Metamorphosis

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.
Juvenal

    
      I was sitting in my backyard one beautiful summer day when I noticed a caterpillar dangling, upside down from the back of one of my lawn chairs. He was wiggling around, swinging to and fro and I was fascinated because I knew he was about to change into a chrysalis. This was an experience I had never witnessed so I decided to stay and watch.
     I couldn't take my eyes off of him because the contortions were just so uncanny. He seemed to be bubbling from the inside out, like something else was moving under his skin. Then, all of the sudden, his back split open and his little caterpillar body dropped from him like a worn out coat. All that remained was a gelatinous blob that resembled neither caterpillar nor chrysalis. I always thought caterpillars "wrapped" themselves in a chrysalis but the change I was observing was happening from the inside out!
     I watched for several hours as this amazing little being tightened itself into a perfect turquoise package complete with the typical Monarch's strand of golden droplets around its crown. I moved the chair to the back of the house to ensure the chrysalis would have a safe transformation and, strangely enough, I was lucky enough to witness the moment the butterfly emerged.
     Metamorphosis is a profound and mysterious experience. Change is encoded in us and therefore cannot be denied. Change happens from the inside out, starting with the tiniest chromosomal spark, rippling it's way to through the vastness of all you are and all there is. It just goes to show that with some time, and little internal wrestling, small changes become life-changing experiences!

We are not just manifestations of something divine,

but the Divine made manifest!

Afraid of My Own Shadow

A human being is only breath and shadow.

Sophocles

     Carl Jung borrowed the term "shadow" from ancient philosophies which describe the dark part of the psyche. The ancestors taught that there are three phases one goes through when dealing with the shadow. The first is that we don't know the shadow exists. The next is when we discover the shadow but we don't like that it. And the final stage is when we embrace the shadow. Because we know it is a part of all of us, embracing it not serves a purpose, it makes us whole.
     The shadow holds the secrets that have the power to set us free because it is the part of us, of life, that we always avoid. We see it reflected to us in our relationships and we feel it as the emotions we don't want to feel. Embracing it means that we run towards our fears so we can be liberated from them. It's when we choose to trust our truth in the midst of a cloud of doubt and walk forward with faith in our selves and our power to create our worlds. The shadow is our gateway to freedom.
     Don't hide from the feelings and the fear but embrace them! They are the opportunities you're waiting for and they are the very peace you are seeking. They have the information you're missing and they want to be found. They are the symptoms that warn of imbalance and they want you to succeed. They will not stop until they are heard and they are here to serve you so why not make fear your ally and shadow your friend? A fearless life of unlimited potential may just unfold before you!

Know yourself as all that you are and not just what you allow yourself to be!

    

Clogged Filters

A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life.
James Allen

     We live in a universe of information. We are constantly flowing through time and space and, like driving cross-country, we are gathering information as we go. What you see and what I see on the road-trip of life is relative and, I think, meaningful. Why is it that you see one thing and I see another? What happens to this information that makes it appear so relative, so indiviual to each one of us?
     I like to explain this phenomenon to people as what I call "filters". Filters are made up of belief systems, past experiences, fears and desires. Filters "skew" the universal information, clouding our vision with doubt and insecurity, desires and attachments, until we heal the wounds that create these emotional weak spots. The universe is always working for us in this way, constantly steering us towards balance.
     I believe we "choose to see" based on the experiences we need to advance our souls in their development. The more we clear our vision, take control of our mind and emotion and truly understand our Selves, we free ourselves to receive pure and accurate information from the universe and All there is. Then we can make life decisions based on accurate information and we begin to take control of our worlds, internal and external. It is in these moments that we recognize ourselves as powerful co-creators, masters of our world.


 

1-Day Challenge

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

   
    
     I was driving to work the other day when I realized I had forgotten my phone. An immediate sense of panic came over me, quickly followed by the internal correction of "Oh, come on!".  I usually check my email, text and voicemail before I enter the shop to start my day. But that day, it wasn't an option. So I sat on the grass and soaked in the sun and thought "Wow! How did I end up here?!" I realized that day by day, hour by hour, I had become accustomed to the constant barrage of  noise and activity, technology and toys; distractions from MY life and what it means to just BE.
     Since then I have practiced a day a week with no cell phones or computers, no TV or newspapers. The silence is wonderful and the information, profound. I listen to the wind instead of the radio and live my own life instead of watching other people live theirs. We have fallen so far away from our natural way of being that we are unfamiliar, and sometimes uncomfortable, with the simple act of living.

LOVE LIFE & IT WILL LOVE YOU BACK



Internal Worlds

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
Henry David Thoreau

     We all live in our own internal worlds. Made up of thought and perception, creativity and emotion, dialogue and will, our internal world seems so "real" to us that we easily forget the population there is ONE. The universe, as we see it, is 100% "not there", with the visible making up only .01%. Yet we call this invisible universe and our internal world "reality" and claim, and many of us fear, that we have no power over it.
     People often ask me how to go about making changes their lives. Most of us want change because change means growth and growth means life but too many of us have grown fearful that we "can't" change. We fear we are too weak or that some thing outside of ourselves will force us down a path we have not chosen. We forget that the internal world and the external world are one in the same.
     If you want to make changes to your external world, your life, your environment, your body or your bank account, don't look to outside sources first. Take the time to examine your internal world to see how it's affecting your experience of life. This is the first step.

Anything you want to change in your life is possible but you must first change the way you think

The Arrow of Time

Anybody who has been seriously engaged is scientific work of any kind realizes that over the entrance to the gates of the temple of science are written the words: 'Ye must have faith.'
Max Planck

     The Arrow of Time is a term used to describe the ever-constant, seemingly forward motion of time. It's hard to comprehend Einstein's relative concept of time, dependent on motion, massive objects, gravity etc. but the truth of the matter is that time is different for you than it is for me. Time is different for everyone. We like to think that we all have the same experience of time but it is actually time itself that is fixed.
     We tend to think that it is time that's moving forward but in reality it is we that move forward through time. Every possibility, everything that has ever been or ever will be, is contained within the frozen stream of energy we call time. Our awareness of it, our present moment, moves through time and space and where we end up is entirely up to us. Where we hold our minds is where the river will "take" us and there is no thing that is impossible.
      Everything we want has already been written within the fabric of the space-time continuum. There is no need for us to "create" it. The only question, the doubt that plagues the mind, is whether or not we can "hold" our minds long enough to "arrive" at that which we call our wildest dreams.

Happy 11-11-11 !!

    

Beautiful Work

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 

     I was watching a clip of a Mayan elder talking about his work. His name is Hunbatz Men and he's a Day Keeper which means it is his purpose to learn, and pass down, the traditional Mayan teachings. He did not attend public schools as a child nor did he grow up as a part of a church or political group. These things, he said, teach things very different from the traditional Mayan ways. Instead he learned "how to talk to the wind" and he wondered why major universities fail to teach such important things!
     It moved me when he talked about his work, "my beautiful work with Father Sun and Mother Earth". He asked that we pray for humanity to "weaken ill purposes and to plants seeds of good in all living beings".  It reminded me that it is the work that I love, the connection to Spirit and the sharing with others that is at the true center of why I do what I do. This is my beautiful work.

If you're searching for your own beautiful work, perhaps you should ask the wind!

2-Dollar Bill

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
Aeschylus

     I have a memory of being 6 years old, out to dinner with my family. My father presented a 2-dollar bill to us, something I had never seen before, and I asked him if I could have it. He smiled, with tears in his eyes as he gave me the bill, and said "You have never asked me for anything". I kept the 2 dollar bill until I was 21, when it was stolen with my purse the first night we arrived in LA. 
     It was a happy memory of my father, but a painful one. It was one of, perhaps, only a half a dozen "real" experiences I ever remember having with him. He had so many demons, so much fear and so many feelings of inadequacy that he couldn't be present with us, his family, his wife and six kids. We were not enough to pull him from the depression that eventually took took his life. I didn't realize that I had tethered pain, love, family and money together, but indeed, I had.
     About 15 years ago my husband came home with a "new"2 dollar bill for me. When he presented it to me it was I that was moved to tears. I realized that this "thing" really meant something to me and I was determined to find out what. The process that followed allowed me to identify and release all grief from the past and in doing so, the negative emotions I experienced in my current-day life also vanished. It's a process I still use to this day to help my clients free themselves from painful, negative emotions.
     I still carry the 2 dollar bill with me all these years later. It is no longer folded into 8 neat sections, tucked neatly away along with my pain. It is no longer a symbol of fear and inadequacy but of joyful love and gracious receiving. I no longer succumb to the negative feelings as I now know they were nothing but memories. My love, my abundance, my health and happiness are finally free to BE just as I AM.