Striving to become a Free Human Being

finally alone enough to sit down to write a little bit. Also I have been on a farm with no phones, Internet, computers or anything. I have spent four days on this little paradise in Northern California just outside of mt. Shasta at the foot of the hill. A really amazing community of Anthroposophisits and Artists. I was very taken aback by the love and faith of the community, by the dedication of these people to the land and to the art. I fin myself at this moment in a really good space emotionally, physically, spiritually, intellectually. I was around such good people in such a healthy, clean environment. I completely recovered from the day of no sleep and heavy ceremony. I was so drained when I arrived on the farm that I could barely see straight or sleep. I was very low adrenal glands, very low in vitamins and etheric forces. I felt I had holes all around me. And this was very good to observe to, because it really means I can take a clear approach to my activities back home. I really needed to have this experience (thank you higher self) To be in one spiritual state - depleted, emotionally insecure, disconnected with myself even though i was prayer and being with a particular spiritual community - i was so out of balance so disharmonious, so disconnected from my true healthy continuum of energy - and then to be transported really without any effort of my part to this community of people who live so simply, close to the land, each other, the animals (draft horses, sheep, cows, ducks, goats, riding horses, and a ram). No electronics and really good healthy food from the farm (dairy, eggs, broth). The level of insight i gained from interacting wtih each other individually too, the books that were available fro me to read, the arts - singing and Eurythmy all of it so healing, so healthy, so whole. Like I stepped into a painting - and Iwas the disharmonious brush stroke, I could not exist in a work of art, i could not stay long without being completally transformed into the background of this masterpiece, of this work of art, of this healing image. Like a wet-on-wet painting (and I am refering here to many of Steiner's influences too, for this is an Anthroposophical community - biodynamic gardening, Eurythmy, painting, etc.) But just like a painting, the image comes through the color, the healthy, serene background - There exists the environment for the true painting of the soul to emerge. I really is quite marvelous. And thank goodness I am making none of this up, but the stomach pain has began to go away. I feel more back to myself than I have in a long time. I did a lot of resting, meditating, eating, walking, working, and talking with these fabulous people. I am so lucky to find something that truly fits what I have been asking for. We will see how it all unfolds. I am trying eally hard to not try to guess at where I will be next fall, in a new job, at this school, who knows!? But it feels so good to be on this path, it feels so right and so destined. I am not trying so hard and everything is just arriving. And the want to be a teacher is still right there, working its way though. At the bottom I am an artist, an expressive soul and I have so much dedication towards beauty and health. I am also working with a lot of free choice. How to make good choices for myself, and I know that it is happening little bit by little bit. It is arriving naturally as it should. I am so done with toiling and striving and struggling. I don't want to battle with myself, I want to paint and sing and move with myself! Bryan said something really true too. It is almost impossible to do it alone. It is a lot easier to do it with others, to be in community and shape oneself, ones will with the influence of trusted friends and family and teachers. With this guiding philosophy as well and the true work to bring the higher self into the lower self to transform the human being - i can feel and see what this community is reaching towards. What was wonderful was too feel the connection with the students there and to really feel their study, their hard work and their purity in this desire to know themselves truly. I have a lot to work on and think about when I get home. And I feel I can go home and really begin to sense where I am going, feeling less lost and a little more on track. I am excited to have finally found what I am here to do, to carry on this work with children and the study of myself - who knows what will come next. I also feel that I must just simply observe was arrises and not judge, make a choice, or know what I need next in my life, already I can see and feel that the things that are supposed to arrive will and are already. I am a free human being, my intention is to really discover this and really be this. It is not easy to come to terms with, to really know that, it does not happen over night - we are growing into that responsibilty, that love, that freedom. It is the work that I have always known is there, and to have it right here, so close to me - thank you angels and hank you Dr. Steiner and all those who were inspired by this teachings to bring it to us - to have schools where true pupils, desiring to understand, can go and learn.

The sphere of the spirit

The sphere of the Spirit is the soul's true home,
And Man will surely reach it
By walking in the path of honest Thought;
By choosing as his guide the fount of Love
Implanted in his heart;
By opening the eye of his soul
To Nature's script
Spread out before him through all the Universe,
Telling the story of the Spirit
In all the silent spaciousness of lifeless things,
And in the stream of Time--the process of becoming.

-Rudolf Steiner

for love for love for love this is what i live for

Woke up today with a little more will to get out of bed. How easily it is to sink into habits. I need a lot of sleep lately and taking care of this new K9 friend is both a blessing and a curse. He gets me up early to take him out running and I am greatful for the excuse to move my body. Again I have been engaging in poor body image and judgments on my physical appearance. Does everyone have this? It feels like such an epidemic.

I started voice and music lessons yesterday and it felt so wonderful to be studying and practicing music. It is slowly revealing itself to me and I am getting a little more confident on my instrument and with my voice. Having a music teacher once a week is really going to make all the difference.

I am avoiding what I really want to write about...

Depression. All I want to do is go lay in my bed. I don't feel the energy to even reach out to God. Little waves I sense His presence and I am greatful that he hasn't left me. I will sit in quiet relations with Him to hear what He has to say today...

Dear God,
Please show me what it is I must see.

To be allowing whatever arises? To not try to push away or change anything other than exactly how it is and shows up. To watch and observe without judgments. With neutrality. This is what I am working on, not to even judge my emotions or depressions, but to just respond with kindness and curiosity. Judging and changing emtions and states of being or doing is actaully taking me mroe away from the present - and identifies me with the drama of the story or feeling.

How do I reside in neutrality?

Oh thank you for that lesson Dear One! I can see now and appreciate what it is in my life that is given to me so perfectly to learn and grow.

My intention today is just to return to neutral whenever I face guilt, depression, tiredness, stress - these are my emotional states these days. All will pass, all is changing.

for love for love for love
this is what i live for

Growing Up is Not always Easy

Taking a deep breath in - why does it seem so difficult to see the beauty all around. As a child wakes up, everything is magic, and i crave that sensation once again. Taking care a of a new k-9 friend has reminded me of the joy of the outdoors and play and to stop being so serious. This change in pace is truly the perfect shake up which i needed. It seems so easy to step back into old mind habits and I am reminded to stay neutral. Just getting up and exercising every day and then writing is such a joy. Work too seems still to have this looming effect, but i know that i can transform that internally. I have such a wonderful opportunity to grow this program i run and to watch it blossom, and yet there is all this doubt and anxiety i carry inside. This is exactly what i am learning to transform. When I feel doubt and anxiety, or a sense of guilt or whatever, I need to stop, ring the bell and see it. I can choose to transition out of it. I am not powerless to it, only then will my creative potential arise - not out of guilt - that is just an old habit. And I am so thankful to have the teachers I do to help see this. I am so used to functioning in the old, overly thinking the past - and craving and visualizing/fantasizing about others lives. This sucks my creative potential - this consumes me. I can't jump to the other side until I look at and transform each emotion as it arises. To take it slowly and really visualize myself in the future as a teacher - always learning about herself! What joy! What a wonderful opportunity to be with children and enjoy, every day, the challenges of learning. I have forgotten what a struggle it is to learn things for the first time. Growing up is not always easy. I remember school often times being the worst possible place to go to, doing homework the last thing i wanted to focus on. My father would help me in the evenings with my homework and I needed to scribble and draw every 5 minutes. So he set a timer for me - five minutes of homework and five minutes of scribbling and drawing. It is funny how freshly this memory sits with me because I can understand, even at that age, how important this change was for me - my father was working with me to help the discomfort of learning something new. And in fact - i have no idea what i was learning at that time, but i do remember that scribbling!

Being in a new home is really really really helping me get out of the old. I think I am still going through this seasonal shift, this out of summer and into winter. thank goodness for Fall, thank goodness we have this transition season. It is so helpful to go through this dying process, letting go and again sinking in for the winter to visualize what next I will create in my life. There seems like so much ice everywhere energetically. Like I have to warm myself with enough love and understanding to melt this ice. My creative potential is just now flowering again with all the work I am doing in school to refire my music, voice, art, writing, acting. These things really are so important to the developing mind and I am so thankful to have Waldorf education and Anthroposophy to develop my waking mind.

I really feel it is necessary for myself to recognize when i am not in a space of neutrality. When I am constantly judging myself, I can't get anything done and everything I do is wrong. I am so grateful to have all this free time to study, learn, write, reflect, enjoy my time. As a teacher my time will be limited. And so to have this life right now, which seems full at times, but others, just the right amount of work - I feel so grateful.

There are things in the school which are complicated. My work school I mean, and it is hard not to constantly think i have to figure them out. I blow everything out of proportion and I forget that parents and teachers are really quite thankful and grateful for my work. I think I am always looking for something "to do" and not just being present in my heart, which is what children need. The doing is just a distraction to not feel emotional, or guilty - and these feeling are only coming up because they want to show me something. I am not sure just what it is I feel so guilty about all the time, like I am not capable at my job. I have such a deep desire to serve, and it is very new for me to be in a place of creative leadership that often times i just get overwhelmed. I really need to start giving myself more credit, and it is ok to just let the kids be and enjoy the time with them. The few ideas which are arising are taking a slow time to take effect, but that is ok too. Being in my power at work means being in myself, enjoying my presence as a force of love, attention and respect to the children. Conflict resolution and care giving. These two things are enough and as long as the kids are still being registered, there is nothing to stress about all the time. thank goodness for clarity. amen.

A new commitment to writing

Guidance from Eileen Caddy
Make Room for the New

Life is full and overflowing with the new, but it is necessary to empty out the old and make room for the new to enter. The emptying out process can be very painful, but it is necessary. You have to be willing to unlearn so much to make room for all those new and wonderful truths to enter and to become part of you. It is more difficult to unlearn than it is to learn. You may experience that feeling of barrenness, of having nothing to hold onto, of being alone and bereft of everything, a life dead and empty and with no meaning to it. Realize that it is a process of being emptied of the old so you can be filled with the new. Never give up faith. Then you can begin again in newness of spirit and of truth.

With that said, here I am in my new house sit situation. The breathing is still coming very shallow and slow and my thoughts and mind are still seeming to attack me at every turn. I wonder about when i was a teenager and feel that whatever i am going through now is very similar. Everything feels new and strange, everything feels like a huge struggle to overcome. I harvest so much guilt and shame for the littlest things. Every time I step outside of a rythem and eat a treat or go to bed late or even speak forcefully to a child at work, I am struck with this overwhelming experience of shame and guilt. Like I can't just let go. My Conscious Freedom Counselor speaks of being in my power. When I am feeling pain in my stomach it means I am not in my power and dislodging thoughts and feelings can come in and hook me and nock me over. That is just what it feels like. With everything changing in my old house I never felt safe, I didn't know how to be in my power when I wasn't happy with my surroundings or the people who were in my intimate surroundings. The house I just moved from was full of strangers coming and going and I felt uncertain as to how to "be" around them. My false small self was triggered and I was lost in wondering how I was supposed to act or talk to them. When I don't feel "seen" from others I react with putting up walls and avoiding interaction. This is funny, because how can anyone see me if I am hiding behind walls?

I would like to release that. When I am percieving others as a threat, instead of running away, how else could I respond? Perhaps remind myself that they are not in fact a threat, but just in their own heads, in their own reactions to their life and day. I was threatened by so many people as a child, (or that is what it felt like). I couldn't trust my extended family, my babysitter, even my friends were cruel to me at times. I ended up retreating into clouds of my own making and shutting the world out. Many days after school were spent alone and watching TV. I was alone sometimes for five hours before my mom came home from work. I created a comfortable reality to hide in.

Now when i try to escape to that comfortable reality I am hit with Karma and a big wake up call. There is no comofortable other reality, where we reside is this moment right here. When I didn't have the tools as a young girl to cope with that reality, to honor that the moment is actually very safe and peaceful (though it wasn't always) I did the next best thing and retreated into my mind. No wonder my mind is so active and full of stories and images to take me from feeling and sensing in this present moment. My feelings that arise are so intense that I just shut them down.

My breahting has been tight and controlled now for almost four months. My breath is shallow and gets caught in my diaphram. Each thing that happens that is not to plan is another reason to shut down and freak out.

I am working on creating a connection to source when I am in these moments. To find a heart space that is open and trusting, no matter what is happeing. This i feel is being in my power. this i feel is the only thing that actually works in these situations. I feel asleep most of the time these days. that other day when i went to 'escape' my life and go see a film (which was horrible and caused more stress than escapism) my car was towed and I ended up paying $400 total with all the costs of tickets, registration, and tow costs. That was sure a wake up call!

You can't just escape from life. You have to meet life with whatever it throws at you with focussed clear energy, there is always a truthful peaceful thread no matter what is happening. It is hard for me to "feel" my emotions durring this. To just allow them wash over me. Of cours I want to identify with them and cling to them for some sense of reality. And then my mind jumps in and takes me to that invisible world of illusion. While all of this occurs my breath is tight in my body.

I can't save other people. I can do the best I can with what is given me and I am learning immense things at this time. I know that I am actually a very good person. I spend a lot of my time proving to myself that I am a bad person, deserve nothing and reside in shame and guilt. Where did this all come from? The hardest thing is to continue to be alone and praise and love myself no matter what. This is what my heart and mind and the girl inside me truly wants. She also craves support in her power, in her leadership, in her good ideas. I can find everything else about what is not right about me - and get distracted at the 'big bad' world. Like the big bad wolf trickign little red riding hood - pretending she is safe as the grandmother, the little girl is beginning to wake up and see the big bad teeth, and the deep dark eyes, and the big furry ears - she is not stooped for long before the wolf is killed by the man with the axe. I do have an axe in my psyche. I need to take it out more and use it to cut the chords with the parts of myself that do not serve, the parts of myself that i know are truly not me. I want to cultivate what is me, who i am and what I believe in. I want to cultivate the me that loves life, takes it all in stride, and enjoys the highs and lows, because life is an ocean. Of course I am not perfect and no matter what is happening or how I am reacting - it is ok too. But truly, enough of this nonsense. i love my body, my mind, my soul, my looks, my life - and i am always working towards what works and i want to cultivate. I am in a learning curve right now. I am one by one stepping up to the plate to hit the home run which will truly take my life by surprise. I need to start giving myself more credit.

speaking from wisdom

It is my intention to become more familiar with the Wisdom inside of me. I have been having significant dreams and occurrences which signify divine wisdom as inherent in all of us. For me it is located deep within my solar plexus and shows up as a kind of silver crescent orb or moon which permeates out and through me. When I tap into it, very subtly at first, and with much patience, it begins to speak to me and I can ask questions and get very clear definite answers. I have not asked many questions but it seems to me that nothing is too small or too large to ask. I had a dream last night which showed me these different parts of myself. There is my incessant mind which believes it knows everything, can figure any thing out and tries to round out every problem into seemingly smooth stones. I wake up in the middle of the night, around 3:00am-4:00am (this is Vata time, a lot of wind-mind energy) - and hash over every detail of my life. It is actually really distressing, to wake up and disrupt my sleep. I have been saying mantras at this time and that has been helping a little as well. (Lord Shiva (Motion and Silence): Nama Shivia and the name of he moon mantra: Chan-Dra). My dream depicted this part of me which has a lot to say, in the figure of a man. He wouldn't stop shutting up, and I (showing up as how I look today-I believe my real me, my wisdom and my essential self) had a mouthful of apple cores. And every time the Man spoke, like he had to get a word in, I mumbled through the apple cores for him to stop speaking. I kept on taking the apple cores out of my mouth one at time as I was stopping him from speaking. Each time I interrupted him to be silent i removed another core. Until finally my mouth was empty and I could tell him the truth- to stop talking!!!! I often times do not listen to myself and have a habit of using food to depress my emotions and inner truth. This was the significance of the apples. But each time I turn inward and listen to myself and snap out of my Ego Mind and focus the inner eye on my real truth, my internal wisdom which speaks softly and carefully and which uses her words intentionally - I am removing all the years of habit of stuffing myself silent.

This place of wisdom requires a deep reverence for life and for silence and patience. A few things I am lacking these days. As we are going into Fall and then into Winter, the energies thicken and emotions are inflamed. After being sick as well, I can either learn from the lessons from being sick, have taken that time to really rest and readjust to the new phase of moon, the cellular clean-out I went through as a result of being sick in bed, or I can habitually return to the place of unrest, anxiety, and bullying myself throughout the day. I am so through with that!

But am I really?

I have been here so many times before, and I wonder how bad it will really get until I snap out of it. It takes my inner will and my observing eye to not identify with each passing emotion and thought pattern. This is the only way to true freedom, if one can consciously observe their inner state and continue to persevere toward the creative free will and the truth of the spirit, this will create a constant flow of fearlessness toward obstacles. Each obstacle which comes can either throw me back into my self loathing, mind games approach, or I can take a breath, notice what is going on, connect to my inner will and inner wisdom and totally shift my reality.

Rudolf Steiner suggests that the path to true understanding of the higher worlds relies firstly on reverence for life. If through out the day something comes up to throw you off, return to a thought or moment or a part of nature around you which can return you to a place of innocent wonder at life around you. For me this also has to go hand in hand with the mind seeing truthfully what it is that is so upsetting, allowing myself to feel it and naming it for what it is ( a root shadow of deprivation, unworthiness, or powerlessness). It is then, and only then, once I have named it for what it is, can I then freely choose my inner state of focus and attitude toward life and each obstacle.

It is so easy to go about things in the old way, to criticize and squeeze myself in a ball - for I usually am stressing myself out on some future event that I have committed too. When in actuality, in every moment - life has the perfection of truth to show me the clear way. Always connected to God.

Back Home

Needing to write after so many long long weeks away from stable ground. I have been traveling all over Oregon and California for the last 2.5 months. I left room for no expectations, and yet here I am home; very happy to be and also yearning for more of that spirit glide wind under my wings. I settle into a more stable schedule and the transition is actually very easy, something I have done many times before. I guess I am grateful for the practiced comfort of constant change. I am constantly watching my self-talk and transforming my self judgment into self nurturing and truth speaking. It is very very shocking now that I have began to notice just how much I unconsciously sabotage myself with my negative mind talk, how easy it is to slip into old patterns of being angry, weak, lazy, disturbed by everything around me. Living in a city again is the hardest transition. There is the street fair tonight and I tried to ride my bike down the middle, and there were so many people, so much noise pollution, so much swearing, chaos, anger, fear, disturbing energies that I just gave up. Three years ago this street fair was very different, more innocent and focused on the arts and expressing love. The innocent spirit of Love is so easily molested by false desire and show.

I am writing to just put some things down and in clearer perspective. i feel I may need to move out of my house. As I become more sensitive to energy, living so close to a busy street is quite draining. School has started and I would like a calm place to study. Ah! I want to be close to land! Traveling has put me on some gorgeous pieces of land and yet nothing felt like home. Is there a way I can live in the city and still feel close to nature? Is there a way to do this sanely?

My focus now is to be in school, Really take care of myself, love, laugh, be light, enjoy myself more. I have energetically closed myself to lower vibrating energies and have opened myself up to higher waves of love - especially when it comes to those who are coming into my life in a more affectionate, loving way. My life partner has not shown up yet and I take this to mean that I am still very much focusing on developing my own inner landscape. I am expanding my awareness and my capacity to hold loving, clear space for myself and others. I am developing my mind to understand and hold the immensity of this universe and this time that we are alive. I am also trying to put my ego in check! Meditation, observation, breathing, loving myself and engaging in the Welcoming Process and Conscious Freedom work have both been very essential. Engaging in private meditation with a new spiritual teacher has also been very very helpful. I also plan on getting regular reiki attunements, as the chaos energies are becoming more and more disturbing. Finding clean, quiet, authentic spaced to be in is more of a challenge. Even my home is somewhat disturbed.

I reached out today, feeling my inner mind begin to grasp hold of something outside of me. At one moment feeling lonely, as if no one understands. And then the soothing and calming presence of my guides and Angels became so crystal clear. I felt held by them, which is unusual, for their presence is usually very very subtle. What a gift that was!

This summer has been a lot of holding space for others and I am learning how to do it without taking on anyone else's drama, toxicity, negativity, pain, struggle, confusion. I found myself processing and thinking about others struggles long after my help was utilized. This left me drained and depleted. My tendency is to over think and analyze these situations to try to come up with better solutions. This is not helpful for me or for the situations I am referring to. Whatever I am being called to do or be in service for takes place in that moment and no more. The lesson then is to be fully present for it and then completely cut the chord when it is over. Weather it be listening to someone's internal process or struggle, holding the conscious heart space between two arguing friends, doing a healing for someone, even preparing a meal for someone - all of these types of services are meant to be done in the moment and then let go of. If I hold on to the argument days or even weeks after it is over, I am still depleting my very life force! I was cutting chords left and right this last week as I became aware of how much i was holding that wasn't even mine!

My intention is to shut my phone off more and focus inward, replenish and shape my days very artistically around clean and clear energy, love, beauty, and happiness. Lets see how it goes! I release negative, depleting thoughts, actions, and emotions! I welcome Love, Ease, Peace, Affection, Affirmation, and Beauty!

Razia - Mifohaza

Orchid Bees - Euglossa

experiencing the thin line of love and fear

Hello! Just when you think everything is made and the work is over, life hands me another huge piece of it! Lately I have been working to dismantle the outer layer of the false self and gingerly reveal the true self underneath. Very challenging work! What is this layer of elephant skin which hugs me so closely? Like an oversized Fireman's suit, it weighs me down and keeps me very secure and heavy in the face of so much perceived danger. Around others I am constantly watchful and weary or their scrutiny (really my own mind playing tricks on me). When I judge others, judge myself, hold myself stiff and tight it feels sharp and painful. I look to others for love to keep me from experiencing this suffering. I look to my phone messages, emails, positive looks and words from others to give me my worth and value. What keeps me from loving myself? What keeps me from being open and vulnerable in any situation? The more I study this life, the more I see that there really is nothing to be scared of. I know that this body is not all there is, I know that anything which happens comes purely in the divine will of the Creator. What then keeps me from bareing witness to my soul, openly loving my body, my path, my relationships, and my life? As if there were some outside scale with which to weigh what is worhty and what is not worthy. And writing this now, I see the self wearing this Iron Suit as worthy, as loved, as remarkably strong - only in this life to learn what that experience is like. She too is perfect. How to love all the selves which show up to experience this life?

I am ready to release this suit though. It keeps me from my freedom, from my soul essence, from my simple connection with the Creator. It is another device of separation - all energetic and created by the beliefs I made on my past experiences.


I asked my soul: what is keeping me from loving myself?
My soul answered: There is no space here to love.

This tightness which governs my good/bad and right/wrong keeps me imprisoned. As I breathe I let in the spaciousness which my soul desires, I let in all the fear and doubt. I let in even the pain of longing to be loved. Singing to the trees, naked to the world, gently stroking the peremeter of this encasement I ask, I ask, I ask:

Please release me.

I release you. I release you. I release you.

May my heart be on fire. My my soul know freedom. May my mind express openly without ego.

I release you tightness, hardship, anger, laziness and passivity, I release the self which uses others to determine her worth. I release the self which closes with fear when there is unknown, when there is no one there holding her, when the mind creates thin walls of thought and belief.

I release you. I release you. I release you.

May my heart be filled with love. My my soul know my true path. My my mind learn to drop away from doubt.

Divine Mother and Father - I adore you with all my soul. Please present to me the obstacles so I may overcome them to reside in my authentic self, fearless, open, grateful and abundant. May I sit steadfast on my cushion. May I sing with all of me. May I dance and pray with abandon. May I be an example of open hearted passion and safe free expression. May I know compassion for all my brothers and sisters and all the creatures of the world. May all be released from this suffering. May we know peace.

Amen.

Farm love

Recently moved to the Farm! Living under a beautiful Cedar Tree! some tales of the tale...

Eating a gooey chocolate chip and sweet potato cookie in between typing. Marveling at what a full weekend I have had! What I did today: Tomato and squash planting in the dawn of the sun, Preparing food for 15 people who are participating in a Permaculture design course (Indian mung bean dish, baked french fries, fresh farm green salad, and fruit salad). In trade for cooking food I was able to sit in on their classes today and learned how to measure distances without a measuring tape and got to sit in on a slide show on thermal dynamics, no waste farming while creating biodiversity for niche climates and organisms. Qi-gong in the woods, Conversations with farmies. What I did yesterday: Collecting slugs and worms to feed baby ducks who explored life outside their cage for the first time, weeding, cleaning up and re-organizing small nursery, meditation, sleeping, trip into town for sister circle with my new Isreali friend; Hadas.

All of this while integrating the change in relationship to a loved one. Reestablishing love with myself, relaxing into Gods perfect by perfect moments each moment. Letting Go into Surrendered prayer. Crying. Letting go of expectations. Noticing the pollen drifting in the sky like silken sail boats in the wind. Resting.

Where am I now? Opening into my heart, sensitizing to subtle fragile vibrations of love and light, loving myself loving myself ever practicing loving myself, listening whole heartedly to myself creates the space to listen and be present whole heartedly for everything else. Observing rather than doing. Letting go again. Still holding onto something deep within my gut, lower dan-tien-related to survival and shocked anticipation at life. Relaxing into that feeling and releasing stagnation. Learning to stand with balance and flow - hips tilted forward, back and shoulders relaxed, feeling K move up and down spine. Admiring people's eyes. Everyone has such beautiful eyes! Learning to appreciate everyone, especially those who I want to not let in, allowing myself to question that side of myself.

My intention for this month, as new moon creates renewal and change. My intention: Pray and meditate every day. Establish a place on the farm to pray and meditate every day. Observe and let go of expectations, listen into where Divine Mystery is guiding me, integrate all this change, write about love, experience love, fall in love each moment, allow love to open me up and expand me - rest and solitary time. Art.

Thank you for reading! peace to you!

The Light Beings will Return

Please check out this fabulous video with Little Grandmother and very clear message on what 2010 is about and the culmination of the Last Prophecy. Thank You!
http://vimeo.com/9928120

The Practice of Surrendering to the Source

By

Rev. Anakha Coman



The crisis, as well as the opportunity, of our time is to surrender our ego and
conditioned fear mechanisms to the primary torsion energy of unconditional love
that is seeking to evolve us and is calling us as a species home.
— Sol Luckman





“The key to all you could become lies in your willingness to let go, and to allow
the metamorphosis, in which you are deeply enmeshed, to proceed.”
— Rasha





Surrendering completely to love, be it human or divine, means giving up everything,
including our own well-being or our ability to make decisions. It means loving in the deepest sense of the word. The truth is that we don't want to be saved in the way God has chosen;
we want to keep absolute control over our every step, to be fully conscious of our decisions,
to be capable of choosing the object of our devotion.
— Paulo Coelho





Every birth is a holy act of surrender.
— Anakha Coman



The Surrendered Life × The Mystic’s Edge × The Emergent Zone × Powerlessness as an Expression of Power × Devotion and Deep Integrity × Rewiring for Oneness × Embracing the Sacred Death × Dying into New Life × Dynamic Surrender × Celebrate the Essential Through Surrender × The Great Unknowing × From the Domain of the Ego to the Devotion of the Soul



What is Surrender?

Stillpoint: Surrender is state of being, an inclination of the heart towards God. It asks for your devotion, giving yourself fully to each moment as it unfolds before you. To live a surrendered life is to give your heart to Love in rapture, in ecstasy, in grief, in anger, in sadness, in dismay, in joy, in elation — to donate yourself and your life to serving the fires of Love.

Surrender is an embodied, “lived” state, not a mental concept; a way of being and a condition of the heart. Surrender softens your face, your gaze, your heart and your body making you pliable to bend with the flowing changes of life while remaining deeply rooted. Your mind’s grip of fearful frenzied thinking and strategizing releases so that it can serve the emergence of your Soul. It is at the threshold of surrender where you meet the immensity, intensity and intimacy of Life. This is where playing at life – masquerading and manipulating – cease and the organic, soul-sourced impulse begins to move in you, as you, animating the life within you. Surrender invites the movement of inspiration, grace and humility. It creates the uncreated. The desire of you – the true essence of you, the embodied “I AM” – is born in these precious moments of surrender.

Surrender brings us face to face with what is real, genuine, whole and harmonious within us that seeks expression in each moment. Surrender takes us to the threshold of unknowing and avails us to the magnitude and miracle of each moment where we meet the great expanse of the Divine Mystery sprawled out before us. It takes the cork off bottled up life force, ideas, longings, desires, dreams, aspirations, and emotions; opening us to the unbridled freedom and spontaneity of the life. Surrender activates the Divine emergence; our Soul’s entelechy and unique curriculum presenting as our inner and outer life conditions. It delivers us to our knees in powerlessness where we become divinely empowered, employed and expressed.

What is it we are surrendering to? We are surrendering to being lived, to being created, to being loved, to being moved, transformed, lifted and resurrected into greater and greater states and stations of wholeness and love. {Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.} We are surrendering to Life itself – to the fully embodied and glorious experience of Life. There is rapture in surrender; a meeting of and merging with our unconditioned self, our native nature, and our naked essence. When the neat, tidy categories – our addiction to logic, reason, perfection and control – fall away, dissolve and retreat into nothingness we meet our original Self. Unencumbered by idealism and projections of what should be, surrender delivers us to the altar of what is now and what is emerging from depths of presence, our divine humanity.



Cease practice based
On intellectual understanding,
Pursuing words and
Following after speech.
Learn the backward
Step that turns
Your light inward
To illuminate within.
Body and mind of themselves
Will drop away
And your original face will be manifest.
— Dogen

It is in the depths of surrender that we meet life, that we experience life and that we powerfully engage with the opportunities to receive and give, to love and be loved, to create and be created. There is a pliability and receptivity born from a Soul in surrender that creates the inner conditions, rich with nutrients, for the Divine idea to germinate, spring forth and blossom in growth. Surrender is the Soul crying out to her Beloved, “play me, play me, take me, take me. I am an instrument in your hands.” And through this breathtaking devotion we become fashioned into the instruments of love that we are. The Divine begins strumming our heart strings, pouring love’s elixir into our parched and thirsting mouths, quenching the arid territory of a Soul separated from the essential Source. Surrender is “I thirst,” a deep desire for the Divine, for Life, for Union — the Soul in surrender, is the Soul in longing, “I thirst for God, I yearn for union, I desire love, I long to open in love, and to serve love.” It is the soul’s exhaustion from living “separate” from God and striving in the limited mind that compels and evokes the depths of our surrender. Surrender expands our heart into the Divine heart through our release and our devotion.

Breathless and intoxicated we give ourselves to Life with tremoring faith in our hearts. We admit our powerlessness and surrender to a power greater, an idea ever more amazing and uplifting. This is true empowerment – surrendering to the Divine Source of Life, to the Divine Idea and to the way unfolding in front of us. Surrender knows that a possibility exists that on our own accord we cannot perceive or conceive. Surrender delivers us to the Divine doorway where we experience an intimate communion. This is where emergence begins.

Surrender is not a point we reach once or twice in our lifetimes. It is a constant, a way of being and living. It is a way of relating and attending to that which is arising, arriving and emerging. It is a giving of oneself to life, to the moment, to the alchemical and unpredictable process of our own becoming. Surrender is a way of relating to self, God, others and life. It asks for our “sacrifice” of struggle – struggling for, struggling against, struggling with – and to embrace an artful allowing and a communion with creation as it flows to and through us and into the world of our relationships, our finance, our health and our creative endeavors.

In the presence of surrender our receptivity to life and inspiration and love increases a thousand fold. We upgrade from drinking from a leaky faucet to being showered in a fountain surging with blessings. Surrender is being in union with the blessing of life – a fully embodied communion with love, well being, sustenance, guidance, inspiration and divine nourishment. It is a state of grace-FULL-ness and of heart-FULL-ness. We receive this blessed experience so that we might give of our selves. It is through surrender that giving of what is deepest and truest within us can flow into expression. When we exhaust all other routes, surrender is what delivers us home to the state of blessedness, it is the direct route home to God.


The Surrendered Life

“Serving the emerging whole means paying attention to what's right here within my awareness, what's completely local, and surrendering to what's being asked of me now.”
— Betty Sue Flowers

We cannot know what is seeking to emerge if we are holding to what has been with a tight, clenched fist. Surrender asks that we release the grip, open the hand and let loose of all the ideas and good intentions we have attempted to overlay onto our lives, oftentimes moving in opposition to our soul’s emergence. Surrender brings all of the conditions of our lives into immediate alignment and places us in service to the Divine idea that is seeking to emerge.

The surrendered life is a life lived in constant communion and devotion to the Divine movement and will, surrendering our lesser intentions, distractions and machinations to the larger and greater work of our Soul. It is a life of surrendered prayer which requires our devotion, our diligence, our presence and our mindfulness. This is not permission to cast an absentee vote into the winds and tides to be tossed about haphazardly. This is an intentional, devoted and deeply spiritual act of understanding our deep purpose to serve the growing oneness and to be advocates of presence, awareness and unconditional love. It begins with a surrendered heart, a surrendered will, a surrendered intellect, asking that the Divine Idea become the most powerful force for movement, creation, interaction and interplay in our lives. It is a letting go of our need to know, our need to fix, organize, perfect and control. Surrender is the sacred art of allowing and remembering to deeply trust the presence of God at the center of our being and our lives.

Many of us resist the idea of surrender. We think that it requires giving up some experience of good and well being, when in actuality the Divine Ideas holds infinitely more blessing and richness and goodness than anything the limited ego mind can imagine or create. When we set our intention to the course (frequency) of love, of oneness, of joy, we surrender into the emergence, the blueprint that will deliver us to that experience as it unfolds moment to moment. There is sufficiency in surrender; it is the most expedient route to our own hearts, our own congruence and connection with God, life and others. It is through surrender that the sacred reconnection is made. When we can no longer see a way, a way will be made for us through surrender; it will be revealed to us and will emerge from deep within us. St. Teresa of Avila described surrender when she said, “The soul must forget about {understanding}, and abandon itself into the arms of love, and His Majesty will teach it what to do next.”

{Insert story: the mystic’s response when faced with a transformation, a whole-hearted yes.}

The surrendered life is a life devoted to serving love’s awakening on the planet through our personal awakening and service. It asks for all and it blesses all. All aspects of our lives are placed in the arms of surrender; everything is donated to serve the fire of love and life. When we let go and let be with conscious awareness and intention, we draw to us all resources mystical and physical, seen and unseen to nurture the emergence coming into being. What are we surrendering to? Ultimately and most simply we are surrendering to Love, to love’s creative, imaginative, transformative, provocative force.

Hold nothing back.
Open your chest and pour out all that lives there
Into the sacred fire of love
Live again in the Divine Truth
The Spirit of enthusiasm that surrender calls forth
Breath in, breath out…
Allow the holy breath to
Stir you into your next becoming!
Ah, sweet surrender
You are indeed the doorway
To the Kingdom of riches.
You hold the key
Cracking the code of the
Great emergence on the planet.



Are you willing to not know? Are you willing to loosen the grip of control and maneuvering to allow for a more easeful, graceful and powerful path to emerge? Can you surrender your faith in your self-will and self-control to receive liberation in knowing and living the Divine course for your life? Are you willing to lay down your idea and open to the Divine Idea of what a life worth living will look, feel, sound, smell and taste like?

The surrendered life is a life lived in a consciousness of communion, of willingness and of curiosity. I am reminded of the powerful alchemy created within the 12-Step Recovery movement. There is a deep and powerful surrender available through these steps (revised for the Law of Emergence):

1. As I stand at the edge of my own emergence and peer into the great unknown, I stand open and vulnerable to the life that desires to live in and as me. I know that I cannot manage, control, manipulate or contain this Life, nor do I want to pretend that I can for one second longer. I am humbled and in awe of the great unknown and the magnitude of that which is seeking to emerge within me and within my life – wholeness, oneness, goodness, wellness and happiness. “I release, I let go.”

2. In this moment of sacred silence, I know that something beautiful is seeking to emerge within me and within all expressions of life – my finances, my relationships, my creativity, my health and my consciousness. I know that the Divine has a plan and a purpose that is in operation at the center of my being and this plan is actively bringing me into relationship with my wholeness and brilliance, my essential oneness with all.
“In the stillness, I remember I AM.”

3. I remember that my true power is activated within my surrender to this great emergence, to the Divine’s Idea for me, my life and its many expressions. I surrender my lesser ideas and self-will, to the highest good and Divine Will. I surrender to the God Idea, to the good that is seeking to emerge. I rest in the knowing that all is well, in all matters of my life, all is well. “I will my will Thy will.”

Surrendering to Source is an act of high accountability and is an expression of core strength. Surrendering is dynamic and active and requires a reverential alertness to the movements of the Spirit. Unknowing brings us into contact with the brilliance, competence and genius of the Universe. Surrender avails us to, puts us into proximity with the emergent brilliance of the universe. We do not need to figure it out, nor can we. We do not need to fix or heal, nor can we. A powerful act in this time is to admit our powerlessness over what has been created and surrender to a new consciousness that remembers the Divine Idea that created the cosmos both heaven and earth, that same intelligence and life force and power and innate creativity lives within us, surrounds us and can move within us given our willingness to allow it. Be willing to be swept away.

In the surrender of the heart, the soul can speak without the stifling controls of the ego. The heart becomes free to utter the prayers that vibrate and resonate with all of creation. We can cultivate the surrendered heart moment to moment as we choose vulnerability, openness, exposure and transparency over control, masking, posturing and competition.


Surrendering to the Essential

How easily we get trapped in that which is not essential — in looking good, winning at competition, gathering power and wealth — when simply being alive is a gift beyond measure.” — Parker J Palmer

Stillpoint: Let us surrender to the essential, let us offer up our hopes and our burdens to the essential, let us let go into the essential. Let us burn in the holy fires of the essential. Let us be born again, anew in the essential.

Surrendering to the essential. This is the movement of the emergence, to surrender to the essence of the moment and the essential unfolding. What is essential? This question, when taken deeply within our core and answered, guides us, inspires us: leading us into the sacred emergence occurring at the center of our lives. We surrender the essential within us to the essential within life in sacred union, a fusion that moves us into the flow of creation. I surrender what is essential within me to what is essential in all life. I surrender to the essential movement that is occurring within my life and within the Divine Life.

It is time for us to evolve to a consciousness where we invest our energies in serving the creation of what is essential in our lives and on the planet. At times we may not know what is essential and our surrender to it is enough to bring us into this divine flow and to activate the emergence. This is what it means to serve the essential, to live a surrendered life. Every moment, every relationship, every idea, every fear, every addiction, every compulsion, every conversation, every decision is surrendered to the Source and that Source is unconditional love. We invite the Divine Presence in to take charge of our thinking, our breathing, our living, our loving, working, serving. We surrender to the truth that this is already happening and our striving against it is the most unnatural thing. Surrender is natural to the heart of love. Everything exists to serve the emergence and surrender is the key to unlocking the hidden power in all experiences, relationships, emotions, challenges, inspirations. To surrender is to align with the Source of Life, dynamically opening to ourselves and to the world in service to love.

God be in my head and in my understanding
God be in my eyes and in my looking
God be in my mouth and in my speaking
God be in my tongue and in my tasting
God be in my lips and in my greeting

God be in my nose and in my smelling/inhaling
God be in my ears and in my hearing
God be in my neck and in my humbling
God be in my shoulders and in my bearing
God be in my back and in my standing

God be in my arms and in my reaching/receiving
God be in my hands and in my working
God be in my legs and in my walking
God be in my feet and in my grounding
God be in my joints and in my relating

God be in my guts and in my feeling
God be in my bowels and in my forgiving
God be in my loins and in my swiving
God be in my lungs and in my breathing
God be in my heart and in my loving

God be in my skin and in my touching
God be in my flesh and in my paining/pining
God be in my blood and in my living
God be in my bones and in my dying
God be at my end and at my reviving

Extended from the traditional prayer of Reverend Jim Cotter
and printed in his book Prayer at Night. Cairns Publications,
Sheffield, England. 1988.

Naked Heart, Inc.
Anakha Coman, MA ABS, M.Div.
http://www.naked-heart.com
anakha@naked-heart.com
Twitter: @anakhacoman
Phone: 503.334.6262

Entrevista da Madrinha Francisca TV Aldeia

The Natural State

I wanted to write a bit about what is occurring in my life recently.

Can you say more incredible healing?

Can you say peace, light, gratitude and forgiveness?

Yes, all these things are totally here all the time, shifting how i think, move and act. In my heart there is this new profound sense of Peace. This Peace represents a Trust that I have finally come full circle. Last year around this time I was playing a lot with Trust. I was moving into a deeper relationship with trusting God and trusting myself and the challenges in my life. Knowing that all is put in to place to help me grow and provide deeper reflection into what and where my heart wants to go, what direction I am being asked to move into. I had many experiences of very specific guidance to Trust and and Let Go. These were very scary proposals for me though, for I was experiencing a lot of pain and sadness at my life situation. To Trust and Let Go meant to simply be okay with what was occurring. I had to Trust even the hardest circumstances and not try to jump to any conclusions about them. Every moment I was being guided very specifically as to how to maneuver into a deeper relationship with my heart's calling. I listened so carefully and did a lot of writing to become clearer on what that was. By writing and conversing with the heart, things become revealed so that understanding can occur. This understanding then creates the circumstance for you to be able to put this understanding into action. You let go of old beliefs and ideas and move into the clarity that your heart has guided you to. Letting Go into the Trust that this is a moment to moment process and is actualized by the presence you give to this state of awareness - being in alignment with your heart.

The difference about my life occurrences now is that this is not just an "either/or" situation. My heart IS now moving everything it feels. There is no decision about it or an unveiling of what that is. My heart is fully opened and moves me to experience life through this pleasure of divine love. Sure there are moments when this sometimes feels more open than not, but the Letting Go has happened, and now I get to be where I let go into - which is this energetic environment of Faith and Love - Our natural state (the same state in which we were born into and which every child is moving and living through).

Fear does come up! And it probably always will! To think that I could live and love in this world full of so much confusion and conditioning and not experience fear is pretty much impossible. I actually invite my fear in all the time, and am learning to experience it as just another level of loving. My fear guides me and shows me where I am holding back and what really wants to be looked at and taken care of. My fear just shows me how to love it all and how to dispel old beliefs about myself, others, and the world. The experience of fear, if not accustomed to be worked with can throw us off guard, can spiral us into a very bleak experience and can shadow our dreams so that we stay very blocked, stagnant and small. When this Love happens in the heart which is Completeness and The Knowing that "I am Okay no matter what." Then fear has no where to live and is dissolved or buffeted. It still stirs the soul, it still makes the heart beat faster, but it is allowed to do all these things in the most comfortable arms of the Beloved - The Heart - This Complete Love - Complete Faith. It requires many many quiet moments, courage to be with it, meditation, and calm environments to be witnessed. It is then through these many experiences of this Greatness that it then begins to envelop All that is not it. It is like a full circle inner tube holding you in an ocean of Unknown. We then realize even this Ocean of Unknown is also this Great Love and we experience even more Faith, Openness, and Love.

The heart knows, let it unfold into what it truly wants. Your desires are profound and beautiful and want you to listen to them and experience them. The mind can assist, but the heart-mind needs to be your guide.

So this has occurred for me on a very deep embodied level, one to where i now feel comfortable writing about it as my own experience. Letting go into Faith and Trust is a very private experience. It is not loud or expressed outwardly, but is a subtle shift internal that moves our lives forward like eyelash wings fluttering us awake.

Our experience of the Divine is also very private and is like a relationship reflecting the perfect relationship with love and partnership. A new person has come into my life and this love is changing everything Again! Just so you know, there is no final resting place in all this, from my experience it just deepens forever into the Flower of the Great Mystery. We are so blessed to be experiencing this life to be held in this devotional process, in this awakening into our Creator's Love, there is nothing else more beautiful! No Science more important!

So to say the least, this new person, who also has these experiences of Divine Love and Openness and Complete Faith - has arrived in my life, right on time. In fact I knew he was coming, but I am still pinching myself every so often just to make sure I am still "Awake"! To Love God now seems easy! To be loved by another in this complete way, to experience my completeness through anther's love is now the new challenge! Now my stuff about unworthiness is really coming up! But to bring this piece of writing full circle I want to share about this new experience about letting Go and Trust.

I had a belief that this Divine Love is only perfect with God, only to be trusted in here with myself and the Spiritual - The safety nets of my own vibrating heart, beneath my rib cage - only I can arrive here alone.

I am experiencing this belief being taken away. The embodied experience of another's love matching the love of God is changing me yet again. In fact it was so deep that I experienced a part of my soul return to me so that I feel more whole than ever. When I was traumatized as a young child a part of me left to be with God in this Wholeness, believing that it was not safe to be in my body and completely whole. After experiencing this level of Trust and Love from another I went through a series of deep shifts and healing where I witnessed this piece finally coming home and returning to me. So two things happened: A new experience of Wholeness with myself. And a new experience of Wholeness with another. The embodied experience of God's love coming from another, where this absolutely Nothing to fear and there is absolutely no holes in my faith in it, dispelled any last fears and beliefs that really I will fall, that this safety net cannot really hold me. I will be abandoned, abused and will again be alone with myself and God picking up the pieces and lovingly putting them back. For ten years I have been doing this, sometimes gracefully, sometimes angrily. But I have always had the courage to work with it. I know a part of me had not returned and I know a part of me was still being whipped around in a constant state of trauma due to what happened to me as a child. This unconscious state of trauma was still popping up and making decisions that were recreating this trauma in my life. I was always experiencing the wholeness and then the trauma and then back to wholeness. Yet this wholeness was still outside of me, never fully embodied.

Today and Yesterday were the first days that I feel this wholeness completely embodied and completely in Trust that his Love Is.

A Message from VERONICA

Many souls when separating from Source to experience the linear environment feel a sense of aloneness that is difficult to overcome. Compounded by dramas, the feeling of isolation can leave one feeling powerless in the seeming vastness of the physical time line.

To have the dense experience the sense of singularity is strong within the psyche of the incarnate. It does not, however, have to be exclusive from the soul's participation. It is possible to have the physical, hand in hand with the comfort of your soul.

The entity from which you come is always present in your energy. It is possible to focus in the linear while being interwoven in the fabric of your soul.

Attempt to reach within yourself to make the connection. Your energy will reach back to you in response to your loneliness. It was always there and it wishes for your awareness of the connection.

You are never alone. It is only the perception of separateness that confuses you.

Reach for your soul. It's already extended to you.

Even now.

Go ahead.

You will not be disappointed.

Reach.

Reach within.

-VERONICA

The 6 Keys to Spiritual Dating

“Spiritual Dating” or “Conscious Dating” is an enlightened way of meeting and dating. There are no rules or expectations, and it’s about being true to oneself and staying in the flow. Conscious dating is more fun than the traditional style of dating, and it yields much better results! As we raise our vibrational frequencies and approach fifth dimensional living, it’s more and more important to practice Spiritual Dating with respect to meeting a life partner as our thoughts and feelings are manifesting extremely fast!

The 6 Keys to Spiritual Dating:

#1 REMEMBERING OUR DIVINITY:
Realize that every person is a DIVINE ASPECT and before incarnating, we agreed to forget our Divinity. We chose to be here on Earth for this incredible time in history, so be joyful and grateful for ‘waking up’ and being part of this planetary ascension. Loving ourselves unconditionally and letting ourselves express this tremendous JOY that is our Divine Essence is the basis of Spiritual Dating. Allow this love of self and joy to radiate outward and attract the same. It’s much healthier and fulfilling when two souls come together in joy and bliss rather than in desperation and loneliness.

#2 BEING PRESENT and OPEN:

When we are truly PRESENT in the moment, we are OPEN to meeting the love of our life because we are paying attention. Enjoy each encounter, whether or not that person is a potential mate. When standing in line at the grocery store, book store, post office… (anywhere!), pass up reading the magazines or thinking about what you are going to make for dinner. Instead, be receptive and conscious of who might be coming into your space. ENJOY the moment you are experiencing NOW! Be bold and say hi to people, initiate conversations and SMILE.



#3 BEING REALISTIC:

Chemistry comes in all shapes and sizes. Realize that our “types” have most likely been created by mass media programming and therefore the collective consciousness. Break free of this illusion, the matrix, if you will, and feel someone’s SOUL, their “beingness”, their heart. Our life partner may not look like the “type” we have been conditioned to see as attractive. They may be taller, shorter, thinner, or thicker, or even the same gender, so let go of the attachment to how someone appears and look deeper. As we thoroughly enjoy and experience every person we encounter, we can appreciate their uniqueness and see their Divinity. Listening to our guidance and knowing that we may be drawn to someone because they are our life partner, or maybe for another reason, perhaps they have some important insight or information for us or vise versa.



#4 BEING REAL:

Being real means letting one’s guard down and getting out of ego; being oneself without trying to empress or show off. When in a relationship, true selves and personalities are eventually revealed and observed by our partner, so it’s more efficient to be genuine from day one. By expressing our true selves, we send out that energy to the quantum field and magnetize a partner that is also being REAL!



#5 LISTENING

When on a date, practice active LISTENING. Instead of planning out what we are going to say next, or worrying about how we look, active listening involves being present and focused on the other person while they are speaking. With an open heart, listen and feel what the other person is saying. Be there for them 100%. When talking, speak from the heart, and allow the conversation to flow naturally. Allow time for silence and just being together. Remember to breathe and relax.



#6 STAYING IN THE FLOW:

Getting out of our head and following our heart, our feelings and the current energy is the essence of staying in the flow. When we are tapped into our Divinity, we know what to do, where to go, who to talk with etc... When in the flow, there is no ‘thinking things through’ for hours, days or weeks….it just happens. It’s part of being present and open. Being open to whatever is in our highest and best for each moment and trusting that we are being perfectly guided by our higher selves (that part of us that always remembers its Divine connection), is the key to staying in the flow. Letting go of expectations and preconceived ideas about what something “should” look like, or how something “should” be is essential.



Spiritually dating creates a fun, enriching experience to be savored and thoroughly enjoyed. When these six keys are put into practice, results happen quickly, and it’s possible to be experiencing a blissful, devoted, loving relationship in no time, so ENJOY the process!

Author Info:

Jill Crosby is the owner/founder of the largest exclusively spiritual/conscious/green network of dating sites on the Internet, The Conscious Dating Network, which included Spiritual Matchmaking, originated in 1998 and launched in 1999. She is a dynamic public speaker, workshop/retreat leader and hypnotherapist. She communicates with dolphins and whales and facilitates Wild Dolphin and Whale Swim Retreats for Singles.

Learning to be availiable for my Soul's Emotions

Wow, these last few weeks have been really hard. After going through what seemed like a very major dark night of the soul and being in bed with bronchitis, I am still just barely keeping my head above the water of my emotions.

This GREAT sadness seems to want to envelop me and all I can do is sit and face it. While at times I am more caught in my head or with the task at hand, I am usually either criticizing myself or feeling waves of emotional turmoil. My mind seems out of control and my actions follow suit and I would be in a downward spiral if it were not my warrior like nature to just sit and be with the moment and all its sufferings head on.

Part of me feels like this is natural, this is supposed to be occuring, it is rocking my ship and making my soul's calling availiable to me. And I am used to being in such high states, being available for others problems and lately all I have wanted to do was curl up with a good novel and tune out.

My heart feels heavy. A new possible lover came over last night and submerged me in a beautiful sea of sexual intimacy. And this morning I awoke crying and aching for my heart is not availiable for that type of contact right now. And it feels very difficult to face that and speak its truth. I don't feel availiable for anyone but myself. And this too is hard to admit, like I am letting others down and even myself, my ego. Meanwhile my soul is rocking me, soothing me and showing me all the intense shadow I carry with me throughout my day. It is like a blanket of heavy wool, covering my shoulders and keeping me pressed flat to this pain. A ball and chain of sickness and depression. It feels unbearable and times, like my heart will explode under the pressure. My intuition just tells me to keep looking at it, loving it, listening to it and being there for it and it is so tricky to, because the same pain is letting me get away with things and thoughts and actions that are hurting my body and mind.

And then I get down on myself for all this because I can't snap out of it. Is this normal? Does everyone feel this way? I feel like blaming it on the fact that I live in a city and it is winter and dark out all the time and it sucks. I feel like blaming it on my lack of discipline and negative thought patterns. Like, I should be doing this... Or why is she so much better at that than I?... Or if only I could keep this practice up every day, then I will be happy, healthy, have what i want.... etc. What old patterns!

What to do when these thoughts arise? What to do when I am suffocating myself because I am already suffocating? I feel trapped and weighted down and sad.

It is embarrassing for me to speak to all this because I feel that my ego is angry at being found out.

And adyashanti says, these are all just stories. See through my idea of it. I am experiencing my idea about something, when I see through that, it is gone. What is left is the next most obvious thing. Question the thought until it disappears. Then I am freed up to be moved by the simplicity of truth. Like everything else there isn't a reason.

Longing

Here I am.

Feet on the ground I meet my own longing. I met her in her complete form the other night as the deepest emotional state I have ever witnessed besides love. I asked this longing: "Who are you?" "Where did you come from?" And she answered with an image of my self as a child reaching her hands up in a deep need. Her need was not met and so it created this self; this longing; this unmet need as a deep wound inside my emotional body.

My longing is all of our longing. It is the longing to be with each other, to be held in love and acceptance and true seeing. It is our longing to be out of the city and within the comforts of our mother we once knew as the trees and rivers that surrounded us and met us on a daily basis. It is my longing to be in union with God and in union with love. It is my longing to be deeply fed and nourished. It is my longing to be heard, felt, understood, witnessed, touched, looked at, admired, and in purpose.

My longing is also the deep piercing longing to be in service. To know my gifts and talents and use them to help heal the world. My longing is to know Who I Am and Why I am Here. My longing is here now, it may not always stay, and so I welcome her and accept her as part of my Now.

She is sharp and open, she is round and smooth, she is the self in me which acts unconsciously in relationships, in food choices, in all choices that act from not having enough, not giving myself enough, not connecting deeply in and with myself. She is there at all times that I am not intentionally connected to God. It is my connection to God which keeps this longing satiated. It is my connection with my womb and my heart which keeps this longing unable to fully control me. For she is like a beast who wants to devour me and devour all things to satiate this pain of appetite.

So how do I truly stay connected to myself and to God?

How do I observe her when she wants to act out and breech my contract with my heart?

She reaches out to suck the energy out of someone else. This deep need cannot be met by anyone else. She is there, I know her very intimately. She is suggesting I play games with Men, suggesting I refuse my meditation practice to eat fried food and sugar. She is there suggesting I internally beat myself up and judge every detail of my life as imperfect. She is the ego in her garb of fierce emotional turmoil.

The sun is shinning outside today. I didn't get a full night's sleep last night. I am not perfect, but each and every day is perfect and provides me with another beautiful opportunity to open into my joy and acceptance. Inviting me into meeting that longing with good music, movement, conversation, gift giving, exercise, supporting a friend, or asking to be supported.

I ask sincerely: "Will this longing ever be fully met and satiated forever?" "Will she always be there behind the surface?" "What is the gift of this longing?"

She is a part of me and to shun her would be shunning my child. I must ask her on a daily basis: "What do you need?" "What do you know?" "How can I meet you?"

And Listen Deeply. And act to the best of my ability to meet her there, for anything else will just widen her deeper and contribute to the belief that I can't meet my needs, that she is not being met, that she is not worth listening to or holding.

She is asking me to meet her on a daily basis, on a moment to moment basis. A deep listening and presence to her. She as a child who is sick and who needs constant attention. My longing is a sick child who is me and all children in need. She is the Mother Earth longing to be with her children and for them to know her. She is the children in Haiti who are suffering. She is the subtle depression which suffocates all those living in illusion. She is a presence which will not be satiated easily, she wants good food, she wants creativity and movement every day, she wants deep contact with the earth. She is in love with God and knows that when I am with God she is with God and there is nothing to long for.

She is the longing to return home and be loved. She is all of us.

I meet her now: And I meet all longing:

Oh beautiful child. You Are the World! You are the sun rays that dip into the plants and radiate love to all of creation! Your smile is the emotional glue which keeps this crazy world together! You are everything and nothing, you have the power to create and be intimately known! You are beautiful and radiant and True! You Can! You Can! You Can! Your heart is the heater for all of humanity and carries our true purpose! Your eyes can shine into infinity and carry you to every corner of the universe! You are not alone, but surrounded by infinite beings of love and light! You Are Here For A Purpose! You may not know it just yet, you may not ever truly understand Why, but there is an answer. You are the answer. Your movement, your blood, your intricate DNA carries the secret to the unfolding human heart and every action you make and thought you have is, I assure you, not a mistake. Every action you make ripples out into the fabric of time, by your very makeup you are a part of this great mystery and weaving your piece just as we all are. There is no mistake, just a deeper unfolding, a knowing, and a being. You are light! You are Love! Your devotion is the Stuff of God's very own prayer. Your longing is met in this knowing. Trust your knowing. Trust your heart. Trust Trust Trust.

On Being Lost

Isn't it funny how one experience can sometimes be the perfect reflection and medium to understand a state of mind?

It was nighttime and raining pretty hard as I was coming home from Santa Rosa, CA to my father's house in Sebastapol. I was rushing to get home to catch a ride to dance class from the house. I knew that I was just going to make it on time. But as I got closer the directions I had did not fit the signs I was following. Soon I was curving around unknown passages, tires skidding on the wet asphalt and heavy downpour shaking the branches above me. I started getting very mad. I was speeding, I was feeling the rage and sadness of something, deeper than just being lost on my way home. Something in me wouldn't slow down and take things calmly. I ended up at a church and asked for directions. I followed them and got lost again. I ended up down a dirt road, at a dead end. I tortured the car as I backed up slammed on the breaks and turned around. I then ended up on someone's private road and again angrily and forcefully turned the car around. I became a mad woman screaming in the car asking for a death wish on a road unknown in the middle of nowhere.

Then all of a sudden I saw the correct sign for the street I was looking for. There it was. I zoomed down it and found the house and parked. My ride had already left. I stormed into the house and sat down ready to cry.

Instead of crying or fixing the situation by getting to the dance on my own, I pigged out in front of a movie and figured it wasn't worth it to feel my emotions or create a better alternative for my night.

So today I was finally able to reflect on that night and I started playing with this description of being lost.

It is a very good analogy for the way I used to be in my life. I was lost, but searching madly for home. I was making choices in my life which reflected this intense sadness and insecurity. Being lost in my own life was like forgetting my way home. I knew home existed but I didn't know exactly how to get there. I was searching and in the confusion, made a lot of mistakes and wrong turns. Every time I made a wrong turn, I would stop, turn around and head back to where I came from so that eventually I would be back on track.

Nobody stays lost forever.

With so many of us lost out there we are confused and angry. We are angry because we do not have a place in our hearts to call home, but we are tirelessly searching and it occurred to me that Nobody Stays Lost Forever. We are all searching for Home (a place of Sanctuary, Welcome, Warmth, Family). Even in someone's outward actions, be they of deceit, manipulation, rage, or hate - these actions and beliefs are not one's home and will never be allowed entry once that being finds the True Home: that of Wholeness and Love. So it is my belief that we are all on this search back home, and even if we never felt it during childhood, (which many of us haven't who grew up in homes of fear) it is truly a feeling that resides in all of us and is calling to us all the time.

Nobody stays lost forever, we will all eventually stop our wrong turns and make the right turn home to our hearts: our spiritual truths. Being lost is a state of mind: an identification with the self and the life which does not resonate with a larger spiritual reality. After so many wrong turns, there is eventually a right turn which begins to lead one down a road to many right turns and eventually home to our true mother and father: Faith and Reason.

To all those who are still lost: (and we can see this state of mind by the choices you make to pollute the Earth, manipulate human beings and animals, live your life only for money and power, choose to uphold lies that lie in sexism, racism, acts of hate and any choice which does not reflect sincere service to the Earth and Humanity.) Eventually you will find your way home because you will know the feeling. It will well up inside you like an upside down balloon and envelope your whole heart. Home will guide you out of the darkest dark into its calming waves of Truth. Nobody stays lost forever - this is madness and in disharmony with human nature. It may take many people many lifetimes to find home, but it is there, waiting to welcome you inside.

On Crafting Our Brilliance

We are each forces of Brilliant Nature. We are crafted and designed to share our unique talents with all of creation. Recently I have been playing with this idea in my every day action. How am I crafting my own brilliance? I see it as a twisting, turning, spiral of passion, intelligence, creativity, humor, and good choice. If I put my time and attention in myself as if I were a piece of art, continually being sculpted and resculpted, it is up to me what shape I choose to take. I feel this force in me, and by not identifying with it, as in "I am brilliant." But feeling the divine brilliance through me, I can begin to understand and interpret my choices in this world. Brilliance means intelligent design and a flow of uninterrupted creative outpour and expression. This could be in how I make my tea, or the slow graceful pace I make a meal. Brilliance could be the choice to not over-indulge and instead take a walk in the cool night air. This force wants to grow and develop into a fine piece of work, one which will counter and confront any obstacle in its way. This force will guide me and attract other brilliant light to it. This force is my Divine Will and my destiny. By counteracting it I am giving in to an old belief that I am not worth anything or just mediocre. We must break free from our mediocre identities and recognize that every action echoes itself into all of creation. Every choice I make which comes from my true identity and my true self will create ripples of choices for the whole planet. My shadow self if becoming more and more familiar and how I choose to interact with my shadow self is also a sign of my own brilliance. I feel her sometimes like a spirit friend, and recently have been putting a comforting hand out to her and reconcile our differences. My shadow self are only the unconscious parts of me which still identify with fear, panic, and control. Carl Jung said that the best thing you can do for someone is show her her shadow, for then she will recognize that she is made of light which casts this shadow.

Today was a very simple day and I got to just reflect, take care of some business and make some phone calls. There is always this force in my which is constantly questioning the force of nature and observing it. I am so greatful that a friend recently guided me to trust the force of divine flow and clarity that is welling up in my at all times. My meditation practice has been to simply observe this and let it guide me into myself and into insight. I have searched for so long for the right spiritual practice, what do I do and how do i do it, and I am so tired of obligation. It is suffocating me. My practice is to love God, turn to God in every detail, and craft Her force in and through me. Only then will I get to know a glimmer of my own brilliance and know the purpose of my existence.