Quick update for family, soul friends and the curious :)

‘ello!

Well, everything kinda kerploded here in a big way in Sedona… However, before the kerplosion, and through the kerplosion, I’ve found what it was I came here to find: MySelf.

So, I’m going to be on the road once again, starting this morning. I am going to be heading roughly east, with the end goal being back home (though home has been so fixed up to get it ready to sell that I may barely recognize it!) Reston, VA. I plan to take my time, explore some areas that we’re thinking would be nice to live in.

First – Albuquerque. I liked New Mexico on my way through it to get here, and my husband is even thinking of flying out there to meet me (for my birthday, the 15th! ) so we can check the area out together. I always wanted to see Taos… and Boulder…

So, yep! The adventure continues. Stay tuned!

Memoirs from the Half-Way Point :) Part 2

‘ello!

Well, in the news from the now portion of things, I can definitely say that going through a memory of your birth, and embracing yourself as the comforting, ever-present presence in your own life, and then hitting ‘play’ on your life from that point forward – it has some major impacts! Feels, in a lot of ways, like I just went through the stages of development at supersonic speed, with that new presence in place… I’d say I’m at the young adult, late teen years stage, today. And today, I’ve begun working with Presence – more on that later.

The interesting part (and a part that would have freaked me out not all that long ago but with which I feel peaceful now) is that while going through it, I was each stage. I saw the world through it. Yesterday morning I was totally fired up about going and getting a job so I could buy a new wardrobe and thus re-define my physical presence (an early teen kinda thing to do). I was absolutely certain that that was my life purpose at that time.

I got some info from my roomie about where a good place to go to get a job as a healer – because that’s what I enjoy doing the most at the moment. And I was all set to go, car keys in hand, when I got a new sense of myself – that comforting ‘adult-like’ presence I mentioned in the first paragraph, that I had put in place, was speaking to me. It said, do some readings for yourself, get more info about this place and why you’re going.

So I did. And it said that I was being impulsive, interested in defining mySelf by the outside world, again (the clothes make the person, etc. etc.) and that it was okay, but that such things would come naturally as I defined myself. From the inside out, this time.

And yet I still felt like going to the place, like this was the next natural step. So I did! And it was a beautiful place, just the kind of healing/teaching center I would create if I were going to make one And the people were awesome, too! I’ll be going back on Sunday for their guided meditation morning – and I may be the one doing the guiding! It was really important, I realized, that I went with my focus open. My embracing inner adult voice had been right, and I began to trust it even more. It knew things. Had good things to say that would help me have even gooder experiences.

Gooder experiences like learning the Heart Link! Here it is, in a nutshell:

• Move into your heart space – bring your awareness to your heart center, and begin to gather more and more and more love and gratitude for yourself, your higher self, your guides, angels, your soul, your life. Really get it going, pump it up with anything you can – memories of good things that have happened, how it feels to love someone, petting a cat. Feel Good.
• Then take your thumb and middle finger and connect their tips, in what’s called a Mudra. You do this with both hands.
• Theeeen, envision a silver gold tube (just the exact size of that circle made by your thumb and middle finger!) running from your heart, up through your neck and head, and out on higher, into the cosmos, leading right to the heart of your higher self.
• Send that love in your own heart on this physical plane up to your higher self’s heart.
• There’s a moment here where you feel nothing as it leaves you – a sudden blankness that feels kind of sad, actually. My thought at this moment was, why do this? Why’s my higher self need my love? I didn’t like this absence, vacuum feeling, but I trusted the guy and decided to just see what would happen.
• It ends up, he said, that they (guides, angels, higher self) live on this stuff, our gratitude enlightens their experience, and their gratitude for our gratitude is HUGE. They make these loving gratitude feelings exponentially stronger – then send it right on back down to you!
  • I experienced it as waves of warmth and tingly loving joy that was mine, but not quite mine – like it was being given to me from a source outside myself, but it also had a familiar flavor.
• He said that, after you practice this for a while, soon you’ll be able to just touch your thumb to forefinger to experience the feeling. It’s an ongoing giving and receiving that you’re just tapping in to with choice of focus.

The stage I was in, when I wrote the last post The Idea, was total trust void looking to define my reality by relationship to the world. Prolly around pre-toddler age. I was totally in the grip of being defined by outsideness at that time. It evolved and matured through yesterday, and here I am now with an interest in my true Self. What am I when I’m not defined by outsideness?

The ideas that came through from the void, the desire for expression from a space undefined by much at all, were potent and pure. They’re definitely going to take me to the next space for my own expression. So, I am going to allow that to unfold naturally while I go on to explore this presence thing – who am I? If so much of me can go through a reboot, and define my experience of reality without my consciously even realizing it, what remains? Who am I, really?

And so I’m adding a new book, the Mandala of Being, by Richard Moss, to my daily explorations – the third book my husband got me for our anniversary. The link goes to the website, and on the website is a free 5 week e-course that I just signed up for. Can’t vouch for it, yet, but I can say that so far – the book is amazing.

And now, on to the Half-Way point segment!

‘That’s what change is supposed to be like…’

This one comes from my calling Pat, my second night out on the road, checked in and resting in the hotel for the night. I was totally shocked at what I had done, and I was expressing it to her. It was a bit of a ‘Oh crap, what was I thinking?!’ moment. I had chosen to drive across the country. Not because something bad had happened. Not because the original situation became intolerable – in fact, it was great! Friends, house, husband, total security comfort and stability… I had done it because it felt like the next step.

I’d never experienced change in that way, before. Major change for me had always been traumatic and huge and seemingly thrust upon me by circumstance, I realized. Or at the very least initiated with someone else… This was all me, and it was totally just me, with no solid explanation for why – I wasn’t moving for a job, or family, or anything. I was because… it felt right. I left security and comfort behind because some unknown thing called me to change, called me to be more of myself, somehow – even though I didn’t (and in a lot of ways still don’t) know what that meant, exactly.

It ends up that a whole lot of people in Sedona have the same story.

Anyway, I was telling Pat about this, and she said, “That’s what change is supposed to be like.” This was an entirely new concept for me. All our lives, we work to gain stability, security, comfort, ease… I was walking away from that, and I didn’t even know why exactly other than that I felt called to do so – and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the leaving the nest thing, the bird in a golden cage, thing.

We have no drive to create, to be more of who we are, when we’re 100% comfortable. Safety, security, stability – they’re all illusions. We work for them on a 3D physical level because on a 3D physical level that’s always what we’re seeking. The prime directive of our physical existence is to survive. But our spiritual existence, the reason we’re having a 3D physical experience in the first place, thrives through expansion.

And we are not pushed by our protect-the-self/protect-the-body selves to expand when we’re comfortable. In fact, we’re pushed to stay safe, to retain that comfort – stagnant good, the body/self in a safe space says. This is where you want to be, all you’ve worked for. This is who you are. This is the point of your life.

But the truth of it is – it’s not the point at all. And this is why so many people are dissatisfied – they have arrived, according to all that their outside world, their understanding of how things work, what everyone’s told them, what they believe, and their body. And yet that arrival is empty. Entropy begins as the soul, the true self, has nowhere to go – no song to sing. Goal accomplished. But, they feel empty inside…this can’t be right. This isn’t the way things are, there must be a need for more stability, more of whatever it is they feel brings them security and comfort. And more. And more…

And if they’re lucky, something happens to knock them out of the cycle. Their soul comes a-knocking with the brush of an angel wing at first (there’s something more for you!) in the form of dreams, thoughts, chance meetings…If these aren’t heard, or are heard but only followed to the point that the person remains totally safe and makes no real changes, then comes the 2X4. Loss of a job, loss of a relationship, illness… They’re shown that the stability and security that they’re clinging to so ferociously is an illusion (there’s something more for you!) and put into a space where they begin to question – is there something more for me? And then comes the thoughts and dreams again…

I went through this cycle over and over and over. I was quite stubborn. I refused to take a chance. I saw the signs, I had the dreams, met people, but I refused to reach for something outside my comfort zone… then my dad died. This shook me up, but still I refused to look beyond the sandcastle I was painstakingly trying to build. And so the came the illness in spades, my body mirroring to me the rigid, unflexible mindset I was holding on to so tightly. I still didn’t listen. I clung – ferociously – trying to shore up the sandcastle that I had believed was my life, what I was supposed to be doing.

And then my mom died, less than a year later, and everything collapsed. I finally couldn’t do it anymore. No support, so sick I couldn’t work, so soul-starved I could barely breath… The sandcastle had been totally washed away by the waves, the wind, the rain – the stable world shown to be nothing more than an illusion. I had nothing left to lose. I finally looked up. And I realized that the world was a WHOLE lot bigger and amazing than I had ever imagined – it was only fear that had made it tiny and tinier for me. Fear, driven by the unfulfillable desire for ultimate comfort, security and stability from the outside in.

Now comes the time of learning – ultimate comfort, security and stability from the inside out isn’t just a possibility…it can be a reality – for anyone.

Change doesn’t have to be about the circumstantially forced loss of that which we’ve outgrown because we refused to let it go because it’s really, really comfortable and known and secure. Our souls call for us to be free, little by little, all the time. All the time. And all it takes for us to answer that call is to begin to reach beyond the boxes we’ve created for ourselves. To consider the possibility that the unknown may actually not be scary – that, in fact, it may be glorious. As soon as we reach, we’ll find those angel wings reaching right back for us, helping us out of our box one baby step at a time.

I’m realizing that as spirits having a human experience, we’re not intended to spend our lives trying to build secure nests for ourselves, and then hold on to them for dear life for the rest of our lives… We’re meant to fly, even if, according to our stability/comfort/security selves, this makes little sense.

Our stability/comfort/security driven selves are not our real selves – they’re as much of an illusion, I’m coming to realize, as the sandcastles they build around them. These selves are driven by and built on just as shaky of a foundation as the castles they so desire: Fear of the Unknown.

A fear driven self surrounding itself with a fear based creation/life, so it has a structure, a box, to exist in. Talk about ack!, huh?

So, I’m just now really beginning to realize that I did this for a majority of my life… And Pat saying what she did, that helped me to realize that I’m not so afraid of change anymore. That this trip, if nothing else, was a really big deal because it was me, putting my actions where my beliefs have come to reside. Even though it makes not sense from the self of me that wants that nest.

Interestingly enough, though…I feel more stable, comfortable and secure now than I ever have in my life. It feels weird to say that, but it’s true… I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. But right Now…I’m fine.

The Idea – I would love your opinion! :D

‘ello!

I woke up with an idea that came, fully formed, as if it had always been there just waiting for me to stumble across it… The idea is so simple, yet powerful, that I feel like talking about it in a whisper – as if to speak or write it out loud might burst the bubble of excitement and possibility I’m feeling. As if reality might crash in and mark it with a ‘impractical’ or ‘undesirable’ or any of a number of idea-stopping words…

But…I have to put it out there, because this is, in essence, for you guys – and big time for me, of course! As the vehicle for the expression of joy and empowerment that can bring it to you: If it is wanted. If it can be useful. You, the readers, are the only ones who can answer that for me…

Firstly, this thing seems to be fluid by nature in its mode of conveyance – internet classroom, radio, blog, in person, phone teleconference…anything that can work as a mode of expression, all driven by a book or… a blog or something. I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the idea(s), fully formed, pulled out of nowhere (now here, hehe) upon waking:

“Wouldn’t it be neat to tell my stories of awakening in, like, a cookbook form? Like…story, followed by the key concepts it brought up and illustrated, and a how-to of how to do these things for yourself. Wouldn’t it be neat to travel from place to place, collecting new stories all the time even as I go from workshop to workshop, teaching the things in the stories in person? Like each of the ‘recipes’ would be condensed into a Menu that people could choose from, but instead of a price for each item, there would be an amount of time – and even a wine list perhaps of recommended extras that would go best with each of the ‘meals’. Hehe. Like the wines would be the things that are just experienced by the participants, given by me – like, light body activation, or ‘meeting your guides’ meditation, etc. Then what would be the dessert? Gotta have the dessert. Hmmm! Wouldn’t it be neat to do a monthly radio show where I share the best tidbits? Wouldn’t it be neat to travel for the good-weather part of the year and then return to home base and work on a new book? A Cookbook for the Soul, Recipes for Awakening to Your Highest Potential. “

Here are some clarifying ideas that have been coming to me…

I am, by nature, a jack of all trades… Passingly good at just about everything, specialized in nothing… I’ve found this frustrating as far as discovering ‘my path’ in life because, well, it means that I can’t go and say This Is What I Do. All I’ve been able to say thus far is This Is Who I Am – At the Moment. I’m actually really good at that.

I am charismatic and gregarious, able to relate to just about anyone, in a way that they can understand and make use of. I seem to have the ability, likely gained from all of my time working so hard using my empathy to be sure I pleased people, to drop into the language and mindset being used by whoever I’m talking to… My husband is a master of this when it comes to speaking concepts. I seem to be a master of this when it comes to describing energy and intent and life.

I want to be fluid and alive and creative and fulfilled and useful and empowering – but I haven’t known how because I kept expecting to specialize. I have learned SO many things, it’s not even funny, all in search of The Thing that would be My Thing… What I have ended up with is a ton of things I love… but none of them The Thing that I am supposed to go out there and share with others… I’ve also been in many environments – in person, over the phone, radio, internet classrooms, one on one and in big groups. I’m passingly good in expressing through all of them, but specialized in none (sound familiar? )

I loved traveling across the country, asking God/Source/Whatever to put me in touch with those I was meant to be in touch with. Having a reason to do this – not just a reason, but something that fulfills me and that I get to share with others? I find that idea endlessly exciting.

I know that I am of the family Archangel Michael – the empowerers, the bringers of light and life to those who are ready for it and who desire it. Acting in that capacity is what I find most fulfilling. Most enjoyable. I’ve had an odd time of figuring all this out because I kept running in to the concepts of working with just one person, and working with a group – a if they were supposed to happen simultaneously or something, but I never knew how. Now I think I know…they build upon each other, the experiences with individuals giving rise to ideas and practices that can be shared with and used by lots of people.

I have learned the foundations for so many self-healing, self-empowering practices that I often spontaneously come up with my own techniques from combinations of many other practices – new things to be shared. I want it all to grow with me – the idea of just teaching the same exact things over and over and over sounds utterly depressing, to me. I want to be a force for synchronicity, bringing those things most needed in the moment by those who have requested my presence…

I’m very practical in what I do. I want the things I share to be cheap, easy, comfortable and powerful – and I think that’s what a lot of people are looking for. There are so many things out there that people can buy, earn, whatever… I had someone ask me who my Reiki master was, as if I was being judged by my pedigree or something – that was weird, but actually very real in many people’s perceptions. I’m not about that at all – I’m about easy, accessible empowerment for everyone. Self empowerment, that they can thing bring to others in any way they like – nothing I share would be trademarked or have strictures placed on it. Hehe, I would be OpenSource, like they say about computer programs whose code is given out to anyone who knows what to do with it, to allow them to change it and make new things out of it. I’m not interested in trademarking or pedigreeing or anything like that – I’m way too interested in being Real for that to appeal to me.

You know that whole ‘when the student is ready, the teacher will come’ saying? Well… I’m thinking of taking that to a literal place… I have no idea if this is possible, but… What if I just put myself out there, allowing people who feel inspired and resonate to form groups that then book me to come out and teach/share with them? That the fee or whatever be the traveling costs for me split among them – food, plane ticket or gas, hotel. That I let them choose the venue and pay for it and do all that busy work that I don’t much care for, getting the event together and I just show up?

This is something I can do, now… I kept thinking that I would have to be fully healed and together and to have reached some exalted level of consciousness or something in order to be of service… Or that I would have had to have written lots of books and Become Somebody before I could really teach people anything. But what if another human being, sharing their own pain and triumphs – so similar yet speaking from the other side of having worked through it and triumphed… What if that’s what people are really looking for? A sharing and guiding, more than a teaching/instructing?

I’m not sure, but, this seems to be a culmination of everything I have become…like the natural conclusion for the next new beginning… maybe this is that seed that the Great Round stage was talking about

So… what do you think? Is this something that can be done? Is it something that is worth being done – would people find it useful? Are there things I haven’t thought of?

Normally, when I have a new possibly life-changing idea I cherish it and keep it safe and hidden for a really long time, working out all the details before sharing it with anyone, and only then first sharing it with people I know really well. For some reason – and I honestly don’t know what that reason is – it felt really important to just…put this out there. And see what happens. So, that’s what I’m doing.

There are pieces I don’t have, or something – ideas that people offering opinions can give me that can bring it all together. You, the reader(s) are the glue that would hold this together, and the whole idea is to be OpenSource… It doesn’t get more leading edge, in the moment open source than this.

So please, if you have anything at all you’d like to share, or an opinion, or an idea, or, hehe – if you want to be my first booking, I’ll take that too, hehehe

News from the Now :)

‘ello again!

I’m back to recap s’more, but first – news from the Now My husband got me this really neat book of Mandalas that you color in yourself, for our anniversary (It’s called Coloring Mandalas for insight, healing, and self expression, but Susanne F. Fincher btw!) I began working with it yesterday, and there was a whole section in the front that describes the various stages of what they call The Great Mandala, aka the cycle of life which, spiral-like, repeats as you come to a better and better understanding of your true Self.

I had been outside, enjoying the sun and the sound of the wind and the water gurgling in the fountain, and one of my roomies came and offered me a flower essence to try, rose something… I did, and not long after I felt very floaty and peaceful, even more than I had been already. I went inside, finishing up reading about the various stages while laying down – one of them is described as first occurring while you’re aware yet still in the womb. I thought this was interesting.

I flipped to the first page you could color in the book, and there was a person in the circle, curled in on themselves. I put the book down, suddenly feeling the pressure, the darkness, and a claustrophobic fear of what it had been like. This really surprised me, and I closed my eyes and went with it, to see where it would take me. I had no idea just what was there waiting for me…

I described it to my friend Steve in a text message, and I think I’m just going to go ahead and re-type that out, here… It’s necessarily short being a text message and all, but still very poignant…

Well, I be queen o’sensitivity, right? So, imagine you’re a baby, empathically in touch with your mom, perfectly happy and safe. Then things start to get a little cramped, a little uncomfortably tight in there. You’re too big to stay, but don’t want to leave – but you’re being forced to. Contractions start, and it’s scary and not safe or happy anymore and you feel crushed, not knowing what you did to deserve this. Mom’s there, though, so somehow it’s okay…but still, it doesn’t feel okay. It’s becoming unbearable. You give up on trusting her, or what’s going on, and start to panic, trying to stop it, to get away from the crushing, to stay where you were happy and safe. You are being forced down and out and away from where you want to to be, so you fight it, trying to go up instead. To hide, to remain embraced, unseparated. This came across to the doctors as my trying to breech the womb – this would be bad.

Suddenly you realize that your first act as an aware being must have been some horrible, cardinal sin of some kind, because all of a sudden mom’s gone, and now you’re trapped, crushed…and all because you didn’t trust, because of something you did. (They had put her under, to perform a C section.) So, you’re totally alone for the first time ever in your existence, and suddenly you experience cold for the first time, too, and real pain, and disorientation and bright lights and the hands of strangers – all of it alone, because you dared to act on your own.

I spent the next few years re-enacting that experience… Being beaten and then thrown in dark, cramped closets, sexually abused and tossed in a closet… No pain was worse than knowing that you were the one that destroyed the no-separation…and that you have the ability to do it again if you choose to act and not trust. So, age 2, age 3, age 4, age 6, 9, 15… I experienced over and over and over again letting go and giving up my power and ability to act because I thought not trusting was the unforgivable sin.

It wasn’t until I was 19 that I faced a situation and changed it using my own will, and I was terrified having done it… I’ve been afraid to act at all, to create on my own, ever since. Better to twist my own body to make it so I can’t act and do something unforgivable and punishable by the worst pain/terror I could ever imagine. I didn’t trust myself…my ability to create… On top of this, I carried an inability to relax into comfort and safety. Being comfortable and safe scared me – I’ve believed that that just means something very bad is about to happen, so I’ve forever been on my guard. Against creating/mis-creating, and that fear/on guard state rises even higher when I’ve been comfortable and happy.

Even the back surgery, at the sacral chakra area… a symptom of a fear to create and feel abundant. There are so many unraveling connections and ohhhhhhh’s going on with this it is amazing.

During this recall time, I was there for my baby self, present in the past, and I felt the overwhelm point where my soul fragmented. I’ve healed these before, at each of those points I mentioned above where abuse took place, but I’ve never encountered one so…Big. It was a soundless scream, a wrenching tearing, and as I embraced it a small part of the me in the Now was a little ‘Uh oh…can I do this? This is REALLY big…’

I reaffirmed the presence of my guides and guardian angels and closed my eyes and went into the scream, and I just about lost it as I experienced it together with my baby self, for the first time. See, I fragmented, instead of allowing myself to experience that scream, back as a baby…if that makes sense… I couldn’t handle it back then (and I was barely able to handle it now!) But, using a crystal, relying on my adult self and my guides, I embraced that scream back into myself, into my lungs and heart, and I cried. A lot.

I felt very odd, afterward. Floaty and free, yet unsure of who I was… I felt okay, elated by what I had done, but I knew I needed to be sure to give myself some extra TLC. I knew there was more to come – putting humpty dumpty back together again can be an arduous process, and my foundation had received such a rocking, I knew much sifting, sorting and resettling was going to be going on… so I went and got a nice easy dinner for myself, and some cuddle socks I had been really wanting from the Life is Good store.

I was scared to go to sleep that night, last night… The dark was darker, and the alone was aloner… I finally did fall asleep, and when I woke up today I was in a major funk. I questioned all my choices, even being in Sedona. I questioned all of my creations, in other words, the last vestiges of an ego fragment leaving the building is usually it putting up a last ditch effort to convince you that you can’t live without it Knowing this helped surprisingly little, though…

I did qigong, sat in the sun, took a walk, drank lots of water, cuddled in my socks, napped, ate extra chocolate, and questioned everything I did for at least half the day. The fear voice was having a heyday, making me question everything. It was interacting with people, doing healing work on second life, talking to Pat last night and Keith and Steve today, interacting with my roomies and doing thing that I know I’m good at that shifted me out of it.

That and beginning to color the mandala I had seen. It showed the cramped person actually being gently held by a cloaked figure. I put a little smile on the cramped person’s face, and she began to look more like she was so relaxed that she was resting in an odd position, rather than being crushed…held gently by this cloaked figure. I gave her golden red hair and blue eyes and a green smile…

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring… how I’ll feel, what I’ll do… I recognize I’m in the stage the Mandala book referred to as Fragmentation… The next stage, if I follow in order, will be Transcendent Ecstasy. I really like the descriptions for the stages, so I’ll share them here, straight from the book

Fragmentation, stage 11, continues the entropy begun in the Gates of Death. This stage is about challenges to your body, and much more. What began as endings in the outer world continue here as a destructuring of your ego to the point that you may feel like a stranger to yourself. (I’ll vouch for that ) This is all a necessary prelude to a major reorganization of your ego. For many this stage is profoundly disturbing, ad they find their belief in the ultimate order of things is challenged. It is not unusual to feel dizzy or nauseated when experiencing this stage.

Your understanding of the nature of reality may be changed by what you experience here in Fragmentation. It may seem that ou have completely lost contact with the Self, but the chaos experienced here is really orchestrated by the Self. The disorganization speeds the letting go that is necessary before your ego cn be restructured in a stronger, mroe complex pattrn in keeping with your potential for wholeness. The Spanish mystic Saint John of the Cross knew this stage well. He described it as the Dark Night of the Soul. This stage can bring you intense spiritual experiences.

Transcendent Ecstasy, stage 12, reflects the blissful experience that folllows the struggle of the previous stage. It comes as the result of embracing the limitations of the physical body and stepping beyond into a much larger dimension where spirit permeates and supports everything. In this stage, you experience the freedom of transcending beliefs that ha become too narrow for you. It is the gift of old age and those rare moments of ecstasy earlier in life. You knowingly surrender our ego to th e care of the Self, and yu are rewarded with a glimpse of ultimate reality, a sense of the divine order and your rightful place within it. On a spiritual level, stage 12 is a moment of understanding the divine through direct experience, rather than by intellect. It is a moment to be treasured as the essence of your circling the Great Round. Take it with you like a seed to be planted in the darkness for your next beginning in stage 1, the Void.

I think, tomorrow, I’ll color in the cloaked figure with a little green smile and gold aura, too…

Hehe, and now I’m so sleepy I don’t feel like recapping anymore, so, I tink I’ll just change the title of this to News from the Now instead of Part 2, and return to recapping tomorrow or the next day. I will explain the next one, though! It’s a short one

Intentional Intentions

Before I left on the road trip to Sedona, I said a prayer, made a request of my higher self, god, etc. I asked to please be put in touch with those people that I was intended be put in touch with…that I was open to experiencing people, and healing and being healed, the whole way. And that’s just what happened, and turned out to be the fodder for almost all of the really cool stories to follow.

Memoirs from the Half-Way Point :) Part 1

Yay! I have arrived! I arrived in Sedona on Thursday, the first of November. Unpacked and got my room set up the way I like, got a few groceries and got all settled in, and then I realized – it’s time to go back and recap! But first – the Now

I’m sitting here on the porch, next to a beautiful little Quan Yin shrine with birds collecting at her feet where seed has been offered, listening to their chirping (hehe, they’re bold little birds, coming right up to the table, too!) and the burble of the fountain a little ways away, feeling the breeze in my hair and sun basking.

It’s very peaceful here…time slows down and you find yourself naturally just moving with the rhythm of inspiration… I can actually feel when my mind kicks in and goes linear fear/worry… I’m realizing that’s new, this in the moment awareness of the difference between going with the flow being/feeling/thinking and trying to make the flow happen.

I’ve very much felt, the whole way, that this trip, this whole experience, has been a rite of passage for me. Every rite of passage has its own specially created challenges, entirely personal to the participant. Mine, I’ve found, is fear, specifically a fear that I won’t be able to take care of myself, cunningly tied in to the old pattern of dis-ease being the answer to this – a pattern I learned very early on from my mother… If you show yourself to be too sick to be capable, it’ll be done for you and you’ll be taken care of. That way you’ll have an excuse not to have to do things you don’t want to… the catch is, you won’t have the ability to do things you want to do, either!

So, as you can imagine, this trip across the country has triggered all kinds of things! Including releasing the final vestiges of the fear of driving that my dad instilled (I didn’t get my license til I was 27). I felt that fear rise up like a mythical dragon, VERY powerful, when I had the thought that I should teach myself to use the cruise control. My dad’s voice was soooo loud, “You’ll get in an accident and kill someone and it’ll be expensive!”

It was like pushing a boulder uphill to actually do it, like it wanted to roll back into complacency. A new energy rose up in me, however, and I said, “I can handle this. This fear is not real, I am capable, and I choose to ignore you and believe in myself.” And it was so easy! And Sooooooooo good for the trip – 2,237 miles. I now love cruise control.

Again the fear rose up toward the end of the trip, as I was passing through the mountains. I was going down a STEEP grade. 98a into Sedona, 27 miles of winding downhill. There were a lot of cars on the road and my car kept wanting to get away from me and go way too fast. I was riding the brake, and remembered Keith, my husband, telling me that you can put it into second gear and let the engine do the braking for you.

Again, that rolling a boulder uphill, the fear voice saying I could ride the brake the whole way down just like the people in front of me… It was tempting…why do something scary if you don’t have to? I almost didn’t do it, the twists and turns were so fast I barely had time to look down to make sure I knew where second was. But I knew there was a better way of doing this…so, I did it.

And it was so easy! I even did a little victory dance in the driver’s seat for myself And then, get this, the fear voice sent me an image of a referee throwing a little yellow flag at me for excessive celebration! Hehe. I danced anyway – and kept my eyes on the road

There have been other challenges of the fear variety, very much of the flavor that was brought up when I was at the Qigong workshop. And I used the mantra/mindset I discovered at that time to flow through it – “This is what I want to do. This is how I can do it, even if only a little bit, right now.” For instance, I felt it to be a part of my journey here to unload the car myself, and to move the furniture around in my room myself, etc…

Almost as if I was triggering the ‘I can’t!’ voice on purpose – the ‘I can’t!’ voice that has used any dis-ease I may experience as a reason. ‘If you feel bad enough, you won’t have to!’ The dis-ease that the ‘I can’t!’ voice has been tenderly fostering and maintaining on a subtle level for years…

Well I can. And I will. There’s a new way of being, not my mother’s or my father’s. It’s mine, and I’m discovering it organically, by shedding the old ways and allowing new more powerful ones to replace them. Dis-ease has no place in my way of being, that’s for sure. It had a way in my mother’s, as a source of power…as a source of creation by manipulating circumstances instead of creating them.

I don’t have to be a passive, power through powerlessness creator. And I don’t have to be an aggressive, power through pushing it through and making it happen creator, either… I’m finding it’s all about inspired action, in the moment. Allowing your sense of stability and control to come from a centered knowing being space, instead of from a pushing, off-balance active space, or a pulling, off-balance passive space. It’s the balanced sweet spot between the masculine and the feminine.

So that’s what I’m playing with, at the moment! So many awesome things happened during the trip! Each one could be a blog entry of it’s own, but, instead of staying in the past for too long, I’m just gonna sum up the really cool part about each thing that happened.

Accidental, Synchronistic Acupuncture

I went downstairs in the middle of the night, the night before I started on the journey, and I wasn’t wearing my slippers. It was 3amish and I wanted a snack and didn’t feel like turning the lights on. I was full of anxiety, fear, thoughts running in circles in my head. I knew for sure that I was going, but on many levels I couldn’t believe it. I was, in a word, a wreck.

I got my snack, and on the way back to the stairs I stepped on something that crunched underfoot. Figuring it was cereal or something, I just shook it off and continued on my way. The stairs were sticky, oddly enough…and then dry, then sticky. What was going on? Well, it ends up that I had stepped on a piece of glass…right at the heel point. It hadn’t hurt at all, but I was bleeding quite a bit! It ended up being just a tiny puncture wound.

Cleaned up and band-aided, I returned to my room, feeling tons better than I had when I got up for the snack (the heel never did hurt, by the way, and healed remarkably quickly). I was curious about something. That point…it was familiar somehow. I pulled out my acupressure book and looked up the point, and, yep! Anxiety releasing point, right where it had been punctured! Feeling well taken care of by the universe, I went back to bed, and slept soundly the rest of the night.

Hmmmm… I want to write more, but not really. Hehe. The sun has gotten high and it feels like it’s time to move on, for now. I’ll write more soon!

Intentional Intentions

‘That’s what change is supposed to be like…’

Failing Forward at the Perkins

Close Encounters of the Ghostie Kind in Marshall, Indiana – no, wait – Marshall, Illinois

‘See you on the grid!’

Saint Louis – Migun Bed Meetings and Laser Light Acupuncture

Deep Change in Independence, Kansas – Cranial Sacral, ‘When you’re tapped vs. when you’re not,’ and Choices: Life and Death

N.E.T. – Fast, Deeply Effective Release