Alan's Blog

This page has current Newsletters and from time to time other short writings, bits of poetry, or links of interest. Come by and check it out. This is also the place to browse old Newsletter posts.

Relaxing into Life (© 9/10)

It has been said that necessity is the mother of invention. I've often noticed that laziness is another good stimulus for creativity. In other words, if something has to be done why use more energy or effort than necessary to accomplish it?

Working a summer office job in high school I can remember people commenting on something I was doing with a bit of surprise. I can't remember the details now (except that it involved the office copier and 200 pages reports), but I remember responding that the creativity had come from being lazy. Contrary to popular views, this sort of laziness promotes efficiency, something like inventing the washing machine when you are tired of doing the clothes by hand.

A few years later I started practicing Tai Chi. As one early teacher used to say, the whole point is to learn to relax. When asked how you did this he would say, "practice, practice, practice". As in most things in life, being relaxed, rather than tense or nervous, yields better results. It is also physically easier and less tiring. One day I was playing pool with a friend of mine and I thought of my tai chi, dropped my center, relaxed into my legs, and found that my playing flowed effortlessly.

Many years later I had occasion to spend several months digging out the lower level of a house to allow new windows and doors to go in. For a number of reasons I choose to do this by hand. Working again from tai chi I focused on relaxing as much as possible and found that I could release the tension and soreness from my body this way. I also taught myself the easiest and most efficient way to work with a pick and shovel. Over the years I have learned that if you want to learn the most efficient (easiest) way to do something: focus on staying as relaxed as possible while doing it. Your being will naturally find the desired result.

Think about all great athletes, artists, or practitioners of any art. When we wish to express the mastery we see in them, we say that they made it look effortless.

In the energy work that I do the concept of effortlessness is emphasized, though it is really more an attitude or state of being. Anything can be done with, or without effort. It is both easier and usually more efficient to do it without effort. Lack of effort is not at all the same as not paying attention, it is about relaxing while you do something. Find the tension in your body or being and relax it and everything will improve.

I once had a chance to help with a rice harvest in rural Japan, some of which was done by hand. This is indeed tiring work. Harvest time is also the time of year when there are festivals in the villages, including dancing. Watching the dancing one evening I realized that the movements in the dance where the same as in the harvesting and that they also both movements seen in martial arts. Over the millennia people have found the easiest, most efficient motions of the body. This is natural at the end of a day of harvesting, or a long practice session, you have no energy for anything else.

So if you are interested in efficiency, in the optimal way to do something, it will also be the easiest and the most relaxed. Remember to factor in emotional and mental energy as well, then it can be fun as well as efficient. Learning to relax may sound like being lazy, but as long as there is presence, awareness and attention (no limp noodles), there is life and ease and grace.

Sunlight Reflections (© 8/10)

Take a moment and remember all the places you've gone swimming. Remember all the swimming you've done out doors, in sunlight, where the water is shallow, clear, and you can see the patterns of sunlight on the bottom. It might be a beach, or a lake, or a swimming pool, but the sunlight is refracted by the surface of the water and collects into ever moving patterns of light. Ribbons of light that intersect in brighter blobs making a network that depends on the patterns of waves above.

When I was in college and studying physics I always had a sense that this was an image of how energy collects to form particles, which move and interact, always changing. I never "worked out" this metaphor in detail, but have often remembered it since. There is a field of energy that exists everywhere, and the particles are just denser places. There is light everywhere on the bottom of a pool, but it's collected, focused by the waves into brighter ribbons and blobs, into forms and particles.

Later I studied yoga and my teacher spoke about how consciousness became denser as it came out from source and into the physical. He spoke as if there were planes, or levels with interfaces which could reflect and refract consciousness as it emerged, helping to give it form. This is what happens at the surface of the water, the interface with the air above, and the light which was uniform is refracted and reflected and takes on form and pattern as it enters the water and shines onto the bottom.

Spirit infuses matter, as the light shines into the water. It projects into matter, but is refracted in ways that produce form. It is denser in some places, bright and noticeable, and less so in others, but never absent, only relatively less present.

When the water becomes still the patterns fade, the light is everywhere the same, until a breeze comes or a swimmer moves, and waves are formed and the pattern of light and dark reappears. Perhaps this it how the mind works, creating patterns, dramas, and dreams; by refracting the light of spirit into brighter and less bright, light and shadow we may call it. When the thoughts and emotions still and the surface calms, spirit can shine evenly into us. The forms disappear, and we may miss the variety, the beauty of the patterns, but the stillness allows peace and an unrefracted experience of the divine.

In your mind's eye, or the next time you go swimming under the sun, notice these patterns and let your being remember how spirit infuses you as the sunlight does the water. Notice what images or metaphors arise for you.

Deeper Affirmations (© 8/10)

Several weeks ago I was having one of those days where mental focus and clarity about my current spiritual journey was less than optimal. Being reworked by Spirit again, leaving me to trust in my higher Self which knows this business better than I. Fortunately a good friend of mine was available to take a look at things for me and in the course of having a conversation with my higher Self and was told to remind me to make use of affirmations.

My fuzzy mind reacted with an attitude; been there done that, not likely to help. This is in spite of having made use of affirmations, or self-hypnotic suggestions for many years. When I first read about affirmations they were discussed as a way to reprogram the mind. Repeating a well constructed affirmation would stir up counter programing and belief, all the reasons something wasn't possible. Eventually this mental back talk would be cleared out and the new positive belief installed.

When I trained as a hypnotherapist, self-hypnotic suggestions took this a step further. By dropping into a trance state first, conscious mental filtering is by-passed and the suggestions enter directly into the subconscious. This is a process I teach most of my clients and have used extensively and effectively myself.

In spite of the mental brush-off I was inspired to work that week with a new affirmation. As I repeated it to myself as during the following days, I noticed something new. There was a body level response. I was feeling the affirmation. It wasn't just a mental loop of words going over and over and fading into automatic background (not that that's bad). I would think the words to myself and I would feel my being respond with the quality that the words represented.

It was like dropping stones in a well and hearing them splash, except I was dropping them into myself and feeling the echo. This was pretty cool. As a ceremonialist I recognized this as a form of invocation. The words were invoking a state. Rather than somehow reprograming myself to be something new, I was calling forth something that was already there. This is what my higher Self had been after. It wanted me to use affirmations to remind myself of what I already was. Calling forth qualities that my higher/deeper Self already knew and could bring forward into the receptive space I created by "listening".

I have been shown over and over in my work that we are already everything we need to be. We are souls that are fully capable and realized. Just not fully conscious. But the places that need to heal have the wisdom for that healing, the Self we want to be is already existing, even if we are not fully aware of it. We are deep, reaching all the way to Source. If we call down into ourselves another part of us will answer.

So when you next work with affirmations, try them with this in mind. Say the words; then pause; listen/feel for the echo from your Self. Create a space to feel them in your being and know that they are already true. Calling your Self into awareness you will be everything you can be.

Finding Love within Yourself (© 7/10)

I had a teacher who spoke of the difference between being in love with someone and simply being in love.

The egotistical love of self is a emotional/mental affair in which we are focused on the beauty of our personality. As with most egotistical functions it is usually driven by fear and self-doubt, and is not really a true self satisfaction, or a true love.

The great teachers have been aiming at something else, which is why there is no real danger of confusing the Love they advocate with an active ego. Our deep nature, our true Self, is Love. Simple as that. We have the ability to reach inside and find it, to call it forth, to feel ecstatic love welling up inside and overflowing into the world.

In the body it may feel similar to the love that we experience with another human being, and we often believe we need someone else to call it forth. Thus the need to love and be loved.

But when we can feel into our own being and accept what is there, including the fear, the doubt, the anger, and the sorrow, space opens over time, the temple is cleaned, and we open to love. When this happens it is the most powerful embrace you have ever felt, an acceptance of yourself as you would your dearest lover.

Perhaps it is easier to consider this an embrace of the divine, an ecstasy from God, or Goddess, rather than an embrace of self, but this is mental chatter. We are at our root divine, and the divine can come through us as much as it comes through nature, or a lover.

When you feel this you know that it is completely different from selfish ego love, for another or for yourself. There is no possessiveness, in fact the more you share it the more it grows. There is no underlying doubt or fear, though there is room for these in this temple and accepting them they are transformed. Love of Self is a state of being that encompasses the whole body, the whole being, and the ego mind is relaxed and lulled to sleep, though other aspects of mind may open and be crystal clear.

Experiencing yourself as Love is a joy that impels you to raise your voice and sing, that calls for you to lose your small self rather than celebrate it, knowing that it is not needed really, that you can do and relate from a different place. It is never selfish in the way we mean that term, as there is no small self involved. It is however, the Self,

If you are not sure of the difference, invoke the Love that is your Self. Ask with all your heart for it to come to you, and it will. Ask it to teach you and it will. Slowly perhaps, or swiftly, radiantly. With patience and perseverance this Love will deepen and grow, until there is no room for ego love; fear, doubt, loneliness or selfishness. Sing loud and call yourself home. Blessings and enjoy.

The Web of Sunlight (© 7/10)

The Colorado foothills are especially beautiful this year. Green and lush from the heavy spring rains they are spotted with the color of wild flowers. The day before the Solstice I was assisting a ceremony in the foothills above Boulder, surrounded by fields and pines vibrant and alive under a blue afternoon sky accentuated with the puffy piles of white that are summer afternoon clouds in over the mountains. The birds were signing and calling, a buck wandered across the opposite hillside. Waiting by a path that was the entrance to the ceremonial site I was smudging the participants as they arrived, letting the smoke clear their space, helping them to ground and release whatever didn't serve them, to be open to the celebration that they had come for.

Between greetings, I let my mind drift, opening my heart to the magnificent manifestation of Spirit and Life around me. I find that at times like these I often notice pattern and detail as much a grand scope. Focused on the grass and flowers near the path I heard a buzzing sound over my shoulder. Looking around I noticed a bee had landed on a flower near my feet. This little guy was busy appreciating the flower in a different way, collecting the sweet nectar that he would return to his hive to contribute to the making of the honey there. Perhaps it was the Solar theme of the Solstice, but in my open state a knowing welled up, taking the form of thought, but coming from a more intuitive level. I was looking at a small step in a chain of solar energy flowing through the world.

The chain expanded out from the bee and the flower to the sun shining its light, received by the leaves of this flower, converted into energy which was used to grow and generate the flower, with its yellow daisy petals, and the nectar that the bee was collecting. In the other direction the nectar would become honey, stored solar energy, to feed young bees, bears, or humans. These bees, bears, or humans having enjoyed the honey would convert its sweetness into movement, or muscle, or store it for the future.

Looking up and out from the bee and its flower I knew that the landscape around me was filled with similar flows, a web of moving, transforming energy, connecting all the visible pieces in ways often invisible to our usual sight. Awareness that the Sun we were about to celebrate is the source of all the energy that flows through this world came through me. The Sun that powers the vast and varied creativity of life on planet Earth. This energy changes into so many forms, is passed back and forth, from plant to animal to plant or human. It lifts the rain that powers the rivers. It falls on the Earth differently at different latitudes and helps to generate the winds. It raises the clouds and creates the lightening. It is stored by the plants, those essential gatherers on the front line of Earthly life, and is passed along as vegetables, grain, fruit, or falls with the leaves and nourishes more plants. In the seas and the swamps it was stored millions of years ago and became coal, or oil, or gas.

This world is literally a web of flowing, transforming, solar energy. I invite you to make some time to go outside, to feel into the clouds, the trees, the bees and the flowers, to open to an appreciation for the rich flow of sunlight in all its forms. Looking with your intuition and feeling from your soul, become aware of the life force flowing everywhere. Appreciate how you are held and supported in this web, and how precious and necessary it is for your life. Find the joy in being consciously alive, and give yourself permission to notice this level of life in the world around you, inside yourself.

Eat some honey, appreciate some amber, be blessed by the Sun in all its forms. Step into the sacred embodied in the world and in yourself.

Bringing It Home (© 6/10)

When I was growing up there had been a developing sense among younger people that the established western social/economic system was not working very well for the people living in/by/under it. The response was a rejection of "the system", a "dropping out" in some form. Perhaps a trip to India, or work in a developing country, living on a communal farm, substances, meditation, or music.

Over time much was learned in this way, and some of it was brought back to the larger society. Some of it has been incubated in communities, or in the heart. In spite of what people sometimes think, many things have changed. Perhaps not as dramatically as had been envisioned, but slowly and subtly. A conversation that takes place on a topic that would not have happened before, a possibility that is present for young people that wasn't before, a sense of Spirit at large in the world that is taken as given.

My yoga teacher used to say that its great to go find God in a cave in the mountains, but the real challenge is to hold onto Spirit in the middle of the market place. Much of the searching was spiritual, some of this was brought back, but there has still been a feeling that people needed to separate to find it, to get "off the grid" in one way or another. If you came back to the system, you would loose it or "sell out".

These days there is a whole new generation coming of age. A generation that has had the chance to grow up with ideas that were revolutionary "back in the day". More importantly a generation which seems to have a different frame of mind. They are finding Spirit, or it is finding them. They don't worry as much about "inside" and "ouside"; they simply go where they need to be. More and more they are finding their calling inside "the system", and are committed to bringing Spirit "inside". Bringing an ongoing awareness of Spirit into not only the healing arts, but computer programming; not just in teaching our children, but in managing the board room.

Have you ever received an email from a loved one, and felt that love. Energy and Spirit can move through technology along with the electrons. It is all Spirit, there is no division unless we choose to think it.

How do we weave the spiritual into the system and transform it from the inside out? This is already being done, one step at a time, one person at a time. By bringing your full awareness of Spirit and your spiritual self with you in all areas of your life. Many of us have been "in the wilderness", others are finding a more direct path. We are all "bringing it back home", to where we live everyday, weaving it into how we work together, how we use technology, how we do business. Spirit is everywhere, all we need to do is recognize that, every day, all the time. Search it out, bring it into your awareness, out of the background. Recognizing it and appreciating it, especially in each other takes us all "out of the box", creates space for the form to more fully reflect the underlying reality.

Notice how you are carrying your understanding of spirit, of yourself as a spiritual being into your life. Perhaps your light is carried under a basket, perhaps you don't always speak to it in others, or perhaps it is out and shining, reflecting off those around you. Just don't hide it in a closet, or leave it in the wilderness. Create the space to carry it with you, always, and things are changing. Time to find your brothers and sisters and begin the weave.

Starting Point (© 6/10)

We are all familiar with the metaphor of water finding the easiest way downhill. It always seeks the lowest level, flowing naturally to find the fastest route to the sea. When it meets a boulder this means going around it, until through time it wears it away or undermines it until the boulder falls out of the way. It is the nature of our minds, however, to focus on boulders, to be concerned with the things that don't work, that are hard or painful in our lives.

While some of the water in a stream continues wash against the boulder, most of it goes around, where the path is easier, clearing the pebbles and stones on either side. More importantly it maintains its own nature, the flow and play of being water. Where it all to pile up behind the boulder as behind a damn it would become angry and frustrated, or still and depressed. It would be unhealthy and untrue to its nature.

Perhaps its a stretch to think of the emotional tone of water, but emotional tone is important for human beings. The emotional tone we bring to things is a powerful piece of the end result as well as the process. Faced with "problems" we tend to be in turbulent or depressed emotional states. Some amount of this is natural and we can roll with it, but when the focus is constant and not balanced with flow and play, this emotional tone spills over into more and more of our lives.

It is common that some area of our lives is lacking in a quality that we would like to have there. It might be playfulness, at work or love in relationship. It might be a level of confidence, or self-ownership in some area of your life. If we focus on this lack we are like the water pounding on the boulder, we give it attention and loose sigh of the places in our lives where we do have this quality.

Most of us have what we are looking for, but discount it because its not where we want it. We are playful, but not at work. We are confident in one area, but not another. We can open to nature, but not to our partner. If you know how to play with a child or a pet, you know what it is to play. If you can open to a beautiful sunset in the mountains, or at the beach, you know openness and love. If you are confident in any area of your life, you know confidence.

There are areas of life and then there is the emotional state that we experience in those areas. What state are you in when you appreciate a beautiful flower? Bookmark that state, that feeling, and bring it with you into other places where appreciation is more of a challenge. Start where its easy and anchor that resource, then use it where it has been more of a challenge. This is like the water flowing around the boulder, until eventually the boulder also moves, or wears away.

The practical mind may say what is the point of smelling the flowers? The point is that you are in a certain state of happiness, appreciation or joy and if you are really present you can learn to take it with you; into your relationship, into your job, into all the other areas of life. What part of your life won't flow better - be better - with happiness, appreciation and joy?

When you are wanting more of a positive quality in an area of your life, remember places where you have it already. Go there and cultivate it, practice it. Then return with it to the other places you need it. Let all your life have the tone of smelling a rose.

Embodying Soul (© 5/10)

It used to be that I might occasionally visit my higher Self, or it might drop round for tea. These days my higher self is knocking at the door, and wants to move in. Perhaps you've noticed this as well, it seems to be a general phenomenon.

There have been times when I wanted to "beem up" to some other place or planet; when I felt disconnected and alone, a "stranger in a strange land", out of sync with the world around me. You probably know what I mean. These days, however, I am focused more deeply on making space for Spirit to land.

We are connected spiritual beings, existing at once on all levels between our body and Source. We have all spent time practicing raising our consciousness or awareness to go visiting with "higher" levels of our self. But then we come home again. In Mary Poppins, when they start laughing and float up to the ceiling for a tea party, only to eventually come back to Earth when serious things return, is like this. But that movie is about the ability to bring that good stuff back down with you, into everyday life, even into that most serious of places, a British bank.

Yes we can go visit, but we can also invite our higher aspects to come into the body. This is embodiment, sacred union, heaven on earth. When we have cleaned the temple sufficiently, these "higher" levels will show up. They are really always here, but we are too busy and the static is too loud. Thus many forms of mediation and other practices have developed to quite the noise on the "lower levels", so we can perceive the "higher".

Being always connected, and always present, it is not so much a matter of going or coming, but allowing, listening, integrating. We can raise our consciousness, or expand it. The former implies taking an elevator up; the later is more about becoming aware of more floors at the same time. This is a time of expansion.

It used to be your higher self knocked gently and if you were busy went away again, to wait and come back later. But something is shifting. The knocks are louder and with an insistence. The time is now, your higher self is not really taking no for an answer any more. How many people do you know that are getting the wake up call in some form?

The good news is that its easier than ever to come into a place of expanded awareness, to experience both spirit and body at the same time. We do this not by figuring it out, but by allowing it to happen. The challenges are that this may be a bit disorienting (even if you have been practicing) or that the process often kicks up a bit of dust, but this will pass. And while we may have less choice we are also not as alone.

I have been seeing more people in the last couple months who are really stepping up to integrating their higher Selves into the body. Others are actively exploring how to bring their spiritual awareness into their jobs, and their lives. It is really very exciting! It seems a broad thing, involving all of us, those of us who have been "on a path" for years, and those who are just starting out. We are moving into a time when you won't have to go to a metaphysical fair to connect with other people who are consciously living from spirit, we are everywhere. And I'm talking about Colorado Springs as well as Boulder.

We are learning to relax the analytic mind, so that our souls can connect to our hearts. Asking the mind to open up to translating from the geometry and music of Spirit, to the emotions of the heart. Unlike our conscious minds, our hearts are big enough to embody our souls. It is a beautiful thing when this connection is made and you really come home to yourself. And it is happening for all of us, right now. Whatever the reasons, it is in the air. Karpe Diem, there are more of us than we think, and Spirit has your back.

Feed the Body by Feeding the Soul (© 4/10)

In Europe in the Middle Ages, or India still today there are people who follow the calling of the Spiritual life, who are supported by their community. Their focus on the Spiritual is considered a service to the community and those that lead worldly lives support this with contributions.

Like many who feel called to the healing or spiritual arts, I have at times felt torn between wanting to do the work I feel called to, and making a living. In spite of what I have heard and "know" about following my bliss, there is this idea in the back of my mind that they are not something that I can hope to do together. There is a mythology of starving artists and rich business people who have lost their souls and in the mythology you have to choose.

Personally I find that there are times when things seem to flow, when I am surrendered and clients come and I am relaxed and happy (more or less). As long as the flow happens I'm OK. But when it slows or falters, or when I feel I have to pay attention to the financial side for other reasons, the part of me that does that, my inner accountant, seems to always operate from a place of fear and anxiety. He is always saying that if I have X number of clients then he will relax and we can have fun again. However, it is clear on several levels that trying to create and manifest from fear is counter-productive.

Earlier this year it came to me. I love what I do, that's not the problem, when I am working I'm happy, I'm in touch with myself and with others, I come alive. This is where the Love is. And I need clients to be in this place. So I can follow my bliss and call in my clients without engaging the analytic, fearful, financial piece, by focusing on the feeling of the work, the joy of it, the service of it.

If I have enough clients to have a satisfying practice, then I will be "taken care of", not magically, but as a side effect. So in this way I can let go of the part that is concerned with money, not as an act of pure faith, but knowing that by focusing on how I love my work, I will have clients and they will compensate me.

This may seem like a mental distinction, but it is subtly important for me, and perhaps for you. By returning to my heart and the joy of working with others I am in a place of Love, I am connecting to my Self and to Source, and can create from there. I can even do the promotional tasks I sometimes resist from the joy of finding the next partners in the healing dance. I can let go of the (for me) fearful side of counting clients and doing sums, knowing that it won't help me to be in the fear that inevitably comes with it.

You can work to have an abundance of work, not because you "need" work, but because you "love" your work. The tricky part is fully releasing the fear, not just in the mind, but in the heart, so that you are truly full of joy, not simply talking yourself out of fear. Then no shadow comes into the intention and you are really walking towards your passion, focusing so powerfully on the joy that there is no room for the fear, you are pulled into the work.

Finding the bliss, the joy, is finding yourself, is being connected to your soul. This is the place of creative power. Feeding your Soul will feed your body also, but it has to come first and be the focus of your attention. Live in joy to work from joy, let go of working from fear as then you will live in fear.

Tachiba and Relationships (© 4/10)

Even though I don't have much occasion to the use the Japanese I learned when living in Japan, certain words will cycle up in my thoughts because they are particularly appropriate to express something I'm experiencing. Tachiba means literally a "standing place", with connotations of "perspective" and "point of view".

On my recent trip to Florida and back I was reminded of how the world is experienced differently, simply by standing on another part of it. As my yoga teacher used to say, on the manifest level its all relative, time, place, and person. Not only is Florida physically different from Colorado, plants, weather, wildlife, and being by the ocean rather than the mountains, but different people live there with different orientations and interests.

If I had gone back to Japan, or to Europe things would have changed even more. The who, what, where of my life changes just by standing in a different place, because it changes my relationships with places, people, and the planet.

Even before this trip I had been thinking about my internal tachiba, which is key to how I relate especially to other people. Where do we stand in our own being? Are we in our heart or our head? Are we focused on our body or our soul? What aspects of ourselves are we in relationship with, in identification with, or out of touch with?

Having a relationship with someone else is like building a bridge, it needs two ends, the foundations for the span that connects. The closer these foundations are to each other the easier it is to build the bridge. Our personal tachiba is like one of these foundations, it is the place where we stand, and the place we relate from. If you are wanting to relate to someone whose tachiba is their emotions, their second chakra, and your tachiba is your mind, your 6th chakra, then it may be a stretch. Not impossible but more of a stretch than with someone who has their tachiba in the same place as yours.

If you want to cultivate a relationship with someone whose external tachiba is different than yours, you might go on line, or to the bookstore and read about where they live. You might even go there, learn the language, live there for a while.

Similarly if their internal tachiba is in a different part of their being, you can explore that part of yourself, learning how to create a new internal tachiba for yourself, to be comfortable in your emotions, your mind, heart or soul. Or the shift may be one of deepening in the same aspect; deeper in the heart, or the soul. Until we can relate to that part of ourselves, and build a new internal tachiba, our end of the bridge of relationship is loose and shaky.

To relate effectively to someone on a certain level or in a certain aspect we have to explore it and know it for ourself. We have to have a level or aspect of relationship to self before we can stand there and relate to someone else in that way. Otherwise it is all mental illusion and a costume parade.

If I imagine that I'm going to Florida, but am still in Colorado, especially if I've never been there, very little will really have changed. If I go, but only for a few days, it is not the same as taking time and living there. If I go for several months or more, then everything begins to change.

When you do your human homework and learn to stand in those parts of yourself that have been unfamiliar, you change your tachiba and all your relationships to yourself and to others change as well. To find the heart and soul relationships we all want requires us to explore our own hearts and souls, to create new tachibas in those parts of ourself from which to form these relationships.

Enjoy your travels and the new or renewed relationships you create as you go.

Love and Fear (© 3/10)

I once spent a summer hanging out at a friend's house where they had a nice pool. I used to like to sit under the water, where it was quite and still. Sometimes I would hold my breath waiting for the impulse to breath to rise up in me, feeling the body tensing and going into fear. Of course all I had to do was stand up, so this was body fear not mental fear, and I would try to relax into the experience, until I choose to stand up and breath.

Years later I read stories of spiritual teachers, who, in answer to student's inquiries about enlightenment had led them to water and held them under. When the student was released and burst to the surface gasping for air wanting to know why this had been done, the answer was: when you have as great a desire for the divine as you have just had now for air, you will be close to your goal.

Is the drive to breathe a love of air or a fear of death?

You may say what's the difference? and perhaps you are right. I suspect, however, that in the case of spiritual pursuits there is a big difference. Are we on a spiritual path because we have a passionate desire to know the divine aspects of ourselves or the universe, or because we are afraid of aspects of the human experience? We may think that we are choosing Love over Fear, but often we are simply seeking a release from Fear.

When we move towards Love not out of Love, but running from Fear this may be a good starting point, but it is probably not the ending point. Can we really merge into a state of unconditional love, when we are still afraid of our fear?

This is why we need to face our fears, to come to terms with them so that we are no longer afraid of them. This is not about being completely fearless, as that is physically impossible. As human beings we have fear built in, as we do hunger. But it is only when we are fearful of hunger, or fear, or anything else that it runs our existence. When we are familiar with fear, cultivate a relationship with it, come to know it almost as a friend, it is simply a state of our physical/emotional being that can serve us. When we no longer identify with it, and we can consciously choose the Light and Love for their own sake, drawing towards them through Love itself, rather than because we are running from Fear.

"Love is the Answer", is about Love as a goal, but more deeply about Love as a Way, as a process that carries us to that goal.

This is why its so important to do what you love, or love what you do. Not just because it will make you happy, or to be successful, but because then you are cultivating the state of Love, of connection, and this allows you to naturally move your attention from fear, to clear and cleanse the denser bodies and open space for our subtler aspects. It is how we learn who we deeply are and how we connect to our internal source of oxygen. Then happiness and success will naturally follow.

So no matter how simple, small, or "trivial" it is, find places in your life to explore and practice what you love, just because you love it, knowing that you are practicing Love itself and inviting it into your life on all levels, big as well as small. Becoming as little children, connect to the Love inside yourself. It is like having an internal air supply, there is no longer a need to be afraid of being under the water.

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Reflections of Beauty (© 2/10)

Remembering beauty. A vision of nature, a sky, an animal, vast mountains or a few snow flakes. A work of art that you saw, or heard, or felt. A dance or sport that you lost yourself in. A child or partner. Let that experience of beauty well up in you, filling your heart and your body.

Who are you now as you experience beauty? Gently float that question on the lake of your being and receive the answer in whatever form it comes. You know it already, allow it to come to you. Breathe gently.

For most of us, when we experience beauty in this way, we say it moves something in us, inspires us. It is a way to come closer to divinity, expressed through the beauty in front of us. We cultivate these experiences, each in our own way, seeking works of art, places in nature, people or things that are beautiful, as if they are separate from us.

Focus now on that part of you which was "moved", that part of you that was able to experience the beauty outside. Perception is a resonance effect. The eye can absorb a shade of light because there is atomic resonance. The heart can feel and be moved because it has these states within itself. You recognize and are affected by beauty in the world because you have it already inside yourself.

You, your soul, that which is divine within you, is stirred, not by absorbing something external, but by the resonance: part of you is awoken within you. It was there all along.

We easily believe, when we see a sad movie and we cry, that it is a part of us reflected on the screen that is crying. We remember our own sadness and release a part of it. But do we accept that when we see something beautiful and we soar, it is also a part of us that flies. Know that it is.

We recognize sadness because we have that within us. And. We are elevated by the sublime, because we have that within us too. Your experience of beauty in the world is an experience of a beautiful part of your Self. The worldly beauty only reflects your own beauty back to you, awakening, reminding.

Settling now into your beauty, let these memories lead you back to yourself, to your soul. Recognize and own your immense soul beauty. Being there, know that it is your Self that you are experiencing and deepen into it. Don't ask how, know that you know, and let it happen.

Now look at your hand, or around the room, or out the window. Bring that state of beauty you have found within to all that you sense, and you will find it beautiful all too. When you are aware of the beauty that is alive in your heart and bring it to your senses it will be alive in everything that you experience. It is simply a choice in awareness; to see from the soul, from connection, from inner beauty. The divine is always experiencing the divine, which is in everything. Practice awareness of this and let the world reflect the beauty that you are.

Balance in Creativity (© 1/10)

Imagine that you are planting a seed in moist fertile soil. You stick your finger into the ground and make a small hole, you drop in the seed, add a little water and cover it over. The seed is received into the soil, it sprouts upwards and downwards. Roots appear, connecting to nutrients and water. A stem with leaves reaches for the sky and the sun. See it growing, branching, putting out leaves and more roots, it becomes a vine, or a bush, grass or a tree.

Feel into this image of creation and sense the balance of it, the yin and yang of it, the masculine and the feminine, the stretching out and the flowing in. The dance of these polarities are woven through all creation. The insertion of the seed, the reception of the soil. The rooting and skyward reach. The growth so that water and light and minerals can flow into the heart, which fuels more growth.

Imagine the life force flowing through your plant, the dancing of the plus and minus in the atoms, the polarities across cell boundaries, from the leaves of the crown to the deep roots, polarities of charge and concentration, temperature and light. From the forming of the intention to the flowering of the plant, when the next cycle can begin, at all scales and in all things the masculine and feminine are dancing together to create life.

Feel into your being now. Where is the masculine, the aspects that initiate, the seeds, the insertion, the expansion? Where are the impulses, the ideas, the thoughts, the feelings or words that are the seeds; for yourself or for others? Where is the feminine, the receptive, nurturing ground that the seeds are planted in? Where are the spaces, the acceptances, the appreciations, the openings to new possibilities, new ideas, and new growth that receives the seeds and makes space for them to flourish?

Allow your awareness to enter in, and open up, to the marriage of the two, the marriage that is necessary for creation to unfold. Breath: air entering, lungs opening, expansion; air leaving lungs releasing, compression; the pulse of life. Give yourself time to allow the subtler aspect to come into the experience too. The subtle receiving of ourselves that is necessary for our creativity to take root and manifest. The subtle aspect of initiation giving yourself to yourself and others, trusting and moving forward.

Notice any limitations or fears on either the feminine or the masculine. Perhaps you are more conscious of reluctance to initiate, concern about how our seeds will be received in the world? or perhaps you are more aware of the limits on your ability to receive, to open sufficiently that your seeds have the space to flourish? How often are we afraid that our intentions might really grow and things might really change? How often do we allow the fear that they won't to keep us from even trying.

Reach for courage, masculine and feminine. Stepping on a stage, or offering an idea takes a form of courage, of trust in ourself and Spirit. It may feel risky to decide, or to offer forth, but this is the strength of the masculine. The receptivity to growth, change, success, requires a different courage, a different vulnerability. It may feel like walking naked in the world, but it is the great source of feminine power and strength.

When we limit our initiation and our receptivity, we may feel safe, but we are left with a small center ground which lacks creativity and true life force. Opening this ground into a larger space requires both sorts of courage, trusting our creative impulses and also receiving them and the energies that will help manifest them. Work them back and forth, a bit of one, a bit of the other. Leverage your courage and make the space for your creativity.

May you find this balanced courage in abundance, and come into a flourishing creative dance with yourself, Spirit, and your partners and friends. Honoring both your feminine and masculine you join in the co-creation of your world. Set the intention and open to the understanding, it will come clear to you.

Essential Joy (© 1/10)

Over the holiday, with family here, it became clear to me that the essential thing was for us to be connected. After all that is what Christmas, Solstice, Hannukah, and the other year end festivals of Light are about, being connected to the Light, our selves, our family, and our Source.

There are certain traditional activities that our family does together that represent the holiday time for us. We put up a tree and decorate it, we give each other presents, we have a big family dinner. You and your family or friends probably have your own set of elements that "make up" the season. The way we approach these activities is important. It is easy to feel rushed and overwhelmed when faced with snow storms and lists for shopping or things to "do". The pieces of the holiday may become tasks that somehow we need to accomplish to have everything be "OK", but we're happier if others do them. We may feel separated and alone even with so many people around. We are missing the essence, the togetherness. All of this showed up early last week, wanting to feel that connection and the overwhelming sense that it might be missing in spite of all the business.

So I took time in the shower to release the grief and frustration that came up. Slowly others stepped up a bit, I let go a bit, I saw more clearly that all the "elements" are not to be done for their own sake, but to provide a space, an opportunity for us to do something together with our loved ones. That is where the joy comes. When I was young we used to take time to bake cookies and fruit cake, strain cranberry sauce, and spend time in the kitchen. It wasn't a chore to be done as fast as possible, or passed off to someone else, it was a fun time of tastes and smells and being together with family.

The season is like a ceremony, the elements are only important to the extent that they create space and support the intention; fellowship, love, peace and good will. It was still a fast week, speeding by, but I realized that if we couldn't figure out how to have fun with it we were missing the point. Perhaps shifting to an attitude of play would help too. So put on some music and gather round the tree, or in the kitchen, tell jokes, laugh. Let the "task" be a game to do together, something shared, a co-creation. This being together and co-creating is the essence and the point of the season, and what we will remember and cherish long after when we have forgotten the details of the dinner, or what presents we got, or didn't.

Life is to live from the soul and do only that which feeds the soul and nurtures connection, rather than madly rush through a check list. Recognizing the essence, and that the rest are details which are only important to the extent they serve the mood, the intention of coming together to call the Light in and forth. It is in knowing that we do this collectively, this year, in the moment, uniquely co-creating spaces that serve connection, joy and life. In shifting our perspective we can shift our experience. The week was fast, full, but not just busy, there was joy, play, connection and co-creation too.

I hope you also got to feel something of creating with others this year, calling in the Light with family or friends or your guides. I invite you to carry this forward into the New Year, knowing that amidst all the changing externalities your heart tells you what is essential and will guide you in creating spaces for it. What serves connection? How can we re-create what we are doing so that it becomes a space, a ceremony, a game that is grounded in Spirit and is connected to each other and to Source?

Just like stepping through a screen or veil, appearances are not changed much on the outside, but everything feels different on the inside. Waking up we are more conscious of the under layers, the spiritual fabric flowing through everything. What is essential becomes clear, and in that clarity you know how to honor it and relate to things differently. Intending to be connected rather than disconnected, making that choice over and over, until by habit, persistence, and grace you realize you are connected and things are different. Even though they may look the same, they come alive and are joyful.
Blessed be.

Raising Barns (© 12/09)

Last fall, the day the stock market first tanked, I woke up and went on line to do my daily check-in with the rest of the world. Reading the news I could feel the part of me that worries about my financial well being wake up and prepare to be anxious. I was going to see a counselor I work with that afternoon and figured that this was a good set up to clear more old fear and re-task the part of me that worries about not being supported by the universe. As we start I've learned to always check in with myself to see what is actually present in the moment, even though I "knew" what was up. So I closed my eyes, grounded, and checked in, expecting to find anxiety.

Whoa! where did all this joy and excitement come from? Leaning into it I could feel that there was a huge positive field of energy that I was tapping into. I felt it more than once last fall, especially around the election, it is always there for us, the background love that is Spirit fed by all those who resonate with joy and hope. We just need to align and open to it. Try it now.

Last weekend I was helping a friend with a fund raiser for amazing work he does connecting kids with healthy food and experiences of growing, harvesting, preparing and eating it. Many people contributed a great deal of time and energy to creating this wonderful event: fun, filled with the Spirit my friend always works with, and centered around a positive community oriented project. It was a long evening, especially clean-up and tear-down, and I stayed late supporting my friend and moving boxes. Well after midnight someone asked why I didn't go home? I realized that I wasn't tired, I was full of energy, even though I had been doing things that normally would tire me or aggravate physical stress points, none of this had showed up.

Other people that night were also feeling connected to something larger and feeling Spirit supporting them. The community was working under the spiritual energy of this wonderful project, we were feeding that field, which in turn was supporting us as we worked late under a frosty moon. Joyful service nurtures itself.

The next night I was in a different community, supporting women graduating from a year of deep ceremonial work. I was part of a ring of masculine energy holding space for the ladies to do their last piece of work for the year. As we walked in the snow outside I could feel the energy of those physically present, of all the men who had walked that circle in other years, supporting other women, and of the spiritual forces that held the space for all of us, men and women. Even though the night was cold this energy warmed us, and we felt our place in the larger web.

When those on the inside later expressed thanks for our service, my thought was that it was not only an honor, but something that fed and nurtured us. Service to a community acting in tune with Spirit in this way is not a hardship but a blessing. Whether the service is explicitly spiritual or more mundane, there are spiritual energies that support community and collective endeavor, that make the "work" lighter, the night warmer, the day cooler.

In past times communities had barn raisings, which must have had the same feeling. Serving community with an awareness that you are aligning with Spirit, connects you to the spiritual energy of that community, and the fields of joy and nourishing support that are woven about this world. So in these holy days, if you are feeling at all disconnected, find an event or a project to contribute to, to co-create, or to serve. Coming together with family or friends, remember that it is the coming together itself that is the source of the joy and excitement that feeds our souls and sustains our bodies.

May you experience deeply the weaving of the fabric of community that invites Spirit to enter into your life.

Stars and Atoms (© 12/09)

Start this trip with the starry night sky. Remember the last time you looked at a clear sky full of stars. Have you ever tried to imagine how much space there is out there? How far apart the stars are? I doubt we really can, but its as good a feeling for spaciousness as you're likely to run into.
Here on earth we know that we are solid beings, at least much more solid than the vastness of interstellar space. Or are we?
Last week I was inspired to briefly take my astronomer's cap off the wall and play with a few numbers. If you imagine that the sun is the nucleus of an atom, how far out in the solar system would the edge of that atom be? It turns out that even the densest atom (uranium) would be several times the size of Pluto's orbit, and the most spacious atom (hydrogen) would be 15 times Pluto's orbit.
So the atoms in our body are relatively more spacious than the solar system! So we are actually full of space. Take your vision of the stars and project it inwards. Feel the expansiveness of this. Keep breathing.

Actually both "outer space" and inner space are full of stuff. Outer space has thin gases, comets and magnetic fields in it, and our atoms are "full" of electrons. You might think of these later as comets whizzing around (they are actually slightly smaller)*. In a real way there is as much or more "space" in our bodies as in the solar system. So now I thought, looking at some glorious Hubble images**, what about the galaxy?

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Stardust (© 10/09)

On a warm evening in summer, under a clear sky I was outdoors looking up at the sky, and turned my attention to how the stars were speaking to me. Opening to feeling how their light was reflected in my body, it seemed to connect to different physical organs and energetic aspects. Wisdom was being offered. A conversation was taking place. Consciously I felt like I was being lovingly tickled.

We are star beings on many levels. All of the atoms in our bodies were forged in the depths of stars, billions of years ago. Released into space by novas and supernovas, and on the great stellar winds flowing outwards from all stars. Swept up and collected into our solar system as it was birthed 5 billion years ago. They now flow through your body, hour by hour, day by day, year by year.

We are powered by Sun light. Sunlight that fuels the whole food chain: from the algae of the oceans, to the wheat in the Midwest, to the animals that eat the plants, it comes to us. We bask in its summer radiance and it warms and nourishes us in the depths of winter.

Forged in the stars and powered by the sun, our bodies house souls that have other spiritual/energetic connections to the beings that we call stars. As I stood conversing with the stars I saw, my being was remembering the stars that I have known in other ways. Both physically and spiritually I am remembering connection, and it feels joyful.

Choose a clear night, be warm for whatever season, and invite the stars to speak to you. Notice that you are surrounded, held on all sides. Dropping into your being open your awareness, as their vibrations flow through you and resonate with your own star nature. They are "speaking" to you of life and being alive. Time to wake up a bit more. Be joyful.

Sunshine Daydream (© 10/09)

Its a beautiful warm summer afternoon. We're in mid October now, so the sun isn't too hot, but the sky is deep blue, with a few clouds drifting through on lite breezes. Since it is October and we've had our first snow already I'm finally up on the roof doing "winterizing" things: draining the swamp cooler, cleaning gutters, trimming low hanging branches, calking leaks.

Pacing myself, I'm enjoying being up in the trees and the sky on such a glorious Huckleberry Finn sort of day. Slowly anxiety and tension that built up earlier in the day fades.

When I'm done I lay in the roof, looking over trees tops to a view of the mountains and the flatirons. The warmth of the shingles soaks through my shirts and relaxes my back. I am drifting, in a timeless space, warm and relaxed. When I read this is "sunshine yellow", a mellow, optimistic, energy of being. You may have heard me mention it.

Watching a white puffy cloud slowly swirling itself east, constantly forming, dissipating, and reforming, I close my eyes and drop into the feeling of this moment. Lazily I start to remember childhood summer days, with this feeling of being in the moment, no past, nothing far in the future, just being. Perhaps wondering what game comes next, or what might be for dinner.

I realize that as an adult I operate in a much broader sense of time. In the back of my head are "to do" lists, planning processes waiting to happen. I'm aware of next week, sometimes next month, or even next year. As a young child even in school, I'm perhaps concerned about assignments for tomorrow, or at the outside events that might be a few weeks ahead (a play, or vacation) .

I can feel the weight of this mental calendar in my head, this energetic matrix in which I exist. It extends backwards too, differently, but its there. All the events, emotions, memories that go into how I approach and experience the present. Many are unconscious, but they are there as well.

Lying on the roof, letting my mind drift like the cloud, the thought comes that perhaps this is why kids have so much more energy? they don't have to maintain this weighty structure of time. They have all their energy in the present, while we are spread over decades. And I realize I can chose this for myself in present time. I can call all of me to be present in this warm moment of being.

So take a few minutes and find a place to relax, in the sun, or a bath, or inside. If you can create a space that evokes your "sunshine yellow" feelings from childhood. Let yourself drift back and remember what its like to release the mental calendar, to just be alive in the moment. Invite your inner child to show you how to do this, and feel yourself come more alive.

No reasoning necessary, just do it because you can, and as a soul you are meant to.

Which Voices Do You Listen To? (© 10/09)

When you're listening to the radio and something comes on that you don't like, you change the station. Maybe its a song that doesn't feel good today, or a program, or perhaps (if someone has been playing with your tuner) a whole station. But you make a choice and find something that you do like.

How many channels do we have on the TV now? Often we don't even wait for one thing to end before we change the channel, or you skip the commercials by watching bits and pieces of another show. You have a remote, you know how to choose.

Going on line, you find 86 emails. Some you trash immediately, others you might look at briefly and then ditch, or file for later, a few you may want to read right now. You make choices about what serves you.

Consider the people in your life. How many, and how varied are these voices? Do you make choices about which ones you listen to? Do you notice which ones serve you? You probably wish you had a remote for some of them. Others you may feel you have to listen to, though even there you do have a choice. You know the difference between listening and paying attention, only, even when we think we are not paying attention these voices are going into our brains.

Voices that we have listened to over and over, we internalize. They come back to us, sometimes supporting us, but often critically. There may be many reasons we have internalized and still listen to critical voices, but they are never truth, they are mostly not really aspects of ourselves, and we can make choices with these too.

We can choose not to be around people who speak in ways that limit us. We can choose to disregard what these people say when we do have to be around them, or we may learn that we can ask them to change their station. Most importantly we can consciously pay attention to which voices we listen to and give our attention and belief to, both out side and inside. With awareness comes choice.

This may take practice, especially if the voices are old(young) ones. Patience is important, and self-forgiveness. There may be deep psychological, even evolutionary reasons we tend to notice even one critical voice among a group of supportive voices. But we can still make a conscious choice and over time it will stick.

I'm not speaking about constructive criticism, but words that limit our being, that tell us we are not OK in some basic way. These are never truth. The truth is that at center, you are a soul that is perfect and beautiful. This soul has its own voice, which is always supportive, even when suggesting changes. You know it when you experience it.

Amid the cacophony of voices that we walk through everyday, it may be hard to hear this deep inner voice. But we can recognize those voices around us that echo it and choose these. We can choose to give our attention and belief to these. Over time the supportive voices around us will strengthen the internal voices that echo our soul, that inspire us and give us life. We can learn to choose these, and release the old critical voices, that were never ours.

You can choose to listen to all the voices that say "Yes, you can", rather than "No, you can't", and they will help you find your inner voice that knows "Yes, I am".

Walking Through Fear (© 9/09)

Courage is not being fearless, it is acknowledging your fear walking ahead anyway.

When I was in graduate school homework usually consisted of problem sets. Sometimes I would procrastinate one as long as I could. The longer I waited the more the fear would build up and the less I wanted to get started. Even though I might suspect that it wasn't going to be a really big deal, the fear would keep me from even checking to see if it was going to be relatively simple, or take up half a weekend.

Often when I did finally get around to it, it would be pretty straight forward, and I would realize that most of the fear had little to do with the problem set itself. When we begin to fear something the fear builds on itself until there is a huge wall to even looking at it. In chemistry or physics this is called a potential barrier.

These potential barriers can also happen in doing our inner work. Sometimes there is a big charge and things are intense. It takes courage to forge ahead. Other times when we do finally create, or find, a space to tackle something it turns out to be a much smaller deal than our fears had built it up to be. We find that we are pleasantly relieved and full of the life force that no longer needs to hang out as fear.

Other times it is a long process, which can be challenging and our courage comes into play in the long run rather than just in the first steps. But often those first steps are the still the hardest.

In any case, doing our inner work rewards us with more space to be present as a soul having a human experience in the present, rather than being stuck in some part of our past. We have more life force and joy, more rest and peace. Our courage, in short, or over time, carries us through our fear and allows us to complete old karma so we can make new choices going forward.

This is a form of warriorship. I want to salute as warriors all of you that are walking some form of spiritual path. These days everything seems to move faster and faster, but take time to honor yourself in your process. Really acknowledge how far you have already come. Thank you for having the courage to walk your path. Whenever any one of us takes a step forward, exercises courage and is rewarded with life energy, the path becomes easier for all of us.

Even if you may feel at times that you haven't any choice. You do. Take your courage and walk through your fear. It is often less than you think, a potential barrier that fades as you step through it. Honor that at some level of your being you are ready to move forward and grow. A little bit, or a large piece, it all adds up.

Lastly remember you are never alone, however much you may feel so. Your spiritual Self is with you, as are Spirit and your angels. And there are more of us than we think, so it's often a friend or acquaintance who comes to support you, or who is grateful for your courage showing them the way.

With gratitude and many blessings, let us link hands and keep stepping forward.

The Blessing of a Soul (© 8/09)

A boy is standing in front of an elder. He is being blessed: blessed for stepping into a circle of men, young men, and other boys with courage, honesty, and a sincere desire to find a path to a healthy manhood.

He has spent several days in a space where he is unconditionally accepted for who he is. Accepted as a human being with both gold and shadow. Held in a space where he can begin to release the shadow and lay claim to his gold.

He has shown great courage to dare to open and be himself.

As he looks up at the elder blessing him, his face is open, full of light and wonder. He is being given full permission to be who he deeply is, in his soul. There is no mask, no need for him to hide in any way, and he has responded to that. I am seeing the beauty of his soul directly in his upturned face.

The boy, a journeyman now, turns and is blessed by the whole group, tumultuously and with great joy and love. He is claiming his right to be golden.

The look on the face of this boy is one of the most amazing and inspiring things I have ever seen. And there is more than one boy, there are many.

When I witness this there is no doubt left in my being that we are children of love and light. That our natural inclinations are to shine our light in the world, that this is what we desperately desire and when we are shown a way we will walk through any sort of pain or fear as mighty warriors to claim our souls.

While I have witnessed this with boys and men, it is clearly about all human beings, female as well as male. We need to do this for all our children. And when we do, the world will be changed.

This weekend I have looked at the future and it is glorious.

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Opening the Heart (© 7/09)

The joy of a wedding opens the heart to grief.
The grief of a funeral opens the heart to love.
In this way we are beaten and forged, our hearts made pure and free.

When we loose someone close to us we grieve. We can choose to let the tears flow, feel the emotions flow; choose to open our hearts rather than close them. Then we experience again the love that we had for the one we have lost, and know that we can still be in relationship spiritually, if not physically.

Sometimes we do this in real time. Sometimes it is at a later time. Making space in ourselves to experience grief we clear space to experience love. Like the Grinch at that mythical Christmas, our heart grows larger.

I was at a wedding recently that generated a powerful field of love and community, opening the heart and soul, like a bird spreading its wings wide in the joy of flight. It was a transformative experience. In the next few days I had levels of old grief come up. The energy of love had opened my heart wider and there was more space for the love that is grief to come forth and heal me as well.

Like Rumi I welcomed this unexpected guest, knowing that the cycle moves back and forth, that experiencing this grief, even though I wasn't even sure what it was about, would in turn open my heart for love even further.

The more we dare to feel, the clearer we become and the more we can feel those things we seek. When we allow ourselves to expand at either end of the spectrum, we expand the whole spectrum, and in time we are freer and freer to choose which end we call home.

Grief is not the enemy of love, but a brother with a different name. If we welcome both as aspects of our ability to live and feel deeply we enlarge our hearts spiritually and there is more space for Spirit to enter in, more space to be alive and present, more space to give and to receive, more space for the energies that are joy and love.

As your heart opens you can "feel" into life more strongly, in yourself, in nature, in others. I invite you to practice this; just intend to open your heart, let your awareness drop into your chest and invite the experience what is already there, gently give it space to be. Or open outward to the trees, the flowers, all of nature is waiting to heal you. We are shifting how we experience this world, and it can help us if we create space to notice our relationship to it.

May you find the joy you seek, remembering that all roads lead to life and love when we walk them with open hearts.

Amusement and Soul (© 7/09)

I'd like to invite you to remember something amusing. Perhaps something you saw, or did, or heard. Now deepen that feeling, set your intention for a fuller experience of amusement, and let go. Distill it down. Notice the images or words and let them fall like leaves in the autumn. Notice the feelings of amusement, the emotional aspects, releasing any other feelings and flowing to something beyond words.

Feel the laughter, in your throat, in your belly, in your heart. If anything limits your laughter, intend to release it. Stay with the physical experience of amusement, and keep distilling. Let yourself be led into the vibration of amusement that bubbles up out of your very cells. Full of play and joy.

Let that feeling expand in you. Dive deep. Through this portal of amusement you are opening into life force itself. Amusement is the tip of the iceberg of love.

Remember a sight in nature that caused you to be so alive that you laughed out loud; a child playing, something a friend said. You couldn't even say why you laughed, and you knew that it didn't matter why, just that you felt alive and joyful and the laughter was how it expressed through you.

Let yourself expand, feeling the bubbling of amusement, the deep power of love welling up in your every cell, filling the space between the cells. Relax into this and breath it deeply. Release any limitations. Allow yourself to feel alive in all your being.

True amusement is a state of being that is expansive, it creates space and allows spirit to enter in. It helps us to heal by helping us to let go, to find a little distance from things that are challenging. It is not about making lite of something serious, but it reminds us that we can always invite life in, even when we are dying.

We need no reason to laugh, to love , to feel alive. It is a portal to your essence. Carry it with you and practice it often.

Grounding and Freedom (© 6/09)

I've just returned from daughter's college graduation. It was a time of joy and celebration, but also of completion for her. Nothing is left behind unfinished. Library fines are paid, parking dues cleared, all papers are finished, classes passed. Perhaps she could advance from one year to the next with some outstanding business, but not for this graduation. Her freedom today is based on having shown up and worked through all these things.

We all have an urge to be free, to be able to fly, metaphorically or literally; to be able to be who we feel we are, to travel, to let go of rules that limit us in different ways. In spite of many efforts we often still feel that in some way we were not as free as we can be, and that being in the human world is a source of this lack of freedom. We came here, acted, reacted and created karma that ties us to coming back here.

Fueled by memories of birth; the shift from a sense of self as a vast spiritual being to a limited human infant we have an urge to be free beyond the earthly freedoms found even in flight, to graduate back to spirit in a way that we do not have to return unless we want to. So we strive upwards even in the body, flee ourselves until perhaps we don't even feel all of our body.

The catch is that "karma", our unfinished energetic business is something we carry with us. Its not external judgments, even but Spirit, but patterns we carry that need to unwind and complete. Until we do this we can't fully graduate, we must return, because this is the only place we can complete them.

So we must learn to be present, on Earth and in the body, because, perhaps ironically, doing this consciously is the only way to release ourselves to go elsewhere. So even when our urge is to flee, grounding into the Earth and into our bodies is not a trap, but the best way to gain the freedom we seek.

Grounding consciously into the Earth, helps us to be more fully present in the body, and helps us to do this safely by giving our energy bodies more form, and better boundaries. Grounding into the Earth helps us to release, update and transform those energies we are carrying that are not in harmony with our souls, to complete the incompletes that tie us here.

By acknowledging the energetic connections to the Earth, as well as the Cosmic we find our own space, give space to the internal traumas and fears so that we can perform the alchemies that set us free karmically and energetically.

Perhaps, like me, a practice of feeling into your legs, your feet, and then down into the ground, until you can feel the earth supporting you, will be useful.

May you find the grace and courage to ground into the earth and be fully present so that you can finish all your outstanding business and graduate into fuller spiritual freedom.

The Story Teller (© 5/09)

I have a story teller in my head. Do you?

I'm getting ready to go to a party, something I haven't done in a while. A friend has invited me, but I don't expect to know any one else. In my mind I'm telling myself stories from high school, with the theme of being a wall flower.

I'm heading for a meeting with some friends. We are going to have a little food and work on some plans for a program we are co-creating. My story teller is working through every time I am ignored, out of place, somehow not really part of a group.

My son is coming home from school, and I'm running stories about how we don't have anything to say, or I say the wrong things; or ignore him because I'm afraid that I'll say the wrong things, or .... The story teller is prolific.

Years ago: I'm in Hong Kong flying back to Tokyo the next day, and my story teller is creating the next great airplane disaster movie, and I'm trying to decided if this is a premonition or just the story teller spinning yarns.

Sometimes I'm pissed at the story teller, sometimes I buy it. Over the years I figure he is just trying to keep me safe, by making up all these fearful scenes. After all, I was taught growing up that the world is a scary place (not that it isn't at times) and that somehow being scared, or figuring out the awful things that might happen will help me out?

I've met others who had an inner part that had a similar assignment; keeping files on all the nasty things that might happen in life. Perhaps you know this part?

These days I know that what I think has power in the world. Not sure exactly how much, but it does have power, especially when it's backed with an emotional charge.

If I show up at a party or meeting expecting emotionally unpleasant things to happen, feeling down on myself, is this likely to help me? or perhaps to create the states of being ignored, or un-received that the story teller is conjuring up? Even if they were real sometime, then isn't now.

So today I'm working with my story teller to create positive stories, ones that I can feel good about. They may not happen (any more than the plane disaster) but at least I'll be happier, and being happier I'm more likely to create something that feels good.

So I walk into the party as me, centering in myself, ready for an adventure with some new human beings, minus the nasty stories, the old disappointments, and I have a good time.

On the way to my meeting I can feel my mood shifting, and when I get there I find myself actually celebrated rather than ignored. We have a great time co-creating and hanging out.

As for my son.. we'll see, but I am going to find my space, let go of the old voices and have my story teller come up with some wonderful scenes for the summer ahead.

If your stories are working for you, God bless you. But if you have a story teller that feels life has to be film noir, try negotiating an attitude adjustment. The next time you notice yourself "rehearsing"something, ask him or her to create the best story that they can come up with: give them a creative challenge, and if even a fraction of your stories come true, you'll have a wonderful summer.

And if there is a part of you that "can't believe it", make it a game of "make believe", and create some new beliefs. At least you can choose a more pleasant in-flight movie.

Successful Life (© 5/09)

Every so often you may find a headline that says something like "Successful Businessman Commits Suicide".

This begs the question: if he was so successful, why did he commit suicide? Leaving aside the various possibilities of movie thriller drama, we come to potential conflicts between social and personal success.

We know many definitions of success having to do with money, fame, beauty, power etc. External measures that are the result of efforts on the public stage. We are taught to strive for this success, and to at least present the appearance of it. Some of us do a pretty good job. Or we may give up and go for couch potato land, but we are still buying into the same definition, even as we decry it.

How much space is there collectively or personally for a different sense of success; one which is based on being happy, on feeling appreciation for ourselves and our life? How many George Bailey's are there out there in real life, in the 21st century?

Several years ago I did a short reading for a man who seemed to be quiet successful in the conventional sense, while I hardly thought of myself that way; and yet I found myself giving him permission to do what he wanted to do in his heart! Something that for all his success, or perhaps because of it? he couldn't do for himself.

The Chinese have an old saying that you shouldn't refer to a man as having a good life, until he has had a good death. When we consider ourselves such failures that we decide to leave early, can we be said to have had a good life, not matter how "successful" we have been?

On the other hand, like George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life, when we buy into the material sense of success, how often do we judge ourselves harshly in spite of having had a good life in an inner sense, in a quieter sense?

Spiritually, communally, perhaps a simple quiet life, is a triumph, a great success; especially if we can own it for ourselves. To live a long life without substantial regrets; to love another for 40 or 50 years; to raise children and know your grandchildren; to be willing to help others in practical matters, share one's enthusiasm, work hard and practice patience; are these not a form of inner, perhaps even spiritual, success.

Most importantly; to live by one's own standards, whatever they are, to take life on one's own terms, and measure success by the impulses of your own heart, is this not what we come here to do? Perhaps this leads to being a CEO, or perhaps it is being a janitor, a nurse, a parent, or many things in between, but to be a contented human being on one's own terms is not an easy feat! To quietly put aside the striving and simply model being present as a kind and happy human being, seems also a courageous and admirable way to live.

May you find the grace to appreciate who you are and be content with the calling of your own heart. You will greatly enrich all our lives.
For my Father

Send a comment or question to Alan

Timely Dreams (© 4/09)

Living in the present is a goal that most of us have heard about or have been actively working towards. Pulling our energy out of the future and back from the past so that we can be alive here and now is taught in many traditions.

But what about our dreams? In the culture we are supposed to have dreams in our youth, which we stick to, or give up, or chase, or realize. It is generally recognized that having dreams is a good thing (unless all you ever do is dream), but that in practice many of us should "face reality", grown up and put them away.

Giving up on our dreams, as you know, is dieing inside. Our dreams come from Spirit and our soul, and in giving them up we lose ourselves. So we should stick with our dreams, in spite of mixed social mesages.

Recently I was working with someone and I realized that their space was full of old dreams. This is partly due to the funny things that time has been doing lately, so the "usual" linearity has begun to scramble a bit, meaning that the phrase "all things are now" is happening more obviously.

As I looked at these dreams though I noticed that being "old" they were therefore out-of-date. They had been dreamt in the past and had not really changed. Like many old things, frozen in time (even though they were wandering into the present), they were also somewhat lifeless.

It became clear that not only do we need to keep our dreams, but we should be refreshing them, letting them evolve with us and our experience and situation in the world. Perhaps more than other aspects of life they should not be cast in stone.

Imagine an artist who has a vision and then endlessly repeats the same work of art. What starts fresh and full of life and insight, becomes old and stale. The dreams of our youth, should not be given up, but they should be allowed to evolve.

How many ways do those of us who hold our dreams become trapped in them? Dreams are not something that should hold us hostage; they should set us free. Just as we know that dreaming someone else's dream is unlikely to satisfy our soul, dreaming an old dream is also out of sync with who we are today.

"Living the dream" is not acting out a dream from long ago, but speaks to allowing your dream to live, to grow and change, just as you do.

May your dreams be always fresh and full of joy and life.

Havingness (© 4/09)

There is an old proverb about letting things go in order to receive them. This is usually referenced to relationships, how we have to release people in order to have them truly come to us. The hard part being that if we expect them to come back then we have not really let them go, have we?

Its not just relationships for which this may be said. In some manifestation processes the last step, after working on the vision of what we want in various ways, is to cast it out to the universe to come back to us. We have to surrender at some point in order to receive.

Surrendering is a state of neutrality, in which receiving or not receiving are both options. It is not that when we surrender, the universe will do everything the way we want it to. If we still have expectations, we still have attatchment.

Perhaps it is that if we are full of need and want, expectation and attatchment there is no space for the things we think we want to show up. Perhaps it is about the level of our being that we are experiencing? Is it the egoic level of judgement, need, and attatchment? or the spiritual level of knowing that we are held and supported Spiritually through everything?

In healing work the opposite is also true. Until you can allow something to be, it cannot change. Until you can have it, you can not release it. Until we move through resistance to a place of neutrality the deep healing can't happen.

This doesn't mean we have to like it, or approve of something, but we have to accept that it is there. How can you change something that is not there?

Several years ago I started some deep body work because I had some lower back issues. One of the first things that came up was pain associated with an old scar in my belly. A hernia operation when I was 3 months old, that I had been carrying for nearly 50 years. It never particularly bothered me, but it sure was painful when worked on.

I had to find it and allow it to be, before I could clear and release it. This is true on many levels and there are ways of safely working with deeper things. But when I stopped holding onto that pain, space was made for something else to be present. Knowing it was there I was able to make a choice to let it go.

To adapt the poet:
True havingness is a place beyond giving and receiving, in which Life is: flowing and changing. In that place were we can allow things to be or not be, anything is possible. Allowing something to not be we can create it, allowing something to be we can release it.

Join me on the journey to that place of havingness, in which process we may discover what we really need.

Metaphors of Transformation (© 3/09)

Cracking Seeds

In a dream this week I had a brief vision of a seed, surrounded by a hard shell (as a nut is), cracking open so the fresh green shoot can begin to grown into the plant that is to come. In the dream it was clear that this was a metaphor for spiritual growth.

In reflection the shell is aspects of ego and mind which are formed from old hurts, pain, anger, fear. We hold onto these and make a shell of them to protect ourselves from possible future hurts. But, while it protects us, it also limits new growth.

Just as the shell must crack so the seed can sprout, we have to relax our old protection and release the old emotions so that we can be open to new spiritual growth. Growth that allows us to emerge above ground in this time of spring, to bask in the sun of Spirit, to be nurtured by the rain and the soil.

In this growth beyond the shell of the old ego/mind we find our true nature and purpose. While the "cracking" may be painful or hard, it is also necessary for us to move to a new level and be reborn. Like most processes if we resist it it will take longer, if we relax it can be easier.

May we all be able to recognize the times when our shells are trying to crack open so that we can grow and find our souls.

Butterfly Cells

We have all heard the metaphor of the inch worm becoming a butterfly. When the caterpillar is ready to transform it spins a cocoon. Inside the cocoon it begins to break down, the cells coming apart into an organic goop. As this happens a few new seed cells appear, cells that will be part of the butterfly.

At first the old cells attack these new ones as foreign, perhaps as diseased. But they multiply very fast, and more and more are formed, too many to be suppressed. The old cells continue to fall apart, and around the new seed cells the butterfly is born.

How often to we attack the seeds of transformation in others or even in ourselves? But they are there inside us so that when we let go of the fear of dissolving, of coming apart, when we crack, these new cells, the seeds of the spiritual self are already there to guide the new form. We will loose the old self, but that is not the self/mind that will create the butterfly of our soul. Your higher self, your deeper self, the seeds of your soul already stirring within you will do that.

Relax your self/mind. Just as the new sprout, struggling to be free of the seed shell, knows how to grow into a plant, the seeds of your soul will guide the alchemy by which you become the butterfly of your soul-manifested-through-the-body.

Relationships, Space, and Spirit (© 2/09)

Whether its because Valentine's Day has been on the horizon, or the moon in the 7th house of relationships, aspects of relationship have been showing up all week.

I have written before about the value of viewing a relationship as a third space that you create with another person. Each party has their own space and together they create a third space in which to have the relationship, whatever that may be; romantic, friendship, familial, or business.

This is in contrast to some views of relationship in which the two independent spaces merge into a single unified space. While this may feel wonderful and work for a while, it is generally not sustainable, and is often confusing and leads to power conflicts and many other challenges.

When I have my own space and you have yours, we are rooted in who we are, we have a sense of self, a space to relate to ourselves and Spirit. We can then easily give our partner permission to have their space in the same way. From this foundation we can come into co-creation in a third space, the space of the relationship.

At times we may both dive in completely and revel in loss of self and unity of body, heart, mind or spirit. When we need a breather we can climb back into our own space. We can have both connection and independence, unity and selfhood. We can be complete in ourselves and joyfully go beyond ourselves with another.

In ceremonial work it is advised to remember that as you co-create with others, Spirit is always present as a unifying, encompassing force. It is easier to step out of attachment and ego when you are surrendering to Spirit, thanto your partner or partners, no matter how much you love them. It is amazing how easily and smoothly creation happens in this way.

Having your relationships as independent spaces provides space for Spirit to enter in this way. In the field of conscious relationship the concept of a "Third Presence"[1], a sort of relationship oversoul, is viewed as not merely helpful, but essential to a successful intimate relationship. This spiritual presence becomes an ally, and can hold the space when its hard for you to do so. It brings in creativity and assistance, understanding and perspective, when they are most needed.

When we are mashed together in a single space, mine, yours, or a combination, there is not much room for Spirit to enter in. Spirit moves in the Void, the in-between, the space between atoms and the spaces between people. Remembering the saying, "When two or more are gathered...", I wonder if this is not a similar creation of space in which Spirit can arise, or appear.

May you fully enjoy the process of co-creating your relationships with your friends and beloveds, in partnership with Spirit it's easier and safer to open to another, and manifest your dreams.

[1] Flesh and Spirit, J. Zimmerman & J. McCandless, 1998

Positive Intentions (© 1/09)

In the post-Secret world we understand that setting intentions is a key to manifesting the life that we want.

One of the key rules for intentions is that they need to be set in positive terms, like affirmations and hypnotic suggestions, which are used to reprogram our subconscious. Positive phrasing is important because the subconscious, which holds our most important beliefs and programs, apparently doesn't hear negative words like "not". So if you set an intention to "not overeat", the mind hears "overeat"; with contrary results.

My own sense of why the subconscious is poor at negatives is that the coin of that realm is not so much words as sensory experiences: pictures, feelings, sounds. These do not include equivalents of "not". When we say I will not smoke, we are most likely to see a picture of smoking, perhaps with a red slash through it, with the verbal "not". What the subconscious receives is the image and/or feeling of smoking.

Intentions are more often thought of as being addressed to spirit than the subconscious, so you may wonder why spirit also has trouble with negatives. Perhaps it is because while we think in words, what spirit receives is the pictures and feelings that words invoke as we think them.

It is known that aligning our emotional state with our words is important in powering all these processes. It is likely that the emotions tend to follow the picture or sensory experience evoked by the words, rather than the words themselves. We are back with the subconscious.

There is another reason for working with positive phrasing. It forces us to clarify what our true intention is. If we can't say "my intention is to not worry", what replaces worry? Where is it we do want to go? If this is fuzzy then spirit still has a hard time knowing what we want. Even with things that are better defined, "I don't want to be fat", is more clearly something like "I want to be my ideal weight". But what exactly is that for us?

In every case the exercise of really envisioning what we want; how does it feel to be our ideal weight? perhaps we also want to be more athletic? how does that look and feel? engages us in a whole different way and begins to bring hope and joy into the process. And if there are any underlying blocking beliefs it will flush them out as well, helping to increase our havingness.

Life should be lived manifesting the positive, not fighting the negative.

In this coming year there are great opportunities to realize the positives. May you find out what you really want to create; aligning your senses and your heart with positive words, bring it easily and effortlessly to your life.

Send a comment or question to Alan

Traveling Light (© 1/09)

Have you ever had a dream in which you have left something somewhere and are trying to find it? It might be clothes, or a backpack, or a person; but something that feels important to carry forward. Perhaps you can't quite remember where you left it, or perhaps you can't seem to find your way back to that place.

Two weeks ago I was leaving for Christmas on the east coast. I carefully packed a backpack with some books, a few holiday DVDs to share, some of my new CDs that I had spent the last few weeks creating on the physical. The presents I had collected for my family, some found easily and others searched from store to store, were stashed; an empty water bottle, and a sandwich and snacks for the plane. I was feeling happy that I had remembered all the things I wanted to take.

My daughter and I were ready in good time. I had booked an evening flight which meant no crack of dawn this time. We loaded our luggage in the car. I remembered that I should collect the key to my parents house, and went back inside for it. A clear sunny Colorado day, and in good spirits we drove off as I joked to my daughter that this was the last chance to remember anything thatwe had forgotten. We had everything with us.

A nice drive to the airport: afternoon, before the rush hour traffic. We parked and got our luggage out of the car to catch a shuttle to the terminal. Only my backpack was missing? Carefully packed it was still sitting next to the dinning table, where I had walked by it several times, including when I went back for the keys. My guides are really laughing at me now.

So I had left my "stuff" behind, including some things that I had worked hard to complete or find before leaving. But its still a nice day. I have my toothbrush and my clothes. Somehow its OK. In fact through checkin, security clearance (where a wonderful woman was actually having having fun in her job), and out to the gate, I felt light and free. I can feel my mind letting go. Letting go of old pictures about presents from when I was a kid. Letting go of the need to keep track of things in general, dropping me into the present, where everything was fine, and I could experience the joy of appreciating the people around me, the family and friends that I would see soon. Releasing the mental attachments there was so much space for heart experience.

In a dream I might have spent a considerable time searching for the lost backpack, but here I can let it go. It will be there at home when I return, and in the meantime I'm alive, breathing, having fun. Nothing really important is lost. In fact my mother had suggested that we defocus on presents this year. Even the delay in our flight (so we got in at 3:00 am), just allowed us to meet some good folks in the waiting area. It was all just a flow, setting the tone for a good holiday full of people and connection.

So, as we open a new year, I'm hoping that I'm ready to leave more of my "stuff" behind. To live in the natural flow where things come and go, and then more things come. To travel lighter, and to trust that the things I really need will be with me, or show up. To allow my mind to let go of keeping track, of holding on, so that I can be present with others in a deeper way, open to joy and connection in every moment.

This is a great time to allow old things to complete, to check in with what you are circling back for that you may not really need. Opening the doors to a new year full of promise and adventure, new friends and old, deepening trust in yourself, and allowing more room for your soul to sing and dance.

Light in the Darkness (© 12/08)

As human beings we live in/with/as paradox. We are spiritual energetic beings incarnated on Earth in material bodies. We can have peak experiences; on a snowboard running over fresh powder, having diner with a loved one, in meditation or service or ceremony. Then we come home and get the flue, or the battery in our car dies on a cold morning when we are late for work, or some old emotional crud shows up for tea.

This season is the "darkest" of the year (where I live in the northern hemisphere), but it is full of stars and is a time for festivals of light. It is a time to celebrate the coming of light in the dark, the return of the Sun, the birth of the Christ child, the burning of the Hanukkah lamp, the flow of love in the human heart.

The paradox is only apparent. Spirit comes into matter as light, as energy, as love. The depth of matter, in the heart of the atoms, is the power that fuels the light of the stars. The light of love shines in our hearts from the inside out, and is inexhaustible. We are both matter and spirit and yet all is one. In Chinese lore Man exists between Heaven and Earth, weaving them together to create the ten thousand things.

When you welcome the light into the world, remember that you are also welcoming your own spirit, your own soul. Breath deep and relax, to make space so that you can be aware of how you too are a vessel for spirit to weave into matter, to co-create life and love here on Earth.

In this season of light take a moment to ask yourself how you bring light into your world? do you like to cook, to dance, to play sports, or write a poem. Is it in your smile or a kind word, receiving or giving a massage, or talking to the birds. We all have our unique lights to shine, for ourselves and others. Thank you for taking a moment or more to shine yours a bit brighter.

It is a time to light the lamps of our hearts, or perhaps to uncover them, as they are always lit, so that they may shine forth for ourselves and for others.

May your holidays be full of hope and joy, Alan

Coming to a Pause (© 11/08)

Many years ago, I was living in California and found myself in circumstances that led to embarking on a trip to the orient. In preparation I gave away or loaned out to friends everything I owned, with the exception of the contents of a backpack that I took with me. With a friend I boarded a plan to Japan, where we were to be met (maybe) by a friend of a friend of his. Not quite Columbus sailing off the edge of the world, but still a process that involved releasing most aspects of my external life. Just my friend and I heading off across the ocean.

Most of the time our lives are full of things we have planned. On-going commitments and schedules. Work hours, and tasks. Lunches, dinners or other activities with friends, partners, family. Books we are reading, music or movies to listen to or watch. Perhaps you are a list maker, checking things off that you set down last week, last month, or last year. Perhaps you have looser planning processes, broader intentions that lead to a flow of activities each day. In any case the percentage of time that really is free for spontaneous creation is generally constrained.

The mind likes to plan, even if we call it dreaming, and then to run our lives on the basis of these plans or dreams. Modern society tends to encourage this, down to the weekly shopping and laundry schedules.

I am being reminded again that it is good to pause, to pause all the mental tapes, lists and schedules to see if they are really what we would choose to be doing? to make room for asking what would bring our soul joy? to stand still for a moment in the whirl of life and being brave enough to let the balls drop.

This is not to say you have to sail off to Asia. It is not to say that you have to stop all the gears at once. You may choose to pick up most of the balls again, or restart many of the lists and programs. But doing it consciously, you will have perspective on which ones really serve you, and which you may intend to alter or phase out over time. Most importantly you have given yourself space to be surprised; to be inspired by spirit, by yourself, to begin to see how to shift how you do things so they are more in alignment with your soul, or to remember a passion that you put down years ago.

When we do this all that is not the planning mind, to communicate with us about what we might want to do; for our inherent creativity to inspire small changes or large shifts. To literally, or simply in our imagination, take our life apart, consciously look at it and then reassemble it with a greater degree of ownership.

Moving into December, heading for the Solstice this is a good time to pause, to allow our doing aspects to "hibernate" a little, so that we can be informed by our being aspects. This may seem a scary thing: that is part of the program that drives doing and planning. We may have a voice that says, but what if nothing happens, what if I let go and I lose it all? There was a night I woke up before that long ago trip, in an unfamiliar, borrowed, bedroom, full of fear and uncertain of who or where I was.

I was on the cusp of the most amazing adventure, full of many surprises and much growth. I can guarantee you that no matter how deeply you drop into the "void" it is a place of creativity and life and something will show up for you. The natural flow of life will fill things in again, no worries.

So treat yourself to a pause. Allow the whirling gears to disengage and stop, even for a little, and see what gifts show up for you. This is a space of creativity, of joy, of letting out soul breath a bit more into our lives. That is always a wonderful thing. And if you wonder how to do this? just ask. Ask spirit, or source, God or Goddess, your higher self, your angels, or your guides. The answer will come if you make space for it by asking and listening.

Trading Responsibility for Joy (© 10/08)

On the rare occasions that I host a party or a dinner I have noticed myself entering a state that I think of as "host" energy. It is a somewhat timeless place due to the focus and presence in the moment as I work to ensure that things are done, people taken care of, that everyone has a good time. One task or conversation follows another and before I know it the evening is over and I come back to myself and the lower energy levels I usually function at.

Even if it was a good event, I usually feel a bit drained and wonder where all the time went. Perhaps I also feel some relief.

Its a different energy from attending someone else's party, though that may also be a busy time full of a series of conversations and other events that are not very dissimilar. The difference is that I am not the "host" I don't walk in with a sense of responsibility for anyone else, just for myself.

Recently I have been noticing parallels with other situations. Take parenting. Now that I am stepping out of that, I notice the relief of not being in host mode for my children, even though years of experience had dulled the edge a bit. As they have grown up I am glad to acknowledge that they can take on more responsibility for their own lives. I try to trust them as capable human beings to do so.

But what about other guests, or even more balanced relationships? How about a new roommate, a new romantic interest, or a new co-worker? Do you go into "host mode"? or perhaps you might experience it as "wanting to make a good impression"? Some elements of "caretaking" might even slip in. Its probably not conscious, so check twice. To what extent do you "take responsibility" for others when it might be reasonable to let them take it for themselves?

There's no correct answer here, just something to consider.

In some cases it is reasonable. If you have a guest from far away who doesn't know their way around town, they may need some help getting around, but are you also responsible for them enjoying their trip? or are they? If so to what extent? Are you creating their experience? or are you co-creating with them?

Back at the party: we are all adults, isn't it appropriate that I trust my guests to have a good time, or to ask if they need something? What happens if I let go of the weight of being responsible for everyone and just show up in joy and enthusiasm? Wow. A bit better for me! perhaps even better for them?

Not that I don't still do all the appropriate things as host, but the energy is very different. Instead of being in accelerated attention mode (read anxiety), I can just be present in joy and expectation that something great will unfold. I have more space to consider what is appropriate, and what may not be. In taking care of myself and creating space for others to take care of themselves, trusting that they can, do we not take steps towards true co-creation?

In trusting yourself, trusting others, you can ease the anxiety and burden of "responsibility" and open a whole different space. Perhaps you have already discovered this. Wonderful! Perhaps there are still situations or relationships where you can give yourself more permission to let go and make the switch. Let's start practicing.

Just think of a world full of joy and enthusiasm. What a great thing to create together!

Holding the Center (© 9/08)

As in the old Chinese curse it seems we are living in interesting times. Whether they are driven by the forces of galactic evolution, or the mass psychology of the human species, or both, or something else, we have everything from global warming to the potential meltdown of western capitalism unfolding before us.

Perhaps it is strange, but I find myself joyful and excited. I'm surprised myself. I've worried about these things most of my life. So why this amazing sense of joy and possibility?

Because you are waking up. Individually and collectively we are growing, healing, and waking up. There is a common intention to create community with a new purpose, or a renewed purpose, to serve spirit and the common good, to weave the sacred into daily life, to bring joy and love into our lives and our relationships.

This time the process is from the inside out. We are learning to face our shadows, to embrace our fears, to dive deep - where the still dark we discover is the foundation of possibility and creativity, out of which we can make new choices.

When we are not yet rooted in our central spiritual core, and the outer layers of the personality or the world around us (the manifest aspects of spirit and energy) dissolve, crumble, and transform, we are left lost in the darkness, afraid.

But when we have learned to reach inside, going deep, or high, or however you experience it, and have begun to connect with your high self, your soul, your source, then when the outer layers tremble and loose their structure, it is not I that is gone. There is a still quiet knowingness that spirit is deeper than the outer layers, and it is from this deeper place that you are strong, creative, and everything is possible.

From this place we can live in love and hope and joy, even amid flow and transformation.

The surprise today is to feel this welling up, when I wasn't sure yet that it was really there. I can feel that my brothers and sisters are also holding this space also, that around the world many of us have the intention to hold this center so that transformation can take place. Personally, for another, or in communities.

Feel for it, ask for it, intend it, and allow your self to be drawn to it. It is there for you, and it is surfacing. Remember this is really who you are, always there when we let go of fear and the need to hold the outside together. In the spaces the center emerges, we remember the sacred, the essential self, and in joy and love we can create a new world.

Send a comment or question to Alan

Riding "Alone" (© 9/08)

I recently watched a wonderful movie about a healing journey taken by a Japanese man to a remote area of China. It illustrated how each healing journey is a personal process that we do by, for, and from, ourself. We can only go on it when we are ready and willing to show up for it.

The gentleman in the movie is, after many years, wanting to heal his relationship with his son, who is now very ill. He goes on a trip that is in many ways a pilgrimage determined by his son's own efforts to understand related wounds and heal himself. So from the beginning there is a link, between the father, the son, and their relationship. All three are being healed.

Throughout the journey various other people are also woven into this web of healing. Some of them come forward to assist, moved by the power of the father's sincere search for redemption and connection with, and love for, his son. Others are themselves healed in parallel processes instigated by the father as he begins to realize the greater symbolic nature of his trip.

The story shows the power of the healing process, the spiritual quest, as each of us strives to heal our own wounds, reclaim our souls and our place in the web of love and life. When we are ready to own our life, our wounds, and our healing; we are never really alone, when we sincerely ask we receive. If we hold fast improbable assistance shows up.

It is said: God helps those who help themselves.

It is also important that we be ready to understand that healing may take other forms than we had envisioned. It may involve helping others to heal similar wounds, or our journey may inspire others to have the courage to begin a parallel process. We must be willing to follow the flow of the process wherever it leads us.

In the end we are responsible for our healing, our journey to wholeness, and our commitment to this in the face of obstacles is important. No one can do it for us, and we have to do it for and from ourselves. But we are less alone than we sometimes feel, spirit is always ready to help us. And as we heal it often affects others in deep ways, seen and unseen.

Life is a web, of which we are all parts. Each of our wounds is reflected throughout this web, and each healing journey is as well. So thank you all for the courage and determination to walk your own path. It lightens my world as well as yours.

Into the Gap Between by Ursula K. LeGuin Always Coming Home (1985)

What do they do,
the singers, tale-writers, dancers, painters, shapers, makers?
They go there with empty hands,
into the gap between.
They come back with things in their hands.
They go silent and come back with words, with tunes.
They go into confusion and come back with patterns.
They go limping and weeping, ugly and frightened,
and come back with the wings of the redtail hawk,
the eyes of the mountain lion.


That is where they live,
where they get their breath:
there, in the gap between,
the empty place.


Where do the mysterious artists live?
There, in the gap between.
Their hands are the hinge.
No one else can breathe there.
They are beyond praise.


The ordinary artists
use patience, passion, skill, work
and returning to work, judgment,
proportion, intellect, purpose,
indifference, obstinacy, delight in tools,
delight, and with these as their way
they approach the gap, the hub,
approaching in circles, in gyres,
like the buzzard, looking down, watching,
like the coyote, watching.


They look to the center,
they turn on the center,
they describe the center,
though they cannot live there.
They deserve praise.


There are people who call themselves artists
who compete with each other for praise.
They think the center
is a stuffed gut,
and that shitting is working.
They are what the buzzard and the coyote
ate for breakfast yesterday.

One Step at a Time (© 8/08)

I was up in the early morning headed for the airport at the start of a trip to the east coast. A cool summer night, a quarter moon rising, and my son excited about starting his new adventure in college.

Riding the shuttle on the first leg of a typical airline trip, which takes twelve hours to complete a four hour flight, I notice that part of me is worrying. Not about the next step in the process, check in; but about returning the rental car on the return trip five days later.

This part of my mind wants to review the whole trip over and over, trying to make sure that it will all go as planned. I have to laugh. Calling myself back to present time, the sweet, cool, night on the Colorado plains, I ask simply, "Is this step going well? Yes. Is there anything I need to prepare for the next one? No.

OK, let's relax, trust myself and spirit.

A great opportunity to practice being present, knowing what the long range plan is, but allowing it to unfold one step at a time. This let events flow, and allowed me to feel good about the trip all the way until I got home again. Even in the traffic jams, both on the roads and at the airport.

Arriving home on another wonderful Colorado night, I find my grass is green and growing. It was never about me doing it all. The rains two weeks ago and cooler days have changed a yellow yard into green that needs to be mowed again. All while I was off doing other things. I am not alone.

Ahh, but now I am home. There is a new space in my life. I can consider what I want to fill it with. I find that it is a good step to know the plan and allow myself to trust it, but the mind really rebels when there is "no plan". Can I relax and trust the next step when I'm not sure what that is? Can I still remember that spirit has my back, that the tapestry of life has many weavers, seen and unseen?

Same lesson, next octave.

My mind doesn't have to fill this new space months and years ahead. In fact, I know I will have a great deal of help creatively filling it, especially if I am open to it being there. When I can relax my being, show up, be present, be appreciative and joyful, give my fears space, but let them go, then the creativity of spirit, my higher self and all the other levels, has space to gift me.

If I am too busy worrying about next month or next year, how can I notice what the next step is that's appearing right in front of me? or arising from inside me? Have patience and it will become clear. Allow the space to be present and open so that it may fill creatively. Let go of the "responsibility" to do it all, which is overwhelming. Settle into that deep place of connection and knowing, not of what next week brings, but of spirit and self, of trust and faith, of what is already present right here, today. Then next week will begin to spin itself.

Change and Possibility (© 7/08)

There is change in the air this summer. The finishing of old cycles, completion and transition.

Among other things in my life, my son, and youngest child, will fly east in a month to start his college education. For him this is a big change and the beginning of many new aspects of his life, some anticipated, and some unknown, not even dreamed of yet. It would be reasonable that he might be nervous, but my hope is that he can view this as a space of possibilities and adventure.

For me it is also the ending of a long period of daily parenting, a role that has been a source of many things in my life, including much pride and joy. It has often been the one consistent thread when everything else has been in flux. A part of me has been morning the transitioning of this role, more than I would have expected, and this is good.

Another part of me is feeling into the space and openness that will be in my life, room to focus on other things, other relationships, room perhaps for unanticipated surprises, and this feels great. I can feel the sadness, that wants to morn an emptiness, and also the joy that there will be room for new fullness.

As I help my son prepare for his new life, I notice a tendency to go into that famous parental worry place. It has been a great gift to sit back and ask, is this really an expression of my love for him, or is it perhaps a marvelous space in which I project my own doubts and fears. Are these mental constructions more about the past, reflecting my own struggles and experiences, than they are about his future? I suspect they are.

If he is a bit unconcerned with these preparations, what does it serve to fill him with an urgency and anxiety that is really my own? Pretty easy to answer that one! Rather it is a wonderful time to release my old fears and worries, to trust his ability to navigate his own life, or to learn how, and expect that he will open to all the wonderful possibilities that are there for him.

An old friend recently sent me the link to a wonderful video which presents many aspects of life simply and eloquently. Among these is the suggestion that when change comes along, we look for the opportunities, the possibilities, for wonderful things to happen. When we can do this life opens to us and we begin to find the wonderful and beautiful in the world around us.

In my own journey this year, spirit has several times shown how it is from the spaces in between what we think exists that possibilities arise. In between the atoms lies the energy of life and the fields of what is possible, waiting for us to relax enough, to let the structures open enough, to create all the things we can imagine and more.

So as my son prepares to leave home, I take this opportunity to recognize more of my own limiting fears and release them for us both. I breath into the openness of new possibility in gratitude for another gift that he has given me. I set him free to fly without my fears weighted around his feet. Joyously grieving the change and transition I wait in wonder for the possible to enter in.

May you find your dreams in the spaces that open through changes in your life.

Send a comment or question to Alan

Video: Celebrating What's Right With the World - Dewitt Jones

A wonderful video that simply and eloquently presents insights into "what it's all about" based on personal experience. The best sort of wisdom. Very inspirational.
Click here for the video.

Being Best (© 7/08)

How often have we heard these words, directly spoken or indirectly heard in movies, read in books, sung in songs? We are urged to compete, with others, with ourselves, with nature, but to be the best in any of many senses, from an Olympic athlete to a loyal friend. All worthy goals.

We may have been told to get the best grades, swim the fastest race, be the nicest person, to be better than someone, or everyone, or just to better ourselves. Excellence is defined in many ways, but we all want to excel, it is natural and part of us as human beings.

Recently a question floated through. How often do we think of being best as something out there? as opposed to in here? or to put it another way: Do we look around and select something that is already defined and work to be best at it? or do we take the time to go inside and ask what are we best suited for in life? Where will we naturally excel? What gifts to we bring to the world?

This may seem like a slight distinction, and like many things in life we may be working with both sides of this question at the same time; but are we living our life to be the best version of us? or are we living it to achieve the positive regard of others? Take a moment to settle into the question, the answer is for you, not for me. There is no wrong answer, just information and choices.

Do we ask what does the world expect us to be, or want us to be? or do we ask who am I? It is usually easier to answer the former question, but surely it is ultimately more satisfying to take the time to pursue the latter.

No one can be better at being you than you are. When you find your heart and it's bliss they will lead you to what you can uniquely offer to the world. You, at least, will be satisfied, but I expect "the world" will notice as well.

Let Nature Feed Your Soul (© 7/08)

I recently spent several wonderful days in the mountains of northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Leaving schedules and cell phone behind, I moved into a space more of being than of doing.

I found myself wanting to simply sit on a high rock overlooking a green valley, or by the stream rushing through the valley. Feeling into the earth, the water, the sky at night full of stars. Letting nature's rhythms flow through me, opening to them intentionally. Staring at the flames of the fire, or feeling the energy and grace of the horses in the pasture, relaxing into a beingness that is full of life and movement.

Nature blends its doing and being. She is coherent and flowing in a way that I don't often feel in my daily human life.

I let my mind go, floating away like the clouds, releasing the things that need to be done, that I shouldn't forget, that hover like mosquitos that refuse to let me relax. I find a new mind, soaring like a redtail, riding the flows of wind and water, opening awareness to the trees, plants, and animals. There goes a yellow swallowtail, or three, playfully dancing through the sunlight.

I feel this mind in my being, feeding it with the breath of awareness. Coming back to my essential self, the soul that remembers it is connected, and that in that connection it knows without having to figure and think. It drinks in the experience of the natural world, flowing and expanding with joy and gratitude.

Today I am back in Boulder, but I am not quite the same. I have brought home with me some of the web of life from the mountains, and permission to breath into it and remember. My mind is not so busy yet, my beingness is still palpable, the natural rhythm is here also, underneath in the still and quite, even in the city. I can carry it with me, nourishing it through out the day, through giving it space, or taking a walk outdoors.

Find a tree blowing in the wind, or a flowing stream, animals in pasture, birds or butterflies, or the clouds up high. Allow your being to feel the natural rhythms that it remembers when you let it. Know that your soul is being fed just being with them and intending the resonance. Nothing more required.

Rejoice in your own natural being.

The Smell of a Summer Rose (© 6/08)

Summertime and the roses are blooming.

Find some and take time to smell them.
Be fully present, smelling them.
Let their smell fill your awareness.
Not a sniff, or two.
Breath them in, over and over.
Stretch into the experience, reach for it from your heart.
Notice what comes forward and what fades away.
Let go of the thinking, focus on the feeling, the being of this.
Imagine this smell flowing through your whole body, how
does you experience roses as a state of being?
Breathing life through the rose.


Let memories of roses come and float away.
Stay with this rose for long enough to know this smell unfiltered,
right here and now.


When you have been present with this rose, allowed your being
to reflect and communicate with it, slowly come back into the world,
and notice where you have been.
Notice the "waking", the mind coming back on line.
If you are fortunate it may take a while.
Notice the "dying", which aspects are going off line.
Is this not like waking from a dream?


Over the minutes and hours return to your experience,
call up the smell of the rose.
How does your being react?
How much of the full experience returns?
Does the mind slow and stop?
What parts come alive?
Practice this.


When we have intense experiences, intimate experiences, meditations,
or dreams, are they not all alike?
We shift our awareness to other levels of being, we are "transported".
Take this chance to notice where you go and how you "return".
How much do you retain?
or is the mind in a hurry to "wake up", to "get on", to "be real"?


These transported states are quite real, just different.
Carry the smell of the rose with you, in your being.
Allow yourself that state, the awareness of smelling the rose,
filtering into the rest of your life.


Is it not wonderful to live your life through the smell of a rose?

Send a comment or question to Alan

Video: Connecting a Million Hearts - from Hearthmath

A beautiful video about the healing power of the heart and positive emotions. Well worth a couple of minutes.
Click here for the video.

Sunny Skies and Dark Thoughts (© 4/08)

This afternoon the sky is clear and blue as only Colorado and other high dessert skies are blue. The sun is warm, if not hot. Fruit trees are beginning to bloom, as are the little spring flowers in the grass and along the trails. The air smells fresh and clean as the snow on the high mountains. Its about as beautiful a day as you can imagine.

My emotional body responds to this beauty, relaxes, opens, feels happy. Its an easy day to drop into my heart and breath and be grateful to be alive.

Then I notice my mind doing some strange things. It's actually trying to talk me out of the way I'm feeling! It skips right by the fact that it may snow tomorrow (this is Colorado after all) to the fact that its tax day, that a client postponed, that various other things are not perfect in the accounting department. One after another it's tossing these dark thoughts at me, challenging my right to feel happy and enjoy the day.

None of these things affects the present moment, like tomorrow's weather. None of these is cast in stone either, and in fact they may well turn out to be opportunities in disguise. Like tomorrow's weather everything may be different by the time it shows up.

So I ask my mind what the deal is? Well, you can't just feel good for no reason can you? comes the answer. To which I say why not? You've talked me into feeling bad many times for no real reason, haven't you? say I. No reply to that one. Why should it be that we need a reason to feel good? or to feel anything for that matter?

We feel what we feel when we feel it. If we can let ourselves have this then the feelings come and go and we move on. If the mind gets ahold of them and sticks them in a story, or connects them with various memories (in order to explain or justify them) then we start looping. Feelings to memories/story to feelings to.. over and over.

So today I simply choose to connect to the day around me and feel good, be happy, use this as another lesson in what living with an open heart feels like. It may not change tomorrow's weather, any more than my mind can change today's, but I can enjoy today, and perhaps enjoy the snow tomorrow as well.

And perhaps, a little voice says, if you allow the emotional body to cultivate feeling good, in spite of the mental programs, we can learn to feel good most of the time, even when challenging things come.

Choose love not fear, and have a wonderful day.

Video: My Stroke of Insight: Jill Bolte Taylor.

A wonderful and moving first person description of left-brain and right-brain consciousnesses, as experienced during the aftermath of a stoke as her left brain shuts down. Posing the central question of "How do you want to show up in the world?"
Click here for the video.

An End to Haunting One's Self(© 3/08)

Feeling into the emotional space inside myself, scared to find the fear/pain that was always there I gingerly turn on the light and slowly realize that there the space is empty, the fear is gone. It is gone and I am free, free to relax the vigilance, that always guarded against the threat that this pain or fear would be stimulated, would awaken to haunt me

This fear I put there to protect me from harm, if I am fearful enough inside somehow I will avoid fearful things outside. What strange logic? How true to say "All we need fear is fear itself." How much we suffer from trying not to suffer, doing unto ourselves before someone else does unto us. We create more of what we seek to avoid, carrying fear around all the time so as not to have anything fearful happen to us, some time. And finally being fearful we create events, or draw in people that will confirm this to us so and we can say: see we were right to be afraid.

Setting aside the fear of fear, relaxing into our core we trust ourselves to walk peacefully in the world Even if we don't eliminate all possible events we are only afraid when we need to be not of our own depths so we can't sleep well at night. Most of the time we can know peace and joy the door is open to happiness, feeling safe in our own being, we connect freely to life and love.

Blessed be.

Cycles and Seasons(© 2/08)

Today it is warm and sunny, looking forward to the coming seasons, the world thaws, smells blossom and we remember freedom and relaxation. Tonight it may snow again, yet we know that soon it will be warm again. Do we contract again, or stay open and receptive?

Through the seasons life changes but we can choose to be the same, or to be affected by those we like or dislike. Inner life also has its seasons and changes, but there as well we can come to a being that flows through the emotional patterns, or be blown this way and that.

Finding the core of who we are, nourishing the relationship to ourself, to Spirit, we can enjoy the snow or the sun, be with the joy or the sorrow. Seeking that which is constant, which remains through all the seasons we come closer to ourselves.

Falling Snow, Torness and Wholeness Meditation (© 2/08)

Like many things in life the snow simply is, but what it means to us is really something we bring to the table. Is it a beautiful piece of natural performance art? an obstacle to trafiic? a symbol of the flow of abundance and grace that always flows over us? or another chore that we have to do at the end of a long day? It may be something completely unique to you this day only.

Notice if it is some or all of these things. We are complex beings and are capable of holding many different images at the same time. Some of these may blend gracefully and others may clash.

I attended a great workshop this weekend and we were reminded of the quality of "tornness" ( Jorge Rubio Voller) in which we may want several things, or want to do something and to not do something at the same time. We may wish to help a friend, but be too tired and need to take care of ourselves, or need to cook diner for our children.

More and more it seems we live in a world that encourages us to be so busy that we are often torn in this way. So perhaps you can take some time to stand in the falling snow (or rain, or sunshine, or starlight) and allow your being to connect to the flow off all those flakes. Not choosing one over the other, allowing yourself to "have" all of them. And while you are doing this let go, for now, of all the other things that are tearing at you. Feel your feet on the ground, your connection to the sky, and the inner center that is you.

Being you... feel the flow of energy flowing through you, as the snow flakes fall, collect all the parts together in yourself and your awareness of self. Be conscious of your unity, and your ability to relate to the falling snow from a place of wholeness rather than tornness. Celebrate in great joy, just now, just here, and then carry this feeling with back into the world that pulls in so many directions.

Send a comment or question to Alan

Poems of Transformation (© 1/08)

Being with emotion
giving it space,
anger becomes power,
grief finds its joy,
and fear melts into life force.
May you find the space to breath
and know the light that
you already are.


We are all floating in the sea of consciousness,
thinking that we are alone and thirsty.
When we rise to the top of the waves and look around
we see all our friends nearby and realize that by relaxing in
this sea we will have everything we need.
Dive deep and remember.


The golden infant floats in space
Radiating love and a sense of peace
Is this myself, before incarnation?
or an image of the divine?
I take it into my heart and it really
doesn't matter, does it?
Waking up to ourselves as divine light
in whatever form, we move towards global
transformation and rebirth..

NEW OFFICE

I've had the opportunity to move into a great new office which fits my practice better and which allows me to offer expanded office hours. My new space is
1800 30th St. Suite 307, Boulder CO.

This is behind Jiffy Lube and Sussex One on the east side of 30th St. between Arapohoe and Walnut. Hope to see you there sometime soon. I will be doing sessions here, as well as classes and meditations. Call or email for more detailed directions.

On Nonaction and Peace by Ajhan Chah

Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a meditator.
Do not become enlightened.


When you sit, let it be.
What you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.

Looking for peace is like looking for a turtle with a mustache:
You won't be able to find it.
But when your heart is ready, peace will come looking for you.

If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.

Do everything with a mind that lets go. Don't accept praise
or gain or anything else. If you let go a little you will have a
little peace; if you let go a lot you will have a lot of peace; if
you let go completely you will have complete peace.

Everything is Sound - David Icke

This is a great video showing the ability of waves (sound) to guide the form and pattern of matter. This is one of the key elements about how our how our bodies/beings are formed. cf Rupert Sheldrake and morphogenic fields etc.

Enjoy, Alan



"This is a clip from a David Icke Documentary called "Freedom Road". This video is PUBLIC DOMAIN. Share it freely. Tiny particles of sand are strewn on a smooth disk and subjected to vibrations being passed into the surface, they immediately begin to take form and arrange into a multitude of geometrically perfect designs. Some variations of these vibrations create known geometric patterns such as hexagons (honeycombs), pentagrams, crosses, spirals, and many other infinite combinations. The amazing patterns found on animals and insect wings are easily explained in this simple experiment. Sound and vibration give birth to form. In one particular vibratory sequence, opposite oscillations were resonated though the disk - the sand particles then condensed upon other, rolling into spheres, and then the smaller of the spheres began to revolve around the larger spheres. This is the portrait of our universe. Zoom into our cellular and atomic structure and it is found there as well. Interesting........... This is a small clip from David Icke's Freedom Road. Download the complete video at www.theinfovault.net"

"Realize That You Are Fully Response-Able" by B M Hubbard

Affirm that, as the Beloved, you are not needy, afraid, or lonely. You are attracting every resonance and person you need. You are entering the finest time of your life. You are ready to come into new form, informed by the process of creation itself. [from "Emergence" 2001]

SPIRITUAL FLAMES AND THE SOUL'S AWAKENING. (© 1/08)

"The Violet Flame"

"Risen"

Send a comment or question to Alan

Many Blessings as the Year Turns

It seems that I am being reminded in many ways this year that this is actually the time of the year when we are best able to turn inward and seek the wisdom and blessings in the unlighted parts of our soul. It is also a time to slow and relax and enjoy what we have accomplished during the brighter times of the year.

It seems ironic that as a society we have gone to such efforts to be busy and "bright" and avoid this valuable spiritual opportunity. Almost a sense of desperation. No wonder we feel so stressed, to be so busy when our bodies want to rest and turn inside rather than running around outside.

I had the opportunity to experience a painting of the "violet flame" last week in a very interesting way. I felt myself in the flame, and closing my eyes saw myself stepping through it, but my shadow self held back, afraid. I called and beckoned and after hesitating it stepped through the flame after me. As it did those parts that were not really me, things I carried for others, or limitations and programs that had come from society were burned away, and what joined me was a smaller figure, but one made now of gold.

This is the alchemy of transformation that is open to us when we are willing to turn inside and delve into the "dark" places of our soul. It is still our soul, and part of Soul. When we remove the judgements and fears we are gifted with valuable aspects of ourselves that have been "hiding".

So this year, celebrate the shadow as well as the light and find your own presents, your own gold there.

In Each Other - Rumi

The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.

Out Beyond Ideas - Rumi

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase "each other"
Doesn't make any sense.


Some Fill with Each Good Rain - Hafiz

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.


In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.


Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.


There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far, far too deep
For that.

Video Link: Drunvlo Malchizedek on the Higher Self

There is a lot of interesting information here. Note particularly the last 5 minutes on the use of hypnotherpeutic techniques for clearing the subconscious so that we can connect to our lower and higher selves.

THE FLOW OF ABUNDANCE (© 12/07)

Last year, about this time, I co-hosted a showing of the movie "The Secret". It was something that happened a number of times as viewing it with a group always seemed like a powerful and fun way to appreciate the movie, and was a great way to spend an evening. This particular evening after everyone had left I went upstairs to my office and looked out the window. The streetlight in front of the house was illuminating a thick steady snow fall, sparkling flakes driven down by the wind.

I had the clear sense that this was a picture of the universe's constant shower of love, energy and gifts, that is always available when we learn to be open to it. It was especially clear when I let my mind go and just felt the flow and pattern. This was an image of the flow of energy from the universe. What a great lesson. I find that having such a concrete experience is easier to call up when I need to remember the feeling of love, gratitude, and abundance. Perhaps you have a special experience that embodies this for you. If not call one in, and be alert for it. Then experience it deeply in your being and use it to nurture that state in yourself, in which you are relaxed and blessed even if the external forms are a bit crazy.

Recently, a little over a year later, many things have changed, and I have been thinking about that night and trying to remember that feeling. Perhaps the unusual absence of snow so far this year, or the changed life situations this year have made it more challenging than it was then. Until tonight.

I am helping to hold space for a powerful group of women doing ceremony. They are inside. Around them, outside in the mountains on a cold winter night stand a ring of men. Part way through the ceremony it starts to snow, and I feel again that sense of blessing, of being showered with the flow of universal energy that is always there if we can allow it, open to it, and let it flow rather than try to trap it and contain it. I felt doubly blessed that the universe is reminding me: see I have not gone anywhere. I am still flowing with abundance and blessing for you. In fact now you are feeling it on your face, not just watching through a window! Experience this with your whole being and remember!

I am now warm in the cold night, my heart opening to receive this blessing as the snow falls softly on my cheeks. I am full of gratitude, love, and joy, standing in the flow of the universe.

DANCING WITH THE GODDESS (© 11/07)

Engrossed in preparing dinner in the kitchen I feel her come up behind me and put her arms around me. My heart opens to her presence, coming to me through the memory of a loved one who is no longer here. I feel into this embrace, full of love and joy, softly powerful she invites me to dance with her in the echoes of my mind. Embracing her, or being embraced, we dance across the space that is both here and then.

Even then it was the Goddess in the form of my beloved, who I played and danced with in joy and amusement. It all comes clear, that even though this beloved has moved on, the Goddess is still here dancing with me as she did then. I realize she is always there for me, and am deeply grateful to my beloved for having opened the windows that She moves through now. Gone is the sadness and grief at "losing" what came before, in an instant opening to gratitude, love, and joy, that have always been there.

Opening further I feel my own feminine coming alive in the dance. The Goddess shines through me and illumines my own manifestation of her energies. There is the girl, the young woman, the powerful mother, the wise woman, all the aspects alive in this dance. Inviting the divine masculine to come through my "other side" I am the boy, the young man, the father and the wise man. The kitchen is becoming full. Full of love and the dance of energies embracing, supporting, nurturing, protecting.

We are all, all of these if we open to let the God and Goddess shine through us. We are one perfect manifestation of their light, unique in beauty and in shadow. But this dance is large enough to embrace it all, to nurture and comfort the shadows, encouraging gentle expansion, the light dancing with the dark, the male and the female. Spilling out into the living room we whirl across the floor, in and out of each other, as my beloved and I once danced physically and energetically, ecstatically, playfully.

Am I making love, creating love, my beloved, a new love, the Goddess and God, or with myself? The energy is all the same, layered thinly and mixing space and time, in the openness of my heart, my being. I breath into myself and nestle into the intimate embrace of the dance, and the kitchen glows with a warmth that it has not known since she went away.

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Last amended September 2, 2010. © Alan McAllister.