Synchronicity, Abundance, and Grace, Oh My!

I recently had one of those days when my heart must have been cranked open wide. I swear, the Universe conspired with my guides to bring moments of grace that brought me to tears. Tears of gratitude. Ok, I’ll admit that for whatever reason – probably my heart being a bit more open than usual – I was pretty emotional.

It started out as many of my days tend to, with feeling a bit tired and a little out of sorts. But there were a few groceries I’d run out of and really wanted, plus, knowing that getting out and interacting with the public helps ground me and makes me feel better, I headed out to the small city to the north.

After about a half-hour drive and navigating to the city’s downtown, I turned off onto the street where the first stop was located. Because it was nearing noon, I expected parking to be tight and the shop to be busy. Looking for a parking spot, I turned into one which wasn’t necessarily the closest but was open.

Getting out to put some money into the parking meter, I saw it read 1:19. I blinked a few times just to be sure I was reading it correctly. There was an hour and nineteen minutes left on it. Wow! What a treat! I only needed fifteen minutes at most.

As I walked to the shop I saw about a half-dozen more open parking spaces (with meters needing to be fed) and the synchronicity and grace that I’d picked the one with free parking suddenly hit me so hard that I almost started crying. Gratitude poured through my heart.

After that stop, I drove to another store up the hill to find something I recently discovered that’s a little hard to find. Once I had the half-dozen items in my little cart, I headed over to the self-checkout station. Noticing that some of the items I had were eligible for a small discount and a sale price if I had an Amazon Prime membership, I wondered how to get the discount if I didn’t have my phone number connected to my Prime account to enter into their system.

There were two customer service people having a chat by the registers and I asked them for help. One of them, a young man, came over, scanned my items for me, took me through the pay screen, and discovered I couldn’t get the discount the way he thought at that register. He put my items back into my cart for me as we talked about linking my phone number to my account. Did I have the app on my phone? No, because I always use Amazon Smile, not just plain Amazon.

Just when I thought I’d step away from the registers to open my phone’s browser and link the phone to my Prime account and then check out, the young man pulled my cart over to a closed register, scanned all of my items, and gave me the Prime discount as a courtesy. I not only got the Prime discount, but got sale prices on a few items, and a small credit for bringing my own shopping bag. I was so moved by what he did that, once again, I was almost brought to tears as gratitude poured through me.

Noticing that the young man’s employee name tag had preferred pronouns under his name, I was struck by how progressive this store was. It was the first time I’d seen this. And by the time I’d walked out to my car the whole idea of identity and shifting identities began to bubble up from deep down.

Sometimes for no apparent reason when my heart is a little more open than usual, seeing something sparks a connection with something simmering deep within. Driving my car over to my last stop, I took a moment before getting out to speak some thoughts into my voice recorder.

As I talked, my emotions began to flow and I heard the phrase, “Identity Crisis” bubble up all the way into my conscious mind along with a download. The word crisis morphed into ‘not a crisis but going through a big change’. An identity change. Identities are changing.

Something that came up in a recent healing session had to do with my shifting identity as a woman moving from her fertile years into the phase of life when creativity is no longer associated with the womb. It hit me that so much of a woman’s value in society is tied to her reproductive system. We internalize this as children – at least I did. If a woman can’t reproduce or chooses not to, it devalues her. It no longer devalues me. Being ‘past your prime’ is a phrase society uses that, thanks to the healing session, also no longer resonates with me at any level.

Another change to my identity over the past dozen years has to do with becoming spiritually awake and passionate about energy healing. Many people I’ve known since I was a kid and those I worked with in the maritime industry have no idea. Plus, for the past few months in healing sessions, I’ve been connecting with my galactic family and guides, which is still pretty new. I’m still wrapping my head around that one sometimes.

As a planet, we’re moving into a higher vibrating field of energy, and the grand change is hitting not only me as an individual but the collective as a whole. It’s not necessarily changing every individual. But systemically, a lot is being stirred up such that what’s considered normal is becoming redefined. Hearts are opening to ways of being that used to be condemned.

A few years ago, my beautiful niece married her girlfriend. If she’d been born a decade sooner, she wouldn’t have been able to. And if she’d been born in a different time altogether or a different country, she could have been jailed or put to death simply because of who she loves.

My mother spent a lifetime living with a very challenging mental illness. Even taking medication (which helped a lot), she still struggled from time to time. But because mental illness wasn’t part of the national health conversation, she almost never spoke about it. I wish she hadn’t been so embarrassed and ashamed because understanding more about it would have helped me. Things are changing.

The new, higher vibrating, energy is ushering all sorts of collective darkness and pain up into the light where it can be healed. Yes, right now things feel more like a toddler having a tantrum – because when you shine light on people’s shadows their wounded inner children come out in droves looking to be seen, validated, and loved. We’re still mid-process.

As we move through the muck and discover how to open our hearts, we’ll each see more synchronicity, abundance, and grace in our lives and will develop more compassion for ourselves and those around us.

Well Seasoned

With all the inner changes I’ve been having, certain words don’t feel the same for me anymore, like, the word ‘old’. And I’m talking about when we specifically use it to refer to us, not something like a desk or a tree. I listen to a few podcasts these days, and I noticed that one of the podcasters refers to himself as old from time to time. Not because he feels unwell but because he’s been on the planet long enough to have seen a lot of technological changes, as I have. In fact, I’ve got a decade on him.

When I was growing up, we had analog everything. Rotary phones that plugged into the wall. Television that had to be tuned and re-tuned, some stations coming in very fuzzy no matter what you did. You’d readjust the antennae and augment them with tin foil to get as clear a picture as you could. Cars had analog radios and no tape decks yet, and there were certainly no onboard computers. There were no personal computers yet. In fact, computers were massive mainframes that took up an entire room or several rooms. And we got our music from the radio or went to a store to buy records.

A lot has changed in the past half-century or so.

And going down a healing path for the past dozen years, words are taking on… well… not really new meaning, but rather a new connotation. I’m losing the negative associations we usually unknowingly attach to words.

Because I’ll be sixty in a few years, it’s fair to say I’m old. I’ve been around the block a time or two and have had a lot of life experience. But it doesn’t feel like a bad thing. Sure, I’m still pretty tired and a little creaky these days, but I know it will change for the better because I’m still being repeatedly dunked into a pot of darkness and bringing it up to be healed. It’s incredible and frankly, amazing… and yes, tiring… for now.

I need to come up with a better way of saying I’m old. A way that conveys what it means to me today. Perhaps I’m well seasoned, having lived through several cycles of the seasons. Or maybe it’s because I can get spicy once in a while.

I’d love to use the word crone because I identify with being a wise woman. But it seems like society has taken the honor out of the word, using it so often as a slur instead of with reverence.

I’d love to come out with it and just use the word old, but it’s usually associated with things like senility, fragility, being used up, and having no more value. When I think of an old person, I think of someone who’s set in their ways, unwilling and unable to change, and who’s prone to being crotchety. Yet that’s not me. Not by a long shot.

Perhaps I’m the wise woman who observes more and says less. After all, that’s true. I see things I never used to notice, and the impulse to act is often much quieter. It’s ok to let people struggle a little bit and figure things out for themselves – especially if they’re young and learning. And I don’t have to solve people’s problems for them.

Maybe I’m like a Thanksgiving turkey, basted, juicy, and delicious. Hmm. Not sure about that one, but I definitely get stuffed once in a while when I eat too much.

I think being a queen bee is great. Strong, regal, and having a sense of community. But even there, people often twist it to mean someone who’s a bit narcissistic. What a conundrum!

Looks like I’m going to have to pick something and own it. People will think what they’ll think. And today I’m going with calling myself an elder, as in, a tribal elder. But I won’t borrow the word tribal because it might be construed as co-opting, cultural appropriation, or as my twenty-year-old would say – stolen valor.

I’ve lived a lot of life, have a lot more to go, and have gleaned a heck of a lot of wisdom over the course of a truly amazing healing journey. I see the world through both spiritual and human lenses, and have a lot of compassion for anyone who struggles in any way. I’m definitely an elder and although I can be serious, it’s so important to be silly and have fun too.

What sort of spin do you put on words? When you think of an old tree, do you see a two-thousand-year-old Sequoia or something rotting, on its last legs? When you think of an old desk, do you see a valuable antique or a broken school desk sent out in the trash?

Today, I’m old. And not just old, but a well-seasoned, tasty, harmonious, wise elder.

And you?

When We Don’t Love Ourselves

A big part of the spiritual movement is love. Loving ourselves and loving others. And something I’ve been struggling with for the past few years is the ability to feel love. I mean, it feels like my heart keeps getting plugged up and closing. But having regular healing sessions allows me to bring things to light, releasing all sorts of darkness and feeling open, until before I know it, my heart is plugged up again with things needing to be released. It’s honestly been really weird because the incredible and amazing healing work I was doing prior to six years ago left me so open-hearted and connected to my higher self and Source that love flowed through me more than it ever had in my entire life. I was more connected to my intuition than ever, I had lots of great energy, and more often than not life just flowed. Such is the path of my Kundalini awakening, having turned me into a vessel for repeatedly transmuting darkness. For now.

What healing by using hypnotherapy has taught me is why we don’t always love ourselves and what to do about it.

Energetically, spiritual love is the love of our Source. It’s absolutely unconditional, is ever expanding, and is filled with knowlege and information. It’s also incredibly healing. What we as humans call love ranges from the more spiritual and unconditional love, to attachment and sometimes outright pain.

When we as souls choose to merge part of our energy with a physical body, we enter a world that’s very different from the world of spirit. Cut off from knowing we’re eternal, never alone and have all sorts of guidance and help in the asking, it’s a world where we experience physical and emotional pain unlike that of the spirit world. Pain that we reject because in this world, pain equates to injury, alienation, and in the extreme, ultimately death. In order to perpetuate this experience of incarnation, we need to be alive. Of course, it’s not all bad. We’re also here to experience comfort, satisfaction, happiness, and joy.

I’ve used hypnotherapy to tackle emotions that send me running to food when I’m not hungry, and following threads of discomfort, I’ve been led to my childhood and even to a few past lives when I was terrified and in fear. Not only was I scared, but there were a host of thoughts associated with the fear, such as, “I’m not good enough. I’m defective. I’m broken. I’m fat and unacceptable.”

And every time I looked at the scenes through wise and compassionate adult eyes, I saw the higher picture my inner child wasn’t privy to. I saw my mentally ill mother screaming at me or the one time my father was upset with me. I finally realized the reason my mother went off on me was due to her mental illness, not because of anything I’d done. And I saw that when Dad was upset, he was actually upset with Mom but let some of it out on me. I hadn’t done anything truly wrong. During these times I was a toddler and was beginning to individuate.

I also saw past lives when I was killed because I was intuitively connected. One when I was a large black man who was a slave. Another when I was a white woman in the late 1800’s who was an herbalist. And one when I was a young woman accused of being a witch. I developed the belief that it wasn’t safe to be intuitively connected because it would get me killed.

With the sessions going back to my childhood, I not only saw beliefs I carried, but I realized I’d created them in order to explain away the pain I was feeling. They made sense of things. If I hadn’t been able to withstand what I now call the pain of life, I would have died. The pain would have been too much. I also saw during a few sessions that I’d picked up the exact belief from my mother.

Like when I tuned into the thought that I was defective. Looking down on the scene from a higher perspective I saw that as a toddler I wasn’t defective after all – I’d been acting age appropriately and Mom was sick. As soon as my inner child began to let go of the belief, I suddenly knew that my mother had felt like she was defective and I had taken on her belief as my own. What an epiphany!!

All of these beliefs I held deeply buried in my unconscious mind would occassionally simmer to the surface causing agitation and irritation that I soothed with food. However, after bringing them up and healing them, the desire to nibble would vanish.

Not only have I looked at food cravings, but hypnotherapy has been an incredible tool to look at all sorts of stress and some disease in my life. And each time I found the root cause, it’s always gone back to what amounts to a block in my energy field. A block in my ability to allow love to flow through me. A moment in time when the pain of life became so bad that I created a belief to explain it away. A belief of less than perfect and whole that allowed me to continue this physical experience. That’s what I call the human condition in a nutshell.

We create blocks in our energy field (unconscious negative beliefs) in order to be able to perpetuate life. But they end up creating a spectrum of pain, suffering, and disease.

Moments when we don’t love ourselves are when our unconscious beliefs of less-than are activated. They are part and parcel of simply being human. They may sound like, “I’m an idiot. I’m fat. I’m lazy. I’m not worth it.” They are moments of judgment where we hold some sort of disdain for ourselves. There are so many ways we don’t love ourselves and they all stem from these persistant little parts of us who are essentially stuck in time just waiting for us to find them and set them free.

And they affect all sorts of areas of our lives. My focus for years was the size of my body and my relationship with food. For others it’s about chronic money, relationship, or (physical and/or mental) health issues.

These moments focus on ourselves, but quite often we turn our focus externally, judging others as less-than and seeing the world in general as unsafe not trustworthy. All of this can be changed by doing inner healing. What we see externally is merely a reflection of our inner thoughts and beliefs.

There are all sorts of ways to love ourselves by honoring, respecting, and taking care of ourselves. By making time for those we love and doing things that bring us happiness. And the really cool thing is, the more you heal and change the landscape of your inner world, the more Source love is able to flow through full-time. You are able to love not only yourself more fully but others as well. After all, you can’t give what you don’t have.

Make time to love yourself because you’re worth it!

A Metaphysical Retrospective

Whilst still in a bit of a process of being squeezed and deeply transmuting all sorts of darkness within myself and the world, courtesy of Kundalini energy, I was listening to a BATGAP (Buddha at the Gas Pump) interview of a woman who had a spontaneous spiritual awakening and had to figure things out as she went along. It made me think of the handful of metaphysical experiences I had before my first spiritual awakening and how clever my spirit team has been at giving me experiences to prime me for future awakening.

The first metaphysical experience I ever had was when I was working with my first hypnotherapist, trying to lose weight. I’d been a lifelong yo-yo dieter and knew I needed to try something different. The woman I worked with didn’t have training specific to losing weight (she was a past life regression specialist) but said she’d be willing to give it a go. After a handful of sessions, one day near the end of our session, out of the blue my hypnotherapist asked me to connect with my Higher Self. I had to ask her what that was because I’d never heard the term.

The moment some part of me understood, I was transported into a scene where I was no longer imagining this and picturing that. I was taken to a bluff overlooking the ocean and I saw a white farmhouse-type house with a wraparound porch. There was tall grass being blown by the wind and looking out at the ocean, the sky was dense with dark, threatening clouds. I remember electrical energy in the air – the kind you feel before a storm, and seeing the wind whip the water into choppy waves and whitecaps.

Then King Neptune suddenly rose up out of the water with a trident that arcked with lightning. I felt immense power, and even thinking the word power made him morph into a cartoon version of himself. When I wondered why the cartoon, I suddenly knew it was because the incredible power was benevolent. Seeing the cartoon, I was taken back to the joy I’d felt as a child when I was playing. After a little while, feelings of deep compassion flowed through me followed by the most unconditional love you can imagine and beyond. The experience only lasted minutes but was beyond profound.

It would be another eight years until my next foray into hypnotherapy and another metaphysical experience. This time I was working with a woman who had training specific to weight loss and I was hopeful that I’d get a handle on my weight again, and that it would be life-long this time.

After having had a few sessions with my new hypnotherapist, when she guided me to go to the happy place I’d already created and gave me the option to go to a new happy place, I was suddenly transported. No more imagining this or picturing that. I found myself standing on the side of a mountaintop with snow everywhere. And it was snowing so hard it was like a blizzard. A whiteout. I saw something out of the corner of my eye and when I looked, nothing was there. Wondering what I’d seen, there was suddenly someone standing right behind me. They stood a head taller than me and giant white wings enveloped me.

Realizing this was an angel I somehow knew it was neither he nor she. Looking down at my body, it had become clear plastic and hollow with snow swirling around and around, cleansing me. The angel enveloped me with pure love, cleansing me that day of shame. It cleansed me of shame I’d carried for decades and hadn’t even realized the weight of it. Afterward, it felt like a cloak of cement had been lifted.

My work with this woman ended a bit prematurely, although I now understand that spirit wanted me to move on.

Two years later I decided to dip my toe in again and found a hypnotherapist whose focus was to get to the root of people’s issues. He used a process of repeated regression, taking me back in time until I’d reached the root of an emotion I was numbing with food.

What was crazy was being regressed to when I was only a few months old, and then back to when I was in my mother’s womb, and eventually stopping when I was still in spirit and planning this life. Holy cow! We plan our lives before we’re born! It blew my mind. Not only was I shown some of what I’d planned, but the spiritual wisdom that came through me was incredibly healing.

One of the pieces of wisdom came when my son was in first grade and was having a lot of difficulties which were stressing me and sending me running to food. It had become clear that he was struggling with reading and he’d recently begun vision therapy, which he didn’t like.

What came through in hypnosis was seeing that we each have our own path in life to walk and no one can walk it for us. My son would have to walk his own path. I saw that when things get hard we slow down, and there will be times when we’re brought to our knees or we’re lying face down in the mud. But we’re never alone. We always have our spirit team with us and all we have to do is reach out a hand and help will come.

After this session I was able to let go, realizing there were some things about my son’s journey that I wouldn’t be able to control, and it would be ok.

There would be two more sessions seeing prebirth planning and receiving healing wisdom with this hypnotherapist. And it would be the first time I recognized a shift in my consciousness, as I began to see little bits of life through spiritual eyes. I began to read books by spiritual teachers, not really realizing I was beginning a spiritual path.

The same spring I stopped working with this hypnotherapist, I was introduced to energy healing. And a year later was the first ka-bang, awakening. Waking up an intense passion for energy healing.

Crystal Singing Bowls

Sound healing can be very powerful. Several days ago I felt the need for healing sound vibrations to reverberate through my body and was pleased to see my local Reiki Master whose tool kit includes sound healing.

Upon my request, she began our session with her crystal bowls and gong as I relaxed and closed my eyes. I’d brought a few crystals from home, which were spread out under the table I was on.

Within moments my thoughts turned into messages.

Remember, remember, remember, remember.

My thoughts drifted to the crystal bowl and then to the bed of crystals under the table.

Remember you’re part of these crystals and rocks.
Remember you’re part of the crystal and rock kingdom.

My thoughts drifted to rocks on the ground and our planet being essentially a big rock.

Remember you’re part of the planet.

My thoughts expanded outward to the cosmos.

Remember you’re part of all of the planets.
Remember you’re part of all of the heavenly bodies in space.
Remember you’re part of all of the heavenly bodies in the Universe.

And then my thoughts circled back to Earth.

It’s time for everybody to wake up.
Everybody is waking up.

Wow! My consciousness had expanded further and further out, reminding me that we are all One. And turning the focus back to Earth reminded me that consciousness as a whole is waking up. It’s a process that is ongoing.

Surrender and Acceptance

For the past few weeks, I’d been sitting on a cloud of hope. Hope that working with a talented healer I was guided to would help me create the inner and outer coherence that’s been missing from my life for the past few years, except in sporadic moments and a few days last spring. It buoyed me and perked me up. The hope.

And then I had the session: BQH (beyond quantum hypnosis). Because I haven’t had much energy and sometimes healing can be tiring, I booked the shorter version of this type of hypnosis session, approximately three hours. Not all the time is designed to be spent in hypnosis, because these sessions are often a one-off. Often times used with people who’ve never experienced hypnosis before, or who’ve maybe had one session prior. We began with a chat about the intention for the session, focusing on a few things I wanted to work on, and after a quick break, the practitioner did some energy healing work and then guided me into the hypnotic trance.

This sort of hypnosis is based on the work of hypnotist Dolores Cannon and differs from other forms of hypnosis by putting a person in the deepest state of hypnosis, somnambulism, and calling forth the High Self, or as Dolores called it, the SC (subconscious). The session is designed to have a person go into the most relevant past life pertaining to some issue in their life they want to work on. And the High Self comes in to give the higher, spiritual, perspective of things.

This is a little bit like the soul-directed hypnosis I was introduced to almost a decade ago, but different. The soul-directed hypnosis that was the first really effective treatment I ever used kept me in a lighter state of hypnosis, beginning by focusing on things going on in my life in the here and now, and then regressing into the past. Most of the early sessions stayed within my early life, and within the session, younger parts of myself would be guided to have conversations with my wise adult self. I suppose that the wise adult self is part of the Higher Self, but that wasn’t the language used.

As I healed things from childhood, sometimes I’d end up spontaneously regressing to a past life, but this wasn’t the focus of my earlier work. Yes, there are often connections between this lifetime and past lives, and healing something from a past life can absolutely affect this present life.

My primary goals for having the BQH hypnosis session were to help me feel more present and together on a full-time basis, and to create healing around a sore elbow that’s been sore for several months now.

The practitioner I worked with has experience doing these sorts of sessions, is a lifelong, natural-born intuitive, and was wonderful. Despite all that, and despite having some really cool things come forward in the session, I’m still not myself. I still feel like I’m not all here, and my sore elbow is still sore.

Some of the amazing things I experienced were connecting into pain and sorrow relating to seeing my home planet explode, like when Princess Leia in Star Wars sees Alderaan decimated. It was truly surprising. I’d say it was shocking except that the pain was transmuted – so no more shock. Apparently, with people who self-identify as Starseeds, seeing our home planet explode isn’t uncommon.

I was also connected to members of my star family who are helping broaden my heart connection to them and to Source. Yes, angels and spirit guides aren’t the only ones who help us connect with Source and healing energies.

While the day after the healing session was very difficult in a lot of ways because I was still processing a lot of pain and sorrow and I’d built up a lot of hope that this session would help me feel “normal” again only to be let down, as time passes and I’m able to move into surrender, balance begins to return, such as it is.

I’m accepting that I don’t feel like myself and may not feel like myself for a while. Truthfully, I can’t put a timeline on it because the thought of feeling out of sorts, this out of sorts, for months or years is too much to bear at the moment. Plus, whenever I’ve asked my Higher Self about this, I’m assured it’s temporary and won’t be forever.

I think the big lessons lately are about surrendering, acceptance, and persistence. If nothing else, I tend to be persistent.

The New Year

This New Year’s Day I was hanging up new calendars and noticed finding it very easy to throw one away while I kept the other. The one I kept I buy annually from a photographer local to the cottage in Maine where I lived for a good chunk of my twenties when I first began working in the ocean. I love being brought back to the familiar ocean and islands, seeing them around the year.

As I tried to fit the calendar alongside a half dozen past years’ calendars on a bookshelf, there was barely enough room. I suddenly thought about how funny we are as people when it comes to hanging on to things. There are some things I easily throw away, donate, give away, or sell. I don’t even think twice. And then there are things I have an emotional attachment to and have a hard time moving out of my life.

Not surprisingly I have trouble letting go of photos.

When Little Man was younger, I was so busy every day trying to keep up with him that my house was often neglected. Housekeeping has never been my favorite thing to do, however, after we’d been away on a family trip, something about a change of scenery made it a hundred times easier to come home, see things through new eyes, and declutter and organize.

It was easy to go through long-neglected piles of stuff and whittle them down to only what was really needed. And easy to donate old toys and clothes to our local thrift stores.

One of the features of doing a lot of inner healing work has been letting go of my attachment to stuff. There’s something about our inner landscape that tends to keep us doing the things we’ve always done and wanting to hold onto things we’ve always held onto. And as my inner world has changed a lot, I’m craving simplicity and less stuff in my life. The thing is, right now I’m not yet able to do much about my present circumstances. I mean, I don’t have the brain power or physical strength and endurance to clear out all the extra stuff I have.

And what’s a bit challenging is still experiencing temporary effects of my present condition that include fear sparks. What I mean by that is seeing something as innocuous as an old calendar, thinking about getting rid of it, and immediately feeling a physical flush of fear accompanied by thoughts of, “No. I can’t get rid of it because I might need it for (fill in the blank when it comes to all the reasons).”

When this happens, all I can do is distract myself and move on with my day. Thankfully, these days, this sort of thing happens usually earlier in the day when my system is still a bit discombobulated and it tends to pass fairly quickly. I only wish a stiff cup of tea or anything with caffeine would help me “wake up” a bit, yet it doesn’t.

I now recognize this is what anxiety looks like. Being afraid to let go of something. And I also recognize it’s not really me. It’s only me when I’m ungrounded and a bit fragmented inside. (Which should be significantly resolved in my next healing session).

Being attached to things is part of being human, but having trouble letting go of things that no longer spark joy, are no longer used, and serve no purpose, is closer to hoarding than merely collecting. I tend to collect a few things like books, photos, and hobby/craft stuff, but even that is changing. I’m noticing a lot less impulse buying, picking up items to make a project but never making the time to actually do the project.

I know myself better. I’m a better judge of my time and energy and what I’ll actually be able to accomplish. And what I actually want to accomplish.

On this first day of 2023, I’m hoping to make great strides in my progress living with awakened Kundalini energy and the challenges thereof. Looking to create a lot more inner integration and harmony.

And my hope for everyone is that sifting the wheat from the chaff of this next year is filled with as much grace and ease as possible.

Peace and joy.

Celebrating the Season

For the past five Christmases, I’ve been deep in a process of inner change that’s challenged me like nothing else. Granted, a Kundalini awakening stirs and shakes up a person’s life, but I never knew the initial phase that’s the most challenging would last this long. All that said, the process has evolved and for the first time in a very long time, I’m looking forward to Christmas.

Little Man set the tree up with lights, and when Daddy came home we all decorated. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, but because we use a wood stove insert, when temps dipped down to freezing I moved them and fired up the stove. When the big guy in the red suit comes, they’ll be placed on the hearth.

My sweetie picked up some festive poinsettia plants and they’re decorating the living and dining areas. And I took a day recently to write out Christmas cards.

Last year when I had so little energy that the thought of decorating the house was a bit too much, I bought a few strands of battery-operated twinkle lights that are adorning the mantle and are lighting up a large, hollow, glass-paneled star sitting on my coffee table. One designed to have a candle hanging inside.

My Christmas shopping is done, as is most of the wrapping. And as I’m writing this, it’s suddenly snowing. This time of year in the Pacific Northwest our temperatures range from just below freezing to just above, giving us anything from light drizzle and snow on overcast days to crisp, cold weather when the skies are clear. Today’s snow is a passing shower that may come back later as drizzle.

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning is to get quiet, sit at my writing table next to our picture window, and listen to inspirational music. It’s my meditation and my church. There’s a fire in the wood stove, lights on the Christmas tree, music from Celtic Christmas II playing, and a few flakes falling.

The view out the window lets me see eagles flying by and alighting in trees overlooking our river. And this winter we’ve been pleasantly surprised by an eagle’s nest being built in our local eagle tree. So exciting!

One of the more challenging features of my awakening process has been living with what feels somewhat and looks like depression and chronic fatigue syndrome, yet aren’t. It’s hard to describe. But when I create an energetic shift, my entire energy field (mind, body, spirit) changes. And for some reason, I’ve been having trouble fully integrating these shifts for the past few years leaving me often tired, achy, and foggy-headed.

There’s been gradual overall progress, but I’m still mired in the muck more than I’d like to be. To that end, I recently met with a talented intuitive who I believe can help me get back on a more even keel. She’s not only a talented healer but also uses a style of hypnosis I’ve been thinking about trying called Beyond Quantum Healing (BQH). It didn’t take long for her to see that BQH could help me, and for me to know that I wanted to have a session with her. So one’s been booked for early in the New Year.

This should help me become fully integrated so I feel like myself again. What a great way to start 2023!

In the meanwhile, life goes on. A bit subdued due to my current condition, but feeling ever so hopeful! My wish this holiday season to you and yours is peace and happiness.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Thanks and Gratitude

Every once in a while I notice something different. I react to situations differently than I used to. Instead of seeing the worst in people and what’s wrong with the world, what pops into my head are the silver linings. Sure, I have “oh shit” or “oh crap” moments, but they tend to pass fairly quickly these days.

A few weeks back I went out running errands. My list was pretty short, so I expected to pick up some groceries at one store, pick up a few other things from the local drug store, and zip home. We live in the country so I expected to be gone for about an hour and a half. Just before I turned off the boulevard by the grocery store, sitting in the center turn lane I smelled something wrong. It smelled like oil that had leaked and was burning on a hot engine. You know, the smell of an old beater that you have to add oil to every now and then. I assumed it was the ancient van in front of me.

I’d been having trouble with my rear window wiper blade wiping away the light rain as I drove down the highway, so once I parked at the grocery store I took some paper napkins and wiped off the blade. I thought it was weird that the window seemed oily, but that’s as far as those thoughts went. Walking up past the front of my car I noticed the smell emanating from the front of my car. Burning oil.

Crap. I needed to check under the hood but decided to get my groceries first. Stashing the few bags behind my seat, I popped open the hood, smelled the smell even stronger and then I saw it. Way down on an engine mount crossbar there was something puddled and shiny. I knew it wasn’t water. It had to be oil.

Ok. No big deal, my dealership was about a mile away or less, so I headed there. But as I drove, this time with the radio off, the engine began to sound funny. And when I stepped on the brakes there was an odd sound. Not the squealing sound of worn-out brakes, but an odd pulsing sound. My mind raced as I pondered if I’d lost engine oil or brake fluid, so I watched the engine temperature. As I sat at one light and crept down the boulevard in moderately heavy traffic, I saw the temperature gauge slowly rise. Not good. This meant engine oil. Then a red light of an oilcan lit up briefly and went out. Not good.

I remembered back in driver’s ed when they told us if you drove a car without oil in the engine the temperature would increase so quickly that the engine block would melt in less than a mile. The funny sound of the engine was getting worse, as were the sounds when I braked. Thankfully the brakes were working fine.

Could I make it to the dealership? Should I just turn into a store parking lot? I’ll take it light by light.

I passed one parking lot with a mile to go and by the time I went through a few more lights and was nearing my destination I stopped for a red light. The engine was sounding really scary and the flickering red low oil warning light was now almost steadily on. I gauged how long it would take to go the last half mile, with 2 more traffic lights, a three-way stop, and a fair bit of traffic, saw that the lane to my right was empty, and made a last-minute decision to pull over. There was a Park and Ride parking lot right beside me and I pulled in shutting off the car.

Phew. I wouldn’t melt the engine.

My husband was home, so I called him to let him know I was about to call for a tow truck to take me the half mile to my dealership. We have an auto club membership so the tow was free, and all I had to do was sit safely in my car and wait.

While I sat, I realized I hadn’t even checked the car’s various fluids to make absolutely certain it was engine oil that was leaking, so I went to the back of my vehicle to grab some paper towels only to discover the handle to open the hatch door was very oily. Oh! That’s why the rear window wiper wasn’t clearing the windshield! It’s oily. That makes sense now.

Once I had the paper towels I wiped the handle of the rear door and then popped the hood. Wiper fluid was fine, brake fluid was fine, radiator fluid was fine, and then I pulled the dipstick for the engine oil. There was no oil on it. I gave it a wipe, shoved it all the way back in, and checked again. It was dry. Yup. That’s the culprit. No oil. So glad I stopped when I did!

After calling for the tow I found out the wait might be as long as three hours. But the response time was usually closer to 45 minutes. No biggie. It’s a Friday with lots of people out and about, so it made sense they were busy. At least I’m parked in a safe spot and my engine is off. Besides, we switched phone carriers about a month ago and our new plan has unlimited data. I’d been watching a YouTube video before I left home and was able to watch the rest of it as I waited. Sweet!

This happened around lunchtime, and when I began to get a little bit hungry and needed a restroom, there was a plaza of stores next to where I’d parked, including a sandwich shop. Perfect! I grabbed some food, walked back to the car, and ate. Even though it was raining, it was a light rain and much needed at that.

After a few hours, I checked in with my sweetie who was home puttering around. He was standing by to come get me as soon as the tow truck arrived. Passing the time, I suddenly remembered I’d bought ice cream. Shit! And a second later I remembered the blanket I keep in my car that’s a great insulator. I’ve kept cold food cold and hot food hot. So I wrapped the ice cream. Besides, I thought, if it melts badly, the top is sealed and I can pop it in the freezer and refreeze it.

Passing the time, I realized we’d hit the three-hour mark and then some. When I’d originally called for the tow, the lovely customer service woman told me that if I hadn’t seen the truck by then I should call back, which I did.

Calling back, a man who helped me was also great and checked in with dispatch who let us know the truck was just leaving the call prior to mine and he’d be on the way soon. A moment later I got a text with a link showing me a map of the truck telling me it was twenty-four minutes out. It was so cool to be able to see the tow truck in real-time on a map as it came to me.

Knowing the dealership would be closing around the time the tow arrived, I called them to ask if they could still take my car if they were closed. Absolutely! Yes. I was assured the tow truck driver knew where to put my car and that there was a little station outside with envelopes and a key drop for my key. Great!

Right about the time I was starting to get chilly, I knew it wouldn’t be long until the tow arrived. I let my sweetie know he could leave home, and he arrived at the dealership just as my car was being offloaded from the tow truck. Grateful everything had finally worked out, I rode home, only slightly damp from the rain with my car in good hands.

The next day I got a call to find out that I’d stopped the car in time and there was no engine damage. The part that failed was a hose, which was straightforward to replace. And after making the repair they cleaned around the engine compartment and under my car to take care of the oil splatter, and put the car through the carwash to take care of the oil that splattered all over the back.

I picked up my beauty and drove her home as the engine purred.

Several years ago I would have gotten angry that I’d lost all the oil from my car less than 200 miles after an oil change. What a waste. I would have been irritated and impatient with the several-hour-long wait for the tow. I would have looked for someone or something to blame and would have complained about the cost of the repair. And I may have even driven the last half mile to the dealership, possibly becoming stranded in the middle of a busy road when the engine quit, risking fire and major damage.

But with every step along the way, I was thankful and grateful. Thankful this happened when and where it happened; not in the middle of the night, miles from civilization with no cell service. Thankful I was able to get a tow truck and that my husband was home and able to pick me up. Thankful the repair was done quickly and properly. And thankful we could easily afford it.

And it’s also not lost on me that I recently picked up a small fire extinguisher for my car fairly impulsively (or perhaps intuitively?). I carried one in my first car for well over a decade and after discharging it because it was years beyond its expiration date, had never replaced it or bought one when I got my current vehicle that I’ve had for thirteen years. (cue Twilight Zone music).

With all the healing I’ve done, there was a sense of peace. The lens I saw through was gratitude. All I can say is healing works.

*As I’m reviewing and writing my last edits, I just realized this happened only ten days before an unexpected drive across the state, around 5.5 hours each way, crossing mountains, and having no cell service in the pass. If this had gone down on our way home while we were in the mountain pass with no cell service, we could have really been screwed especially because they had scheduled a road closure due to weather, and we made it past the closure gate with three hours to spare. But the hose blew before the drive and happened in the most uneventful way possible. Thank you, Universe!!

Filters

As a photographer, I sometimes use filters to modify images I shoot. These days it’s easy to add a filter after the shot’s been taken. I may soften the look of the subject, tweak with the light, add or enhance a particular color to give an effect or throw on a really fun starburst filter. Knowing how to use filters judiciously makes for a beautiful end result, but I usually prefer my photos #nofilterneeded. Just the right exposure, lighting, and composition.

When I first started snapping photos, cameras exposed film that had to be developed and printed. My first camera had no ability to change its focal point; there was a small square within which I placed a person’s head, letting me know I was five feet from my subject. Any closer and things were blurry. I also had to buy one-time use flash bulbs which were expensive for a ten-year-old, so I shot more pictures outside.

About a decade later in my early twenties, I finally got a single lens reflex (SLR) camera whose lenses came separately. Now I had the standard 50mm lens and picked up a 70-210mm telephoto for shooting humpback whales when life took a tack. I could shoot subjects inside and out, from near to far.

Although many of my early photos were of friends and family, I’ve always loved shooting nature. And quite honestly, most of it filter-free. But when I got more seriously into photography in the early 2000’s, my lenses always had an ultraviolet filter and sometimes a polarizer to cut out glare.

What’s funny about a polarizing filter is from the name you might think it increases the contrast between light and dark, but it does things like cut the surface glare of water so you can see down into the depths. And it lets colors and details of a scene shine through by blocking certain light rays.

Filters make pictures more beautiful. They can also make photographs more dramatic, a bit like our own filters work in life. They help us get along in peace and harmony. But they can also enhance the drama and create chaos, depending on which filter is being used.

Growing up, filters become installed within us as a function of being human. It’s part of the gig. They color the way we see the world and filter a lot of things out. They help us focus on what’s important while letting so much of our day function on autopilot: we only have so much available working memory.

Our filters are created with one purpose in mind: to keep us alive, because the experience of our life depends on it. Many spiritual teachers refer to this life as an illusion, and to Spirit it may be, but we as souls choose it. We very purposely plan to experience life as a human being. Some things we plan are more etched in stone, while others have wiggle room built in.

The first filter most of us install is the veil of forgetting. Forgetting we’re eternal beings. I know I forgot it so completely that I only knew myself as a regular human being and only knew this physical world up into my mid-forties. Sure, I’d heard of life everlasting and heaven, but I didn’t know them deep in my bones.

The next filters we install are ones that bind us to others. We’re a communal species. Around six or seven years old we install the filter that lets us know we’re mortal. And then we begin to create filters that help us operate as individuals and finally filters to help us know we’re unique individuals. The fascinating thing is with each and every filter they’re like a two-fer. A two in one deal. Each filter helps us, but can also hold us back.

If a filter is no longer useful, we develop tools and coping mechanisms and sometimes we find ways to remove them. Instead of needing to constantly use a dark, shaded filter to cut light, we eventually learn to shoot from a different angle or at a different time of day. Instead of adding a yellow-orange light in post-production, we discover the incredible beauty of shooting at sunrise and sunset, when the colors of light morph into golden hues, oranges, reds, pinks, and purples.

As I grew well beyond the noon hour and into my middle years, life conspired to wake me up spiritually. It popped me up above the clouds so instead of seeing only the rain falling, I suddenly knew there was bright light beyond. One of my filters began to dissolve.

Most people spend their entire life seeing and knowing only what their senses detect, and that can make for a very rich life, but something is changing. More and more people are being born with certain filters either not there, or quite thin. I think of these people as sensitives. People whose bodies take in a lot of information energetically, but who may struggle with processing it all coherently. This may leave a person feeling anxious and uncomfortable.

Often, by the time someone has reached a point in their life when they’ve met all their life goals and everything seems to be clicking along, they may begin to feel an inner sense of unease, like there’s something more to life that they’re missing out on. A mid-life crisis. Or not really a crisis but a sense of inner angst.

Or there’s something in life that no matter how hard you try just doesn’t work out. There’s this nagging thing that bugs us. I believe our soul decides to install some filters to block certain areas of our lives while creating conditions to help us find ways around them until we either make peace with them or find the filters and let them go.

I know that my soul made some big-time plans for healing and evolution. For growth. And several of the filters I created when I was very, very little: beliefs of less-than, have been unearthed and healed. Layer by layer they’re rising up from deep inside and being set free. Filters that affected how I saw myself and felt about myself, which in turn impacted how I saw the world and felt about the world, have been coming up for review and healing.

Our filters are purposeful and much needed until they aren’t. They give us our varied cultures and societies and give everyone a unique signature as a person. Filters create the human condition. They help us exist so we can have this very human experience filled with ups and downs, joy and sorrow, light and dark, and all colors of the rainbow.

Having healed so many of the things that held me back when I was younger, including debilitating shame and all sorts of blame, disempowerment, and self-judgment, I find myself walking a path with few and fewer filters, camera in tow.