do. However, it wasn't as easy as it looked. In a world of stressful jobs, unhappy marriages, over-busy kids, too many bills and too long a to-do list, it is very difficult to live from our hearts and we lose touch with our passion.

A spiritual life is a life lived from the heart - a life of passion. A spiritual life is where one consciously listens to one's heartsong, consciously chooses how to spend each minute of one's day and then lives each moment with passion. You aren't able to perform your job with passion? Then it is time to find a new job. Stressful relationships drowning out your heartsong? Then it is time to off-load some old relationships. Living beyond your means stamping out your ability to live from your heart? Then it is time to get out of debt and simplify your life.

It is now over ten years since I made the commitment to get back to living from my heart. It has not been an easy journey nor a journey without tears but it has been more than worth it. Find your passion once again. Live from your heart. Listen to your heartsong.

Never Too Late

The little girl in the yellow dress twirls until the skirt stands out straight and round as the yellow sun.

The young foal jumps and runs and kicks like the new life within him is exploding through his limbs and feet.

The hardness and tightness in the old woman's heart melts and releases down through her feet and into the ground.

Her gray eyes flutter open just in time to see a tiny hummingbird flit by the window reminding her that joy and new life can be reborn in us all.

Acceptance

As a young, childless teacher in my early twenties, I believed that all of the problems that I saw in my students' behavior could be easily cured with proper parenting. At the age of 28, my soul invited into my life a beautiful baby girl. The adoption agency warned my first husband and I that she had a few possibilities for scary health issues in her genetics but because I firmly believed that the correct environment was all that was needed to create perfect children, I paid little heed to their warnings.

It was not long before it became apparent that this little one was not well...by four months old she was diagnosed as "Failure to Thrive". This turn of events did not fuel my theory that "proper parenting could save the children of the world," so I redoubled my efforts to coerce this tiny human to eat, grow and flourish. By seven months old she had almost completely stopped eating... by thirteen months she was in the hospital for a calorie count to determine if she needed to be put into an eating disorders hospital. I was devastated. I began to wonder: could it be that the more I tried to control her to get the desired outcome - the more she fought against me?

With the help of an excellent pediatrician and some wise counselors, I learned to accept this precious little one for what she was - a sovereign child of God who had the power of choice. I began to honor what she was trying to tell me by her refusal to eat... I began to work with her to help to find her healthy weight. By the time that she was three years old, she was still tiny but she was very healthy and happy. Needless to say, this small addition to our family transformed my beliefs about life and taught me about acceptance.

As children of God, our lives are closely monitored. Only those people and those things which will help us find our true Heartsongs are allowed into our lives. This is hard to embrace, especially when we have difficult people in our lives and our favorite belief systems are being challenged, left and right. However, it seems to me that life is much like being the mother of a strong-willed, failure-to-thrive baby. The more we fight against difficulty - the greater the difficulty will become. When we honor the difficult situations and difficult people as lessons, and learn what they are trying to teach us - we become wiser. Life becomes easier.

It may be too much to ask you to embrace the people and situations in your life that are making you crazy right now... but perhaps you can begin to relax and ask: "what are these people and situations trying to teach me?" This question will move you to your true essence and to your Sacred Heartsong.