Questions

There are many questions on my mind tonight as I sit in silent meditation. Questions about love and surrender. Questions about connection to self, self-love, and self-care. Questions about intimacy and relating. Questions about our cultural and collective wounding, particularly around addiction and sexuality. Questions about how I am being called to work, what spirit is wanting of me, and what I'm to do. The questions most on my mind tonight around pertain to men, and our disconnect around sexuality.

We all have our addictions. Some hurt and affect others, be it people, animals, or the planet. Others addictions are directed inward, causing harm to the self. Almost all of the men I know have some form of sexual addiction. For some, it involves pornography. For others, fantasy. For others, compulsive sexual experiences. For others, it is acting out sexual abuse.

There is also a disconnect in many men around their sexuality. Bombarded by images and ideas of who and how men are supposed to be, men today are often forced to choose between their sex and their heart. For the former, to have emotions, to be vulnerable, compassionate, caring, and sensitive is to be weak. For the latter, to be powerful and fully embodied is to be domineering, abusive, and chauvinistic. There are few models of how to hold both: to be powerful and sensitive, sexual and sensual, strong and vulnerable.

This is what we are being called to do: to integrate these disconnected aspects of ourselves. To unite the heart and the genitals, and align them with spirit. To claim our power and use it to heal, rather than to control and dominate.

This is a powerful step towards healing our sexual addictions, many of which are genital-focused rather than heart-focused. As we awaken the heart, we can connect to what our hearts most yearn for, what our souls crave, and what our spirit desires. From this awareness, we can use this raw sexual energy and direct it towards our purpose, our dreams, our passion, our creativity, and to loving the world awake.

There is power in our sexuality and eroticism. Once we stop allowing it to leak out in unconscious, habitual, and reactive ways, once we tune into this energy in ourselves and come into relationship and consciousness around it, we can begin to own it, claim it, and control it. Taking this energy and aligning it with our hearts, we can both give and receive the love that we really want, a love that nourishes, sustains, and heals.

However, if we shut it down our sexuality and focus only on our hearts, we lose that raw energy and passion and become mushy, weak, and deadened in our vitality and life force. Thus, it is necessary to have both, integrated, whole, and aligned.

My call to men is to come into relationship with this sexual energy inside you, with your heart, and with spirit.

Get to know this sexual energy. Be present with it. Feel it. Notice it. Embrace it. Celebrate it. Rather than giving it meaning, honor it and allow it to be as it is: pure energy, a divine gift, personal power, a blessing. Start to become conscious of how you are using it and directing it.

Feel into your heart. What do you yearn for, in your relationships, in your work, in our cultural evolution? What would most nourish you, sustain you, feed you, heal you? Where do you hold back in your loving?

Take time to listen to spirit. What are you being called to do? Where and how are you needed to serve? Why are you here?

As you become present with these aspects, notice how they are currently separate and disconnected. Ask yourself how they can come into balance and alignment. Notice how they can work together. Use these gifts wisely and with clear intention, rather than unconscious reaction.

We owe this to ourselves. We owe this to the planet. We owe this to our children. We owe this to the feminine, to reclaim, reconnect, and come back into balance and relationship with her. Let us move beyond the shame and the guilt and begin to take responsibility for ourselves, our energy, and our actions. Let's truly be the change that we wish to see.

Omi-la

I’m in Forest Hills, Queens, NY, staying with my grandmother for the remainder of my time here. Earlier today, I had lunch with my father and his wife. It was quite pleasant. I have healed many of the core issues that I’ve had with him, and over the past five years or so we’ve developed a good connection. In many ways, he feels much more like a friend than my father. It sometimes seems a bit surreal. I’m glad and thankful that I got to see him and his wife today, and for how easy it is between us now.

Afterwards, my mom drove me down to my grandmother’s apartment, where she’s lived for something like 53 years. 53 years! Holy shit! Since leaving home at 18, I think my record is something like 2 ½.

Anyway, my mom dropped me off (I had a really great time with her, and feel like our relationship is completely recreated – see my previous “Loving My Mother” blog for the initial account), and my grandmother and I began our time together.

I love my grandmother so much. She is actually the main reason for this trip. As she is getting older (she’s 86), our time together is more limited. Her favorite thing in the world is to have her grandchildren come visit her (she can’t really travel anymore), so it means a lot to be able to be here.

My grandmother is a holocaust survivor. At age 16, she and her older brother separately fled Germany, leaving the rest of the family behind to a fate unknown. After a time, she was able to get the family out, but it was close. After she worked as a nanny in England, she finally had enough money to get them out, and my great-grandfather came down with appendicitis right before they were supposed to leave. Tickets lost, she had to save once again, finally making enough to get them out for good. They got out literally just in time. They came here to America with nothing, all of it lost to the Nazis, and created a new life for themselves.

I’ve always called my grandmother “Omi,” taken from “Oma” in German (my grandfather, who died when I was 18, was “Opi,” taken from “Opa”). She resisted at first, wanting to disconnect from her German heritage after what she went through, but I was way too young for her to resist and somehow it stuck.

Anyway, she always had plenty of names for me growing up, names like “Meupshin,” “Tundi,” “Boobula,” and “David-la,” among many other that became quite embarrassing to be called in public as I entered my teens. I tried to make her stop, but it was too late; it was way too engrained in her (she has names for all her kids and grandkids; I just found out for the first time tonight after coming across my mom’s baby book that she called my mom “Poppedy” and “Putzele” – yikes!). So, in exasperation and to give her some of her own medicine, I started calling her “Omi-la,” and it has stuck ever since (she feels quite endeared by it actually, as she likes it when I tease her).
The first part of this visit with my mom was about loving more fully and openly while staying connected to my own sense of self and power. Seeing my dad today felt like it was about simply being myself. Being with my grandmother feels like it’s about receiving love, letting it in, and loving myself enough to do so.

My grandmother is very loving. She has always gone out of her way to help others and care for them. She hates to hurt anyone (she lost her temper once when my sister and I were young and behaving in a way that totally deserved it, and she still feels guilty about it twenty-plus years later) and would give anything she could for those she loves. She is kind, warm, generous, giving, faithful, adoring, and devoted. (She is also extremely worrisome, stubborn, and neurotic, and being with her I can see where I got it, for those of you who wonder ;).

Anyway, we have always had a good relationship, and being here now, especially after the shift with my mom, I feel closer and more comfortable with her than ever. I love being able to take care of her (which takes a lot of persistence, as she resists it, finding it both hard to receive and to not be the caretaker), talk with her, tease her, and hear her stories. As I connect with my adult self, my mature self, I can simply be with her as myself, and I can and am letting in her love for me in a way that I’ve felt guilty and unworthy for in the past. So much love in my childhood was conditional, with strings attached, reciprocations expected, or just plain smothering. I felt so unworthy of it when it did come, didn’t trust that it was real, that I closed off to it. I lost faith in love, and, by extension, lost faith in humanity and in God.

Now, that is shifting as well. I am really letting it in. Earlier tonight, my grandmother said that the happiest day of her life was the day that I was born, and I started to cry (it’s making me cry now, too ;) (Anakha even agreed, even though she was six and didn’t know me – how sweet ;). I was so touched, so honored, so moved, knowing that she has had some many other happy and blessed days.

What I am seeing though is that underneath receiving these sweet and adoring words is that I am truly loving myself. It is through this loving that I believe I am beginning to receive more and more of these blessings, and the blessings of the universe. I am opening the flow, unguarding my heart, and surrendering and trusting the divine. My faith is returning.

Tonight, my body is electrified, tingly, turned on, alive. I am in love. I am in love with myself. I am in love with you. I am in love with the divine, with my renewing sense of faith. “Trust me,” it says, and I am. Take me where you will. Make me your instrument, your vessel.

I am yours.

You are mine.

We are each other’s.

Amen.

"Trust Me"

I awake today at 4am, another early-morning rendezvous with the dark stillness. The journey is sometimes intense, sometimes, confusing, sometimes frustrating as all hell. Two steps forward, one step back. Blissful awakening, clear knowing, turbulent chaos. Deep connection, open heart, closure. It is a hero’s journey, this path to awakening, to transformation, to embodiment, to connect with essence and source and live from that place. My time here is taking me deeper, my time with my mother continuing to create opening and connection between us, a new way of relating and being together. Love is blooming.

In this darkness of night, my mind begins to race, to question, to doubt. It appears that another storm has come in, creating turbulent thoughts, kicking up the doubts, the fears, the insecurities. I want proof and evidence that all will be well, that all is well, and I’m not getting the proof in the way that I want. Amidst this, a voice emerges, one that has been speaking to me for the past several months, with a simple message:

“Trust me.”

But I don’t want to trust. I can’t trust. What is there to trust? My mind pulls out the evidence: the pie charts, the flow charts, the annual reports, the flashy powerpoint presentation. “See,” I say, “Just look - it’s all going to shit.” I ask it what it has to say about that.

“Trust me. All is well. Bliss is awaiting you. Your dreams await. Peace awaits. Love awaits. If you just trust.”

I try it for a moment, and relax a bit. My mind is a little quieter for a moment before it resumes its case. Growing up, it never seemed to get better. The 17-year storm never seemed to pass, no matter how much I wanted it to, no matter what I did.

Until it did. When I surrendered. Then it came back, and then it passed, over and over again, each time the storms getting a little smaller, a little weaker as my essence emerged stronger, more open.

The teachings of Abraham teach that most of us respond to what’s happening in the moment, and react and choose based on that. We see the evidence, the proof, and disconnect from essence, from source, from desire. We move away from what we want. We move away from God.

Instead, they say essentially, to return to the vision, to the dream, to the trust and faith in the divine. To raise your vibration in spite of the evidence. To pay attention, notice, and focus on what creates the opening.

I decide to try again, to listen to the voice. My mind quiets a little more. My heart opens a little more. Either way, I at least feel better. Calmer. Connected. Hopeful. I realize that this is the gateway, the missing piece, the real block to present-moment embodiment.

The voice is calm, steady, persistent. Each time my mind kicks in, it speaks up with its simple reminder. “Trust me.”

I do. One step at a time. Little by little. Bridging each moment into a longer moment. My mind is quieter now. My faith is strengthened. My belief clearer. My trust deepened. I can once again rest in the stillness.

Loving My Mother

It's 2:45 in the morning, and I just finished talking with my mother after an almost 2-hour long dialogue/conversation/experience.

I have known, felt, sensed that this trip is about healing. Healing my past. Finding peace. Finding power. Finding clarity. Finding love, the love that I disconnected from as a child. I have sensed this intention, but didn't know how to come into it, until tonight.

There's a way that I'm different around my mother than with other people; with friends, peers, colleagues. I feel numb, shut down, closed, disconnected, inauthentic. Growing up, I had always thought our relationship was healthy and good, especially in comparison to my father's abuse and neglect. It wasn't until about five or six years ago, after many years of intensive therapy and work and healing around my father, that I realized how unhealthy it really was. At that point, it shifted tremendously, from talking several times a week and tapering off to maybe once every two or three weeks. I pulled away, disconnected in some needed ways, and began my healing around our relationship. 

As I engage in my intimate relationships, I see my patterns emerge that mirror the experiences of my childhood (sound familiar?). Sure, I start out open, but gradually (often fairly quickly, in fact), my reactions start. Anger. Blame. Closure. Judgment. Disdain. Pushing. Pulling. Clinging. I see it hurt those I love the most, those I want the most, those I deeply cherish and adore. Shutting down when they open. Unspoken demands. Blame. Criticism. Resentment. Unreasonable expectations. I push away my loves, keeping them at a distance. Keeping myself at a distance. Separating from the love the I so want and need.

After reenacting the scenario tonight with a dear love (and getting a good kick in the butt), I was reminded that now is the time to heal these wounds, to go back to the roots and shake them free, to heal at the source. It was time to heal them with my mother, and in doing so, to heal them in my present intimacies as well. And so began our descent.

I have cleared with her before on several occasions, but tonight was different. Until tonight, it was about clearing the past, coming to terms, resolution. Tonight was about creating a real relationship, real intimacy between us. It was about learning a new way of relating to the feminine, a way without blame, without anger, without powerlessness. And we did. I said what I needed to say, how I felt, what I needed, and continued to bring it into the present, into our relationship. I told her how these patterns are showing up for my now in my intimacies, and how much I want to heal them. I told her that I want her and my relationship to be different, to be close, to feel like myself when I'm around her and to not feel so disconnected and angry. 

As I shared, I kept telling her that I just wanted her to listen, to paraphrase back my words and feelings, to not try to fix me, explain herself, or make it about changing or judging the past. Each time that I spoke and she repeated, I dropped in a little deeper. Tears flowed. Anger flared. I stayed present with myself and present with her, sharing about the past and the moment, relating with her, opening with her, sharing with her, telling her what I needed in the moment and calling her to be present with me. And, she did.

As I relaxed, deepened, opened, revealed, and shared, I came to the essence of the disconnect between us: that in our relationship, I feel powerless and inauthentic. That I'm not myself, disconnected, and blame and resent her for it for my inability to be whole, powerful, and alive in her presence. By extension, I have carried that energy in my relationship to the feminine. In that awareness, in the moment, in that awakening, the transformation came to fully manifest, embodied. My willingness to speak up to her and be vulnerable. Communicating of my needs, and sticking to them throughout our conversation. Honoring myself, standing up for myself, keeping my heart open, regardless of how she was responding to me. Loving her.

In that awakening, that transformation, that embodied experiential knowing, my heart fully opened to her in a way that it never has. I felt so much love for her, so connected, so happy to be there with her, as though she was one of my closest friends. I was taking responsibility for and standing in my own power, my own authentic expression, my own needs and desires, my own heart. In that place, I needed nothing from her. I could be myself, without fear of her response, without needing to protect or defend. I could be strong, in integrity with my soul, present. I could hold my boundaries and fully love. For maybe the first time every with her, we looked into each other's eyes in silence for several minutes, just being together.

It is a new step towards creating and engaging this new way of being, of relating. It is so necessary, so vital. It is changing my life. It is time. As we were ending our time, she said how she wished that she had been different, how she wished she could go back and change how she'd been with me. I told her that we are doing it now, in the present, and that's what really matters. That we are doing it now.

I am honored.

I am grateful.

I am blessed. 

I am loved. 

I am love.

I am.

We are.

Coming Home to the Stillness

My first morning in New York, the place where I grew up, at my mother's house just outside of the city. It is cold, clear - I hear the planes flying and the traffic outside. There is always such a different vibe to being here, a different culture, a different way of being. I felt it when I landed, and I feel it now. There's something about coming home, being home, feeling the experience of home. It is more than a place, it's a feeling, a sense, a touchstone and foundation for the soul upon which to build, create, and explore.

I awoke at 5:45 this morning (2:45 Portland time!), and couldn't go back to sleep. Normally, this is highly unusual, but not lately; this has been happening every morning for the past week or so. Awakening to the silence, the stillness, the time when everyone is still sleeping. Despite the feeling of fatigue, a deep sense of calmness and clarity has been present during this time, an opportunity to connect closely with my soul and listen to hear what it has to say. To know and reconnect with it.

As I spiral down, as I descend to my core, as I listen to the words of my soul and the voice of spirit, a calmness is emerging, a stillness. I suppose emerging isn't the correct word; it's more like a resting, an effortless drop and soft landing into the eye of a storm that is passing and moving on. A sweet surrender. I know myself here. I feel myself here. It is quite peaceful.

As I connect with this place and rest in it, I look out at the passing storm and what it is carrying away. The lies and half-truths I've told myself, the ways I've given up my power, the ways I have not been in integrity with my deepest knowing and purpose, the avoidance, the fear, the insecurity, the lack of faith and trust in myself and in God. I make peace with it, honor it, and bid it goodbye. In its wake, I find my purpose. I find myself. I find God. I know who I am and why I'm here. It is time. 

Let us all begin to remember. Who we are. Why we're here. No more pretending, no more superficial distractions, no more lies. What is the real work right now? What is crucial? What really matters? What will make the difference? Where does the healing need to occur, and what is the medicine? 

It is up to each of us to wake up to these truths and live them as best we can. It is time to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. To reconnect with the soul and bring it back, bring it forward, bring it into these times, this culture, this planet. The world right now, in all the pain and suffering, is crying out for its return. It is time to come home.

Doing Time

Time . . . sitting on the plane to New York, time is present, in my face. Literally; there is a screen hanging in front of me with a map showing where we are en route, along with a clock displaying how long we've been flying and how much time remains. One one hand, kinda cool. On the other hand, do we really need to know? We'll get there when we get there . . . it's not like there's much we can do about it, anyway.

My mind keeps returning to Nichole, sitting in her cell, 3+ years to go. Her situation reflects to me my own impatience, my need for clarity, my need to have everything resolved and figured out and neatly tied up with a bow. She has some idea of when the transition will come, but until then, she's got to wait it out, the looming awareness that her options are limited for quite a ways down the road as the clock slowly ticks. Meanwhile, I don't know when and how things will unfold at all, but I see how hard it is to wait. At least I have the freedom and the options, but I get so wrapped up in it all, so wrapped up in myself and my problems . . . she reminds me to remain humble, and tread lightly . . . 

Nichole wonders how people can love her after all that she's done. After all the mistakes, the breaches of trust, the stress and other challenges that affected those close to her. I wonder the same about myself. In my family, mistakes were not allowed, nothing less than perfection. One mistake, even something as simple as slamming a car door too hard, laughing too loudly, or getting a B in school, and love was withheld, punishment dished out, no second chances. I see in my relationships how afraid I am to make mistakes, how after saying or doing something at all insensitive or hurtful (which happens way more than I'd like, especially the closer I get to someone), I expect them to leave and walk away, holding resentment and not wanting to engage any more. Love withheld. It doesn't leave me much breathing room, much room to be human, and it's like being in a permanent prison with little room to move. 

Slowly, like Nichole, I am seeing how things are different now. I have people in my life who are committed to being with me, close to me, caring for me, loving me, giving me chances to make mistakes, learn from them, and grow. It is quite humbling, and I am grateful for the love and support. I am so forgiving of others, yet I am still surprised when they are forgiving of me. Nichole and I are both learning that being loved isn't about being perfect, or needing to do anything for anyone. It simply is being who we are. In its essence, love is freely offered, freely received, without conditions.

The rapids inside me are calming down. The shame and guilt that I've carried are becoming things that I merely observe and notice, rather than things that I cling to or give much energy. I am human. I am flawed. It is natural. I am still lovable. I feel God more now, trusting the presence, trusting myself, as me, in me. Me as.

And still, I love. Openly. Freely. My heart wide, still beating, even as time continues to pass, even as the aches still surface. I can care for myself, but I can't control the outcome. I'll get there when I get there.

In time. 

Trust in that.

Love and Forgiveness

Early this morning, I witnessed a young woman be sentenced to four and a half years in prison. She was guilty of the charges, of which none actually harmed anyone. She was remorseful. She was distraught. She was also honest in her guilt, direct, straightforward, in integrity, admitting and taking full responsibility for her actions. Now she'll do her time, unfortunately in a system that seeks control and punishment over rehabilitation and healing, which is what she most needs right now.

This woman, Nichole, has been teaching me much about myself: mirroring my self-hatred, my challenges to receiving love, my struggle to sometimes makes choices out of my highest good, my vulnerability, my compassion, my selfishness. Despite not knowing her very well, I do know that she has a good heart and good intentions. She is honest, real, genuine, a no bullshit kind of gal. Her childhood was intense, filled with tales of meth addiction, abandonment, and other details that few of us have experienced and lived through. She reminds me of how easy my life is in comparison, despite my own history of abuse. I've at least had people who've loved me in my life.

That is changing for her now. Many people, including myself, are showing up to love and support her, including those who were directly affected by her crimes. They have forgiven her, loved her as she is, and offered to step up and help her in her recovery and healing. It is a new thing for her to be loved at all, let alone by people that she's hurt. And, she's choosing to now let it in, to do the work, to step up and be the woman who she truly is in essence.

We all need forgiveness in our lives, to make the choice to open our hearts and love freely, openly, simply because it is ultimately healing. Otherwise, keeping our hearts closed, we ultimately hurt ourselves. Probably the greatest moment of my own healing was the moment when I truly forgave my father. I felt a relief, a love, ecstatic waves of energy pulsing through me. All those years, I thought I was punishing him, but really I was punishing myself. Yes, there's a process to it, yes, it can take time, but it is a worthy goal, a liberating goal, the true embodiment of love.

As I see Nichole begin to forgive herself by allowing herself to be loved, tonight I choose to do the same. To forgive myself. To forgive those who have hurt me. It is not easy; my heart opens and closes, expands and contracts. But, I keep choosing to open, because eventually it will remain that way. Because that is true love. Thank you Nichole, for reminding me.

Spiraling Down to Source

Today has been quite the wild ride. Numbness, confusion, disconnect, fear, tenderness, love, serenity, doubt, resolution, anger, ambivalence, clarity, strength, connection, bliss, and a major panic attack that left me wondering if I do this, this life, this journey, this path, this relating. At one point, I screamed into my bed (one of these days I'm going to open a "catharsis clinic" complete with pillows, bats, padded walls, and other accoutrements to keep us all a little more sane and spare the neighbors from freaking out), pissed at the divine for wondering why it seemed like I was being led astray, pissed at myself for wondering if I was just completely fucked up and disconnected from my own internal ear and guidance, pissed at the world, pissed, terrified, fed up, spiteful, angry, resigned, ready to throw in the towel.

Fortunately, the moment passed (as they all seem to do, no matter how many times I create the illusion that time will somehow freeze), and the relief and clarity came. Mostly, it was just my requisite panic attack that reliably and right on cue seems to occur right before the breakthrough, before the settling and knowing that lies beneath the frozen fear.

From there, the spiral began to steady, descending, dropping, deepening, aligning, until arriving at the final destination of truth, of certainty, of commitment, of devotion, of the true essence of love. That love is both something one surrenders to as well as something that one commits to.

In my past, doubts and fears have reigned, sometimes at the most crucial moments. The moments that matter, that sometimes make or break, or at least shape, one's destiny. In some moments, I have taken hold of the reigns and steered the ship. In others, I've run for cover in the underbelly. Relatively recently, one occurred where I crashed and burned, disconnecting from truth, from power, from knowing, from vision, from source, from true love and desire, and I have been living with the aftermath and consequences ever since.

That moment was a wake up call, the first of many to follow, to get clear, really clear: What do I really want? What is my deepest truth and knowing? What does it mean to stand in my essence, power, and strength and stay there? Where is Source guiding me, and will I trust and follow it?

Staying there and standing tall through the hurricanes of ambivalence, the tornadoes of doubt, the earthquakes of confinement, the avalanches of abandonment. Being unwavering in the times when I think that I've first got to figure out all the details, the contingencies, the maybes, the clauses, the what ifs?, the possible futures, the potential hurts and losses, the final outcome of where it's all heading in some unknown moment that's beyond the horizon.

Instead, hearing Spirit call, answering the phone, and saying yes. Yes to what I most deeply want, even as fears rise up in my body. Yes to what I most deeply know is true, even as my mind begins to question. Yes to love: to loving myself, loving other, to being so open to stand in and receive love and truth that all that arises in the face of it has no choice but to be offered a brief nod and acknowledgment, a courteous smile, and then sent on its merry way to knock on someone else's door.

Tonight, I stand firmly in this truth and this love: I want this love, more than any I have known. I want this life, this path, this purpose. I commit to staying in the rapids, no matter what storms may arise. I commit to showing up, even when I want to run and hide. I listen to the call of my heart and my soul and Source above all else. I let my love conquer my fear.

I'm in.

And so it is.

Amen.

The Fires are Burning

Anakha recently played this song for me called "Heal This Land" by Tina Malia, one that we danced to, and the line and melody keep going through my head: "The Fires are Burning" (insert musical accompaniment here).

I suppose it's appropriate for my first blog, seeing that fire seems to be a theme in my life and my evolution. Burning, igniting, warming, heating, dancing, scorching. Anger, passion, power, desire, warmth, joy, ecstasy, inspiration. All aspects of the fire, the flame, the light.

The fires are burning for me as I write this. Burning away all that is ready to be transformed and alchemized: my shame, my rage, my anger, my guilt, my self-hatred, my insecurities, doubts, fears, and worries. Lighting the way to that which nourishes me and brings me closer to God: self-love, trust, abundance, joy, inner peace.

As I prepare to return to New York to visit my family, I am aware of the ways I have disconnected from my self, my soul, and my essence. I am aware of how the wounds of my childhood have impacted and shaped by life: the abuse, the manipulation, the control, the abandonment. The ways I've closed down my heart, separated myself from that which my soul years for and my heart desires, kept myself small.

As I have been on my journey of healing and awakening, I have chipped away, deconstructed, taken apart, let go of, and dissolved those dark places. I have healed, tended, and nurtured those wounds. Yet now, it is a critical time, a pivotal time, to to take hold of the roots and shake them free. In the wake of recent events, they have revealed themselves to me, offered up their dirt, their darkness, their shadow, and presented a simple message: now is the time. Time to step up. Time to let go. Time to give it over to the divine and spirit. Time to grow up. Time to forgive. Time to honor and time to bless. Time to pray. Time to heal. To to give, receive, and become unconditional love.

This is a path we all must take if we are to truly heal ourselves, to know and commune with the divine, to transform, and to love. On this path, there is no blame, no judgment. We are all victims and perpetrators, if only to ourselves. The question is, will we take it? Will we stop complaining, whining, judging, bitching? Will we stop distracting, avoiding, denying, suppressing? Will we descend into the darkness and stay there, making peace with it, loving it, making love to it, and embracing it? Will we give it over to the divine and say, "Here - take this - I am ready to surrender, to let go, and to trust in this free fall of not knowing?"

In a time when many of us search for joy, happiness, peace, and harmony, the question becomes: can we find it in the darkness? in the shadows? This is where true love is, a hidden aspect of the divine where few are willing to acknowledge, let alone look at, let alone visit, let alone embrace. We see this in our world: the violence, wars, rape, hatred, intolerance, separation. It is inside of each of us, calling out, crying out for attention.

And now, I see it clearly inside myself: selfishness, control, manipulation, fear, scarcity, self-hatred, shame, denial, judgment, disconnection, dishonesty, separation, isolation. They're all there, and they've been partying for a long time with little adult supervision.

Well, I'm here to say that the karma police have arrived to bring some balance to this party. It's time for a new party to get started: one with abundance, power, passion, focus, and clarity. A regal catered event with joy, intention, tolerance, acceptance, integration, and love, with a special guest appearance by the divine itself.

And, maybe a "new age" beverage or two ;)