The Ripple

Right now the moment is all about chopping wood and carrying water, sticking to the simple things in life. This is how we take care of ourselves and our hearts when things get intense and hard to manage in life. Since we are really just one consciousness and are all connected, the events across the globe affects us all deeply whether we have the awareness of it or not. Alot of people seem to internalize this awareness as deep fear that they too will suffer the same or similar fate. People seem to have a hard time connecting with themselves deeply enough to feel the pain of having lost so many souls … so they turn the experience inward on themselves, as if it is them having the catastrophe. It has been hard to have compassion for the people in Japan or the Middle East without also feeling guilty on some level that we have survived, so there is a deep need to create scenarios that "we are next" or that we are also going to suffer some ill fate. What we really need is conscious loving compassion for everyone without the added energy of guilt and fear, just simple compassion which comes from knowing how to care for oneself deeply and without apology.

We are each 100% responsible for the reality that we experience 100% of the time. If you find yourself blaming others for the experience of your life - then please welcome yourself to unconsciousness! … It’s all good. Every single one of us has the unconscious operating in our reality. It is the way we are designed to be, and if you believe that we create the world that we experience, then you should also understand that what you think and say are energies that ripple out into the world all around you. Everything is energy and everyone and everything is affected by you on some level, somehow and somewhere. You’ve all seen the movies where people go back in time and if they change even one tiny little thing, the future is completely altered forever. That is because every seemingly little thing you do, affects others in some way that may not even be known by you at the time. You are a big part of this great life and we need you!

That is why the most beneficial thing you could do for humanity right now and every day is wake up! Wake up to yourself! Wake up to the words you say, the unconscious dialog you share with yourself and the way you internalize your experiences.

Fear is an excellent way to start the process of waking up because fear is an indicator. That is all. It is meant to be acknowledged, said hello to and welcomed as an old friend into the home of your consciousness without judgment and without attachment. There is so much raw potential awareness contained within the shadow of fear, and it is such an incredible opportunity to wake up to what makes you, uniquely you.

But most of us try to find a way to capitalize on fear or share it with the world in an effort to see who is on board with us so that we may feel better about thinking that way in the first place. Fear is a tricky thing; it makes us think it's protecting us by making more fear. But who wins when the whole world is living in fear? It’s partly a way to stay unconscious to what is really happening on different levels for us individually. Yes fear is there to protect us, but at what point does the self protection become unsupportive?

There is something so beautiful about disaster and shocking change. It actually helps us wake up to NOW consciousness. The kind of consciousness that keeps us connected to our hearts instead of our minds and the kind that helps us remember and appreciate the simpler things in life.

Now, even though it may feel like it to some of us, time is not actually speeding up, but creation is! As a global consciousness we have been slowly becoming aware of the term “manifestation” and “intention”. Oprah has made sure of it! We are now able to create faster than we ever were before and we are finally waking up to the awareness that our thoughts create our reality and are doing so on a global scale.

It is imperative that we become aware of the dialog that we share with our self and others. Ask yourself where it is coming from. Is it even yours? Does it belong to someone else? Does it fully resonate with the deepest inner reaches of your heart? Is it coming from guilt? Is it coming from pain? What kind of pain? Where is the pain? When thinking of people affected by devastation or change, ask yourself if what you are sending their way is truly coming from pure unconditional compassion? – Because that is the only kind of compassion that can create a positive result in the world. Not guilty compassion.

If you find it difficult to tune in with yourself to ask these questions, it may be an indicator that you are not nurturing yourself or taking time for yourself enough. Have you ever noticed how rejuvenating a good vacation can be? Or a long walk in nature or even meditation? Answers seem to come where before there were none? That is no accident; we have become so conditioned in this world to constantly be doing for everyone else and completely ignore ourselves. In our culture it is acceptable and often rewarded to behave in such a way... But I have a secret to share with you, unless you are looking to win the self sacrifice award of the year (which you will never receive because you will never, ever do enough to receive it) you might reconsider your motivations in life.

Break the spell. Turn off the mainstream media. Consider what occupies your ears and your eyes and realize that what goes in MUST come out. You are what you surround yourself with. PLAY, LAUGH, SING or DANCE in order to wake up in the moment. Remind yourself why you’re here. Consider that when you feel fear about the world or humanity, it may just be that you are feeling fear about your own life and by sharing this fear in an unconscious way it creates more fear consciousness and injects it into the mainstream of life consciousness - The ripple effect. Know that it is all about you caring for you. It always has been about you - no one else. You are a tiny little version of the entire universe and it is you that needs love, nurturing, support, freedom and time- and you are the only one who can give it to yourself. Otherwise how else can you really help the rest of the world at all?

YOU must BE the change you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi

Meditations on Abandonment, Liminality and Sex

Sometimes when I meet someone with whom I share an intense connection, it generates in me a somewhat deep primitive urge to merge completely with the other. The possibility of climbing inside, moving and pushing their organs apart and completely inhabiting their body simply to witness their being as it moves consciously and unconsciously through the world seems intriguing at a minimum. I want to know the other, in ways that mere conversation cannot always satisfy.

In our culture we have learned that when such feelings arise, sex is an acceptable way to set the stage for this merger. But what if that was not an available option? What if we played with the idea that our need to merge with another being is something else entirely?

Recently I have met someone with whom I share a deep connection and thus feel this desire to meld with them. As I sit in awe of our connection I am moved to look at my primitive urges and the meaning behind them… after all, I am an eternal six year old constantly asking the universe “why?” as I search for truth.

Abandonment has become a topic of intense discussion between me and the universe as of late. Witnessing how my programming around abandonment plays out intrinsically within my life.  I’ve an awareness of the other, and this awareness exists without me until I believe that I have convinced the other of my worth. Once convinced, the illusion is that I will be granted access to the merging (not necessarily sexually) between myself and them. In between that lies the issue of self worth. That if I am not exactly or at least in some ways what this person ordered as a friend or lover or (insert label here) then I will be rejected. My way around dealing with this has been to only accept into my life those who matched me, my values and beliefs so as not to run into any “unwanted” rejections. Fortunately that has slowly become a very limiting way to live as I discover how very much I love to truly love people.

Since my last post, I have been in deep meditation on this topic. Another person, with whom I share a beautiful connection, brought to the surface my awareness of this programming within me, and for that I am eternally grateful. The breakthrough was predisposed by an event that I was privileged to have been witness too, the ending of a man’s life at what began as an enjoyable evening with a friend. There is something quite beautiful about shock and its ability to launch us into awakening. 

Witnessing a man jump three stories to his death, while contained within a crowd of just under 1,800 people drew me exponentially close to the concept of “all-one consciousness” as it seemed a sort of etheric community building exercise from the universe to have this experience with so many. This inevitably led to the complete awareness of how I and so many others create separation from one another. How we create a separation in our minds and thus our reality between everything outside of us that inevitably leads us to the very thing we do not want, but believe so deeply in - separation.

The state that I found myself in after this event I have learned is called Liminality. One of my favorite writers and truth seekers, Jonathan Zap wrote on this topic, as he points to a fabulous Wikipedia article written about Liminality, and quotes:

 "The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One's sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives.”

I find that we can happen into this state of consciousness in several different ways. Death is one way. Witnessing death or experiencing it within your life is a powerful way that brings forth new awareness from its sometimes painful depths. Another and often more pleasing way, is through Love. While in love, we find ourselves in this ambiguous state where our sense of identity dissolves as we completely open ourselves to the other. In the case of death, we often find ourselves unwillingly being forced open by the hand of fate and with Love we can be very willing to open ourselves to fate with another, to be able to take in more love.

When I met this new being there was a sense of familiarity that was undeniable, although I had never met this person in my life. When we connect with each other, I find myself baring my soul as if I am picking up right where it was that we had once left off. As if we grew up together and were witness to each of our lives and somehow lost touch. This sense within me gives way to a feeling of disappointment when I discover that their life and my life have differences that I never would have considered because of that feeling of closeness. And that our dissimilarity seems outwardly, to be enough for us to have very little connection at all.  Interesting to me, we stand together absolved of separation and differences and allowing the energy of appreciation, of Liminality to just be. Suddenly I am face to face with myself, instantly aware of my programmed reactions to being different then another, instantly aware of my perceived separation and instantly aware that I am still, very much accepted by the other.

My only explanation for this is Love. Love is the only force that I am currently aware of that can allow people to look beyond such deep differences and allow for the openness of unknowing… to know that we do not know. To trust that our answers may not be the only answers and that creating openness to another is in effect a sort of lantern in the dark cave of disembodied certainty. 

I’ve come to realize that separation and abandonment are an illusion created by our ego. We want to believe in it so much that we can inadvertently block beautiful potential within our entire lives and on all levels - work, relationships, career and love. When we consider the idea that we are indeed connected to one another, the earth, the water and animals. That we weave ourselves in and out of relation with all these beings and things always and that the package they come in makes little difference as the connection itself. Suddenly our relationship to them changes and we find ourselves opening and merging and becoming one with everything all the time. In that respect sex can in some ways seem so very superficial. 

To Love is an action of consciousness. It is in the doing and the being that we “make love” happen every day. What would happen if we all considered making love without the use of our genitals? Could you be present with what comes up for you? Could you allow yourself to open fully to love anyway?

Merging Duality

It has recently come to my attention that I have been living two lives. In one life I am a fun, energetic, level-headed chick- who enjoys a good glass of wine with friends and perhaps even a mixed drink or two. I enjoy the occasional punk show, parties and a general lack of seriousness for life. I love to make people laugh and enjoy challenging people’s belief systems and social structures to encourage thinking outside the box of their own reality and in turn love being given the same challenge.

In another life I am a very serious spiritual seeker who is extremely sensitive, intuitive, idealistic to the core, and passionate about life and about helping people in recognizing their likeness with god. I do not drink, smoke or go to parties. I am a good girl with glasses, that likes to read… a lot. And I thoroughly enjoy deep intellectual conversation.

In the past, these two lives did not mesh well. They were different, distinct and separate from one another, in reality they were actually one in the same. Sometimes I would live in one life for month’s even years identifying with it as being who "I am".

Then something happened. I suddenly became aware of these two polarities and conscious that I was making one of them wrong and unacceptable because of a preconceived notion of what society and my community would think of me. I found myself hiding a part of myself out of shame and only showing what I considered to be the “finer” points of myself. After all, this other life that I had once actually lived was in fact deemed “bad” by me due to the consistent struggles of being a teenager growing up in LA… and a sensitive one at that. There was an imbalance in myself that was creating an imbalance in my relationships and consequently, in my world.

Until this point I had been attracting a certain type of person into my life. Particularly men who also were serious and sensitive (feminine archetype) like me, but lacked the energetic spark of the more peripheral oneness with life (masculine). My life was so much about depth and truth and seriousness that I often missed FUN! Movement! Energy! Life! And LIVING! Do not get me wrong… this life suited me perfectly for a long time. But as the wheel of life turns, it slowly stopped working for me and I felt like something was desperately missing.

Suddenly I had a new point of view. It was time to start livin’! I gave myself permission to blare punk rock and gangster rap as loud as I could out of my car windows while driving in the summer sun, unafraid of whom might hear it and think poorly of me. I went out to a bar and got drunk with a friend to the point where I was pole dancing with a tree. I started working out. I began to wake up every morning and dance my ass off in my living room to the Black Eyed Peas. I did things without thinking and I did things without feeling and suddenly I let go of the need to be a perfect spiritual being. I realized that not only do I love to have fun, it's also not bad. I realized that the culmination of my experiences as a child / teenager and what I identified myself with back then, made me into whom I am today. (Which I think is pretty awesome.) So I decided to try to figure out how to merge the two sides of myself into one coalescing whole.

Interestingly, this new point of view attracted a new type of man into my life. Exactly the opposite of my usual bloke… (serious and “deep thinking” math genius sort of guys). Instead this one is decidedly masculine and definitely knows how to have fun. This was relatively scary for me. Perhaps he would discover my more serious side and decide I was too much for him. Perhaps I would go off the deep end with so much fun that I would lose myself. Through him, I was able to have reflected back to me what was missing and out of balance in my life and suddenly I fell in love with the idea of having a masculine force complement my feminine nature- not only through him, but through myself as well. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before and I loved it. What I realized through my connection with him is that we each have within us the divine masculine (movement, extroverted, action) and feminine (intuitive, introverted, flow) archetype. Each part needs to be recognized within us. When we fragment this within ourselves due to judgment of either one, we stop flow, we stop living.

Life is meant to be lived and we are perfect exactly as we are. What we consider to be "bad" is relative and in direct proportion to our own personal experience within life and good is all around us if we are willing to look hard enough to find it. Also having faith that we are always exactly where we need to be to learn the lessons that will get us to become more whole and present with our individual, intrinsic nature as a blissful and dynamic representation of god. After all, that is our true nature.

We are all perfect exactly as we are.

When we truly see this and deeply know this… we can unabashedly start living life from a place of celebration and wholeness. Life becomes a journey and a mystery waiting to be lived without judgment. It is the judgment that stops life and flow because the judgment creates tension in what you deeply desire for yourself. When we are in the flow using our heart to guide rather than our mind life just happens for you… instead of to you.

Heartfelt Authenticity

The morning brings such peace. Within it exists the energy of renewal. Here we take a moment to be quiet and relaxed and think about what moves we will make in our coming day to better our future....or not. Perhaps we decide to just be. In the quietness we can discover so much.

Today I am in contemplation of what it means to be authentically myself in all possible situations.

Growing up in the big city I have learned many defensive tactics and strategies to help me navigate my way. Among them are the theoretically hidden tactics of acting one way when I am feeling something entirely or even slightly different. It is a defensive measure I was taught to take, to protect myself from a perceived or supposed threat. Over time this tactic turned in on itself and before long it was out of control. It becomes difficult to know really what we are actually feeling and even in some ways, who we really are. Deep inside we are all just playful children at heart and within this heart exists the true authenticity that is our passion, our fire, our soul. This blog is a call to that fire.

If we did not live in fear, independently or collectively how would we act? Who would we be as a society... as a planet? If some of us did not live in fear that our every word and action might be potentially scrutinized or judged what would we do or say to one another?

Judgment is defined in the dictionary as- "the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind." What then is it called when a feeling comes from the heart? Albert Einstein said, "The only real valuable thing is intuition." So where then does judgment fit into our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters if we are truly listening and in constant awareness of our hearts? Not only does it not fit, but it serves as a compelling reason not to fear it happening to us. If the heart speaks our truth, then we must also accept that the mind is an organ that is often used for entirely wrong reasons. Our brain is not designed to feel. That is the job of our heart. I propose that we stop thinking and start feeling!

What does your heart want to say to you? To the world?

"Your heart is free, have the courage to follow it." - Braveheart