My teacher told me, "Don't do. Just Be."

He tried to take me to this state of being. I could see it and even feel its affect on my heart somewhat, but as an outsider, not from within it. I was halted by this tendril of fear just outside of this magnificent place of heart and light with powerful rays of this incredible white-blue energy shooting in every direction.

This tendril of fear was like a gentle wave I was riding. It was comfortable and known. That light on the other hand was intense and big and comes with a lot of responsibility. And that 'C' word - Change. Big light always comes bearing that gift.

The fear, I said to my teacher, is of being separated from our organization, of having to go in a different direction, of being on my own.

That won't happen, he said confidently. Reassuringly. Without hesitation.

I cried silently. That won't happen. It reverberated in me, bouncing from shore to shore in the hole made by fear.

Get out of your mind, get out of your emotions, he said. You tend to go from one into the other. Go to the place where neither exist. Just be. Don't do anything. Just be until I get there in a couple of days.

Q: You know what chaps my hide?
A: When I set myself up for failure, and I know I'm doing it, and I do it anyway.

Last week my teacher told me 'don't do, just BE until I get there in a couple of days'. I remember this thought running through the back of my head, "Oh good, he will help me get through this block so I can experience this other aspect of myself." And then my higher consciousness went, "Uh-oh..."

I realized in that very instant that I was setting myself up for failure, pinning my hopes on my teacher to do the work for me, and I told myself not to do that. I told myself not to create any expectation for any experience or outcome.

My teacher also told me the mind was not going to want to let me go where I can go, and to be aware of that.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday with my teacher came and went without me breaking through this barrier. Sunday came - my last day with my teacher for this event - and as we went into meditation, the mind kept conjuring images (it's always people I don't know, all over the world, doing mundane things - plugging something in, shopping, building a fire, etc.). Finally I became coherent enough to activate strength in the mind to focus on the light without distraction. Just as I began to expand into something magnificent, the meditation was brought to a close.

I started crying. I was sooooo mad at myself for wasting my time being distracted! So mad that I had been forewarned and still had not risen to the occassion.

But then my teacher said we would be moving right back into silence and another meditation, so I pulled myself together, and with great resolve and relief, I moved into silence, determined not to allow the ego to manipulate me this time - and already knowing that my little tantrum had probably just cost me the connection I could have continued momentarily.

We moved into this next meditation, and Joey took us higher, higher, higher. I moved into my I Am presence, and WHAM! There was a ceiling.

Noooooo! This is not I Am! I Am is unlimited and all encompassing and absolute. There can be no division in I Am!

Just then Joey said to experience the vastness of the I Am presence, and there I was going CLINK! CLINK! CLINK! hitting my head on this veil, this divider, this ceiling. I tried to burst through it, I tried to imagine myself on the other side of it, but in the end, when he said that, again tears exploded from me as I could not see my way through.

Shut out of God. A spiritual flunkie. Even God doesn't want me. Ooooohhhh the pity party! During my session, there had been a barrier when I dove within, and now there was a barrier when I went up. I was boxed in by my own fear or concept or expectation. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. And I did it to myself! Argh!

And of course it was the end of the day, the end of the seminar. Everyone who shared was experiencing joy and bliss, and there I was being a sobby mess.

The thing that made me so mad was that I saw this scenario play out in that moment back on Tuesday, and I knew better, knew what I needed to do to change it, and I did it anyway! That is insanity.

A few of my IRL girlfriends read my blog, and one of them pointed out to me recently that there seems to be a lot of angst in my writing that she never saw in me otherwise, and another said something along the same lines a few weeks ago...

That got me to wondering if my writing or my topics seem overly sad or upset or whatever to those who read it. Do I come across as unhappy? Morose? A downer?

My life in the past few months has been like learning how to surf on a tidal wave during a typhoon, and it has definitely had it's challenging moments (*ahem* I mean, moments of great opportunity), but in my everyday life, I am in great spirits. I am in joy, in bliss, on cloud 9.

Things come up for me, like for example, the last couple of weeks before I saw my teacher this past week, I missed him like crazy. I felt such a longing for his company and companionship! It stemmed from not going to Vail (as it made our absence from one another twice as long). And on top of missing my teacher, I miss Sai Maa too. I know they are always with me, they are a part of me, but in my human experience, I desire to see them physically, to sit with them, to be with them, to lay my eyes upon them, to hear their voices vibrate in my very cells.

Am I miserable and dysfunctional because of it? Maybe for a moment. I feel it, I experience it, and I may even enjoy a little (or big) cry - and I do enjoy a good, messy cry every now and then! I may write them a letter or send a message - Oh how I miss you so! - and then I'm done. The longing may not leave me, but I don't get lost in it.

That is my way in this blog as well. I dive in after a thought, a feeling, I explore it, and I'm done. Sometimes I'm done even before I write. I'm making a record of my experience so I don't forget, or rather so I can remember again after I've forgotten.

Many things don't stay in my head. If I don't write them down it might be like they never existed.

Like 2006, when I started this blog- I was happier and more well adjusted than I'd ever been in my whole life! Now I look back at those writings and see something very different. I see how I've grown. I see how my understanding has changed and shifted. I see how much I've come to trust God, to trust myself, to trust the process of life on Earth. And in another 2 years I will look back to 2008 with the same awe in the awareness of my journey and where it has taken me.

For awhile I wrote about love and devotion, but I got a lot of emails that people were concerned that I was brainwashed. That cracks me up. Happy is not allowed! hahaha. So I write about my struggles, where I trip and fall on my narrow little path to God, the muddy messes I get myself in. We can all relate to those. And I am certainly no less human now than I was 2 years ago. Now, though, I can laugh at myself a lot sooner.

Life is funny. And I am enjoying it very much.

Hugs & Kisses!

I've been shedding lots of rules in the past few weeks. Some of them are internal rules about trust and intimacy, and others are outward rules I imposed upon myself.

In the past 2 weeks I haven't been strictly vegan. In fact, I haven't been vegan even a little. I've eaten eggs and dairy. Yesterday I tried a slice of pizza. With cheese. Real cheese, not soy cheese. I couldn't eat most of it, but I did eat a few bites.

It wasn't quite as good as I remembered it to be.

I notice things now that I didn't before, like that cheese gives me post-nasal drip. It happens almost immediately. Weird. I was never in touch with my physiology like that before I became vegan 4 years ago.

Then last night - last night, I had 2 alcoholic drinks. It's been 10 years since I've imbibed (and that was only half a pina colada after many years of sobriety before that). My husband ordered something for me with rum and juice, so it would be sweet. I don't care for the taste of alcohol. I don't like wine or beer or champagne.

There was a shot of rum in each drink, and I thought I'd be snockered, but I wasn't. I really didn't even get tipsy. I was surprised. Ten years ago I would have been hammered. I guess I have a higher tolerance now. It makes sense, because there is nothing under the surface now, no depression to shed off in order to have a good time. My mood is not so easily altered these days. 

It feels good to cast the rules away and discover what I like and don't like based on its own uniqueness and not based on my ideas of right and wrong.

I'm letting myself out of the prisons of my own making. It feels good.

Intimacy...It's such a deep and interesting topic to me. For the past few years, my teacher has been gently demonstrating for me and nurturing in me the qualities of emotional, mental, and spiritual intimacy, teaching me that trust is about me and God, not about another's lack of ability to hurt me, and always offering me the opportunity to go a step beyond my comfort zone in our communications with one another to create a deeper bond.

So many times I have pushed my teacher away emotionally, terrified of his power to hurt me, afraid of the love and joy I experience in our relationship, paralyzed by the fear that the rug could be pulled out from under me, that he could crush me, obliterate me beyond repair. In the form of true mastery, whenever I closed my heart in fear, he opened his heart even further, standing steadfast in a state of love, showing me the very vulnerability in himself that terrified me to know in myself. I learned that it is that very vulnerability that is the secret of his strength.

I used to cry and ask him, "Joey, how can you live in the world with that vulnerability? I don't understand..."

"What is the alternative?" he would always respond, and suddenly, at least for a moment, it would all make sense to me. The choice is to live as love, open, expanded, vulnerable, or live not as love, but rather in fear, closed, contracted, afraid of being hurt, so never being all the way in or all the way out, but riding in that safe zone of ordinariness, of comfort, of stagnation, of mediocrity. Oh yes, for a moment, I could see very clearly that the choice to stand in the world with one's heart exposed was the only choice I wanted to make.

And yet I didn't know how to make that choice for myself. I didn't know how to move past fear and the harsh lessons that life has brought me that taught me the opposite - that safety lies behind locked doors, a closed heart, and a very small life. Maybe that life was not fun or engaging or passionate, but it seemed safe.

Only not really, because locks get forced, closed hearts are brittle and break easily, and a small life offers no room for expansion. But never mind all that! Details, details!

I remember the moment when I first experienced great strength in vulnerability, the first time I truly stood in love. I was so amazed!

The week before this experience, I had sent my teacher an email that was harsher than I meant for it to be. I meant to get his attention, but I truly did not mean to hurt him. Looking back I can see clearly that it was another attempt to push him away, to make him abandon me so I could be right about my view of the world.

I sent him an unkind letter, and in return he apologized to me. There was also a lot of yelling and tears and discussion, but in the end he only wanted to know what he had done to hurt me that I would lash out at him in that way so he could make sure it did not happen again. He had done nothing wrong, but in the midst of his own pain, he stepped out further into vulnerability with me, even though I had just cut him open.

We were together in person a week or so later when he came to KC to give an advanced workshop. It was in that workshop that I finally experienced true vulnerability. I couldn't hold it for long at first, but I got a taste of it. He had asked me to look within and contemplate why I was so afraid of love. When I looked straight on at those reasons, they didn't stand up. They were shadows. From there I was able to experience a taste of what love really is, the strength and power of love. I found out that love is not a wilting flower, but a mountain of rock, or a great fire.

Fast forward a year and some change. There is another level to intimacy that my fear of has been holding me back from where I want, need, desire, wish to go spiritually. Although I have made great strides in many ways, I am still just beginning to make peace with myself as a physical being, a spirit with a body.

When I met my teacher, one of the first things he said was, "Get back in your body! I will not work with you if you leave the body. Make of your body a temple, a glorious place for the light to come here. Do not go out there looking for the light. Make this body a wonderful place to be. Be light here."

That changed my life, and also was not an easy request for me to comply with. My habit of leaving the body was as old as I am in this incarnation. Joey and Sai Maa have both worked tirelessly to serve me in repairing my connection to the body, strengthening my root and sacral chakras, burning off karmas held there. They have done soooo much for me, and Joey has been there to guide me through the jungles of fear more times than I can count.

And now I have come to the place where I must deal with and heal the most delicate aspects of my humanity, the time when action is required. I have forgiven, but the body still remembers abuse and violation, and action brings that to the surface.

This is nothing new, of course. This is really not different than my freak outs about weight and body image when I was told to report my measurements in Kung Fu. It is all related. Or when I was 27 and first began to deal consciously with memories of sexual abuse. In physical activities, I would have physical memories that would drop me wherever I was, the pain of violation shooting through the body. Sometimes I would vomit as the memories purged themselves and coursed through me.

When I was 27, I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know how to handle the memories, so I wrote in my journals and I stuffed back down whatever didn't fit or wasn't fully released there. In a matter of months I was sitting across the desk from my gynecologist who was telling me I had cancer...a huge mass on my right ovary, which he compared to a citrus fruit, a whole band of masses in my right breast...he cried as he spoke. He had just lost a 27 year old patient to breast cancer, and felt he had failed her somehow, and now here I was, whose babies he delivered so recently.

Orphans, I could hear bouncing in my head, mother died of cancer...such a shame...so young...don't know why these things happen...three babies...so much to live for...why???

I sat smiling at him, as if I didn't understand his words, even though I understood perfectly.

He suggested further testing. "Is it going to change what you told me?" I asked, smiling.
"No," he responded, "unfortunately it's not."
"Then why bother?" I asked, smiling. "Now what?"
"Surgery. Tomorrow. As soon as possible. We have to get that out of there."
"No, not tomorrow. Not until after my birthday in 3 months. I have to turn 28 first. Before that, I die. Don't ask me how I know. I just know." I suddenly dropped the smile. He believed me without question, and scheduled surgery for the day after my birthday.

I had joked to my girlfriend when she turned 28, and was again older than me for a few months, that I would just not turn 28 to avoid being as old as she. Normally tough as nails and as sassy as they come, she surprised me when big crocodile tears began to pop out of her blue eyes. "Don't say that," she said. My stomach moved to my throat, because on some level we both felt the truth in what I said. Then I went to the doctor a few months later and- well, now my head was spinning with the joke I had made so flippantly.  

Clearly I lived, as it has been just over a decade. I think I lived. Sometimes I wonder if I might be imagining this life...I don't know if I could imagine for myself such an amazing life though, so I think it must be real, such as human life is, anyway.

But my point is that as I move more fully into this integration of myself as human, undeniably with a body, there is still some fear and reservation, though much smaller than I ever dared to hope or imagine it could be. I don't know what Pandora may still have in her box for me. Have I done my work? Can I finish healing? Do I deserve to be whole, shameless, fearless?

Can I begin to see this body as holy, divine, as an expression of God itself?
Can I feel beautiful? Safe? Nurtured? Ecstatically vulnerable?
Am I strong enough to befriend this body fully, to trust it?
Am I willing to let go of what I think I know?

I hope so. The stakes are high.

I've decided that I want to go bungee jumping. Until today I wasn't sure if I had the nerve, but I think I could do it. I really think I could.

My husband said he wouldn't because he has obligations, and although he says it's safe to do with the proper set up and guidance, he also says there is no point in risking your life. But to him, it wouldn't be a big deal to jump. He wouldn't be overcoming anything, he says.

For me it would be like taking a leap of faith. Having the courage to jump would be the big one for me. They might need a trap door to make me go the first time. ;) Really though, it would be so symbolic for me.

I had a huge shift one time when I was with my teacher. We were doing our internal energy practice (Sun-Do, yoga, Tai Chi), and I was in a standing pose and my mind kept putting images in my consciousness, and I was distracted by them. I had asked Joey about this earlier, and he said to surrender to my highest self when this happens. So I was wondering how to surrender to my highest self when I remembered a story about the path to enlightenment Joey told that morning in the intensive.

Ahh, it's been over 2 years, and I'm not sure I can do the story justice. It was cute, and so true...He talked about a man and a mountain, where the man thought reaching the top would mean he'd arrived. So through turmoil and setbacks, he manages to reach the peak. He feels so great and happy...for about 5 minutes, but then he gets bored because there is no one there to play with, nothing to do. He starts to wonder if this is it, if this is all enlightenment has to offer after he'd worked so hard to get here. Suddenly his foot slips, and he falls off the cliff on the other side of the mountain, but just below the ledge he grabs hold of a root sticking out and breaks his fall. So he's dangling there by one arm, yelling for help, but nobody is there to help him. Getting desperately tired and realizing he's going to die, he cries, "Oh God! Please help me!" So God shows up. The man is so relieved! He asks God what he needs to do.

"Let go," God says.

The guy cups his free hand around his mouth and shouts even more desperately to the top of the mountain, "Is there anybody else up there who can help me?!"

So I'm standing up meditating at this intensive, and I can't seem to stop these images, and I'm trying to figure out how to surrender when I recall this story. I imagine myself to be in the place of this guy dangling by one arm off the edge of a cliff. I look up to the sky, and I say, "God, I surrender. I am letting go-" and I let go.

I had the most amazing experience! I did not fall, no sir-ee. I had never felt safer and more taken care of in my entire life than in that moment of surrender when I "jumped".

That, for me, would be the symbolism with which I jumped if I bungee jumped. I would jump into the Grace of God, fearless and trusting, I would simply let go. 

Please check out Samme's beautiful devotion to Sai Maa. Be sure to watch the videos on The Conscious Media Network links on parenting and the future human. Excellent stuff, and such beauty to behold while you get enlightened. :)

Thanks Samme! I had no idea some of these things were out there. Beautiful!
xoxoxox

Somehow today, there was a fork wedged against my dining chair, and when my son and I started mashing each others feet under the table goofing off, I pulled my foot back really fast to get away from his foot stomping action and forked my heel. 3 punctures with the tines. Zowie!

Then my 13yo got up to see, and when she sat back down, her chair exploded. Not kidding. Her wooden chair shattered and exploded out from under her, dumping her uncerimoniously on her rump, nearly sending her out the 2nd story window. 2 of the support rods on the under side of the chair snapped at the same time into sharp projectiles. Fortunately she was not punctured. That would have been icky. And painful.

What the heck is going on today???

Before dinner I noticed my vision went all wonky. I started seeing a blurry spot just off the center of my vision, to the left, and it quickly grew to the size of a dinner plate and was orb shaped with squiggly test-pattern looking lines and rainbow colors and radiating light. And I got vertigo-ish, and my left side and face began to tingle.

I know, sounds like a stroke, huh? I was kind of wishing I had medical insurance, so then I Googled the symptoms to see what kind of situation I might be dealing with. All sources said a sudden change in vision is a medical emergency, so my husband suggested I call my teacher to see what he thought. As soon as he suggested that, the symptoms began to ease, like I immediately opened to the energy that was already there for me. I didn't end up calling, but I would have if need be.

All the symptoms matched with aura migraines. I have had hundreds of migraines up behind my left eye, ones where I become hypersensitive in all my senses and even vomit from the pain, but I never had the aura kind. In fact,  I never got a migraine this time either, but apparently it is possible to have an aura migrain without the pain. Weird, huh?

I started to feel weird up behind my right eye (I have NEVER had a right eye migraine) so I took some Excedrin for Migraine just incase. I normally don't take meds, but migraines definitely warrant a different response in my opinion.

I wonder if it was something energetic? Maybe my brain was getting a tune-up or something. You know, all day I could smell things that weren't there too, just by seeing a picture or thinking about something. Not just good smells either!

Anyone else ever have these kinds of issues? If so, what the heck was up with you?

All evening I've had trouble saying the words I'm thinking- or typing the words I'm thinking, but that happens with migraine too. I feel like I have a migraine hangover (you migraine sufferers know what I mean!), but I never did have any pain (which is okay with me!).

What a strange day.

Kiddos spent all day making a huge dinner just for the 5 of us. A gigantic homemade tofurkey, and enough food to feed most of the people on our block- not that I'm saying the tofurkey isn't food. I think it is, but I know most of you won't. ;)

Anyway, dinner was fabulous, minus the forking and the chair explosion and the light show in my face. The light show would have been a lot more fun if I knew for sure it wasn't going to maim me, but even then I actually thought it was pertty cool anyway. It was really pretty and reminded me of my beloved Elohim of Light. Maybe they were just saying hey. They wanted in on the tofurkey and pecan pie.

Okay people, so a dude was trampled to death at Wal-Mart (big freaking surprise there, huh? NOT!), and at the same time a pregnant woman was knocked down and trampled, killing her unborn child, and 2 rival gang bangers had a shootout and whacked each other in a Toys R Us over a freaking toy they both wanted. And yes, they both brought loaded guns to shop for toys. WTF?

Is the $5 Barbie really worth all this?
How about the $300 computer system?
The $50 microwave?

NOOOOOOO! It's not!!!!

People aren't starving and looking for food bargains, people just want STUFF. Junk. Trash. Landfill fodder. It's crazy.

The USA is having an economic meltdown that is affecting the whole world, and we don't know to take a clue and re-evaluate our values and priorities. We are still out there buying cheap plastic crap made in China.

I have a suggestion...Help humanity. Save the world. Bring peace and joy.

You can do it! And it's not even hard.

Instead of getting your mother-in-law yet another lavender bath fizzy set, buy a flock of chicks for a starving family in a developing nation. It's only $20. Or a cow, a buffalo, ducks, geese, llamas, goats, sheep...Go to Heifer.org and see how you can feed a village, maybe forever, with less money than it costs to take your family out to dinner.

Don't like the idea of livestock? How about choosing an actual person to give a $25 micro-loan to with Kiva.org? At Kiva.org, people from under-developed countries all over the world apply for small loans to help them grow their businesses so they can become independent and support their families. THEY PAY BACK THE MONEY! You can see a photo, learn why they want the money, and follow their story as it unfolds. You get to choose who to help. What a great gift for kids to learn the value of giving! Give them $25 Kiva dollars and let them find a beloved to support. When the money is paid back, they can re-invest in humanity, donate the money to Kiva, or take the cash out of the program.

Here is an organization based in the UK called World Gifts. Some of the gifts, especially animals, cost much less because they are so much closer to where the needs for the animals are (than USA companies). You can also buy a village a bicycle, or a vegetable garden, and their animals come with feed and training on how to care for them.

How about giving the gift of an EXPERIENCE instead of stuff? You can send a loved one on a bungee jump for just $150! They will not forget that gift! Or send them off to swim with sharks, drive a race car, take a hot air balloon ride, discover Pilates, or dozens of other AMAZING things that are probably on their 100 things to do before I die list.

And, if you absolutely have your heart set on buying stuff, please take a moment to look at OneCause.com, where hundreds of online stores (including Amazon, Target, and LOTS of others) have agreed to donate a percentage of the sales to this charity if they are referred through this website. Just go to this website, click through to the store you want, and shop as usual, and a portion of what you spend will be sent back and distributed to schools, non-profits, and other charitable organizations.

You can do a world of good.
(Please do!)

Please send these links to your friends and family. Let them know you'd like to have a goat for Christmas, or some trees for Hannukah, maybe some honeybees for Ramadan, a new water well for Kwaanza...Or that you want to go white-water rafting with them to make some memories that won't end up in a landfill.

Find a little stuffed animal cow for your niece, and print out some pictures and a certificate for her, and tell her how she gave a real cow to a little girl just like her in some dusty village in Africa so she could have a glass of milk and a chance to grow up and change the world. Tell her she's your hero, she's a fairy princess who is helping to save the world. She is so powerful!

Sure, it's possible that she might pitch a fit and demand a doll, but in a year, 10 years, 50 years, she will always remember the warm feeling in her heart when she thinks of that cow that changed the world. She won't remember the doll, but she will remember the cow.

I am interested in more things like this, and what you have done/are doing. Please stop by and leave a note if you know of more cool places like these.