Grounding

While my step-daughter was here visiting, we spent a few days in Seattle. Seattle is a beautiful city with many wondrous things to see and do, but we all agreed that the highlight of our visit was the Seattle Aquarium. We spent the morning touching anemones, starfish and sea urchins, and staring face to face with fish large and small of every color. Everyone came away with a favorite exhibit but my favorite by far was the octopus.

The large and beautiful specimen was in a hamster cage-like tank that was actually two large tanks with a tube of water connecting the two. I watched in fascination as the almost red animal moved across the bottom of the first tank - always connected to the rocks underneath him. He then sent one long arm through the tube to then be in contact with the rocks on the floor of the second tank before he began to move through the tube in route to his destination. By the time that he was fully through the tube and his body settled onto the floor of the new tank, he had changed colors to match the new tank's floor and was now almost white.

As I stood appreciating this magnificent creature, I was reminded of another spiritual practice that can help us to discover our true essence and help us to find what makes our hearts sing. Creating an empty interval and spending time connecting to the higher aspects of ourselves and the Divine is essential but if we are always connecting up without staying connected to the stability and the constancy of the earth beneath us then we can be too flighty to be able to bring the gifts of our higher selves down into our everyday existence.

I have been taught many different ways to become and to stay more grounded. One is to create an empty interval while having both feet securely on the floor. While in this calm and peaceful space, spend several minutes visualizing your feet sprouting roots that grow deeply into the earth and feel them bringing you more stability and quiet strength. Another method is to do a visualization as you did before but instead of visualizing roots, see a heavy rope or cord extending from the base of your spine and descending deeply into the earth and becoming connected to the center of the earth. As you watch, you can imagine the cord tightening and making you feel more secure and less vulnerable. Another method is to go out into nature and sit on a rock or on the earth or stand with your back against a tall deeply rooted tree, close your eyes and relax into the groundedness of nature. Any of these methods will help you to feel less tossed about by strong emotions, more secure in who you are and what you are doing and like the octopus - help you to stay connected to where you are trying to go. Another way to think of this is, without a grounded lightning rod - you will never attract a flash of lightning. Without being deeply grounded - you will never attract a down flow of Spirit - from your higher aspects or from the Divine.

A regular grounding visualization or activity done for several minutes a couple times a day can make a real difference in how you move through the world, how you handle difficult parts of your day and how you connect to and pull down higher aspects of who you are. Happy grounding!

Too Busy Saving the World

One of my step-daughters is here visiting for a long weekend. She is a soft and sensitive soul who has experienced a lot of hard "stuff" during her short twenty-three years. As an on-looker, I would expect her experiences to equal bitterness and anger, but she has managed to sage into someone who is wise beyond her years and who loves beyond most people's capacity.

During a conversation, she shared with us a situation that she is struggling with. She has determined that a major change in her life would serve her highest good yet she fears that such a change could possibly cause pain to people that she loves. She seems torn and anxious as she says, "I have a save the world complex!"

I so deeply relate to my step-daughter's dilemma, as many of you may as well. The soft and sensitive among us tend to get the job descriptions of "healing everyone around them" within the systems where we live and work. In fact, we get so busy fixing, calming, soothing and taking care of that it leaves very little time for us to connect to who we are and what we need.

A spiritual principle that has really helped me with my own "save the world complex" is the idea that nothing comes into our life without an invitation from our soul. It is my job to pay attention to the Heartsong Moments as well as the painful moments in my life so that I can learn the lessons that my soul is trying to teach me. You must do the same with the moments in your life. If I rescue you from your lessons before you have learned them, then I am only getting in your way - not helping you at all. To learn to fly, you have to jump from the nest. Is there ever a time when we should help those we love? Of course! When someone asks us about something in our life that they admire - this is a perfect opportunity to share what we have learned. But, we interfere with their most important lessons when we try to save them from experiencing the discomfort that they have drawn to themselves.

Today, do not be too busy saving the world to pay attention to what your life is trying to teach you.

An Empty Interval

Part of my spiritual practice each morning, when I can make the time, is to climb to the top of the mountain that we look at from our front windows. The mountain is part of a nature preserve and is thus full of magically beautiful birds and wildlife. This morning, as I trudged up the steepest part of the trail, I was surprised and delighted to see a pileated woodpecker fly to a dead tree near me. The pileated woodpeckers are the large, crow-sized, black and white birds with the bright red crested heads.

Having this beautiful bird come so close to my space reminded me that it is very easy to be caught up in the lower aspects of who we are - the black and white of what we need to get done in the physical realm, our overwhelming emotions both new and old as well as the thoughts in our heads that zoom along without ceasing like an eight lane super-highway. The beautiful parts of us, like the woodpeckers bright red head, live in the higher aspects of who we are - our soul and spirit. But how do we connect to those higher aspects? How do we rise above the busy doing, the strong emotions and the never-ceasing thoughts to find our higher essence?

Soon after I became a serious student of spirituality, I was taught the concept of the empty interval. It is exactly what the name implies - an interval of time set aside to be completely empty of doing, feeling and/or thinking. At first, this was extremely difficult for me because I have lived in a culture that emphasizes doing and is somehow very uncomfortable with just being; but with persistence and practice I learned to relax into it and really love it. And the beauty of what I discovered is that as I was able to disconnect from my to-do list, my pesky emotions and my non-stop thoughts, I was able to rise above those parts of me and to connect more fully with the higher aspects of my own being - my essence. Our higher aspects connect naturally to the Divine so the empty interval helps strengthen our Divine connection as well!

I invite you to create an empty interval - ten to fifteen minutes to begin with - and fill it with the intention to rise above the black and white mundane doings, feelings and thinkings and just "be" and you will be surprised by some awesome Sacred Heartsong Moments!

Your Essence

One of my favorite laws listed on the website of Two Worlds Wisdom School is the Law of Happiness. Stated simply it says, "Happiness is doing who you are." This may be simple to state but it is certainly not simple to implement in one's life.

Fourteen years into a difficult marriage, I went to my first therapy session in 1993. I remember telling the therapist, "I don't know who I am - I have lost me!" Over the next few years in my search for wholeness and my true essence, I asked many questions such as:

Am I really this person's wife - is that who I am?

Am I really these people's mother - is that who I am?

Am I really these people's daughter - is that who I am?

Am I really these people's teacher - is that who I am?

Am I really this body with all of its quirks and flaws - is that who I am?

Of course none of these things are who I am at my core. My true essence exists at the level of my spirit but the essence of who I am is difficult to find because it is all buried under who my parents have told me I am, who my culture has told me I am, who my church has told me I am and who my relationships have told me I am.

The realization that I am not what I do or a sum total of my relationships or even the package of DNA that I received from my parents gave me some breathing room to begin to open up to seeing who I really am. It was then that I began to notice Heartsong Moments - sacred moments that seemed to open the door a crack and let me peak in and get a glimpse of the real me. These moments caught my attention because they triggered a special vibration in my heart space - almost a song of energy that reverberated throughout my being.

One morning, while teaching third and fourth grade language arts, I finished up a creative writing lesson, walked through the classroom to see that everyone understood the lesson and had successfully begun their task, and was returning to my desk to check on the readiness of the next lesson. Suddenly, I noticed an unfamiliar rush of energy from my heart flooding my body. It was my first recognized experience of a heartsong. I had taught a good lesson, the kids had caught my enthusiasm and my vision and were working with excitement and energy. In that moment I realized that even though teaching had been a difficult role for me to fit into - at my core I am someone who loves to help someone catch a vision and then watch them move forward with enthusiasm and energy. It is who I am.

Watching for these Heartsong Moments helps us to slowly build a vision of our essence which then invites us to align what we do with who we are and live a happier life. Have you experienced any Heartsong Moments today?

Heart Song

What makes your heart sing? The rough tongue of a puppy on your cheek? Yellow daffodils in spring after too many weeks of snow and cold? The gnarled hand of a beloved elder that touches you with a wise knowing?

We all experience from time to time those sacred moments in life that open our hearts and strike a perfect chord of well-being and bliss. It is within these moments that we can see more clearly the essence of who we are within the core of our being.

The pup that so freely gives unconditional love reminds us that at our core we too can love freely and unconditionally. The bright colors of spring after the drab winter remind us that new life always follows death and that if we will but surrender to what is trying to die - we will inevitably find something new trying to come to life and grow. The wisdom and knowing in the gnarled hand helps us to know that the difficulties of life are able to sage us in beautiful ways. Acceptance of the lessons in life opens us up to a deep knowing.

Keep your eyes open to the sacred moments in life and take a moment to learn something new about what they are telling you about your core essence. What makes your heart sing?