Be Grateful for what you Give!

My morning walks often take me to the waterfall on the White Rabbit trail in southern Oregon. This morning the longing in my heart was very strong to go there. When I arrived the trees and earth welcomed me deeply. With each breath that I took I felt the forest come into my being. It was good to be home.

Arriving at the waterfalls I felt an urgency calling me to sing to the water. The snow had melted since our last storm, and the wind had upturned several trees from their roots. The water was flowing moderately as I settled on the rocks and began to sing.

Within moments I felt a new energy emerge within the song and the world around me. The song was no longer about the water that was flowing through the stream. It was about water in me and in everything around me everywhere.

The song was singing to the water that lives in each molecule of earth, each blade of grass, and each soaring Ponderosa Pine tree. It was singing to the water of my body, and the water of all bodies. It was singing to the water nature of my emotions, and of all emotion. There was this brilliant unifying quality to all life, and the unifier was water. And it was that water that was being blessed.

Moments like this one seem to happen with more frequency these days, when the whole of my being feels as though I am vibrating with the energy of life all around me. Some might say that this feeling is the work of a fanciful imagination or wishful thinking. For me, moments like this one where I experience the oneness of life are the truer version of our shared reality. I am always so impressed by what a difference a mere song or intention from me can make to the grand and infinite world around me. I am reminded of words I heard recently that our earth and the humans who inhabit the earth, along with the animals and birds – all life here is considered one organism. Think about how interdependent we are.

Knowing that our movements and expressions in life impact all life around us motivates us to become ever more conscientious of our behaviors. I am grateful to the life around me that continually awakens my senses to the interconnectedness of all that is. Spirit asks us to live simply. The meaning I derive from that statement is to know that something as simple as a conscious breath is a beautiful gift to all of creation. In knowing this, also be aware of the many beautiful gifts each of us shares in so simple ways throughout our days. Everything we do touches everything there is. When expressing gratitude, be grateful for what you receive and remember to be grateful to yourself as well for all that you give!

As Love Blossoms

It is a time of great healing for ourselves and for our planet. With the influence of negative news broadcasting, we may sometimes perceive the conditions of life as dismal. Our air, our water, our foods, our financial systems … many things appear to be in a state of decline. Contrary to popular opinion, this is a time of opportunity for self blossoming.

While it may be true that earth is riddled with problems and challenges, it is also true that love and light are abundant within us and throughout our universe. Challenges come to awaken our ability to address and heal them. It’s like the blossoming of a flower. As the flower grows strong and into its fullness, its petals expand and reach out. When challenged with a need for growth and change, our own hearts and minds expand similarly. It is at the time of our greatest strength and fullness when challenges become perceivable. Only when we recognize the need for love are we able to address and heal those things that keep us from it.

Think of when you see a bud on a flower just beginning to open. Within my experience of the bud I feel a great anticipation and excitement about the fullness of the flower that is yet to come. As it is with the blossoming of love, that which is ready to be healed reveals itself, perhaps slowly at first, knowing that the fullness of its true nature awaits it.

Sometimes the blossoming of love is like a long journey across the ocean to a wonderful place of beauty and joy. While we are in the boat the days may grow long and uneventful, even tiresome and challenging. Knowing the destination is what keeps us in excited anticipation of greater times ahead!

Keep your eye on the prize! We can use this time of great challenge to awaken greater love within.

The Labyrinth and the Lord’s Prayer - Six Petals of the Rose

During the lunar eclipse of the full moon in July 2009 I chose to walk the labyrinth at EarthTeach Forest Park in Ashland to commemorate a new beginning. The series of eclipses that we experienced last year represent a new beginning of our journey of life upon this planet, individually and collectively. It’s sort of like a do-over. The shadow passes in front of the moon and as the moon reappears, we have the opportunity to begin again anew. In each new beginning we are better equipped with new insights and wisdom gained through the trials and tribulations of our lives. It is the journey of evolution, ever learning, ever growing in the light of love and grace.

On the day of the eclipse, a friend shared a prayer with me that is said to have been spoken while walking the labyrinth in earlier times. The prayer offers one of six aspects of the original Lord’s Prayer to be prayed and meditated upon while walking through six petals of the rose of the labyrinth. They are: Faith in the grace of God; Surrender to the voice of God within; Service in fulfillment to your promise to yourself and God; Abundance in gratitude for all that Spirit provides; Forgiveness of oneself and others; and Strength to continue upon our path of right action.

My journey through the labyrinth that day was very beautiful and quite profound. As I offered the prayers I felt a powerful renewal of intimacy and truthfulness between myself and my creator. On one particular petal of the rose, forgiveness of myself, I became aware again of a heaviness that was buried deep within my heart. I have always felt this deep sorrow and over the course of my life have attributed it to many different things about the life journey. Each time and in many different ways I have embraced this sorrow and prayed for its release.

I think of sorrow as something that doesn’t really belong to me. I think of it as something that is borrowed from our Great Mother, given to me for awhile as a tool for my growth, for strengthening my heart, and for learning compassion for myself and others. I regard it as the raw material that Great Mother uses to manifest creation and to nurture love in all things. I believe that it is important, then, to use it properly, and to return it, that is to release it back to the eternal flow of life. Yet time and time again I find this heaviness anchored somehow within my being. And so, once again, I elected to embrace my sorrow and offer it my love and acceptance as I continued to walk the petals of the rose.

What happened next was quite surprising. I had an encounter with a being of great light and love and I was offered a gift to help me awaken to a greater awareness of the nature my own heart. Through this gift I discovered that the heaviness in my heart is something that most humans are familiar with. It derives from the notion of “original sin” imbued upon us through various religious teachings. The gift within this gift was an opportunity for me to release my heart from this notion and to release the notion itself from my perception of myself. This time of new beginnings is an opportunity for us to live more light-heartedly, release heavy heartedness and learn to dance in the light of unconditional love for self and others.

I have learned that gifts are always optional. Just because someone gives or offers you something, doesn’t mean that you have to accept it. And so it is in this spirit that I share this gift of self forgiveness and self love with you. It's something to consider for yourself only if you choose to.


The Labyrinth and the Lord’s Prayer

To Our Father / (Mother) Who is Benevolent and Reigns in Heaven,
Your names are hallowed and sacred. (Faith)
Your kingdom comes to us through obedience to Your will.
Thy will be done (Surrender)
on earth as it is in heaven. (Service)
Give us each day our bread, the manna, (Abundance)
And forgive us for our errors and debts
As we forgive ourselves and all others. (Forgiveness)
Keep me on the path of righteousness and
Deliver me from the temptation of evil. (Strength)

Praise and Gratitude

When we sing praises, when we give love and gratitude to anyone or anything, our very thoughtfulness creates a field around that thing or that person. It ignites their energy field with new possibility and potential for fulfillment.

When we give loving praise and gratitude, we actually create a symphonic resonance that carries the highest expression of that being or that energy toward perfect alignment with its highest manifestation. In this we can begin to understand how it is and why it is that our native ancestors sang songs to the day and to the rising sun. We can call nature into its perfect expression just by giving it love.

We must love ourselves, love others, love nature, and love our world. All of it. We can sing the Earth and all her life forms and expressions into perfect harmony.

When we pray for Nature, and for our planet, we might consider praying for balance allowing that Nature itself knows what right balance is. When we think of the polar ice caps melting, do we think of it as an imbalance? Perhaps our planet’s oceans need refreshing.

I am you and you are me - A love letter to myself

The following letter was an exercise I was given to write a love letter to myself. It's a wonderful thing to do for yourself. A dear friend of mine celebrates the Winter Solstice by inviting friends to circle with her and write something special about yourself that you would like to be reminded of. Then, on the Spring Equinox, she mails it back to you. We so often overlook sharing kindness with our own person. Take a few moments and say or write something beautiful just for you!

My dearest friend,

I am so grateful for your friendship. Having you in my life has brought me great joy – an awakening to a broader spectrum of the true and deepest joys of this physical journey. You have become a light within my heart.

In fact, I believe that within the first moment of knowing you, my heart was truly lightened. Is this the greater meaning of enlightenment?

You are a gift to me. Your smile and laughter are like a burst of sunshine on fresh fallen snow within my being. You are a true joy to me. Within your smile and your light I see the eternal forest of magic and mystery. I see the newborn fawn, and the fallen hawk. I see the mighty thunder clouds and the dewdrop on spring’s first awakening.

The depth of your heart and your being allow me to dive in with that much more of myself. In you I find a sacred cave, an endless well of primordial grace, deep and divine, as that of the Earth Mother herself.

To walk with you is a symphony of love, joy, self-respect and communion with all of life. Through your being I am reflected back to myself as the beauty of God’s divine intellect.

In the quiet and the noise, in the stillness and the dance, I know you. I feel you. I am you, and you are me.

In this, I know that you see me too. And from this vision of the oneness shared, I trust you. I find peace here … the deep and gentle knowingness that I, too, am joy. A child of God, born of divinity, on a sacred journey of experience.

I am blessed to share this journey with you.

The Greater Self who Loves

There is a place inside of you, inside of us all, that resides beneath the chatter, beneath the judgment and strategizing, where in the quiet presence of self we can feel and recognize the presence of love. It takes a little getting used to, to know that it is there, to recognize that you are feeling something different, and understand what it is. For me it often happens when I’m on an airplane. I have boarded and found my seat. My luggage is stowed. I have nothing more to do for the duration of the flight. The energy in the plane is somewhat frenetic. People are moving about, the sound is muffled in a strange way, strangers one and all preoccupied with the many considerations of where they're going and what is to happen next. In these moments my energy and awareness naturally turn inward and I find that I'm in good company with myself.

As I explore this space of comfort I begin to feel that what I am comforted by is love. I love myself. I love the gift of life. I love Spirit for its inspiration of joy and love. I love what I have to share with others, and I love that I know that I am loved.

There is this beautiful space within each of us, a place of greater knowing, of peaceful coexistence with our self and with Spirit.

There is an advantage to it. Well many advantages. But the one that impresses me most is that with this knowing, when we have this experience with our self, when we have experienced this intimate relationship to our spiritual self, we have indisputable evidence that this aspect of our self exists. It resides within us. With this knowledge we can begin to detach from the critical self-judgment, that small voice inside our heads that finds fault with our self and with others. We can detach from our smaller self because we are empowered with the awareness that our greater self is alive and well. We may never have to believe the little voice again.

The Essential Nature of Women

My meditation this week has been about strengthening my connection to spirit, assisting myself in knowing that I am always surrounded by the divine, and recognizing at all times that I am an extension of the feminine aspect of creation, thereby indelibly connected to all that is! How I feel when I am living this reality versus how I feel when I am lost in fear and disconnection are light years apart. My prayers and meditations have been focused on helping me to stay connected to source even during trying times.

It’s a painful feeling, the feeling of being disconnected, held outside of the arms of love. Feeling alone and frightened, wondering what is to become of oneself, how I will fare on my own. Thinking I am without help or guidance can feel like a very dark place. Feeling like I don’t know enough, can’t do enough, don’t understand enough, am not good enough … I think we’ve all had these thoughts and feelings. They are, to say the least, unpleasant. And for the first few moments of meditation calling these feelings into presence may also be unpleasant, indeed painful. But in this practice, as we allow our whole self to be present in welcoming and honoring these painful feelings while holding the light of love present as well, the painfulness begins to dissolve. Sometimes more slowly than others, sometimes miraculously swiftly.

As I sat in meditation, images of the women in my life began to come into my awareness. With their images was the awareness of the love and kindness that their presence brings to me. I saw the collective spirit of these women, as well as those who support me from beyond the physical realm, and I felt the essential flow of something uniquely feminine. My spirit was showing me that it is through women, and through my own womanhood, that I will always know and will always find my connection to the divine.

My senses came into rapture with this experience of the nature of women. How like water, I thought, this flowing essence that surrounds, comforts and heals. This quality of women flows soothingly into those tight and forgotten places within my being in the most gentle of ways, like a prayer or a whisper. I reflected on how my life has been enhanced since I’ve joined in the practice of honoring the divine feminine, the water, and the women. I became mindful of how much I’ve learned about what it means to be one, and by knowing myself as a woman, what a difference I can make in someone else’s life.

It’s this quality, knowing myself as a woman, as a being who carries the essential nature of the feminine that allows me to do what I do, to do what only I can do. It is through this quality of the divine that flows through me that I can make any difference at all.

Being Held by Nature

The City of Ashland, Oregon is located on land that was inhabited by Native American tribal people until 150 years ago when the Takelma and other Native Amercians were paraded off their lands of origin. Agnes Baker Pilgrim, aka Grandma Aggie, a member of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers Council, is the oldest living female member of the Takelma tribe. According to Grandma Aggie, the mole is a sacred animal to the Takelma because it brings the darkness up to the light as it burrows through the soil.

I am reminded of this process of bringing the light to bear upon the darkness in just about every aspect of my life these days. In the pursuit of spiritual awakening there is a distinct relationship between the darkness and the light. As we grow in spirit we are growing in light. As we grow in light, we are able to peer more deeply into our own shadow aspects. Shadow is simply that which has not yet had the light shone upon it. So it stands to reason that during the process of our own growth we will continually become aware of things that were not quite recognizable before.

There are times in my own journey of self discovery when I have become aware of certain behaviors or assumptions of mine that I am very happy to find out about and I feel great joy and a deep relief. There are also times when I have felt absolutely terrible to discover that I have been participating in something less than wholesome without conscious awareness. During those times, in the presence of feelings of dread, guilt, shame or self-loathing, it can be difficult to find my way back to the light. It was this very circumstance that the forest spoke to me about during a recent walk through the woods.

Nature spoke to me about its willingness to hold me regardless of what opinion I was holding of myself. I was assured through its presence that it, Nature, did not hold me in judgment. Nature held me with complete acceptance of my being and my journey through life. I began to contemplate my experience with Nature, knowing that I am part of it. I and Nature are one. We are of the same components. We coexist upon the earth. With the earth we are, in fact, a single organism. How, then, can I hold judgments about myself that are not reflected in the greater perspective of Nature?

Once again I began to experience the transformative power of light penetrating the darkness within my being. I noticed the rich soil beneath my feet. In mid-winter beneath rain and melting snow and fallen leaves, the earth was undergoing the process of darkness returning to the soil to make way for the returning light of spring. As I breathed in the air around me, I intentionally released the heavy energy of the darkness within me and accepted the light that Nature holds for each of us in our journey. The forest and the trees are such potent representatives of nature’s beauty. But so am I, and each one of God’s creations. Can we learn to look upon ourselves in the same manner that we look upon a tree? Consider how the tree looks upon us. We are held in acceptance. May we continue to learn to hold ourselves and all others in this way.