Navigating Changing Times

I hear so many people say - and I've said it myself - how quickly time moves today. We can hardly grasp that the end of 2011 is just around the corner, or that night has shifted back into light, marking another day's passing. It's not death we fear, if we fear anything at all. It's the feeling of free-falling into the dawning of a new age of Humanity - one of true peace, consciousness and Oneness - that feels unsettling at times.

It seems these days that all around me, people I know and love are experiencing big changes in their lives...including me. We are people who have spent years - if not decades - creating sacred ways to be of service to the Highest Source within ourselves and others. We are warriors of the Divine, of Spirit, of Love and Peace, of the Human heart. We imagine and believe in the creative beauty these things hold and so we set our intent on finding ways to support their expression in our world.

These days,  I actively and consciously work at the spiritual principle of non-attachment. I believe that it is our attachment to things - to outcomes, ideas, identities, stories, being right, etc. - that causes our suffering. Why? Because things are constantly changing; that is their nature. Change is all of our nature because the whole of the Universe is made of energy, and energy is not static; it is dynamic by nature.

What this means is that when we attach to something - when we want or expect it to stay the same or to be a certain way - we set ourselves up for disappointment and perhaps suffering because it will ultimately change. Change is constant, whether we choose to see it as such or not. We change with each breath, and on a cellular level, we change in each moment. Change might take a millisecond or a century, but everything always changes.

How do we navigate these changing times? How do we keep up with what's happening in our lives and in our world, especially when they seem to be happening faster? The answer as I see it is really very simple, requiring only a shift in perception and awareness:

Recognize that there is no separation: this is what we know. It has taken some brilliant quantum physicists to prove this today, yet they are proving it. We are all energy, and ultimately, energy has no separation, no definition, no borders or boundaries. It is one entity, one Being, one movement to a sacred rhythm, one expression of the creative force of "life" within the endless space of existence.

When we look into the eyes of another, we see ourselves. When we gaze upon the vastness of the ocean, we gaze upon the vastness within ourselves. When we rest into the soils of the Earth, we rest into the soils of our own Being. When we raise our heads to peer into the brilliance of the Sun, Moon, Stars and sky, we peer into the brilliance of ourselves. When we scale the heights of the grandest mountains and delve into the darkness of the deepest caverns, we scale and delve into the heights and depths within ourselves. When we stand in awe of the powers of nature, we stand in awe of the powers within our own Being. When we search the whole of the Universe, we search the whole of ourselves.

As you move through your life, interacting with all that it holds, know that the whole of what you encounter is you. When you recognize yourself as the whole of the Universe and the whole of the Universe as yourself, then choosing how to navigate these rapidly changing times becomes easy: Do it with Non-Attachment, Compassion, Equanimity, Joy and Love because that's what life commands - yours, mine and everything elses.

Let your own heart be your guide - not out of fear, guilt, shame or obligation, but from your deepest knowing of the Oneness of all things. One powerful spiritual teacher taught it most clearly when he said "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That's a mighty powerful guiding principle to live your life by...

Don't Take It Personally

We are such ego-driven creatures. We take so many things personally when really, nothing is about us except our own experiences. This is one of the main teachings in don Miguel Ruiz's beautiful spiritual book The Four Agreements: don't take anything personally. The reason for this is that every Human Being on this planet perceives the world in their own unique way, through their own unique filters, based on their own unique perceptions, experiences, agreements and beliefs.

don Miguel Ruiz calls the agreements and beliefs we hold in our unconscious mind our personal Book of Law. This Book of Law is what our brain uses to dictate our behavior based on past experiences. It contains all the rules we have learned to live by - those that we created ourselves and those that were passed down to us through the adults in our lives. It says things like "To be loved I must be good" and "To be safe I must not have fun" and "If I do the wrong thing I will be punished" and "Other people's perceptions of me matter."

These rules are things we learn as children and then carry forward into our adulthood. They rest in the unconscious part of our Being and we live by them whether they continue to apply or not as we grow up. Since we are unaware of them, we can't know if they still apply or feel true for us as adults unless something brings them to our attention. And the truth is, unless they are brought to our attention by some kind of event, we don't care if they apply or not because we don't even know they exist! But they are our unconscious Book of Law and we follow our Book!

Usually it is when something happens that makes us question some part of our lives that we begin to look at the things in our Book of Law and decide if we still believe them, agree with them, and want to keep living by them or not. This is no easy task. Questioning the things we've lived by since we were a youngster takes courage. The things in our Book have been the foundation of our life. To question them means questioning our fundamental beliefs and agreements about life in general and how to survive it. This touches into a deep, primal part of our Being.

When we take someone else personally, it's because some part of us believes them or fears that they may be right about us. We fear that others will discover just how awful of a person we really are and will abandon us. We fear we won't be loved or that we are too broken to be saved. We fear the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves that we try to hide from the world will be revealed... and then, we will die a lonely death. This may sound extreme, yet it is surprising what hides beneath our brave and strong and righteous masks when we dig down really, really deep.

I first began to explore my personal Book of Law following a difficult and painful breakup several years ago. The ending of that relationship brought what was left of my crumbling life down. It seems that for me, my life had to disintegrate before my eyes for me to take a closer and deeper look at what I had created of it. And when I looked, I was shocked to discover that the life I'd worked so hard and followed all the rules to create had simply fallen apart around me, leaving me with nothing but my own wounded heart.

 I was even more shocked to discover that the old life I'd created hadn't really felt the way I'd intended it to, even with check marks by all the right rules in my Book of Law. I'd played by the rules my whole life - graduated from high school, worked hard, gone to college and graduate school, gotten a Ph.D. and started a career. I invested my energy into a professional job and my heart into an intimate relationship with a person I loved deeply. I built my life around my career and my partner.

One day I woke up in a cloud of heaviness. I dreaded going to work; my job was a nightmare. I dreaded going home; my partnership was a vacuum. Neither was inspiring or fulfilling despite my greatest efforts. In those days I described myself as the walking dead. I knew there must be more to life but I didn't know how to get it.

When it all came crumbling down in unexpected and dramatic ways, I was forced to take a radically honest look at my life and what I had created of it. The bottom line: I had not honored myself in my own life. I had listened to and done all the things that others thought I should do, the ways they thought I should do them, and had slowly but surely abandoned myself to the approval and love of others.

I learned a huge lesson about love from that: Loving others from a place of emptiness is not really love; it's need. And when we believe we are so empty within ourselves that we need the love of another to feel full and whole, we become willing to surrender ourselves to get their love. And when we surrender ourselves for love, eventually we lose ourselves to it - like a drug addict seeking out their next fix.

Today I believe (and it is just that - my belief) that we are all whole and divine Beings; we just forget who we are. We get wounded in life and we forget our true, loving and joyous natures. We forget that as children of a Divine Source, however you label that Source - as God, Great Spirit, Allah, Buddha, Creator, etc. - we are divine and whole and beautiful just as we are. We don't need anything from anyone else to be whole; we are already whole. We just have to remember that we are whole.

I like to say that we are all perfectly imperfect. And like drops of water in a divine ocean, we cannot separate ourselves from our divinity. We may forget our divinity, yet we cannot separate ourselves from it any more than we can separate the blood of our ancestors out of our bodies. We can turn our minds away from it and believe that we are somehow separate from the Divine and less than whole just as we are, but that is what spiritual mentor Marianne Williamson calls "error thinking." Forgetting who we are is not a condition; it's a mental mistake.

This past week I've been focusing on the old "don't take it personally" teaching. Today I send gratitude and love out to those who questioned my choices over the years because it gave me the space to deepen my connection to and trust in something bigger than me. Today I have faith in and trust that things unfold and evolve in a perfect way for the highest healing and good of all Beings, even those events that are scary, painful or uncomfortable to our human be-ing.

Today, this belief is in my Book of Law. It doesn't mean that it's true for everyone or even that it will be true for me forever; it only means that it's true for me today because I choose to believe it. No one has to agree with me for it to be true for me; it is true for me because I believe it to be true.

And as it's true for me, I find both Grace and Love interwoven in the dramas of my silly little life.

Heart Matters Hurt

Over the weekend I got an email from one of the women whose story I shared on this blog (Heart Matters). She is hurt and offended that I used her nightmare for a story on this blog. She is also upset that I shared it without her permission and without having spoken to her directly about her situation. She feels my writing about it insinuates to the reader that I was directly involved. She believes it was unprofessional of me and that I used her pain as a lesson to promote (my) business.

It's true: I did not tell her I wrote the blog. And I chose not to get involved in her situation. I heard much about it from mutual and close people in our lives who are upset by it and asked me to get involved. Since I wasn't asked by her, I chose not to get directly involved, and I stand behind that choice. To this day, I have not spoken to this woman about her situation. She is well supported and my feeling is that I have nothing to offer into it but perhaps more confusion from hearing what one more person thinks about it. What she does is entirely up to her. She will make her decisions based on the beat of her own heart and nothing I believe or say will change that.

This doesn't mean that I have not been impacted by her situation or that I did not have my own responses to it... one of which was to share what arose for me on this blog because that's what this blog is about. Adventures Of A Year To Love is about my experiences around love in life: what it means, how we hold it, ways we break it or build it, how we create separation from it or build bridges to it, what blocks us from it, etc. And this blog is filled with my observations based on things I have both experienced and witnessed in the world related to love.

This woman's story touched me deeply and I felt inspired to share it, to put my questions out there, to give my perspective on an unfolding situation related to love, one that many people I know have dealt with, including me: that of feeling betrayed by those you trust and love the most.

For me, feeling betrayed put to question the ability to trust in my own heart. When I felt betrayed by my (now ex) lover several years ago, after questioning their behavior, I began to question my own even more deeply, and to wonder whether I could trust in my own instincts about love. To question the guidance of my own heart was far more scary to me than wondering about theirs. It meant that I could not trust myself much less them. And if I couldn't trust myself, than who could I trust?

That question led me into years of intense spiritual work to heal the parts of myself that kept me from trusting my own inner guidance, my intuition. Today I listen to and trust in my inner guidance, even when the direction it leads me is not perfectly clear or comfortable. I trust in my deep connection to our Source - to Spirit or God or the Divine, whatever you choose to call it; and I believe that Source is always present in my life because I welcome it here in every moment. And I trust that the callings of my heart are a reflection of the movement of that Source through me. And so I trust...I trust myself because I have faith in and deeply trust the Divine Source that moves through me.

When I wrote the blog about this woman's story, I wrote it because in a moment of quiet, I felt inspired to write it, not because I planned to write it. That's how this blog works; it's born out of a spontaneous arising of something within my being. Despite what some people may believe, it's not a planned out promotional tool for my business; that has never been its intent (although I recognize that some folks use blogs specifically for that; and that by their nature, blogs afford a certain degree of visibility online).

Adventures Of A Year To Love is a personal accounting of my experiences and observations on love in this life. It was born out of a blog I started in 2009 to record a year-long journey exploring life and death in a deep and intimate way (Adventures Of A Year To Live). At the end of that year, I found myself naturally shifting focus from a year to live to a year to love. For me, this blog is an organic movement of energy through me...period. I don't blog in a scheduled fashion or with a specific purpose in mind; I blog when I feel inspired to blog, and I blog about whatever I feel inspired to blog about, in this case, related to love. 

And so I wonder: In writing Heart Matters spontaneously, anonymously and without permission, did I unintentionally add to this woman's sense of betrayal? Her email suggests so, and for that I am sorry. Her heart does not need any more hurt than it is already feeling. Yet I will continue to write about whatever inspires me around the subject of love because that is what I feel called to do and that is what I choose to do.

Look out my friends... You may recognize yourself in one of my blogs some day!

Imagine...

https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/12e1aba720d8708a

 IMAGINE...

That's all we have to do: IMAGINE.

A  knowing of divine truth.

A heart of One.

A life of presence.

A world of peace. 

A Being of love.

Touched By Grace

On Saturday, I met a beautiful angel. I didn't catch her name because in looking at her, to name her seemed inappropriate for such an ethereal Being. To "name" her seemed somehow dishonoring of her magnificence.

I met her in a store. She was in the arms of her Nanny, a very loving woman who was enjoying this bright Being as much as the rest of us were. This angel looked at me with her clear blue eyes and in them I saw looking back at me... well, I saw me, in a way that I never have before: the undiluted, essential me. I could tell it was me because I felt it to the heart of my Being.

I looked back at her, feeling a subtle urge to bow my recognition, respect and gratitude to her. The more I looked at her, the more I felt something; the more I felt something, the harder it was to identify. Then it came to me: purity. This angel was the purest, most bright light I've ever encountered in this physical world. She was as close to Divine Source energy as I've ever gotten, and in her eyes, the truth was radiating out. My encounter with her touched me deeply, even if only for  a few moments through her eyes. (She looked a lot like this picture, although this is not her.)

 It was pure, unadulterated love that she radiated and that touched me so deeply. There was nothing whatsoever attached to her gaze; just pure and simple light and love radiating out - joyful and present. It was the kind of love that I aspire to achieve this year through my A Year To Love journey. Can I? Will I ever reach that place of innocence to the point of holding only light, love and joyful presence?

Ahhhhh. My teachers come in interesting packages these days and I am grateful to all of them :)

Sacred Intent for the New Year

We're four days into the new year and folks are all about new year's resolutions. Personally, I turned in my resolutions years ago for intentions. My dictionary says that resolution is "boldness and firmness of purpose" while intention is  "an aim or purpose." Call it semantics if you want, but it feels like a softer, gentler, more focused way to hold my energy for the year.

When we set intentions, we are putting things into motion on an energetic level. This is why it is so important to hold intentions in a sacred way. They are powerful acts of creation. When we set an intent, we are, in fact, creating a movement of energy in the infinite field of energy that we live in. We are asking for something new and specific to arise, and we are saying no to what no longer serves us. This is a sacred act not to be taken lightly. In taking such things lightly, we risk creating chaos in our lives.

This is a great time to take stock of our past resolutions or intentions, to choose again what we want to carry forward and what we want to let go of, and then to consciously cut from what we're leaving behind. Consciously cutting from what we no longer want in life is as important as choosing what we want. It frees up the energy we had invested in the old thing to feed the new thing we want today.

 We are allowed to change our minds and change our direction; things change all the time. To ignore the changes means we are not present with what is. We can drag all the old stuff forward if we want, but all it does is weigh us down, slow our movement and add confusion to our journey. Now is the perfect time to review our old intentions and revise them, updating them to the newest version of who we are.

The funny thing about intentions is that they are a two-part process: we have them, we hold them with 100% commitment and yet we surrender them at the same time. Well, we don't really surrender them; we surrender how we think they should look. Usually when we set an intent, our mind butts in and tells us how it should look when the intent is met - how we will know we've succeeded. But the reality is that our mind doesn't see past our nose, so the picture it gives us is very limited and limiting. The mind wants us to believe that what we want is impossible or unobtainable for whatever reasons it conjures up. If we let it, it can stop us in our tracks...

That's why it's important to let go of the image the mind creates as the measure of whether or not we've been successful in our intentions. It's about releasing attachment to the outcome and opening up to the infinite possibilities. The feeling state of what we want to achieve seeds the Universe with what we are asking for; it's the vibration that the Universe responds to. So we let go of the how ("How will this happen? How will this look? How is this possible?") and focus our energy on the what. What is it that we want to feel when we meet our intent?

This is a great year to open up to the infinite possibilities surrounding our intents and invite the Universe to be creative in supporting their expression in our lives. We must open the eyes of our hearts to see the possibilities most clearly. They may not look at all like our mind imagines them, but that doesn't mean they didn't show up. If we limit our view to that of our mind and to what it thinks things are supposed to look like or how they're supposed to happen, we might easily miss what it is when it actually shows up!

I am reminded of how powerful it is to celebrate each intent and hold gratitude for each step we make toward it. Even the ones we let go of and cut from are important markers along our journey. What we don't choose is just as significant as what we do choose. Each choice is an expression of our being; each thing we accept or reject is a reflection of who we are in this moment. Take nothing for granted.

It's easy to fall into the trap of judging ourselves for not meeting our new year intentions. Be aware of this trap! Instead of judging yourself this year, take time to reflect on and decide if each intent you set is really what you want, and then celebrate your freedom to choose anew as you move your life forward.

Happy New Year, my friends. May you be inspired by the infinite possibilities of life.

FIVE...!!

Five days left before my death... Oh boy, is my mind racing. Part of me wants to panic, feeling rushed to complete lots of projects and ideas ("Have I forgotten anything??"). Part of me wants to rest, feeling peaceful and full from all the things I've experienced here ("Wow. What a ride!"). And part of me wants to have a huge party with all the people who have been a part of it in celebration of a life begun in innocence, lived to my best ability, and now surrendered...for better or worse ("Thank you all. I love you all. Celebrate my transformation!").

I remember participating in a specific death ceremony not too many years ago at a sacred site down in Mexico with a couple of my spiritual teachers. Part of the ceremony meant gathering up a "double" of all parts of your self and your life, and offering it to The Angel of Death in gratitude. I remember being hesitant to do so, thinking to myself "I wouldn't wish this mess on anyone! I have nothing positive to offer. Do I really want to give this to the Angel of Death? It doesn't feel like an offering; it feels like a burden..."

Recalling that now makes me chuckle. My life today feels so different; I've come to appreciate every stinking bit of it...the good, the bad and the ugly, as I like to say. I've achieved many of the things I hoped to: survived high school, went to college, got my Ph.D., had a career, published a book, created an intimate circle of friends and seekers, and felt a full spectrum of things along the way.

Now I can say I'm living my dream - doing things that I love in service to the Divine - teaching Kundalini Yoga, counseling and spiritual life coaching, writing, and offering workshops to heal, open and inspire the heart. I am blessed to share a sacred partnership with a beautiful human being that supports, loves, accepts and expands me. I live in authenticity and feel good about who I am, continually seeking opportunities to get bigger in service. I love where I live and I love my pets. In fact, there is nothing about my life today that I am unhappy with; it is all potential to expand. Today, I happily offer the fullness of my life up to the Angel of Death with tremendous gratitude. I believe I've found heaven in my heart.

And I have aspirations and visions for more in my being - something even bigger than what I've already created. I feel it around the corner yet I don't quite know what's there yet... Oh Angel of Death, be merciful. May the transition be filled with light and grace, opening gateways to the vast and infinite beyond; and may I simply step up...

Countdown

There are so many thoughts and sensations moving through my body these days as I approach the end of my "A Year To Live" adventure. Changing the death countdown from 10 to 9 today felt a bit like hitting the big red button for a shuttle lift-off. I could hear my own voice in my head saying with passion and maybe even excitement and a bit of anxiety: "Ten! Nine!..."

Last night I returned to my favorite labyrinth to walk it beneath the big bright moon. The sky was virtually clear all day and night until about 5 minutes before I walked when a thin cloud bank moved over it. It was interesting to see and feel the difference in the energy of this walk compared to the last. The last moon was bright and vibrant with energy and the contrast between the light and shadows was stark. This time, the moon was veiled and the light-shadow contrast was barely noticeable. The energy and the light was gentle and soft.

I felt my body relating to that shift. As I approach the end of this year, my own energy feels more gentle and soft. There is an urge to slow down, rest into what's here, and stop all the business so I can drop more deeply into connection with it all. It's an interesting contrast between the ending and a beginning. I feel the ending of this year approaching; I also feel the possibility of birth, newness and freshness on the other side of it. There's a sense of spaciousness hovering just beyond the surrender...

Yesterday a client struggled with whether or not her presence in life was helping or hurting the world; she questioned her own purpose for being here. I heard myself say: "There's no greater purpose or service to the Divine than raising our own vibration." This is a truth that I have come to hold. We spend so much time in our lives questioning our choices, our reasons for being here, our purpose. The answer is in the process of questioning...

What I believe is that we don't have to do anything special to make our journey here meaningful or purposeful; all we have to do is question. The questioning guides us to raise our own vibration. That is living a purposeful life.

Every day my question is: "How I can be of service today?" The rest of my day is spent paying attention to that - to what arises within that frame. It's a very simple question with no specific answer. And it unfolds in powerful and mysterious ways.

As I approach this death, I'm still asking that question every day: "How can I be of service today?" Maybe I already have...just by the asking.

Priscilla & The Way

Meet "Priscilla." Priscilla is a beautiful garden spider that set up house on the back  of my office wall outside. She has been there (to my noticing) for about a month. When I first saw her, she was big and vibrant, sitting in the center of a large, intricate web design. When I introduced myself to her, she shared that her name was "Priscilla," adding quite clearly that she was in no way prissy.

Beneath the roof above her was a large round egg sack. A few days later, a second egg sack appeared. I figure she must be pretty stout to create not one but two egg sacks... Priscilla stayed just below the sacks for weeks, diligently rebuilding her web whenever it got damaged. Then about a week ago she relocated herself around the corner of the building, leaving her egg sacks well sheltered and protected.

This week, I watched her slowly fade. Her body went from full and vibrant to shriveled, dull, and dark. Knowing that she was dying, I spoke to her daily, reassuring her that her egg sacks were healthy and safe, and that I would make sure they survived until birth.

Yesterday when I visited Priscilla, she looked and felt very weak in her web. An hour later, she abandoned her web for a single thread which she hoisted herself up onto. She clung there, weakly, for maybe half an hour until she dropped to the ground, nearly lifeless. I took the liberty of picking her up, showing her the safe, healthy egg sacks one last time, and placing her among flowers and greenery in my garden beneath my office window for her final rest.

Priscilla reminded me of the beauty and power of The Way. All things arise from the infinite field of energy, exist for a period of time, and then dissolve away again, having left something behind for those remaining. Although we grieve the surrendering, it is a gift and an integral part of the cycle of all things. Without the shedding of what's served it's purpose and expired, there would be no space or nourishment for the new to arise.

I am reminded of my own tiny deaths each day - the parts of me that I surrender for new parts to be born. From Priscilla's death will come hundreds of baby spiders! I am watching anxiously and excitedly for them to appear from their healthy egg sacks, and am wondering with as much excitement about what will arise in my own life from my upcoming death.

For in just 11 days, another cycle of my life will unfold: I will die and be reborn, free of what no longer serves my highest good and my ability to be of service to the Divine. This is the end of a conscious year of living and life - the end of my A Year To Live adventure. What is beyond it, I don't  know. That's the mystery of the other side: we don't know until we're there.

If you want to take a peek to the other side, consider joining me for a fun and full Dia de los Muertos workshop (http://www.myinnerscapes.com/workshops/) on November 29th, perfectly timed when the veils are thinnest. Learn about the special energy of Day of the Dead, glimpse into the other realm through a psychic medium, make objects for your own altar, and leave with a fun goodies bag to get you in the spirit.

Death is not our enemy but our ally. Celebrate The Way!

26 Days and Counting

 Wow - not much time left. I contemplate how to spend it during these fabulously beautiful fall days beneath clear, sunny, cool, breezy skies and crisp, clear, breezy nights. I realize that I am happy with my life these days. It is so full of goodness and love. I love my partner; I love my teaching; I love my writing; I love my counseling and coaching; I love my home and my pets; I love my friends and colleagues; I love my family...and most of all, I love myself; I love who I've become. Yes, my life is full and rich with goodness and love.

How does one prepare to say "Good bye" to all of this goodness? Should I write a letter? Make a video? Or spend my time connecting with people directly instead? Do I tell people? Will they understand? What do I say as I look at them with overwhelm at their beauty and the beauty of everything around me - so filled with appreciation, gratitude and joy for it all?

Life is such a gift. We don't give it nearly the amount of acknowledgment it deserves. And this Earth! We have no idea how fortunate we are to have such a magnificent place to live and grow and experience here.

What keeps us from truly being here? Why do any of us spend our lives beneath a thick fog of anything other than sheer joy, freedom, love and intimacy? Why are we so scared? What are we so scared of?

Why do we separate ourselves from all the rest when we are born of the same Source, when we are all family in the end? What makes us so closed that we can't bring ourselves to simply love? Is it really as simple as loving ourselves? Of recognizing our own divinity? Of releasing all the fears and trappings of our error thinking?

To think of ourselves as anything less than divine, and anything less than whole, and anything less than connected to all other things is to deny our origins in the Highest Power (God, Allah, Creator, Great Spirit, Buddha, etc...) from which we have all emerged. Quantum Mechanics is proving this today; we can no longer deny that we are all born of the same Source, however we view it, define it or describe it. There is only one Source of life in the end.

 So why do any of us - why do I - spend any time at all feeling somehow less than something when all that I am is a unique expression of that Life Source?

The Gifts of Life & Death

I traveled to Houston last weekend to celebrate my Dad's 78th birthday. While I was there, I found myself sitting back and watching everyone - my parents, sisters, brother-in-laws, nieces and nephews, friends, dogs - sharing and laughing together. I was filled with so much love for everyone there.

And I realized that I've spent so much time during this year to live focused on cleaning up my own life in preparation to die that I'd nearly overlooked the fact that I'm also letting go of everyone else's lives. My nieces and nephews are all in high school and college now; exciting things are happening in their lives! My sisters are close to being "empty nesters" and embarking on new realms in their own lives, too. My parents are aging and in need of unconditional love and compassionate care. I will not be here to experience these beautiful phases and stages of any of their lives...

I found myself feeling an interesting mix of a heart full of joyous love and deep, intimate grief for the letting go of it all. I realized that as I am surrendering the details of my own life to death, so I am surrendering the details of theirs, too.

This morning I sat with the remembering of a car accident I was involved in nearly 12 years ago. It occurred to me that at that time as I was faced with the possibility of dying, I was fully ready and willing to go. My life was filled with struggle and distress; I used to call myself "the walking dead." Plus, the feeling of following the pull to the other side was so glorious that there was not one bit of hesitation; I would have let my entire life go for the beauty of the pull I felt "over there." In the end, it was simply not time for me to go...

Yet today as I am faced with the same death, I am filled with an emotional mix of love and grief. I love my entire life now; there is not one single part of it that I don't like or enjoy. And so I grieve the letting go of it all - every crazy bit of it....

 That's not to say that my life does not have any struggle or distress in it today. It simply means that I have found a new level of relationship with life and myself as a part of it. And this new relationship is one of  curiosity, discovery, experimentation, opening, love, acceptance, celebration and joy. I am a drop in an ocean of divine life. And as that drop I enjoy every bit of experience that I get to have here; and as a part of the ocean, I enjoy every bit of the sense of unity that I feel here within the wholeness and fullness of living.

I have 78 days left to live. There are so many places I have not seen, so many things I have not done, so many people I have not finished with - finished enjoying and loving. I guess that's just a part of dying: my life may not be all wrapped up in a nice, neat package when I die. It may just be the crazy mix that it is. And I will have to leave it all anyway...

Release. Surrender. Open... Can my relationship with death be the same as my relationship with life - one of  curiosity, discovery, experimentation, opening, love, acceptance, celebration and joy? I wonder...

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??

In This Moment

Today I have a cool 200 days left of this year to live. That's just over 6 months. I recognize my mind wanting to pull me back to the past or forward to the future by asking: "What have I done?" "What can I still do?" And I realize that the only question really worth asking is: "What am I doing?" 

I ask myself this question daily, not to stress about it, but to bring my full awareness to it. The mind says, "I want to be full of my time here. I want to feel good about my journey. I want to feel happy about my relationships to everyone and everything. Did I do my best? Did I clean up any residue? Did I live from my authenticity and integrity? Did I offer service with a full heart? Did I bring smiles? Did I leave something of value behind?"

And I resolve to bring everything to the present moment and let go of the rest. Because "I want to" and  "Did I?" are not present; they are future and past creeping in. They are not the same as "being" in this moment. In this moment, how do I feel? In this moment, how am I engaging with life? In this moment, am I free? In this moment, am I expressing my divinity? These are the questions to attend to. The rest does not seem to be of importance when I scale everything down to the present moment...

This is the month that I make an altar to my life. How perfect. What is my life in this moment? How does it feel? How will I reflect that on my altar? My altar will be alive and dynamic, changing as I change during the next 6 months...just as I and life always are. What a sacred concept to breath into my being. How sacred is life; how sacred am I as a part of this life in this moment.

In the book Discover the Power Within You, Eric Butterworth says "The greatest mistake is in believing that we are 'only human.' Our humanity is but the degree to which we have given expression to our divinity. We are human in expression but divine in creation and limitless in potentiality."

And so it is. May this and every moment be held as sacred expression of divine, limitless potentiality.

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

Chicken Soup for the Soul?

My sweetie and I were driving down the highway yesterday, returning from celebrating a friend's 50th birthday surprise in Houston, when we drifted into what appeared to be snow floating in the air. "What's that? It looks like snow. How pretty!" I said. And my mind slipped into all kinds of fun fantasies about snow in South-Central Texas in March. We decided that it was too early for cotton from fields or cottonwood trees, so it remained a mystery. About 30 minutes later, we got our answer...

We came upon an 18-wheeler with an open-air cage-like trailer. The "flakes" were drifting madly from it in the wind. And then it hit me: it was chickens. My heart sank. Their beautiful white feathers were being blown free as they moved down the road. Hundreds of chickens in shoebox-sized cages filled that trailer, stacked from its floor to the very top, one on top of another, on top of another... The ones on the outside edges were the lucky ones: a few had managed to cram their heads out of their cage and get some air, long necks stretched out as far as they could stretch them into the breeze. That's how I identified the load as actual chickens and not just feathers; otherwise, there was really no way to tell. The rest looked like cages of white feathers, no body or life to them at all.

The others - the ones crammed in the inside stacks - I presumed were dead. "Death from fear and suffocation" I lamented, knowing that this was an assumption, though a likely one. It was difficult to imagine anything else for them; and it occurred to me that they might actually be the luckier ones, if any of them could be considered "lucky" at all.

I fell into silence for the rest of the trip, or maybe it was shock. I've had similar reactions to the sight of logging trucks hauling long, beautiful tree trunks stripped clean of their lives, on their way to lumber yards to make boards so that we can build things. But this - these chickens - hit me on an entirely different level. It's about the sanctity and sacredness of life, and how gravely it feels that humans dishonor it sometimes. "It's criminal!" I whispered, and I cried inside.

I wanted to vomit; it was too much for mere tears. I started to recapitulate immediately, to clear the pained energy from my body, to give back the trauma and cruelty, but I didn't know who it "belonged" to. So I prayed and sent it to the Earth, asking for healing, balance, and forgiveness. I breathed in fire energy from the Sun to purify its residue in my body, and to reclaim the life force I'd leaked on behalf of those poor chickens. And I sent them all the love, compassion, and light that I could muster. And I prayed to Spirit to release and forgive us humans for the cruelty we wield, so mindlessly at times. And I vowed to write a blog about it.

"You've never seen that before?" my sweetie asked. "No" I answered flatly. "That's how it's done." And I thought, "Well, it needs to change!" I began to fantasize about supermarket "chicken protests" to educate folks and support them in buying cage-free chicken. I had flash visions of people waving signs and shouting witty slogans outside of restaurants, fast food joints, and in grocery store meat departments to frightened shoppers. I thought of animal cruelty groups and how they might help, recognizing that any humanity given to farmed chickens, cows, pigs, etc. is already largely due to them. And then I recalled this story my dear friend shared with me the night before:

She said she was talking with a coworker who is a vegetarian now. When she asked him why, he said he'd been an avid hunter for years. And then one day when he looked down his scope at a deer he was about to shoot, the deer looked straight back at him, and all he saw in its eyes was fear. And he said to her, "I don't want to eat fear."

That's the best reason to become a vegetarian that I've ever heard. And that's what we're doing every time we eat a piece of meat that comes from a nice, clean package at the store, or every time we order chicken at a restaurant, or buy chicken from a fast food place. It's not what it appears to be. There are exceptions, of course, for the few farms that choose to do it more humanely. But they are the exception.

Many folks still seem to care more about price than ethics these days. Yet what we don't realize is that it's not just "price;" it's cost. And there are "hidden costs" like eating fear that have an impact and take a toll on the energy of all life - our life - here. There is an impact from this, with or without our awareness. So, I vowed to write this blog, and to stop ordering chicken at restaurants and fast food places, and to keep buying the packages labeled as "cage free" from the grocery store. I don't want to eat fear.

I don't want to contribute to fear either. I don't want any living thing to have to die a fear-filled, painful, cruel death any more than I want to do that. And if they must, I pray for there to be as much love, honor, and respect around them as possible. Yet this is not how it is; "that's how it's done." And I watch the part of me that wants to change it raise up in protest, and then fall back into surrender to what is, recognizing my attachment to what I want it to be.

But there are things that I can do, that I'm already doing, to soften around this reality; so I focus my energy on them. And then I think of my own death and how I might support myself in surrendering to "what is" for it, too, just like I am for those poor chickens.

Suddenly, a year doesn't feel like enough time for this task.... 

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

Time's a Ticking

I'm still feeling a bit "snotty in the head" today, but my energy is returning. I taught all my yoga classes this week, despite not feeling my best and having a minor surgery Tuesday afternoon. The doc said the stitches on my back are somewhat fragile, so ordered me off of yoga and exercise for two weeks until they come out. "What?? I just got back into the habit and my body is enjoying it again! I'm not stopping for two whole weeks. Nope. You say what you want doc, but I'm not listening..." Of course, I didn't say that with my outloud voice...

And, it was only partly true. I listened enough, and have made my choices with awareness. Doctors can be so black-and-white... Needless to say, neither my yoga classes nor my exercise time missed me.

Tonight, I go to Austin to offer what I can to the Toltec talk HeatherAsh is giving at Marigold. I've already done more today than many days, having made time to do my energy practices this morning, answer emails, clean up bookkeeping records, write a blog for my website, deal with book marketing issues, actually eat a real breakfast, and now writing this blog before grabbing a quick snack and taking my dog for a walk so I can shower and head out soon to run a few errands before going to Austin.

Time's a ticking and I don't have all day; in fact, I don't have all year, either! Go baby, go!

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

A little love

Last Thursday afternoon, I felt a cold enter my body and settle in my head just enough for me to notice its presence. It was subtle, as if it was trying to sneak up on me. I began some offensive maneuvering, but it  took hold of me anyway by Friday afternoon. I spent the weekend feeling spacey and tired from the cold that filled my nose and brain with snot. I was pretty useless all weekend, bored with TV yet not having the energy to do much else but stare at it.

There were moments when I thought, "Great. I'm wasting two whole days because of this cold! I should get up and do something anyway." Yet, I didn't have the energy, so I didn't really do anything but lay around and eat every once in a while. I felt my body tighten at the lack of motion. I'd get up and stretch and move every so often; and then I'd slide back down onto the couch again with a big sigh and drift into the dullness of TV. But I was aware that I really couldn't do much else. I was too stuffy to sleep; too hot to snuggle under blankets; too dopey to read; too tired to go outside; and too numb to care.

I learned that rest was best for me those two days; the body would not have allowed for anything else anyway. So I caved in and allowed myself to do a whole-lot-a-nothin'. Part of me was irritated; part of me was relieved; part of me was really, really bored! And part of me was aware that I had just had a big week energetically, holding more than I have held in a long while. I'm wondering if part of me got "sick" to allow for a break and some rest, or maybe just in rebellion; but I'm not sure. I was fine moving through the week, and even jazzed by the flow and all the energy. It felt good! I was not conscious of a need for more rest than I gave myself, but I have taken note, and am exploring what else may have been linked to the "forced down time." Resistance in getting bigger? Fear? Lack of energetic balance? Or maybe sometimes a cold is just a cold. I'm still dissecting it.

Every so often over the weekend, I'd search around my A Year To Live "room" to see how it felt to basically "skip" two whole days of living, yet I found very little. It seemed just fine to do nothing. I find that odd on one level, and perfectly understandable on another: Odd because my time feels so limited; understandable because I was home with my sweetie, being pampered and loved and lazy... and that felt good. It was nice, despite feeling like dinosaur doo-doo.

Who'd a thought that feeling so bad could still feel so good with a little love on top? Maybe my death will be like that. Even if it's uncomfortable, maybe with a little love on top, it'll feel OK...

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

Tick-Tock goes the clock

Just about every day, I sign onto my blog and change the count, adding one day to "DAYS BEHIND" and subtracting one day from "DAYS AHEAD." I could have put in an auto-counter, but I chose to do it manually so that I can very consciously attend to the movement of time during this Year To Live. And it's working. Every time I change the count, raising one number and lowering the other, I am acutely aware of time's passage from being before me to being behind me....

How strange it feels to be counting down my time here! Each time I change the numbers, I feel the energetic shift in my body as the "BEHIND" number grows and the "AHEAD" number shrinks.  "One more day gone," I think to myself, "What did I do with it? Am I happy with it? Is there something I might shift today?"


There are so many things calling for my attention and energy. Each one is as important to me as the others: writing, cleaning, walking, teaching yoga, connecting with friends and family, emailing, spiritual practices, cooking, eating, sleeping, playing, seeing clients, reading, sitting in the sun, watching the rain, sharing a movie with my sweetie, taking care of household projects, etc.... How do I choose?

In the end, it won't be so much how I SPENT my time during these final months, but how I HELD the time I spent in them. What I realize is that no matter what I do, it's how I hold it energetically that matters most. Each moment is an opportunity for something to blossom, heal, evolve, dissolve... I have little idea how each moment interconnects with all the others from before or after it; yet, I sense that it does somehow, on some level, intersect with the whole of time, and have an impact that is much more expansive than what I can hold in my own awareness. This sense makes each moment super valuable in my heart.

When I reflect back on these months during my final moments - as the clock ticks down to the final minute and second of this Year To Live - what will I feel? What do I want to feel? Now is the time for me to seed that feeling...is it not?


©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

Celebrate - Part 4

“We are infinite, boundless, energetic somethings using a human body here. Oh the joy I will feel when I am free of this body!”

If you read Celebrate - Part 3, you recognize that quote. It is my hope that it is true. And now I see that it is also my attachment. It's what I'd like death to mean or be. And what if it's not? That is part of what I must surrender during what’s left of my Year to Live. It’s just an idea of what physical death may bring, yet I cannot know if it is the truth.

And what if it’s not? What if there’s something strange, uncomfortable, uncontrollable, or empty after this? Or what if there’s nothing after this? Then what? Will I know it? Will I have consciousness and know that what’s happening is not what I imagined or wanted or hoped for? Will I care? Will anyone care?

That's something to consider; not necessarily what comes next, but rather, my attachment to what comes next. Can I simply open to whatever it is without holding an idea of what I think it is or what I want it to be? Can I really get to a place of neutrality around what comes next?

How many days do I have left??????????

©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

Life and Death

I recently heard from a dear friend that her sister tried to commit suicide with an overdose of prescriptions and alcohol. I thought, "She's ready for her life to change. Now she just needs some support in choosing how she wants it to change: through death, or through shifting the flavor of her life. The decision is solely hers; her life is ultimately her responsibility."

How ironic it feels to me that we - her sister and I - are both seeking change in our lives. We both want our lives to have a different flavor or quality than they do. We both recognize on some level that we are ultimately responsible for that: we must make the choices that pave the course of our lives. We both want to enjoy our lives more. We both want a way out of or past what no longer serves us. She sought relief from her feelings in death; I sought relief from my feelings through death...

The Angel of Death - and she is an Angel -  is a powerful teacher. She is an Angel because she is a messenger, just as all Divine children are. She is a messenger of the Highest Power, Source, Spirit, Creator, Life Force, or God; use whatever name you want for It. Her message is that life here is temporary; we humans are impermanent beings in this realm. Whenever and however it happens, I will die to this Earthly body - we all will - and transform into another state... energetic perhaps? I cannot know for certain. I can only feel about it what I feel, and choose to believe about it what I believe.

For me, this A Year To Live journey is a way of exploring life on a deeper level by exploring death on a deeper level. It's a reminder of my temporary state here, which brings life into more focus by broadening my perspective and opening my heart. I am choosing to observe more closely the life of death that exists here in every moment, in every breath; and to appreciate the opportunity I have here to create my life anew through each of those moments and breaths, right here in this physical, temporary state of being. It is a powerful place to be; I can create - through my choices - something different in each moment... yes!

The key is to surrender and allow the unfolding of my choices and actions to happen as they will, recognizing that there is much more happening than I can be fully aware of because it is all energy moving, and energy is dynamic and not completely predictable. All I can do is do what I do with awareness, intent, and integrity; and then I can take responsibility for my choices as they unfold. I can observe what happens and then make my next choice. It is not all in my control; nor is it all out of my control. This life - my life - is an act of co-creation between my choice-making and energy's fluidity. The Angel of Death gifts me with the opportunity to make my choices more consciously and from a place of openness and love rather than constriction and fear.

Maybe that's the difference between seeking peace in death and seeking peace through death...


©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.

Service

My prayer on many days is "How can I be of service today?" What I mean is: What can I do, how can I show up today in a way that is aligned with the Divine, in service to the Divine? That is my intent. I cannot say how that intent will show up or manifest in my life, yet I can say that I'm certain it will, and that I am committed to honoring whatever it is.

When my mind criticizes me for "not doing enough," I remember my true intent. My true intent is not necessarily to complete this or that from my long list of "to-dos," or produce this or that, or even to find and fulfill my life's purpose. These days, I recognize that being in service to the Divine is what gives my life purpose. The form that service takes will change and shift. Sometimes, publishing a book is being in service; other times, allowing myself a day of rest and contemplation is in service. And other times, maybe setting my lists aside and supporting a friend is in service.

Every day, my intent is to be in service to the Divine, yet I don't know what form that service will take until it arises. Following the energy of what arises is being in service to the Divine, because what arises is aligned with the Divine. Following the energy of what arises is a way of honoring my connection to the Divine. I am - we all are - a bridge between this physical realm and that energetic one; between the mundane and the sacred; between what we experience here and the Mystery that dwells beyond here. We are sacred vessels through which the energy of the Divine breaths...

Every step I take toward recognizing and realizing my own Divinity, I am in service. Years ago, spiritual author and teacher Marianne Williamson said: "We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” As I accept and allow my own "brilliance" to shine in the world as a unique Messenger of the Divine, the brilliance of others is enhanced. As I raise my own vibration, the vibration of others is raised... Wow! All I have to do is walk my own journey with authenticity and integrity and I am in service...

And although the term "God" has all kinds of symbology attached to it, we are speaking of the same Highest and Divine Power, or Life Force, or Energy behind all that is made manifest here. Every time I acknowledge the presence of that Divine Energy in myself or something else, I am in service. Because being in my integrity - standing in my own Divinity, honoring the Divine in all things, doing what is in alignment with the Divine as it moves through me from moment to moment - is one of the highest forms of service I can offer.

OK. I can handle that. I enjoy the fluidity of life, the magic of not knowing exactly what will be arising next. It's a curious, interesting, and fun surprise every day. It keeps me present and conscious. I couldn't always say that. Today as I count down my time here, I can say that.




©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.