Let me just start off by saying I’ve had a lot of jobs in different industries and I’ve been fired, given a “time out” and told that I had to work from the office or resign just to name a few of the “highlights”…LOL!  I guess this could be looked at as a major catastrophe, or that I had somehow failed.  Closer to the truth was that these were opportunities and they kept me moving in a direction that was more in alignment with who I am.

I was really out of alignment, for example, when I got fired from the Downtown Hilton shortly after I moved to Seattle.  The hotel did not treat people the way I thought they should and their policy of overselling rooms put me in a values conflict every single day that I worked there.  As a result I drug myself to the hotel day after day and couldn’t show up on time to save my life – my inability to be on time was a sign and symptom of how wrong a match this job was for me and so when the manager fired me because I was habitually late there was almost a sense of relief mixed in with my hurt and fear.  I knew I didn’t belong at this place but needed the job and didn’t know what I was looking for.  The motivation to go find something else wasn’t going to come without a little outside help   To some of you this will sound very familiar!!!

I had other experiences that were similar – however, the next example I am going to give you is a little different.

I had a job I loved more than any of the others (up til that point) working for a man I respected in the floor coverings industry when I became pregnant with my first child.  We decided that when the baby came, I would work from at home.  I told him that my husband and I had looked into the cost of childcare and decided that I would need to work at home if I was going to stay in the job.

I was a one woman office whose time spent as a manager allowed me to “mind meld and anticipate needs” it was the big joke with his wife who would come in and ask if he had consulted his brain (me) for permission to place anything on his schedule or tamper with anything else going on in the day to day business of the office.  As you can imagine, being so highly dependent on my skills, my boss wanted to give the working at home thing a go.

Spirit had other ideas for both of us – because neither of us would have made a change as long as we were together.

It wasn’t long before the Higher ups intervened through the office phone system.  The parent company refused to ring the phones over to my home number and my boss who was always on the road was left with no one to handle the phones while he was in the field.  Soon no one could get through and I was given a choice.

He called me in knowing what my answer would be but didn’t feel there was an alternative, he had to have someone for the phones and didn’t have the budget for another salary…I was going to have to come back into the office and daycare my son (which we couldn’t afford to do) or I was going to lose my job.

I felt so trapped and betrayed!  Why was this happening to me?  I wondered, signing my resignation, I stuffed my tears down as far as I could get them to go and wondered if we would make it financially.  While at home with my son I started to explore my interests and eventually started a handmade soap and lotion company.  Two years later, while I was pregnant with my second child that same boss called me to say he had a job that he thought I would be good at.  I asked if I could work from at home and he said, absolutely.

I worked side by side with this man for years and didn’t know anything about his passions.  He was inviting me to help him live them by promoting his family’s Southern Gospel group.  I was shocked that he could sing – and when I listened to the recording I felt my Spirit pull strongly toward the position.  I didn’t know anything about Southern Gospel Music, booking a singing group let alone managing one but before it was all over I would be a marketer, promoter, booking agent, publicity agent and band manager all in one.

I sold my soap company, Elysian Dream, in record time and started working for the group.  Within a few months, Spirit manifested a contact with one of the top 3 recording studios in Southern Gospel Music, a year later my boss and every member of his group took a leap of faith and moved from Washington State to Tennessee, almost a year to the date after their move they recorded a project at the studio with whom we had the contact and I found myself helping them negotiate a 10 year recording contract with the Producer who had been our greatest mentor for the last two years.

After helping my friends achieve their life purpose I realized I had hit on something that resonated deeply within my Being and started exploring myself from the inside out to more fully understand how to manifest this calling outside of the role of a marketer (as Spirit was calling me away from my ego, which was deeply embedded in that aspect of the job).

This experience was the pointer for what I do today – following the passions and purpose of my own Soul.  What looked like loss through the previous experiences was really an opportunity to sync up with something greater – my Highest Path and Purpose.  With each experience I learned and grew and began to understand where my Soul was trying to go.

If I hadn’t been fired and given my other experiences,  I would have been complacent and happy to stay where I was.  However, what looks like a terrible event may just be the push that you need to have the freedom to explore what you really, really want in life because all of a sudden you haven’t got as much to lose.  Many, many of my lightworker friends who were hearing their purpose but were paralyzed like a deer in headlights by the security of their income are facing similar pushes and shoves as the universe urges them to awaken!!!

I wonder if Susan Boyle (the latest unexpected superstar of Britain’s Got Talent) would have auditioned for the show if she had been comfortably employed with her life completely on track?

Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent

Is it scary??? Yes…but it is also exciting and if you breathe into that fear it will transform into an energy that moves you toward the path you are meant to be on!

Nowadays I expect good to come from my storms…how about you?

Awakening means conscious participation – the traveling you seek is done in the mind, which must be softened and become allowing of communication with Spirit in order to view the Truth.

Then you see that the separation from your path you perceived – was an illusion that the mind structure created within you, the Truth however, is that you ARE and always have been ONE with SPIRIT!

Celebrate this awakened state now!  You are the love, light and bliss of spirit!  Joyfully participate in and dance with life!  You are strong and powerful, unfolding perfectly to your own understanding of the Divine Source within you!

With much love,

Your Angels

How I Discovered Coaching

When I first became aware that I was on my Highest Path and Purpose it was very surreal.  I was enveloped in this energy that is securely anchored to Source and even though I had no idea where I was going – it was clear that Spirit was leading somewhere, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow.

One day while at my computer I distinctly heard a voice (from outside of my own head) say life coach as if someone or something had been leaning over my right shoulder.  Now this really impacted me because clairaudience is not my usual channel and so I immediately typed it in the search bar to see what this life coaching thing was all about – where was this guidance leading?

As I searched I found several definitions of coaching and what really struck me about the modality is that you see your client as whole, capable and having all the internal resources they need to achieve whatever goal they may have.

My Definition of a Coach

A coach deploys what I call “full-body listening” in which they hold intense focus on their client (with no mental background chatter) using listening and their bodies response system as a way of syncing with the energy system of the client.

This allows them access to all the choices available, to see the situation from the client’s point of view, but also from many other directions as well.  By the coach holding this expanded space around their client and asking questions that guide the client toward the things that are available that they haven’t noticed or been able to see, the client becomes aware of more empowered paths and choices.

The NLP and Coaching Institute of California

One school in particular literally jumped out at me and when I talked to co-founder Kris Hallbom I was so pulled toward the NLPCA’s Coaching Program that I just knew (right then and there that somehow I would attend).

This program was a 23 day intensive.  At the time, my two young children were ages 4 and 7.  The intensive ran in July when the kids were off from school and my husband did not have the vacation to cover taking that much time off.  My mind looked at this situation and began to run statistics on the likelihood of this all working out, however Spirit was in the driver’s seat and simply said to Speak My Truth and trust what manifested.

When I spoke to my husband about it he was immediately on board as he saw what a great match it was to my natural tendencies.  The training itself was not all that expensive but hotel and food would kick it up a notch, regardless – he was willing to dip into our savings to send me.  His parents who are often busy, just happened to be available and were extremely excited about the prospect of having their grand kids all to themselves for several weeks for camping and other fun summer activities.  I watched in awestruck wonder as every little piece of what seemed impossible fell effortlessly into place!

The program itself was amazing. It was set just outside San Fransisco (one of my favorite cities ever!) in nearby and less expensive Burlingame where a quick drive would deposit you on the BART and into the heart of everything there is to do.

Operating Principles

We had five instructors who were the very embodiment of the teachings (each offering a vast amount of experience and a different area of expertise) over the duration of the course.  Covering a wide range of skills deeply anchored in the empowering perspectives of the NLP Operatives:

• Communication is redundant.
  You are always communicating, in all 3 major representational systems – auditory, visual and kinesthetic. You signal this through tone and tempo of your voice, posture, breathing patterns and gestures, as well as your language patterns and eye accessing cues.
• The meaning of your communication is the response that you get.
  Communication is not about what you intend, or about saying the right words; it’s about creating an experience in, and getting a response from, the listener. The “bottom line” is the response you elicit.
• The map is not the territory.
  People respond to their map of reality, not reality itself. NLP is the science of changing these maps (which then changes the way a person perceives and interacts with reality).
• Requisite variety.
  The element with in the system with the most flexibility will be the controlling element.
• People work perfectly.
  No one is wrong or broken; it’s simply a matter of finding out how they function now, so that you can effectively change that to something more useful or desirable. People don’t need to be “fixed”.
• People always make the best choice available to them at the time.
  (but often there are lots of better ones that they haven’t yet learned to access)
• Every behavior is useful in some context.
• Choice is better than no choice.
• Just about anyone can learn to do anything.
• People already have all the resources they need.
  What they need is access to these resources at the appropriate times and places.
• There is no such thing as failure only feedback.
  Every response can be utilized.
• Chunking.
  Anything can be accomplished (by anyone) if you break the task down into small enough chunks.
• Behind every behavior is a positive intent.
  While a behavior may be harmful or seem “bad”, there is always a positive intention behind the behavior.
• Symptoms – pains, anxiety, depression, tumors, colds, etc., are communications about needed action.
• We are all responsible for creating our own experience.
  Even when challenging events that we cannot control happen, we are responsible for our responses to the events. Typically we have much more control than we think we have. Another way of stating this presupposition is that “We consistently create our own environment” through our beliefs, filters, capabilities and behaviors.
• Energy flows where attention goes. (from Huna)

Learning to Coach

In the training we learned how to create the coaching state, holding the client from the viewpoint of the NLP presuppositions in total respect, while cultivating within ourselves a curious, not knowing state that allows our clients to go deep and find their own answers.  We learned to build trust to directionalize the conversation toward the client’s goals, to hold space for their agenda with active listening and specific questions, planning and action skills and how to create a meaningful metaphor on closing our sessions that the client could easily access to help them stay on target.

Coaching Skills and Tools

We learned the following coaching skills:

Accountability, Acknowledgment, Asking Permission, Bottom Lining, Challenging, Championing, Forward the Action, Goal Setting and Planning, Holding the Client’s Agenda, Inquiry, Intrude, Powerful Questions and Requesting Structures.

Along with these NLP skills:

Meta-Programing, Perceptual Positions, Neurological Level Alignment, Well-formed Outcomes, Backtracking, Universal Cycles of Change, Vision to Action, Ecology, Open Questions, Voting with Time, Energy and Money, Working with and Changing Beliefs (Six Step Reframing), Resonance Patterning and much more.

In Retrospect

This course really changed me.  I learned more about myself in 23 days than I had in many, many years and had the opportunity to shift many of my less productive mind patterns while we learned and practiced the material.

It helped me to embody an awakened Highest Path and Purpose perspective and I still rely on the mindsets and tools for creating shifts in perspectives that I learned in coaching in my personal walk everyday.

I made some amazing spiritual friendships and experienced as well as received much healing over the duration of the course.  In, fact you could very well say that this course is what awakened me to my path as a healer…it was the first step that I took toward that direction and I have never regretted it!

Reminder

For those of you who missed the teleclass on intuition the audio is available here (I’m still working out the technology end – so please excuse the static – it doesn’t last long) 

Special Offer

For those of you who might want to take up coaching, NLPCA is offering (this year only) a special price of $3600.00 for their training.  Be sure to head over to www.nlpca.com and check them out if you’ve been considering coach training!

My next post in this series will cover NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner training

Joseph Campbell – Finding Bliss

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else. ~ JC

© copyright Joseph Campbell Foundation 2009

Joseph Campbell was born in White Plains, New York to a Roman Catholic family.  His road to mythology began with an interest in Native American stories as a child, through which he found greater insight into his own faith and a doorway to many others.

Myth became his passion and as he studied it, he began to map out the cohesive story threads that are constant in world mythology and in essence through myth gained insight into the sense of spirit people wordwide share – that drives our human experience.

Joseph Campbell has taught me that ~

Following Your Spirit Allows You to Truly Experience Life

My first exposure to the work of Joseph Campbell came through George Lucas and the orginal Star Wars films when I was about 8 years old.  George Lucas based his script on Joe’s book The Hero’s with a Thousand Faces and Campbell was even a mentor regarding the shape and impact of the story.  This is one of the earliest films that I can remember touching something so deep within me that I could only describe it as my core.  Though I didn’t understand it at the time I would get another opportunity at the age of twelve.

When I was twelve, I ran into The Dragonlance Chronicles and once again my spirit started to stir in a way that was familiar.  Tracy Hickman (one of the co-writers and the lead designer of this fantasy world) also based these books on the Hero’s Journey model.  Two years later, I would begin my first hero’s quest – it would not however, be the last

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man. ~ JC (The Hero with a Thousand Faces)

The Hero’s Journey (Moving Beyond Your Small Self)

Journeying into the Unknown

1. Call to Adventure
   The hero always receives a call to move into the adventure which he/she must answer.  This call represents the unconscious and suppressed impulses of the spirit – and an opportunity for an awakening.  Sometimes these impulses are represented mythically as a dark forest, babbling spring, a great tree, a magical quest, chasing after a magical animal, following unusual sounds, etc.  In my own life it has come through acting on dreams and following intuitive impulses that my spirit has given to me and sometimes I just got swept into the journey by life circumstances seemingly without my consent!
2. Refusal of the Call
   Sometimes the hero chooses to refuse the call.  When he does he usually really suffers and the call passes into its negative form unless he changes his mind.  Walls from which he can’t escape close in around him and he becomes a victim needing to be saved, having failed to activate his own internal power.
3. Helper
   After the hero starts by answering the call (consciously or unconsciously) he will at some point meet someone who gives him some vital item or knowledge that will help him on his quest.  This could be a wizard or sorceress, a little man of the wood, a unicorn, a fairy God-mother or other such supernatural presence.  It could be a magical item, a phrase, or some information about the challenge that lies ahead.  In my own experience many teachers have appeared at this stage – often in dreams and meditations and sometimes as chance meetings and encounters with people that are just too precise and unlikely to be ignored.
4. Threshold Crossing
   In crossing the threshold the hero leaves what is known to him and enters the realm of the unknown.  This is the point where everything changes and the hero encounters dangers that are also bestowers of power.  For me this has often been times in which we have physically moved to new and unfamiliar realms or in which I have faced deep fears. However, your first sexual experience, marriage, children and other rites of passage also qualify.
5. The Belly of the Whale
   This is the final separation of the hero’s known world and self fully into the unknown and is often represented as his or her lowest point.  The experience is often something dark and frightening.  The willingness of the hero to enter is symbolic of their willingness to die to their old self, and their openness toward embracing something new.  In my own life the belly of the whale has had many shapes and forms; depression, alcoholism, confronting abusing situations, being made to face fears, surrendering control, etc.
   The Initiations
6. Tests and Trials
   The hero must overcome a series of tests or trials, through which aid is received from his or her supernatural helpers.  This is an act in which the hero begins to understand and embrace his or her own true nature.  The battle is really with the ego and the defeat of the limited self which often leads to the discovery of hidden abilities or power.
7. Meeting with the Goddess
   The Goddess in the hero’s journey represents an encounter with the Divine Feminine - she is all that lives and all that dies.  From womb to tomb the whole round of existence lives within her.  This is often depicted by the sacred or mystical marriage – representing the hero’s mastery over life through uniting with the Divine Feminine aspect of his or her own nature.  This is when the cycle of rebirth and this ultimate truth comes into full consciousness. Through this cycle of living in a world of inadequacies – there is bliss to be achieved again and again.  I’ve had many impactful encounters with the Goddess, the birth of my children and the death of my grandmothers and a time when she came to me as the Crone to name a few.
8. The Temptress
   The woman as temptress in the hero’s journey represents the distractions of the hero’s own earthly self and the unconscious revulsion he holds toward the acts of life in contrast with what he perceives as his pure Soul.  his encounter with the temptress is an opportunity for him to transcend his own divided nature.  I consistently encounted a male version of the temptress many times in my dreams  until I healed my relationship with my own sexuality.
9. Atonement with the Father
   Atonement with the father really means (at-one-ment).  This is where the hero is required to die to his or her own infantile and immature self as they face the force that holds the most power over their lives, proving themselves worthy to then govern themselves and through these trials, receive the blessings of the world.  Honestly, I am currently moving through this one and it is a BIG transition!
10. Apotheosis
    In Apotheosis the hero recognizes fully the God within – having fully left his or her the attachments to the mother, been delivered up and initiated by the father, died to ego and reborn to spirit they have moved beyond all strife.  This also represents the womb-like period of rest and incubation that precedes the hero’s return.
11. The Ultimate Boon
    This is when the hero achieves the goal of the quest, having been purified by his or her trials, the hero now has the maturity to receive the gift as a proper custodian.
    The Return
12. The Refusal of the Return
    The refusal of the return comes when the hero decides to stay in the presence of the Gods rather than bring back what he has learned for the renewal of his community.
13. The Magic Flight
    The magical flight occurs when the hero has obtained the boon without the blessings of its guardians, a pursuit follows and the hero’s need to escape these supernatural forces initiates the return.
14. Rescue from Without
    Just as the hero needs assistance to get in, he often needs help to get out – or that is to say the world has to come and get him for who having cast off the world is in a hurry to return?  The rescue differs from the refusal in the sense that when the world comes knocking, he agrees to return - having merely been transfixed or delayed by his new found perfect state of being.
15. Return Threshold Crossing
    The return threshold is returning from the world of the divine into the human world, only to find that though they once seemed as opposite as night and day, or life and death only that these vastly different kingdoms are one.  The hero ventures out into darkness where he is beyond our physical sight, has his adventure and then returns from the dimension of the Gods to the world we know.  The hero’s challenge is then to retain and translate his experiences from the deep into something the world can use – for it is difficult to to communicate to people who insist on the exclusive evidence of their senses the message of the all-generating void!
16. Master of the Two Worlds
    The hero gains an equal level of comfort with both inner and outer worlds (represented in myth by figures like Jesus and Buddah) having given up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears and no longer resisting the self-annihilation that is a prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, he exists in a way that is relaxed into whatever may come to pass in him, both worlds living in him with his unreserved consent.
17. Freedom to Live
    As the hero is released from the fear of death through the understanding and experience of his own immortal nature – he is finally free to live without anticipating the future or remorsing the past – he can live fully in the joy of each moment.

I use the hero’s journey as a model for transcendence extracted from myth. I see it as a how-to guide for navigating this experience – passed on to us – through the stories of an earlier time – whispering to our Souls through subconscious imagery and understandings. Joseph Campbell helped me to navigate these experiences with his vast body of work and amazing teachings.

I don’t have to have faith, I have experience. ~ JC

Joseph’s work also gave me the permission I needed to remain on the outside of religion, relying instead on my own personal experiences of spirit as my highest and best authority.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. – JC

I gained the confidence to walk my own path, embracing all faiths I encounter along the way, noticing the beauty and truth of their teachings and using from them, whatever I am called toward, as my own.

Joseph Cambell was a man who understood being passionately alive, coining the phrase “Follow Your Bliss” and speaking tirelessly toward the unseen doors that lie there for us where before there were only walls. His willingness to say yes to the adventure and truly experience life is what makes him a Hero of Healing.

My Mom Before the Healing

My Mom visited me over a two week period of time in which change was the name of the game the universe and I were playing with one another.  At the time that she arrived, we were making room for the addition of a puppy to our family and my husband was scheduled to leave 3 days later on a work related trip to remote parts of New Mexico.

My Mom After the Healing

I found my Mom’s presence to be grounding at a time when our family’s rhythms were being thrown off and I surrendered to the fact that everything else in my life would have to exist without me for a time.

Believe it or not, my business did not come crashing down on my head while I ignored it – in fact, my subscriber level really grew while I was busy with what life was bringing my way

I also had the great opportunity to become very introspective.  Most likely it was the influence and close proximity of the energy that houses my oldest physical relationship in life (that of my mother).

I found doorways to explore and opportunities for healing that simply were not available to me before.  I transformed old thought patterns and born of that was one of the most impacting healings I’ve ever given.

My Mom’s health has not been the best over the past 10 or so years and lately she had been noticing her body going in a downward direction.  I invited her to come and visit, she worked out with us, went for walks and really worked on pushing the envelope of what she’s been able to do physically.

We worked spiritually on clearing negative influences and she made amazing progress in just a two week period of time.  Toward the end of the trip she wanted to get her hair done, however when we tried to make an appointment with the local stylists I use, no one was available.

Spirit prompted me, YOU cut her hair.  I’ve never been through any training – so this didn’t really make sense – however I knew I could do it, I understood the healing that would come, surrendered and became the channel for her transformation.

Where to cut, at what angle to cut, how to make the hair fall and at what levels was simply downloaded through spirit into my hands.  My mind was completely by-passed in this process as I meditated on only one thing – bringing the energy and vitality of my Mother’s Soul back to the surface of her physical being.

She came back to life right before my eyes like a giant inhale of love and I could tell from the way she closed her eyes during the cutting process that she was receiving Divine Love from Source.

There are many ways to heal energetically.  Hairstylists are healers, so are cooks, massage therapists, musicians, artists, teachers and many, many others.  We heal with our words, our thoughts, emotions, physical actions, ideas and our smiles.  There are hundreds of things you do each and every day that provide an opportunity or window to heal yourself and others and there are many, many, beautiful modalities and opportunities to gain contact with spirit that pass you by each and everyday.  Some of them you notice, others not.  Healers learn a healing modality to become acquainted with – the noticing.

In my next posts I will review the courses that I’ve learned for you so that you can get a feel for just how many methods for spiritual learning and healing there are.  I love to learn – and I intend to take many more trainings   As I do, I will talk about them here.

Coming up are my reviews of NLP Coach training, NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner training, Soul Realignment Practitioner™ training, the Sedona Method, Financial Alchemy and Dancing with Source™ to name a few!

Until then keep exploring all the everyday ways we heal!

Angel Blessings,

PK

Understanding the Limitations and Expectations You Have Around Receiving Help

Sometimes we are in obvious need of help but are completely unable to articulate it even to ourselves…these are usually the times when we just wait for someone else to notice our predicament and offer a hand. I call this looking for a mind reader.

In situations when we find ourselves hoping for someone else to save us…we are usually doing so because within that moment we are actually not capable of seeking assistance ourselves and here is the reason why this often happens.

Option Lock

Option lock is a form of tunnel vision that keeps us from seeing or experiencing the various things around us that we could be paying attention to. A good way to visualize it is to imagine someone carrying an item that is too heavy for them down the stairs. It seemed manageable when they began, but pretty soon they are out of breath and it takes every ounce of their concentration just to maintain balance and hold themselves and the item up.

At this point, with all of their attention focused on maintaining their current position they are in an option lock. Unless they remove some of their attention away from maintaining this load…they will have no other course of action available and will literally allow the situation to play out in an unconscious way as they sit down, pinned underneath the items they are carrying until they can breath again.

The obvious course of action to the observing bystander would be to let go. This is not as easy as it may sound (as anyone who has learned to water ski and has been drug face first through 20 or so feet of water while relentlessly hanging on the handles will tell you ). It requires consciousness to make another choice.

So what happens to consciousness in situations like these? Where does it go?

Losing Consciousness

Anytime it takes so much of our concentration to just be with a situation it is difficult for us to direct our consciousness. If you think of your attention like the small beam of light that is produced by a flashlight, then consciousness would be the hand holding the light that ultimately illuminates our surroundings. When consciousness gets stuck, it’s no longer free to move and allow us to explore new options.

In situations that suck up all of our internal resources, we aren’t reserving enough energy to power our consciousness…or in other words to move the light. We are now in a mode that is similar to Star Trek’s many auxiliary power scenarios in which only the areas vital to survival are given any juice. This process is automatically switched on and controlled but just like in the science fiction version of this scene there is always a manual over ride. With our light stuck in the last place we left it…it can be difficult to remember that there is a way out of being on autopilot.

Regaining Consciousness

The first step toward regaining consciousness is always breath. If you breathe deeply for a few moments, you will have taken some of your attention back from whatever situation was absorbing it. This automatically releases us from autopilot and we are essentially once again free to move about the cabin!

Conscious Prayer: Making Well-Formed Requests

It is often at the times when we are in option lock and we loose consciousness that we need prayer the most. Spirit can’t answer unconscious prayers…it requires our consciousness to move the energy of our prayer requests throughout the spiritual realms. This is largely because of a little thing called free-will.

So as stated previously, step one is to breathe. The next step involves a high level of personal observation. Ask yourself, what do I want help with? What will having this help allow me to do or have or be that’s even more important (in other words, why does it matter or what are you trying to get for yourself by making this request)? How will I know when I’ve gotten what I have asked for?

Mind Reading: A Violation of Free Will

When I was a little girl, I had such a special connection with my mom that I was absolutely certain that she knew everything I was thinking. So certain was I of this, that I began to think I no longer needed to tell her anything about what I wanted. One day, through a great disappointment I discovered that she could not, in fact, read my mind. My wants and ideas had become too complicated for her to anticipate and I was going to have to learn to speak up and state what I wanted.

I think it works with spirit similarly. When we are in the beginning stages, what we want is usually connected to our basic needs and spirit always takes care of us in this way. As we grow beyond basic needs however…we’ve outgrown what spirit can automatically do for us and it is time for us to start directing the resources around us so that we get exactly what we want.

As much as we wish that spirit would sometimes just read our minds and take over our responsibility to govern ourselves within this universe, we must understand that spirit would never do anything to impede our gifts and/or power…that is why we have free-will.

We’ve been given consciousness for a reason…it is the power and responsibility inherited to us by our Creator Source…and it is our job, here in this earth experiment to learn to use this connection to create beauty, passion, purpose and joy within our lives

So if you catch yourself looking for a mind reader, realize quickly that the better way lies in empowering yourself instead…spirit is right there…ready, willing and waiting to fulfill your conscious requests!

Image Credit

When I was twelve, through the book Dragons of Autumn Twilight, I was introduced to the wonderful world of Krynn, a place where magic…real magick was as natural as breathing for the inhabitants. To some it was a reason for being, for others it was something to dislike or mistrust. Despite these differences however, it was acknowledged by all as a channel of power that flows into and shapes the material world.

If I am to be completely honest, though I would have to admit that my interest in magic began even earlier, while still in grade school. At a young age I developed a hunger for fairy tales, especially those involving magic (of which there were many to choose from).

My favorite movies all involved magic; the Neverending Story, Labyrinth, the Dark Crystal, the Secret of Nihm, the Hobbit, Willow and the Last Unicorn just to name a few.

Like the characters of these stories, I longed for my initiation to begin, to cross paths with some wise wizard and be drug helplessly into the arms of adventure…

At some point I became convinced that there was a part of me that did not belong here on earth but came instead from some other world or plane and that because of this, I had brought something with me that was trying to awaken, if I just knew who I really was…where I came from…I could find it.

I wondered when my teacher would appear.

Words began take form and develop within me with such velocity that I could feel their truth. It was a phrase that I dared utter only within the shelter of my most sacred internal spaces:

Life IS magic…

While I didn’t understand this completely, I felt the loss of my soul’s sorcery quite deeply and a portion of my being mourned it quite literally. I felt as if I had been unintentionally dumped in an alien plane in which the life blood of everything was missing.

Never mind that this sense of displacement was actually true, when looked at from the perspective of a star-traveler soul!

The idea of being alone in this way caused me to panic and I frantically pawed at life searching for the corridor to the place from which I came and where my hungry soul could drench its thirst and feel the magic, the breath of life itself, course through my veins.

Alas it seemed that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find a way to physically leave…and believe me, I tried vehemently to will myself home or to another realm that seemed a close match as I didn’t know what or where home really was! I never realized just how close I was coming during my astral travel and in my dream space…to doing just that!

No Satisfaction

With this dynamic playing in the background my teen-aged years became a completely frustrating time. The mentors I was looking for never showed up in the small town I lived in…a place where (back then) you would be very hard pressed to find a metaphysical bookstore. There weren’t even these sorts of sections in the larger bookstores in the one mall our town and the surrounding area possessed…so I poured over fantasy books for clues devouring all things at my disposal that just might reveal some sort of teaching…anything even remotely close to what I was looking for was closely examined. It wouldn’t be long though…before the adventure found me.

Until it began in a recognizable way however, I was alone with this quest that I dared not speak for fear that others, when they realized I was serious, would label me insane. Rather than endure the lectures that would follow, I kept silent…and so I held my secrets very close to my heart.

The Unfolding of My Secret Heart

Those of you who read this blog, know that I have absolutely no such fears now…I know my magic and how to express it!

I am in constant contact with the life-blood I was seeking and know how to shape and mold the world before me. I actually consider my profession to be very magical

My tools are a bit unconventional by the standard of some. Not everyone believes that the way you breath can change the world, or that our souls and unconscious parts can talk, that everything in this world is a reflection of the Divine, or that energy is more real that what we often term reality…and that what we think to be unchangeable is actually very fluid in Nature and is simply responding to our expectations…but I digress.

A School of Wizardry

I am tempted now toward wondering how it might have looked if I had found a secret school of magic during that delicate time? What if I could have attended a school of esoteric studies? What might life have looked like?

Well, I think it would have looked something like the Grey School of Wizardry!

Below is a letter from HeadMaster Oberon Zell-Ravenheart in which he explains how this school of magic came about.

Esoteric Education: Restoring the Wonder
By Oberon Zell-Ravenheart
Headmaster, Grey School of Wizardry

Once, not too long ago . . . education was considered a rare privilege to be earned or granted, a goal to achieve, a dream to fulfill. Schools were seen as repositories of esoteric knowledge that would unlock the keys to the universe, and the secrets to success. Scholars were held in the highest esteem by all members of society. What we take for granted today was once considered a cherished opportunity to be strived for at any cost. Consider this: less than a century ago, women in traditional European Jewish culture (which prides itself on education and scholarship) were not even allowed to learn how to read! And many women today in traditional Moslem and Hindu societies are still not allowed the “luxury” of literacy. Indeed, throughout most of human history, education—even the basic ability to read, was limited to a small and privileged class of literati. Now, at least in America—it is available to everyone, and anyone.

Did you know that 60% of American high school graduates cannot find their own country on an unmarked globe of the world? These same graduates think cave men lived with dinosaurs! Indeed, there is a deliberate anti-intellectual and anti-educational current running through our entire country, which is even influencing the outcome of national elections! Pop Culture has supported disdain for education; How did a terminally depressing song—“The Wall,” by Pink Floyd, with the refrain, “We don’t need no education”—become the hit of a decade, and the theme song of an entire generation?

I have always had an obsessive love of learning. I want to know everything! As soon as I learned to read, at about age two, I began to devour every book and magazine in the house. When I visited friends, I’d spend my time just reading the books on their shelves. My reading compulsion even extended to the fine print on cereal boxes! The first time I saw the inside of a library, I was agonizingly torn between sheer delight at the vast number of books available to me, and utter dismay at the realization that I could never possibly read all of them. My own personal library today has several thousand treasured volumes—many of them dog-eared from frequent consultation. And I am constantly obtaining more, and reading them. When I’m not actually writing, I’m usually reading.

Unlike many of my friends when I was growing up, I passionately loved school. I could hardly wait ‘til summer vacation ended and I could return to classes, armed with fresh questions for my teachers from my summer of reading everything I could get my hands on about everything that interested me. When I wasn’t actually in class, I spent as much time as possible in the public library, and was on a first-name basis with the librarian, who would always set aside new arrivals in my favorite areas for me. In high school, I served as a teacher’s assistant in biology, edited the school literary journal, published a student newspaper, was very active in the Latin and chess clubs, and had a major role in every school play. And I continued most of these activities and involvements all through college.

I have spent most of my life in learning and teaching. When in college I read A.S. Neil’s Summerhill, B.F. Skinner’s Walden Two, and learned of Maria Montessori’s schools. After receiving a BA from Westminster College in Pre-Med, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, I shifted my interests to Developmental Psychology and Education, entering the graduate program in Clinical Psychology at Washington University, and earning a Teacher’s Certificate at Harris Teacher’s College. My first post-graduate job was with the newly-launched Head Start program, and I served as a public school teacher and school & family counselor for several decades.

Student Attitudes

Oprah Winfrey said this about why she chose to build a new school in South Africa rather that in the US: “I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn’t there. If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers.” (Newsweek, Jan. 8. 2007)

From my own observations growing up in public schools, college and university, and from working many years as a teacher, one simple fact became overwhelmingly clear at all levels: Most students hated school! They only attended because it was compulsory. They did everything they could to get out of actually studying, from watching TV and not doing homework as kids, to partying all night in college. Their interests centered around their friends and relationships, not around actually learning anything. Many of them barely scraped by, some by cheating (often in elaborately creative ways), and many simply dropped out as soon as they could. When I was in high school, one of the most popular songs proudly proclaimed:

Don’t know much about history Don’t know much trigonometry
Don’t know much biology Don’t know much about algebra
Don’t know much about a science book Don’t know what a slide rule is for.
Don’t know much about the French I took (Sam Cooke, “Wonderful World,” 1958)

So what was wrong with all these U.S. schools? How is it possible that generations of students could come away from classes in history, science, geography, literature, foreign languages, and mathematics feeling bored out of their skulls—believing that these were terminally dull subjects with no relevance whatsoever to anything they considered important in life? How could such fascinating studies as natural history, evolution, astronomy, cosmology, geology, archaeology, paleontology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, biology, and all those other wonderful “logies” fail to engage the interest of young minds—even in the passionate era of the ‘60s?

How can students and their families sit idly by, unprotesting, as “controversial” books and essential topics of study are systematically removed from their school libraries and classrooms by illiterate religious fundamentalists and corrupt politicians?

In lamenting the sorry state of our public schools, and the many failures in our American educational system, analysts have blamed just about everything—television, video games, teachers, parents, the home, society, politics, lack of funding, and “the younger generation.” And all of these may indeed be factors. But few seem to have considered that perhaps the entire concept of education as it is presented today may be fundamentally at fault.

And I think this is the core of the problem. School and education is no longer viewed by students, or the public, as something special, something to aspire to. Learning is seen more as a distasteful and onerous drudgery, akin to working in a factory (as in that Pink Floyd song). Something one must do, perhaps, but hardly as something one would want to do. This is clearly, an untenable situation for public education.

Harry Potter and the X-Men

And then (drum roll) along came Harry Potter! After numerous rejections by short-sighted publishers who couldn’t imagine any reader interested in stories taking place in a school, Scholastic Inc. had the good sense to publish J.K. Rowling’s delightful Harry Potter series, and the rest is history. The Harry Potter books have become the biggest-selling books of all time. With seven novels and movies, and more toys, games, clothes, ancillary books, and other tie-ins and spin-offs than you can wave a wand at, Harry Potter is the greatest literary phenomenon ever known.

And here’s the truly important thing: These books are being most eagerly read by kids! Clearly something is happening here, and understanding it may be the key to an entirely new concept in education.

Every kid (and many adults as well!) who reads Harry Potter wishes that they could attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The very fact of its exclusivity makes it irresistible, to say nothing of the lure and wonder of forbidden and arcane knowledge it promises. Magic and Mysteries, spellcraft and sorcery, hidden history, secret societies, wands and wortcunning, bedknobs and broomsticks, bell, book, and candle, things that go bump in the night…everything that the mundane (“muggle,” in Rowling’s parlance) world doesn’t know about, or believe in. Hogwarts epitomizes all the reasons why Halloween and Dia de los Muertos are the most popular holidays of the year for kids (and many grown-ups!). Embracing the dark, rather than fearing it, is exhilarating and liberating!

Consider also the enduring popularity of the “X-Men” comics, Marvel’s best-selling series—which began publishing in 1962, and have spawned an ongoing animated TV series and three feature-length movies. As with the Harry Potter stories, the X-Men saga centers around a very special school for mutant misfits with various uncanny abilities and powers: “Professor Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Children.”

Mystique

Young people find the lure of secret societies and esoteric associations irresistible. They yearn to be on the “inside” of an exclusive group, to access forbidden knowledge and arcane secrets unknown to their parents and their contemporaries. “Knowledge is power,” they know, and “with great power comes great responsibility.” The enormous appeal of the classical “Hero’s Quest” in literature and films bespeaks its intense relevance to every adolescent. They identify with Harry Potter; Frodo Baggins; Luke Skywalker; Dorothy Gale of Kansas and Oz; Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy of Narnia—and every other young hero and heroine of every story, as they discover who they truly are, and what they are truly here for. For the Quest is always and ultimately to discover one’s own life mission and destiny.

And every Hero’s Quest story begins with a wise mentor figure—the “Wizard”—imparting crucial knowledge to the young hero that he or she must know in order to fulfill their destiny. And this is where the idea of a very special and exclusive school of mystical knowledge and arcane wisdom enters the picture.

One of the most learned men of all time, Confucius (551-479 bce), became the first private teacher in history. Such was his reputation, that people sought him out to teach their sons. Confucius took any student eager to learn, and along with the regular subjects, taught his personal wisdoms on developing responsibility and moral character through discipline.

In ancient Greece, (long acknowledged as the seat of philosophy and wisdom), the value of educating their children was recognized very early on, with some households engaging their own teacher. Through the first centuries ce, Roman families often had educated slaves to teach their children. (“Teaching Through the Ages:” http://historyeducationinfo.com/edu1.htm)

The first known school of philosophy (meaning “love of wisdom”) was Plato’s Academy in Athens, founded in 385 bce. Plato was Socrates’ greatest student. Later, in 335 bce, Aristotle opened his “Peripatetic” philosophical school at the Athens Lyceum. Other “Mystery Schools” were founded by Pythagoras and others.

In fact, all early schools and academies were really exclusive “Mystery Schools,” and in that very mystique lay their appeal.

In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church took charge of teaching the sons of nobility, entrusting that charge to monasteries or specially designated learning “centres.” Many of these centres evolved into the distinguished learning institutions of today, including Cambridge University, whose first college, St. Peter’s, was founded in 1284.

With the establishment of higher learning in the early 1700s, the curriculum of college preparatory and universities broadened considerably. However not all things were equal inside the schoolroom. In 1749, Ben Franklin’s concept of an academy of learning consisted of an English school and a Classical school. The Latin master had a title, and the English master had none. The Latin master made twice the salary, and the English master had twice the students.

High school, originally known as “terminal” school, came into existence in 1821, in Boston, for boys 12 years and older. Once more, law entered the educational fray, dictating that towns of over 500 families must have a high school with the prescribed curriculum. Towns with over 4,000 inhabitants were required to teach Latin and Greek, as well as other extra subjects.

Agriculture boarding schools enjoyed a very brief existence in the 1820s and 30s, having been established in the country to fulfill the needs of “idle and morally exposed” children from the city.

At the beginning of the 20th century, parents and the general public began to demand more practical and useful curriculums, and in so doing, may have helped elevate teaching to a respectable profession. (Ibid.)

Unfortunately, this demand and trend towards a universal education diluted the mystique of learning itself. When a thing is available to everyone and mandated by law, it ceases to be regarded as something special; it becomes “common.” What is needed today, I believe, is to restore the wonder and mystique that once surrounded the very idea of education.

The Grimoire and the Grey School

In 2002, I convened the Grey Council—an assembly of two dozen respected and learned mages and sages, elders and teachers. Council members follow many different paths, but all hope to spark the imagination, beauty, and power of the minds of seekers everywhere. We worked together over the year 2003 to weave our best lessons into the Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard (New Page Books, 2004). It was specifically designed for all the Harry Potter readers who might want to seek further, and explore the genuine “Wisdom of the Ages,” as once taught in the ancient Mystery Schools, and imbedded in traditional “Classical Education” into more recent times. For wizard literally means “wise one,” and wizardry is, pure and simply, wisdom. Much like the term philosopher means “lover of wisdom.” And it certainly seems that the present world could use a great deal more wisdom!

The Grimoire, however, was only the first phase of a long-range Vision to make available the Wisdom of the Ages for a new generation and a new Millennium. It is both an essential handbook of Apprentice-level Wizardry (like the Boy Scout Handbook) and a basic textbook for a full seven-year academic curriculum of Wizardly studies. Thus, its lessons begin very simply and become more complex as students advance.

The book was an instant best-selling success, encouraging our publishers, New Page Books, to commission several sequels and spin-offs, of which six have since been published, with many more in process. The next phase of the Vision was to establish an on-line School of Wizardry to serve as a larger context for the Grimoire and wisdom teachings, and where all the readers whose appetites had been whetted could go for further study.

And so, on August 1, 2004, the Grey School of Wizardry opened its virtual doors. Designed for students of all ages over 11, the Grey School provides an extensive seven “year-level” program of studies, at an Apprenticeship level. Graduates will be certified as “Journeyman Wizards.”

The Grey School was incorporated as a non-profit educational institution in the State of California on March 14, 2005. And on September 20, 2007, we received our IRS Determination Letter for our 501(c)(3) for educational and charitable purposes.

Curriculum

Taking the Grimoire’s basic curriculum as a starting point, the Grey School of Wizardry offers additional classes, lessons and practical exercises, links to other websites with specialized materials, etc., and many color graphics and images which could not be reproduced in the printed book. Class materials and interactive lessons are designed and taught by highly-qualified faculty members and lectors, presently numbering about three dozen. Over 275 classes are currently available, in 16 Departments, and new ones are being added continually.

Courses offered in the Grey School provide a grounded classical education in history, mythology, geography, mathematics, literature, natural history, general science, astronomy, chemistry, physics, zoology, botany, and even Latin—with ancient Greek , Egyptian, and Sumerian to be offered shortly. The performing arts are included as well, with classes in poetry, music, theater, and illusion. The wonderful thing is, with the mystique of enrolling in a magickal “School of Wizardry,” our students are eagerly studying all these subjects which would bore them to tears if they were taking them in a mundane public school!

Social Interaction

The Grey School is highly interactive, and includes not just academic materials, but four Elemental “Houses” (Sylphs, Salamanders, Undines, and Gnomes) in which young students may socialize with each other. Each House has a faculty Head and student Prefect to moderate the forums, etc. A similar set of four Elemental Lodges (Winds, Flames, Waters, and Stones) have been created for adult students, who now comprise ¾ of the student body. Our students’ ages range from 10 to 73.

We have a diverse selection of social forums, clubs, and a student-run newspaper. The forums provide a venue for people to gather. The Great Hall includes areas for General Chatter, Challenges, a Bardic Circle, and much more. Office forums provide access to the Administrators and other positions. Houses and Lodges have their own forums, plus separate Youth and Adult forums for mingling. There are Departmental and other forums as well.

Clubs allow members to explore interest in a special area outside of classes. They also provide venue for students and faculty to socialize, share information and plan projects related to their club’s theme. Every club has a Faculty Advisor as well as student officers.

The Grey School publishes a quarterly student-run school magazine, Whispering Grey Matters, with its own forum area in the Great Hall. All students may submit their original work (essays, poetry, photos, artwork, etc.) for consideration. Staff members also gather news from the Administration, Departments, clubs, and other sources.

As of the end of November, 2007, the student body (1,000 students) represents 49 of the United States (all but Delaware), a number of US military bases, two American Embassies, and 22 countries: Australia, Austria, Canada (8 provinces), Chile, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Guam, Ireland, Mauritius, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Rumania, Scotland, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Venezuela. Our northernmost student lives in Fairbanks, Alaska, while our southernmost resides in Santiago, Chile.

The Future

In January of 2006, the Headmaster and Headmistress toured Australia on behalf of the Grey School, and the following July the School held its first annual Conclave at a park in Oregon. Four regional Conclaves were held in 2007, and more are planned for 2008. Other Grey School assemblies, events and presentations are happening all around the U.S., and in other countries as well. The Grey School is really taking off!

Many students and faculty members are now beginning to dream seriously of a physical campus—ideally a castle like Hogwarts, or a large country estate like Prof. Xavier’s. A perfect facility could be an old monastery or retreat center, providing classrooms, dormitories, offices, staff residences, kitchen, dining room, meeting hall, library, laboratories, gardens, etc.

The enrollment and tuition fees for the Grey School are very low, as we have wanted to make this education available to all including impoverished students. We even have a specially-funded scholarship program for those who are unable to meet even these low rates. Additional funding has come through small donations, sales of school-related items, and royalties on Grey School textbooks that are being published by new Page Books. But stipends for teachers are currently all less than $200 per month, and all are greatly underpaid for their dedication and work. We would like to compensate our faculty more appropriately, and we would like to acquire a suitable facility for future offices, classrooms, and residences.

As Oprah Winfrey said about her new school for impoverished girls in South Africa: “I understand that many in the school system and out feel that I’m going overboard, and that’s fine. This is what I want to do. I wanted to take girls with that ‘It’ quality, and give them an opportunity to make a difference in the world.” (Newsweek, Jan. 8. 2007)

And this is what we want to do with the Grey School of Wizardry—to find students who have unique potential that is not being addressed by their experiences in public schools, and give them the inspiration and information that will enable them to go out and make a real difference in the world. This is true education. For the difference between wisdom and stupidity is really all about considering the consequences—”unto the seventh generation,” as the Hopi proverb says.

In closing, here’s what one of our students had to say about the Grey School Vision:

Just Imagine…
By Stacy, Prefect of the Society of the Four Winds

Ten years from now: Over a hundred have graduated to Journeymen Wizard, and another thousand Apprentices continue in training. The pendants we wear are no longer merely logos of the school we attend, but the symbol of our Order. And our symbol is not just recognizable to those whom we call brother and sister, but to the greater world, both Magickal and Mundane. We are respected as honored and reliable sources of wisdom, guidance and hope to the communities we live in. We are recognized in congress, the military, in covens and conclaves, and through our deeds we are recognized as an organization devoted to helping influence the evolution of the world.

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The Good

There are times when we approach life confidently. When we feel strong, supported and anchored in our direction. Our interior dialog is positive, we are mindful, gentle and nurturing to our inner being, and as a result of this perspective and how we are viewing life we feel energized and on track…like everything is going our way.

From this space when we look out over our lives thinking of how far we’ve come and all of the progress that we’ve made we’re filled with a deep sense of accomplishment and often end up in the space where everything seems right with the world.

The Bad

At other times, we feel quite the opposite. It’s like the universe has a wrecking ball aimed at our lives and everything we touch just turns to shit. Nothing we do, goes as planned and life seems completely beyond our control.

These are the times when we feel stuck, like we’ve fallen down the hill we were climbing and we’re now at the bottom sitting in the mire of all the garbage we dropped down, never to be seen again along with everything else we thought we were leaving behind.

Our inner dialog is a little different here as we will often attempt to motivate ourselves out of this mess in a manner that resembles, flogging a tired horse.

So what’s the best approach when we are stuck in the middle of our old patterns and self-deceptions? Is it possible to remember to nurture ourselves, when we’ve fallen flat on our faces and are eating a mouthful of dirt???

It’s Only Dirt

Well, I think that lies in how you view the dirt.

Determining the View

Let’s take a look at falling into the mire from the Four Levels of Consciousness:

If I’m in the Life is Happening To Me level of consciousness, my first reaction will be to find someone or something to blame for my fall.

If I let go of blame and enter the Life is Happening By Me level of consciousness, I’d be more inclined to think…I can get myself up and I would proceed to dust off and move on…after all, I’m in control.

If I give up control and enter the Life is Happening Through Me level of consciousness, I might look at what happened and wonder what it has to teach me about how I’m approaching my life…I might query and ponder the timing of my fall, the position I fell into and distill learnings from the experience of falling…it would be all about understanding the positive purpose of falling and allowing that purpose to carry me forward.

Now if I give up separation and I enter the Life is Happening As Me level of consciousness, I would see the dirt and myself as one. From this perspective, I would see the fall as my own creation and an expression of the highest good manifesting in my life.

In the above scenarios, the act of falling into the dirt never changes, it remains an impartial fact…such as saying, I fell to the ground. I fell to the ground has no meaning in and of itself, the consciousness (to me, by me, through me, as me) having the experience (falling) creates meaning (good or bad) of the ground (the landing spot).

Bottom-Line

No one, no thing, no experience…can give the events of your life meaning, but you.

One Person’s Mire is Another Person’s Spa Treatment: A New Definition for Dirt

The first thing I’d like you to do is go back into your recent memories of reading this post and recall the images that speaking of falling down in the mire conjured up for you…was it anything like this?

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My friend Christine often says:

When you plant a seed, the first thing that comes up isn’t the perfectly formed sprout. The first thing that comes up is dirt.

In other words, when you embark on a new path, the resistance comes up first so you can push through it and get stronger in that process.

Love the Mire

Loving the mire is all about using the act of falling in our lives as a signal to recharge, and the dirt that comes up as a result of planting something new to nurture, heal and begin a gentle self-care routine that enables us to grow stronger while we push through life’s challenges.

It’s a signal that you’re moving…afterall if you weren’t making any changes, there’d be no place to fall from

Image By Miss Stanford

There once was a girl who sensed she had some hugely important reason for coming to this world and being in this life.

She loved to write poetry and stories and eventually interpreted the meaning of that sense of a big reason as a call to become the next Stephen King or J.R.R. Tolkien. So she wrote and she wrote. She wrote dozens of stories, poems and even a novel; submitting her work to various magazines and publishing houses.

She found a watch in Writer’s Digest magazine that had a caricature of Tolkien on the front, large and cartoon-ish and she put that watch out in front of herself saying, when I finally publish a story I will buy that watch and it will be my outer symbol of success.

She received dozens of very nice and often encouraging rejection letters and the situation which she had created in her head to achieve her symbolized success never came about. In fact, too hurt to continue with it, she got away from writing altogether for a time.

Years later she unconsciously picked it up again, issuing press releases and writing bio’s for others. Her writing was effective and was able to convey something deeper even within a factual format.

One day she looked back and realized that while her attention was diverted toward using her gift to promote the voice of others, she had become “published” in many magazines, newspapers and journals across the country and that yes…she was even a paid writer.

However, she still didn’t feel like she knew her own voice…so she started focusing her writing into herself, using it as the scalpel of her focused attention, performing surgery on her outer layers, effectively tearing into her own flesh down to the level of her soul…finding out who she is, what she’s really made of and uncovering the source of the voice within her.

After about a year of fully concentrating on writing for self-discovery, she was invited by Albert Foong the Urban Monk, to participate in a writing project about compassion. The prize of The Now Watch was allotted to the judges’ favorite submissions and her entry was one of six to receive the watch.

A smile comes from so deep within her that she wonders at the source of it and at the way spirit moves to validate us on our paths.

You see, she was born with a gift (as are we all), a key to that would reveal a purpose or way of being in this world.

However it is the nature of the door to swing both ways in accordance with attachment, judgment and intent, so this gift when used in the service of the ego was a source of great pain and when used for a higher purpose altogether; a pathway of unimaginable joy that has the power to take her deeper and deeper into the center of her being.

A note from the author:

My most heartfelt gratitude and appreciation flows forward to the three monks; Albert, Kenton and Wade; for their project and the process of participating in it, brought to full circle, this great learning and at the same time has gifted me with a reminder of the tremendous value of presence within the only time that really exists…the now.

Spirit certainly has a way of getting our attention, using symbolism and a communication system that is customized for us alone while at the same time sending messages for others…like the great spiritual teachers that through conversation with one student also speak to everyone witnessing…touching each in a profoundly personal way through a singular event, I believe the Spread the Love Now! project to be one such event

Namaste

Today, I am happy to reveal to you the new site, which is the embodiment of my current direction in life. This is a marriage between spirit and experience and a commitment to reflection and self-discovery.

I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. ~ Joseph Campbell

Encouraging the Experience of Being Alive Through:

Passion. Making a passionate connection with life motivates us toward discovery. It is the power of attraction and when we follow it…doors will open where we would not have thought there would be doors; and where there wouldn’t be a door for anyone else.

Courage. Every journey contains opportunities to learn about ourselves through our interactions with challenges. Contrary to popular belief there are no “bad” or “wrong” parts of ourselves. Our dungeons, dark places and shadows are pathways to treasures beyond our imagination. It is through our abyss and in the places where we stumble…that we find them.

Creativity. When we let go of the life plans, limiting beliefs and patterns of behavior that ultimately don’t serve us, we can be open and receptive to our life’s possibilities. We can match our heartbeat with the beat of the universe and our nature with Nature. Out of this wellspring of creativity comes forth our true existence…a conscious interaction between ourselves and the rest of creation.

Making the Journey Inward.. is about discovering that we are the hero of our own lives and learning what we’re made of. Transformation is a commitment toward experiencing ourselves in a new and profound way so that we may understand that within us is contained all that we could ever want to be.

My Mission is… to assist and support people in connecting with the source of their passions which lay down the rhythms for which their hearts beat, that is in turn the drumbeat of the tune to which their transcendent spirits dance and the experience that creates the world.

Come Join Me in the Dance…

Comment on this post by 9am PST Sunday morning and earn the chance to win a free coaching session!!!

The winner will be randomly drawn and announced on the blog Sunday evening ~ I look forward to having a session with one of you very soon!

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