Today is a great day to live!

Huh - interesting: As I changed the count on my "Days Ahead" this morning, I found myself adding 8 days! What happened? I've been changing the count every day this week, one day at a time. How did I rob myself of 9 days yesterday? Or, how did I manifest 8 days today??

I don't know, but I'll take them :)

Things are shifting quickly and I'm doing my best to stay with it and follow what arises each day. Today I spotted the twin fawns in our front yard sleeping near their Mom in the wee morning hours. It felt good to feel them there, trusting and resting into the predawn calm.

And today I submitted a job application for a full-time 9 to 5 job. Wow - I haven't had one of those in years! The job sounds compelling though busy, and the pay is good. It could help stabilize some financial goals in my life, what's left of it anyway.

And today I prepared a package of information to take to one of my health care providers who requested a copy of my book - AD/HD Generation: Holistic Ways to Support Children - for their reception area. I signed the book and got bookmarks and business cards ready to send with it. It's an office that works with women and families, so parents are always sitting in the waiting room before appointments. I love the idea of them scanning through my book as they wait!

And today I'm finalizing materials for the Kundalini Yoga workshops I'm offering with the Texas Yoga Retreat at Barsana Dham this weekend. It's going to be amazing; I can already feel the energy of the space and the people. My body is completely tuned in to the energy of what I'm offering and it is (I am)  ready to go!

Today I am grateful. I am grateful for everything that Spirit is asking me to express in the world in support of our healing and expansion. And today, I have 128 more days to live!

Death by Evolution

What's happening in humanity today? There are changes everywhere, on every level. Open your eyes and see them; they are the Truth - as close to it as we can get. Or better yet: open your heart and feel them.

Discomfort happens when old templates break apart to make space for new ones to evolve. We are in a period of vast human evolution. There is widespread agreement that the human race is undergoing massive restructuring on a DNA level right now. Think that's crazy? Think I'm crazy?

To the mind, that does sound crazy; yet it is happening.  Why do you think things feel so dammed uncomfortable right now? There's so much tension in folks - strong opinions and preferences; people taking sides; divisions; intense reactions; overblown emotions.... it's all fear. Folks are afraid of the changes they feel yet cannot name, explain, or control; no one knows how their life will be affected; fear of the unknown. The mind cannot comprehend what's happening; it's not meant to. This is an energetic shift as much as a physical one. Everything we thought we knew is being redesigned; it's an uncomfortable process! Death of the old; birth of the new...

Not everyone will survive it, but the reality is that we never know how much of our day we will survive anyway. Maybe today - maybe this moment - is the moment of our departure... Maybe the next moment is. We never know when that moment will come - when Lady Death will tap her long finger on our shoulder and beckon us to take our last breath here. As for me, I've got just over 4 months left, symbolically speaking; but it could be much sooner than that, or much later...

Consider two things: 1) this explanation from Steve Rother: "One of the big points ... was about the physical body.  With the physical re-wire of humanity well underway the next stage is releasing the old human templates that hold us.  As these templates first release there can be an energetic vulnerability to the physical body.  In fact, ... during these times humans are much closer to home and it is an easy step to cross the line of life and death... during this period on Earth many will be leaving to take a new position... all humans (are) closer to death than we imagined.  The line between life and death is now closer to us than we imagined.  Now we have a choice:  Do we go into fear over that or do we live every day as if it’s our last?  Yet another reason for us to be on purpose."

And 2) your life and what you really want to do with the rest of it - how ever much is left of it...

Birds, fawns, & dogs

An interesting day unfolded yesterday. Found a white-winged dove hung up in a wire fence so I gently freed it and sent it lots of love... before it died. I guess it had been there struggling for too long. Felt better after spotting tiny little Angel fawn prancing about our back field in a clearing; ah the beauty of youth!

 Took my dog for a long walk and smiled at the singing white winged doves on the wire; sent them my gratitude for their singing and my heart for the loss of their kin. And then had the awareness that it was my kin, too.


Climbed to the top of a 220-step hilltop with my dog for the third time at the end of our walk.  I was seated on a ledge enjoying the cool morning breeze and sunrise when she wobbled over to me, unable to balance herself. I quickly realized that she was having a dizzy spell - the first I've ever witnessed. I held her body close to mine and grounded our energy into the hilltop until I was certain that the spell had passed.

She was clearly confused by it and looked blankly up at me as if asking "What the hell was that??" I reassured her that she was OK and then headed down the hill for home so she could cool down and relax. When we got to the car, she was unable to leap in as she usually does; I had to give her a butt boost. She's been fine ever since, yet it's been in my awareness that she is now 9 years old and unable to keep up with the same walking distance and pace we always have. She doesn't want to go as far, walks more slowly, and doesn't always make the leap up into the car on the first try.

The experience brought the finality of our time together to the forefront of my awareness. Just how much time do I have left with this precious companion? I don't know; we never know. All I know is that I will miss her tremendously when she is gone...just another reminder to cherish every moment with her, and with all of this life.

Later, I rescued a frantic and squawking baby cardinal from the mouth of our big black cat, Jester. I put it in the bed of our pickup truck out back (with the tailgate down, backed into our bamboo forest) where it would hopefully be safe from rogue cats and critters so it could get it's bearings again. I tried to set it up on a small tree limb, but it could not grasp the branch with its feet. When I left it for the night, it was mostly sitting up, legs and feet limp, breathing normally and looking about in confusion. I didn't see any injuries, so figured it was just in shock. I didn't have time to check on it this morning to see how it fared before heading to Austin for the day...

But what I did do was contemplate more deeply the fact that some things exist here for what feels like a very long time, and some for what feels like a very little time, and some, for any amount of time in between. We never know who gets what. We also don't know why things are here for the time that they are; we can only trust that it's for some significant purpose, even if we can't know for ourselves what that purpose is.

I witness...life arising, existing and falling away again...constantly. I can't seem to miss it these days. It's happening everywhere, all the time; even in my own body and being. And if it weren't? How would things feel different? That's an interesting thing to contemplate because when I do, I realize what a gift "death" is; what a beautiful and necessary balance that cycle creates for us. Will I still feel that way when it's me that's doing the dying??

Gifts from Angels

This little fawn was born in our yard yesterday morning. She followed Momma from the back field to the front yard and got tired. Momma parked the little tot in one of our flower beds, sheltered by a small Salvia bush, and then went about her business. She was gone for hours.

The fawn hardly moved and was fairly well camouflaged by the bush. She rested there all day before the Momma retrieved her in the late afternoon. At one point, we put a water bowl near her and she scampered off a few feet to a new spot at the foot of the Tiger Irises. I got a clear picture of her there...  adorable! I named her "Angel."

This fawn is such a great reminder of the natural cycle of all things: they arise, exist, and fall away again at some point. Everything obeys this law; nothing is immune to it... except our Essence. 

As this precious fawn was born into the physical realm, it obeyed this cycle, arising from Essence into physical existence. When my body takes its last breath here, "I" will fall away from physical existence and into Essence, also obeying this cycle. It is an infinite cycle, and I'm grateful for it. 

Check the message on the clay pot in the flower bed; how perfect. The Angel of Death is an Angel, after all. What she brings us is a gift, one of the grandest: true freedom.  

Balancing Act

 In the midst of all the talk about death, I had a beautiful experience with birth this morning: One of the pregnant deer hanging out in our back acre had her baby either last night or this morning. The precious newborn came out of the brush while I was putting feed out for the dozen or so deer that are hanging out in our back yard this season.

Pictures are difficult to get, yet we tried, and you can see the precious baby a bit in this one.

We've been watching a Momma raise twin fawns all season, but this is our first birth... EVER.

The tiny little fawn walked right up to me, calling as she approached, sniffed my hand and let me pat her on the head before she realized, "Hey - you're not like the rest of us!" and backed off back to Momma!

Now, she is curled up and sleeping quietly in our front flower bed... What a precious baby!

 We don't like to get too friendly with the wildlife around here, to respect their wildness. Yet I do choose to feed the pregnant and nursing Mommas during the summer to give them a little extra nutritional support. Otherwise, they are on their own. There are still a couple of pregnant doe out there; we'll see if we get another batch of babies before the season's end.

What a sacred balance to all the focusing on death and endings, to see such beautiful life and beginnings... What a great reminder of that infinite cycle of which we are all a part. And isn't it nice to know that such beautiful life continues to spring forth even in our absence after death?

This was not something I had on my bucket-list, yet it is certainly "bucket-list worthy..." :)

Death remains a mystery

A friend of mine shared an experience today that touched me deeply. It was about an upcoming move and how she will miss the people, places, and things she's become intimate with there. The crux of it was how strange it felt to know that they will all continue on without her when she's gone. She compared the feeling to how she imagined that of a dying person when visiting with folks for the last time: separate, disconnected, and "ghostly," knowing that you will soon be the only missing piece to the puzzle you are observing.

It opened my eyes to the truth that thinking, reading, studying, writing, and speaking about the kind of separation and disconnection that death brings is one thing; actually moving through it is a completely different thing...

Holding gratitude for what's come and gone from life is one thing; holding the loss of your own absence in death is another... Because it feels to me that although there is "instant" physical separation, there is not "instant" energetic disconnection in the purest sense. There always feels to be an energetic connection unless or until I break it, consciously, with a shamanic practice. And even then, in the most subtle realms of being, I feel we are all always energetically connected.

Will this feel different when we actually die? Will the energetic separation and "disconnection" be just as clear as the physical one, or will it feel in that realm - merged within the All, the One - the same as it feels in this realm... so that there is no true separation or disconnection in the end, energetically? Just physically? Or will it just not matter at that point? No body; no ego; no care...? It feels to me that this is just a non-issue in the energetic realm, but that's just a sense, not a knowing. I won't know until I get there.

What I do know is that in my own "Near Death Experience" several years ago, those kinds of things simply weren't a part of the mix. It was all about the beautiful feeling of whatever that Source was that was gently tugging at me... and it WAS beautiful. Part of me really didn't care about anything else but going there. I didn't though, so I can't say for certain what it is like once "there," wherever that is...

I am still here, in this physical realm, dancing with the concept of death, yet not able to really know what it is like until I die... So, onward through the fog of "life" I go.

Fire Speaks

I took a walk in the woods this afternoon to clear my head of computer work and prepare my spirit for writing. There is a nice breeze today although it's a warm, summer one. The sun is shining hot between spotty clouds.

As I walked along the trail, I fell into some energetic practices of clearing the circuits in my body. Then I  connected deeply with the Elements in and around me: Air - the breeze and my breath;  Fire - the sun and my spirit; Earth - the ground beneath my feet and my body; and Water - puddles from recent rains and my sweat. Between the breeze on my skin, the sweat on my body, and the spotty shade from cedar trees and clouds, I actually experienced some moments of feeling cool as I walked, even though it was nearly 90 degrees.

I sent out a question to the Sun and to the Element of Fire asking for guidance on how to best serve them for a particular post I hold with the Toltec Center, and the answer I got was a perfectly shaped heart rock. I spotted it on the path just as I took my next step; in fact, I nearly stepped on it. And then, the message came: "Open your heart even bigger than you already have. Yes - even BIGGER!"

I smiled at this answer and walked on with delight. Not two steps later came the most gorgeous little snake - a pretty little fellow with a bold pattern and no rattle. Knowing a bit about Texas snakes, I decided it was (probably) not a threat to me. So unless it was a "rattle-less rattlesnake" (and I've learned that there is such a beast), I figured it was harmless. It had stopped along the edge of the path, barely visible among the grasses and shadows there.

We checked each other out quickly and hesitantly, he more than I. I moved in for a closer look; he didn't move. I felt his nervousness with my size and I thought, "Geez, I must feel HUGE to you!" So I gave him some space and he turned to slither off into the grass.

"Thanks for the message, you beauty!" I offered as he left. And then I set about to retrieve whatever it was I was thinking about when I saw the little guy, knowing that in the shamanic world, this is significant information. "What was it? Oh yes - it was about opening my heart even bigger."

Yet there was another piece that had already slipped my awareness, which returned to me when I went back over it. It was about using more energy to open my heart even bigger, and to hold that task just as importantly as I hold all the others. I might have missed that piece altogether had I not taken a moment to reflect upon it. So "Thank you" again, dear snake friend.

Just returning to the thought of that brings a smile to my face. Living with an open heart is freedom. It's joy, passion, love and truth. It's integrity and authenticity. Sometimes it's even scary, hard and sad, yet it's what's real to me anymore. The rest just feels like lies - distortions of the truth of who I am, who we all are - as part of a divine, whole Source.

So that's my latest challenge on this year to live: to open my heart up even bigger and to live from that place in all I do...

143 days ... Is that enough time??

A Teacher Commeth

Sunday morning when I awoke, I peered out into our back acre and saw "our" Momma deer with her precious spotty-skinned twins and another female deer. We've been watching them grow up all season, keeping them well fed with high protein pellets and chicken scratch, and keeping plenty of water in their bucket.

As I watched the babies frolic about in the field, I glimpsed something else moving amongst them. It was keeping a low profile, slipping through the tall grasses and nearby brush. Finally, it showed itself: it was a beautiful fox. Its face was white and its eyes were outlined in thick black lines making them stand out as if it were dolled up for an evening out on the town. Its tail was thick with red and black fur; its body was a smooth blend of brown, beige, and black fur. This fox was an absolute beauty.

The deer weren't too concerned with it; the adults continued to eat and the babies continued to play, yet they all seemed to keep half-an-eye on it. The fox didn't seem interested in the deer at all. It was roaming through the grasses and brush as if looking for something, yet I'm not sure what. That might explain where the chickens went; there was a Momma hen with five chicks out there until about a week ago...

I walked out there to put some protein feed and chicken scratch down for the deer, and added some dry dog food for the fox, though I think the deer ate it all anyway. As I was putting out the feed, several adult deer (two young bucks with small, fuzzy antlers; two pregnant females; and a number of does) emerged from our bamboo forest and stood before me, staring, waiting. A couple of the more brave ones approached and began to eat while I was still pouring feed into small piles about the bare patches of dirt in our field. Once I moved into our nearby shed, the rest approached and all of them ate in silence for several minutes, completely engaged in their munching.

When the deer finished their meal and retreated once again to the cool shade and dense coverage of our bamboo forest, the fox appeared in the open field looking for leftovers. It was as if she'd just teleported herself to that spot; one minute the field was empty, the next minute she was there, sniffing about. I'm not sure she found any chow but I was heartily impressed with her ability to hide herself as she moved. Before I knew it, she was hidden again in the nearby brush...sly as a fox.

I don't know if she'll stick around and I'm not sure I want her to. Our cats might not appreciate that either. In fact, I went looking for the smallest of our two cats after I lost sight of the fox, having seen our bigger cat already that morning. As I scanned our yard for her, it occurred to me that the fox just might have eaten her for supper that night, although she is a fabulous hunter and climber herself, and generally easily eludes any predators.

I was surprised to notice that as much as I love my precious "Tooter" cat, the thought of her becoming fox food did not disturb me as much as it once would have. "Hmmm. That's odd," I thought, "Something like that would have set me into a panic before." As I looked about the yard, I imagined that I might find signs of her carcass there, so I prepared myself for such a discovery; yet I was not upset by the thought. What arose for me instead was, "Well, that's the natural cycle of things. A fox has got to eat!" And I knew that my little Tooter would have given that fox a run for its money, so that if in the end she'd "lost" the chase, she would have done so with vigor, pride, and honor. What an amazing role model for this journey - to live with all the fullness you can muster up to your very last breath...

I'm not sure why this beauty showed up in our yard Sunday, yet I am grateful for it. This fox showed me three things: First, how far I've come on this journey with Lady Death, as the thought of losing what I love no longer distresses me to the degree that it once did;

Second, how comfortable I'm becoming with the natural flow and cycle of things - that infinite rhythm of arising, existing, and falling away again;

And third, how unattached I can hold to the things in my life - even those things that I love with all my heart - unattached, yet fully committed and in deep, intimate relationship with them. That's a good thing, I think. It's something I've been striving for... to live with 100% passion and commitment to the gifts in my life, yet with 0% attachment to any of it. This beautiful fox gave me an opportunity to see how important that is, and how natural it feels, too. My body can feel the fluidity of and freedom from such a rhythm, though at times, part of me still wants to rebel against the letting go. Anymore, I ultimately pull in tremendous gratitude for those things that come and go from my life, for all of them are powerful teachers if I invite them to be.

And so this adventure though A Year To Live continues to roll forward, leaving me with only a few more months to learn and prepare for my very last breath.
 
Will I be able to live with all the fullness I can muster right up until that last breath releases my body?

Water Ways

Wow - a cool 150 days left of this year to live. It seems to have flown by...

Yesterday I played in the beautiful Pedernales River with friends to celebrate a birthday. The waters were cool and flowing in a vibrant way. I watched the currents make their way around rocks, over falls, and through the wide river bed in fluid, active movement.

In some spots, the water was rapidly flowing and splashing on the surface; in other spots, the water was calm and smooth on the surface. I found myself shifting back and forth in the water from wading through the turbulent, active spots to rest in the peaceful, glossy ones. I played in the energy of both, finding something to enjoy in each.

The more turbulent spots brought a rush of focused attention, intent, steadiness, and surrender to the flow. The more calm spots brought a sense of resting into the peacefulness of the flow. Both spots were powerful, each with their own qualities and characteristics. And I realized that working with the balance of both energetics served me best.

What a great reminder for how to move through the last 150 days of this year...