The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

I want to share something with you. There is a lot of intense cosmic energy going around these days. Seems we are all being challenged to be more open-hearted.

I don’t generally do guided meditations, but if you’d like after you read this sit and give it a try and leave a comment to let me know how it worked for you.

Remember a time you were in the most beautiful landscape you can recall. The beach, the mountains, the desert. Whatever the case may be. Remember what the air felt like. Remember what the sky looked like. Remember the sound and feeling of that space. Feel what a lack of responsibility you have for making it happen. Feel how you had to do nothing but appear to experience the magic of it all. There is nothing that needed to be done.

Then imagine that the landscape around you feels the same sense of wonder at your existence, the same sense of appreciation that you are here.

It is so clear to me now that I am an empath and have always been. I don’t know about various types of empaths or what it all means. I just know I work that way. And that understanding gives a whole new context to the difficulties I’ve had in life, particularly in relationships. People don’t act from their feelings; they hide feelings. They don’t appreciate someone looking into their soul. It’s stupid because we all want to be loved and understood – until we are. Granted, I haven’t handled my talent very well in the past. I got angry when I couldn’t get my friends to pull these two halves – action and emotion – together. I thought it meant that they hated me. Why did they keep lying to me? But now I see it isn’t and never was personal. They really don’t know any better.

Most humans walking the face of the earth have *no* idea how they feel, including humans that I love. Except kids. Kids are awesome. Kids can talk about feelings and feel feeling and learn how to use emotional power and they are so generous in doing so. They have no fear of running out of what they are. So it makes me sick that socially we teach them that their feelings are horrid shameful things they need to control. We teach people to repress their emotions until they choke and die on them. Seriously, it takes awhile but that’s what it does.

The problem I have now is the way we support each other socially. It’s full of bullshit. And while I have always been able to feel others, I am acutely aware of it right now. The way people violate each other’s borders in work situations and project personal problems onto colleagues or fears about themselves on to others. A vicious gossip, for example, is usually just voicing all the things they are afraid someone is saying or going to say about them. I want to go up to them, hug them, and tell them no one is judging them even though they are the “problem.” Because I can feel how much pain and fear they are carrying around and they don’t need it. They aren’t going to be able to release it onto others. They only multiply it that way. And they are fine if only they would let themselves be.

At least now I know some grounding exercises and how to give myself the space I need to clear out my own emotional channels. Apparently, its normal to go through this stage where society is just not something you want to engage with. I mean, a customer in line who huffs at the clerk – I can feel what that person is really angry about and why they want to vent on a minimum wage employee who has to take it. I can feel both sides. I’m tired. But I know what is going on for the first time in my life.

Apparently, I am a healer too. Not sure how that works. Not going to worry about it. It will unfold naturally and it already is happening naturally. At a birthday part over the weekend, my daughter stepped on a tack. She was crying and I held her and I put my hand over the puncture mark. I could feel the pain and I took it.

That is what I have done at so many points in my life – felt the pain of others and took it as my own. That is not what I am trying to do any longer. Because being able to absorb pain is one thing; using that talent in awareness to heal people is another. I’m still growing my new layer of skin. The first step is always – heal yourself first.

Namaste.

So, I finally wrote my letter to the version of me who hadn’t done PN. Its strange to realize my life has a new context, even my past. Not that the context is at all new. Just that I am more aware of what always was. Oh, and apparently cursing is good for fire chi. Sweet.

Dear me,
My whole life I sensed I was kicked out of some mysterious tribe. I felt alienation and a vague sense of survivor’s guilt. Recently I had a woman I just met scream at me “bullshit, bullshit” and tell me I was “a fucking liar” when I answered her question “where are you from?” An anesthesiologist told me as I went under for surgery that it was an affectation, the way I spoke. My soul mate, when I told him that people kept asking me what country I was from said “I bet you enjoy that.” Here he was: my home. God, I missed him for so long. And he implies I enjoy the exile.

Bullshit. The whole above paragraph is crap, but I write it so you know that I know where you’re coming from. Why is it crap? Because it’s written from a perspective where someone else has the power to tell you you’ve arrived, that you belong, that you are you. How in the hell can anyone do that until you understand who you are and take the next step of just fucking being that? No one is ready and waiting to ax you for existing. Drop the story. When you are tired enough, you will drop the damned story.

I thought I needed a story to explain myself. I thought I should make up a country to say I’m from so I’d have an answer when people pester me about my origins. I thought I needed to rename myself. I always thought that, but especially after my divorce. Not take a name back, but make a new name for that alter-ego me. The real me. The rejected me. Sort out that accepted me. My lost tribe. But that’s all crap. The part of me I thought was unacceptable, the part I thought needed to be explained…what am I talking about…I don’t come in pieces.

Trust me, you self future, when I tell you that love is real and that the only way love has ever come to you is by coming to you. It isn’t a missing piece of you. It isn’t an attraction designed to push your buttons. You can push your own buttons when you’re up for it. No one is out to get you. You don’t need to save the world. You are not a problem to be fixed. No one is trying to make you pass a test. The only thing that anyone who ever loved you wanted from you was you. Your beingness. Yeah, that’s enough and more than you can dream so don’t huff it off as silly spiritual talk.

You have no idea what healthy borders are. I get the story as to why; the Mom and the Dad and the relationships and the hurt feelings of life. Sorry, but so what? You’re grown-up now and none of that stuff ever has to happen again. So stop replaying it in your head. You’re going to find someone who can teach you some practical ways to keep it in perspective. Its simple stuff and, yes, you are a bit of a genius, but try something new. Try not to be such a know-it-all on the subject of yourself.

Have a little faith. Have faith in all the things you don’t know about you. Because no one is going to step up and give you your place in the world. You’re already here. Set your borders. Respect the borders. And, by God, have some fun existing.

People have told me I’m from everywhere from Russia to Japan. You know what? I’m right here. Exactly where I belong. I don’t care what the story is. A story is a story. Being is a whole other state. PN teaches you the difference. So, get to work.

Good luck,
Me

I’ve been trying to write out a summary of my soul mate connection experience. Steve said it’s an important part of the process for me to close that loop. And I appreciate that. But there are too many synchronicities going on for me to get a full perspective of it all.

I started this blog when I reconnected with my soul mate because I thought for sure I was insane. And if I was insane, wasn’t it the responsibility of the collective to steer me towards sane again? I made the tagline for this site “a living social media experiment.” I wrote my own privacy policy. I shared way more information about myself than I ever had before. I felt I had to because I couldn’t make sense of all the emotion.

Instead of finding rejection or ridicule, instead of getting the “crazy”
verdict I was waiting for, I found companions and encouragement, many through this blog. Well, a bit of ridicule and rejection as well. But only one of those voices came directly at me. And I am so surprised by how many voices of encouragement I’ve found by sharing the unshareable parts of my self.

I started taking self portraits and wondering where all that feeling came from, the feeling and the faces. How can one person have so many faces? Each expression is a new person.

Today, I went to the email folder where I kept all the messages he and I have exchanged over the past year. 777 to date. I could have sworn that number was higher last time I looked.

A soul mate connection isn’t one event or one relationship. It’s an opportunity to be aware of them all. It isn’t my event. It’s an awakening. I’m not amped up with crazy root energy. I’m not blissed-out by some sudden insight into connectedness. I’m kind of amazed that I took on that journey, like Alice in Wonderland. But it isn’t a story, its my life. I’m grateful to be living.

Tomorrow is the third birthday party this week. I was thinking it won’t be long before my contemporaries migrate into needing three packs of candles to be purchased to light one cake. The two grown-ups this week were two packs minus a few. I bought the cakes for both. Me and my girl picked them out together. She pushed the candles in; licked them when she pulled them out; and assisted with the singing and blowing in between.

Tomorrow, my friend’s magical girl turns 7. She fills up the missing candles. She walked the creek with me. She wanted to walk to the ocean when she did it. Longest creek walk I’ve taken so far was under her direction.

I went to the creek just now. Its fuller from the storms. Fresh rocks in the stream. Cloudy. I wonder where the fish will appear next?

I sat and felt the core of my emotions. As I walked back home, I thought about my past year, about this journey, about how scared and confused I was when it started. And then I remembered my past life reading.

I got birth days and death days mixed up. No matter which,
happy birthday, Son of the Moon.

I’ve reached a new level of awareness in terms of my own energy management, a new vibe you could say. And the last few days have been kind of odd. Its like I am a bug that shed its exoskeleton and people are responding to me as if I am still in that shell. Its OK, just strange.

I’ve learned to dive under the waves that come my way so I can get past the breakers. I look back and see people running into the ocean greeting waves with their face.

I shared my experiences with Steve Gunn who has been helpful in guiding me into this awareness. And he said this is part of the process with Ptsen-Nuh. I’m so grateful to have tools available to help me as I navigate this ocean of energy we all play in. And I know whatever the next wave is coming my way, I don’t have to greet it face-first.

I sat with myself for awhile last night, letting the changes sink in, letting myself appreciate the moment I find myself in now. Accepting that as these old connections release, I am making room for new ones. It is as if the new ones already exist but just haven’t caught up with physical reality yet. I felt a pleasant tingling and a sense of pride. Not my pride, but someone’s pride for me. The Universe isn’t ever “proud.” Then, I realized it was B. She was with me in the hard times I faced last year. She didn’t like how other people responded to me at the time. She wanted to give her support. And she hugged me and told me how very proud she was of me and how far I’ve come.

I could go back and edit this blog. I dont’ have the same “issues” or views as I did in the past. But I made a conscious decision not to do that when I started this blog. Because even though many of the posts here are empty exoskeletons, they do reflect where/what I once was. And who am I to judge that? Perhaps someone can find inspiration, a sense of companionship, or hope and motivation to keep on walking the path they are on by seeing the shells that mark the place I once was.

Namaste.

The Universe writes poetry. I wish everyone could read it. It’s more than I can write.

Cicadas, cardinals, numbers, vibrations in the air; they talk to me. I can’t justify it. I can’t write it all. I’ll try to write a bit.

I’ve been seeing the number 117 lately. I’ve read a bit about numerology and sacred geometry. I understand numbers 0-9. And patterns, like 111 or 333 or 555 . Or orders like 123 or 321 as the case may be. I’ve paid attention and found these signals useful to me at times. But 117 was giving me a problem. One is unity. Seven is love. Is it unity unity love? Sounds great, but I wasn’t feeling it so I kept searching. Finally, I found a site that interpreted it as the number 9 (1+1+7=9). Nine is the number of wholeness or completion. As one site put it, nine could signal the end or start of a cycle. And that rang true to me.

This evening I received a suspicious letter in the mail. It wasn’t even sealed. And when I opened it I read information that was shared with me with the sole intention of causing as much widespread pain and disruption as possible with what is really an innocuous bit of content (an invasion, ironically, or someone else’s privacy, not my own). My energy spiked because of the vicious and violent intent of the letter sender. It gave me insight into others conversations about me at a time when I was having a really hard time. I scanned the document and forwarded it to its true intended audience. Maybe I should have shredded it.

It wounded me and I had to wonder why. I was going through such a bad patch at that time. I could understand the perspectives expressed by the people discussing me, people who were being abused by the person sending the letter. But that’s all so removed from me.

I finished my cycle. Done. It was like fireworks marking the end of a long soiree. That’s not my life any more. I was there and now I’m not. It was like the Universe used his meanness to let me know just how far I’ve come in less than a year.

Poetry. 117 was the signal before the works went off.

It’s not the best example of poetry. It has suspicion in it albeit just an illusion. Maybe next I should write about the cicadas. There’s one knocking on my window now. Or the moth with the gold dust under its wings. There is such beauty around us. Every moment we converse with the Universe, conscious or not. And the Universe responds to us. No, it won’t give us everything we want. Frankly we don’t often want what’s good for us.

I visit the creek every day. I have a few favorite spots. Sitting the other day I imagined putting a fence around a particular section, setting up a café table on the rocks, and inviting friends over. They would all say “Wow, this is a nice place!” That makes me laugh.

It’s funny how we divide things; minutes and nations and all the rest. Because there are natural cycles, we are part of these natural cycles. We have free will (or free won’t), but how much of that will/won’t has been misplaced in measuring what can only be roughly predicted (or better, what can only be experienced)?

When I sit in the creek I connect to the larger me. The cardinals and the fish. And I remember how very little I am responsible for in the big picture of existence. And that brings me peace.

If you like freedom, if you want to be free, if you want to be; take time to sit with the cycles around and within you. That’s my best advice for today.

I spent the weekend chatting with two friends. One guy was talking about the Law of Attraction. Actually, he was kind of teaching it to me (he’s a teacher, speaker, author…he can’t seem to turn it off). “If it feels good, it is good. If it feels bad, it’s bad.” Hmm. I told him “the whole point is to not sort things into a good or bad pile.”

The good/bad mentality of Law of Attraction is a short cut to explaining a lot of emotional and energetic work in a way that…well, I don’t really know how they could “say” it better. Language isn’t as subtle as energy. The truth is (and we all know it) not all experience feels “good” but that doesn’t make the whole experience “bad.” What is good anyway? Technically, good doesn’t exist. I can’t touch good, taste good, feel good, or hear good. It’s a vague adjective I assign at will to my experience and has nothing to do with objective reality.

Besides, it’s impossible to sort all experience into two piles like you’re prepping to launder your own life. Giving awareness to your experience – beingness – is the thing that matters. I’m concerned my friend is afraid to discuss any of his “bad” feelings or “bad” experiences least he attract more. But the anxiety is in his vibe. That’s what makes emotional release and energy healing so important.

I felt very connected to my guides that evening. My other friend was talking about Seth channeling. And I asked her “if you could ask any question right now, what would it be?” And she seems stunned. I told her “think of it now, if Seth were there (pointing at a chair), sitting with us like a friend, what would you ask?” My heart raced a bit as I felt presence expand within me. And she said “I guess something about my future.” I said “OK, what part of the future?” and she couldn’t think of a thing. I told her “just feel. Just feel as you are and the question will come out in your vibration.”

I sat and focused on my complete awareness, breath, and grounding. Presence was with us.They talked to each other about what they read. About what could be. About the psychic they talked to or how they found out the names of their angels from some guide. About how amazing it would be if it could happen directly right now and I told them “it’s happening right now” but they wouldn’t ground with me. I felt the power of presence and ground.

You’d think if people (particularly people so focused on spirituality discussions) could ask a higher intelligence a question, they would. But the fact that they can’t or don’t shows me that we all, on some level, know the truth. The truth is you already have answers to every question. It’s just those answers don’t and never will replace the experience and existence.

I’m sorry if this is a bit scattered. I had a lot of information come in this weekend. If I sat and wrote it all, I wouldn’t be experiencing it. But in listening this weekend, a gem of truth expanded in me. All time is happening at once. Which means, you can heal any moment. Past lives are parallel lives really. Now. You can send off alternative futures or pasts that hold the things you want. It doesn’t mean everything will flow to perfection (which doesn’t exist) in this particular plane of experience. But, consider, if and when you feel the need, that the Universe is a bit like a rubix cube, sometimes you have to mess up one side of the puzzle to solve it overall.

I took an hour to meditate in the creek for lunch today and heard this rhyme in my head on the drive back to work.

I’ve got needs.
I’ve got should-bes and must-sees.
As for Seeing and Being,
who’s with them now?
Cause I’ve got needs.

I keep, in some way, trying to earn my place in the cosmos. Not only is that an absurdly pointless and entirely impossible thing to do, but it is such a waste of energy. How can I have what you need when I project need and judgment onto dead or borrowed time?

I’ve started this research project and it’s proving more challenging than I initially expected. When I was working for USAID I went to State Department for a meeting. I believe it was the Asia and Near East bureau conference room. There were 8×10 photos of all the previous bureau heads hanging on the wall. Some of them had a glamorous quality, like a classic movie still. But what really struck me about these photos was the consistency to them. Each photo was generally cropped in the same way, showing a white man, dark hair, sitting at a desk with a pen holder and flag in view. The cumulative effect of all these photos was that the desk, the pen, and the flag mattered more than the personality of any given man. I want copies of those photos. I’ve contacted the historian at State, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives so far. It takes two to four weeks to answer and, I suspect, the paperwork and planning begins after that.

I wish I shot pictures of those portraits using my iphone camera when I was there. Oh well.

In Morocco, it’s common to meet people who have been working in the same industry for 700 years. Not that individuals in Morocco live for 700 years, but their craft, say pottery, has been the same through centuries, transmitted from one generation to the next. The technique doesn’t change. The goal doesn’t change. The expression doesn’t change. It is a matter of continuity, not personality. I never thought of our government that way until I sat in that conference room. It is neither good nor bad. Just is. I want copies of those photos so I can share that perspective with others. I have an art project in mind.

I did find this fascinating photo on the Library of Congress site. There is something suggestive about the body language of the photographers, as if they are telling the Japanese Ambassador how very hot he is. Intuitively, this tells me something about power.

Humans. So, I’m sitting with myself trying to get to the bottom of things and I hit on this question “Why am I human at all?” I let the scenes well up in me; the want, love, lust, pain, brutality, hope, shame, desire, remorse. Some seem from other lives. I can’t sense my unique role. I am not separate from it. I take in a deep breath I let the sensation of witnessing swell in me. I sigh an exhale. On my next inhale, I see it all – all those scenes – swirling in my inhale like smoke in reverse. I can take it all back. It seems an almost-answer to my question.

I sit a bit longer and I think perhaps I could blow up the world with my psychic energy. I fix my eyes on the trees and hear the sounds of the singing night bugs and think how perfectly placed they are, how harmlessly natural. How serene. Belonging. The Universe says the same about me and explains “you can’t just extract the bits you like about life, human or not, and throw the rest away. Blow up the world, but you blow up everything you love with it.”

So I sit. I feel the love, hope, desire of creation. The shadowy aspect makes the direction of the light more clear.

I think it’s odd that we tend to try to ground ourselves in the opinion of others. The surveys, responses, and measures of success that are external to us. Eventually, the opinion of others takes the form of responsibilities. Being a responsible adult does involve a level of compromise that have no interest in trying to define.

It makes me think of a bit of dialogue I read that between someone and the Dali Lama. The Dali Lama was wondering about the connotation of the word compassion in the English language. He had the impression that Americans think compassion is something to be given to someone else. He noted in his culture compassion is something you apply to yourself first.

As an American, it is more social to ask the question to another: what am I good at? What should I do? And it is more social to answer the question for another: you are so good at that, you have this quality, you have this aspect. The idea that we are something to be understood and that understanding comes from another, from a project, from a goal, is a social inheritance. But that inheritance fills being with static.

You aren’t something to be known. I am not something to be known. I am being. You are a being. Sit with your own being. Be unafraid to be the thing you are. Social is a matter of course.

It’s been about six months since I meditated and heard the instructions “heal yourself.” That’s what I’ve been learning to do: heal myself. Today I could feel a lump in my solar plexus that wanted to be released. I sat with myself, observant, and started feeling as an adolescent or child when people – particularly people who were supposed to take care of me and had power of me – told me I was crazy. When I was 14, my parents sat in my psychatrist’s office, for example, and told me I was going to be institutionalized. It never happened. But the feeling of family, society, care givers, employers -anyone who was ever responsible for my well being – telling me I was insane lead me deeper into the issue. Still, I went deeper and deeper into crazy until it seemed I was in another life. I was a persecuted witch or a persecutor of witches. It didn’t matter which, victim or criminal. A whole society, a close community, people I loved; all decimated by crazy. Crazy as a weapon. There was no protection; no time to develop a counter attack. A tornado of false judgment and misguided impulses swept people I loved away. It seemed natural that it would stop, some force would stop it, begged it to stop, but it never did. Doesn’t matter if that life is or was because the truth is with me now.

I released it. What comes in its space? Nothing. Nothing is better than this.

These words may sound dark or sad. What to make of it? How’s her mood? I feel light. Not exactly care free. The only reason I share this experience is that I hope it illustrates a truth. When you chose to fight your own demons, you fight the very same monster that scares everyone else. We are not different.

Namaste.