A Shaman's Death

This year, I have the pleasure of "dying" twice: once last weekend as an ending to a shamanic intensive I've been involved with for most of 2011, and the other in December with a year-long circle I've been holding since January - my AWAKEN Circle. 

I had no agenda for last weekend's death, other than to be shown whatever was for me to see. The experience was quite surreal on several fronts. What I will share is that for the first time in my "dying" experiences, I was actually buried in the damp soil of the Earth - head to toe, all but my shrouded face covered over with dirt. It was a strangely wonderful experience. 

I loved digging my own grave; it was a tremendously sacred act. And I loved having someone so special to me cover me over with dirt; it was also a sacred act. The feeling of it cannot be put to words. I wished I would have the same pleasure upon my actual death...

I was buried between two huge old oak trees for some period of time. I could hear the wind blowing through the leaves above me as I laid in the dirt, dead. I could also hear flies checking me out, and the whisper of birds flying past and chirping their songs around me, creating moments of total peace and serenity. In contrast, every so often a battery of intense gunfire rang out nearby...as if taunting me with the reality of my death.

The soil was moist and rich and dark in color. I imagined while digging my grave that I would get damp and cold in there. But what happened was that I felt cozy and warm instead, completely held by the love of the Earth. Twice while buried, a wave of a damp coldness passed through me to the bone, but they were only waves, lasting only for what felt like moments...and then the warmth returned. 

At some point my awareness shifted into what I can only describe as a pureness of being. My senses heightened - specifically vibratory sensations. Everything became as a vibration - a wave of energy moving through my body as I laid in the dirt. There was no thought; only presence and vibration. My body opened until I felt fully expanded into all things... as one vibration of being...a vibration of Love in its purest form.

This was a different experience from my past deaths in which I felt an acute letting go of the physical - a sort of separation of my energy body from my physical one and from all things physical. Not so this time. This time, I felt a merging with - an expansion into - all things physical or vibratory. I had an acute sense of connectedness with rather than separation from the physical, even in death. It was beautiful. 

I do not hold anything around the meaning of this experience; I only cherish how it felt. At some point, I arose from the dirt as if on cue from some higher source of wisdom - fully alive, fully awake, fully vibratory, having dropped into an even deeper connection with something beyond the physical. Life and death, death and life: two sides of the same face. I am both of them; both of them are me. 

And so this journey continues: Adventures in Love - my personal exploration into the power of the vibration of Love.

The Clock Stopped!!

Wow - I just realized that my A Year To Love countdown clock STOPPED!! My year-long commitment to writing A Year To Love ended on November 3rd without even a hiccup from me. Over two weeks have passed since my deadline slipped by. As I revisit the blog I posted on Nov. 1st, I see that the energy shifted...

I have completed my A Year To Love adventure and am still harvesting it's fruits. I know not what the next incarnation of this blog will be, if there is one. Much has shifted in my Being since beginning this journey last year. I have loved this heart-focused adventure! I will muse more about its lessons later... 

Today I head off to die a Shaman's death somewhere in the dirt outside of Austin. I will use this death as a transition from what was - what has been, to what will be - what is yet to manifest.

I have no idea. Perhaps Death will reveal ...

Falling Into Fall

I woke up this morning to a chilly 40-something degrees! Winter has begun to tease us this week in Texas, with cold nights and cool days. The night time sky holds that crisp, clear, extra-vibrant quality that is Fall's blessing; the Moon and Stars seem to shine extra brightly this time of year. We are nearly halfway to our Winter Solstice or Yule, when the light of day begins to grow again following the longer periods of darkness brought by Fall. Yule signals the transition from longer nights to longer days, but we can't celebrate the growing light just yet! For we are still easing our way deep into the darkest part of the Fall season. 

This is the time of year to complete the last of your Summer harvesting, drawing in and tidying up anything left undone. This period of Mid-Fall opens a gateway to the cycle of endings or death, yet this is not to be feared. Rather, death creates the space for new crops to be planted and new life to emerge. This is the death of Summer, yet it brings life to Fall, a time of reflection, gratitude and a deepening into the Self.

Many traditions believe that there is a thinning of the veils between the realms of reality from October 30th to November 2nd, allowing us to connect with the dead more easily. As we make our way past Halloween, traditionally known as Samhain, we take time to honor the passing of all things, including our Summer crops. They have been harvested and what remains is mulched back into the soils to nourish them for a future harvest.  We can use this energetic metaphor to clear, transform and nourish our inner Being during this transitional time. 

Samhain was turned into All Saint's Day by the Roman Catholic leaders, yet it is based in ancient traditions that are about honoring our ancestral lineage and remembering our place in the progression of life. It brings an opportunity to honor many things: the birth-life-death cycle of all things; the death of our crops that provide our bounty and that provide the nourishment for next year's crops; our ancestors and beloveds who have died, whose wisdom we carry forward; and the births and deaths that we experience every day as we make our way through life. It is a time of deep, internal reflection on the past year, and a time to honor the part of our Humanity that is inescapable: Death. 

The costuming and mask-wearing of our modern-day Halloween began as a way of warding off or tricking away The Angel of Death as It passed over our homes during the thinning of the veils. "Trick or Treat?" was a question to the Angel of Death: "Must I do a trick or give a treat to avoid your cold touch?" Samhain offers an opportunity to recognize that The Angel of Death is a gift-giver of transformation, hope and new life. The spaciousness created by her touch allows us to stay present, to honor all we experience in our lives, and to clean out the parts of us that have run their course so we can move forward into even greater places of Being. Without the spaciousness that "death" brings, we might crumble under the heaviness of all the old baggage we tend to collect and carry.

Each year for Samhain I create a Dia de los Muertos altar at my home to honor my ancestors and beloveds who have died. This is an ancient tradition out of Mexico (and across cultures) that culminates in beautiful celebrations and ceremonies between November 1st and 2nd. In the Mexican tradition, items are placed on home altars and grave sites to entice the dead to visit during the thinning of the veils. Favorite foods and beverages are cooked, offered and consumed; specific flowers and candles are used along with incense; stories, dancing and special prayers are shared; there is laughter and tears... It is a two-day, all-out celebration of their beloved dead. And it is a beautiful way to honor all that their beloveds brought into the world. 

I look forward to creating my Dia de los Muertos altar each year and have had some powerful healing experiences with it. This year I added my beloved dog Maia to my altar. Her bowl, collar, bandanna and favorite treat - a dried pig snout - are on the altar, along with a picture of her looking fully content on her bed, snuggled up with two new toys. Each time I pass the altar, I feel held, loved and connected to all things in a deeper, more intimate way, and my heart is filled with gratitude for all of my ancestors and beloveds. This ritual provides a rich and personal experience for Samhain that anchors me to the birth-life-death cycle of all things in a more intimate way. 

Come Thanksgiving, we take time with family and friends to celebrate and share our Fall harvest by more fully enjoying the bounty of our crops. Many people begin their holiday gift shopping soon. Gift wrapping in preparation for Yule is another way of "wrapping up" Fall's loose ends with boxes and bows, and acknowledging our bounty. This is the time of year to recognize that there is enough abundance for everyone to enjoy through the shortest, darkest and coldest days of Fall. 

As the seasonal wheel continues to turn and the days continue to shorten into a cold darkness, we descend even more deeply into our psyches. We can use this time to contemplate our journey and drop more fully into our Beings to rest, refill and prepare for the returning of the light. This inward turning is a necessary part of our forward movement. Aligning ourselves with the natural rhythm of Fall allows us to rest and prepare for the heightened activity that Winter Solstice heralds as Spring approaches and the light of day begins to grow again. Once we cross Winter Solstice in late December, we begin gearing ourselves up for a worthy Spring planting. Without the period of harvesting and honoring what was, as well as the restful contemplation that late Fall offers, we might feel unprepared for this important planting season. 

Make time between now and Yule (December 22nd) to acknowledge the road you have traveled this year, paved by all those who walked it before you, and cleared even more by your own footsteps for all those who will walk it after you. Bring presence to the now while holding your past and future with respect and curiosity. Honor the balance of the dark and the light, of life and death, recognizing that they are but two necessary sides of the same face. Descend out of the busyness of Summer and into the depths of Fall to enjoy your harvest with gratitude and love in your heart.

Today, I celebrate the legacy and lineage that went before me; I honor my current place in the line; and I make time to deepen into what my next steps might be so that come Spring, I am ready to dig into restored soils and plant new seeds for the future. What a ride :)

The Angel Speaks

Pere-Lachaise Cemetery outside of Paris, France.
Photo copyright 2004, Cecilia Zuniga

On my way home from a shamanic death ritual in Austin tonight, the car in front of me hit a deer. And just like that, the deer's life ended. It broke my heart. I spent the rest of my drive home praying for and sending blessings to the deer (and the driver).

I thought how cruel it is that we drive these cars that can end a life in an instant. And yet I can't say that it was a cruel act by the Angel of Death; She is simply sharing her gift of completion.

I also thought of a friend of mine who recently died in much the same way - hit by a cement truck while driving down the road and killed in an instant. I bet neither Being knew as they made their way onward that each moment was leading to their very last here. I doubt they were thinking things like "Gee, I'm going to die today" or "This is the last time I'll see this place" or "I will never be here again."

Most of us don't think about such things as we live our lives. In recent years though, I have begun to think such things. I've learned through the ritual deaths I've participated in that any moment could be my last, and as Stephen Levine says, "almost no one knows the day on which the last year begins." Or the morning on which our last day begins...

Even though I don't know when my last year here starts (or started), I can live each day with an awareness that any moment of my life might be my last: my last breath, my last kiss, my last meal, my last visit, my last words, my last dance... When held in that light, every instant of life becomes precious.

That is the gift of the Angel of Death: a deep awareness that every moment is precious. What better reason is there for living it all in love... right now?

An Angel Walks Among Us

I woke up yesterday morning with death on my mind. In my spiritual circle Thursday night, we talked about an upcoming shamanic death ritual we are doing today. I will die... again. I think this will be my 6th or 7th time to die a ritual death. Some of these rituals have lasted a few hours, others a day, and others a year. In fact, the seed of this blog was born out of a year-long "Death Walk" I participated in from November 2009 to November 2010. This year, I am facilitating a year-long journey for others (my Awaken Circle) because the experience had such a profound impact on me.

We've all heard sayings such as "Death walks beside you" and "Death is always standing behind your left shoulder" or "Death is just over your shoulder" and  "Death is always knocking on your door." Have you  ever paused to really feel into what that means? Most of us, because of our social training to fear or resist death, don't give death much attention. But there's a tremendous opportunity here...

In many ancient spiritual teachings, death is held as an important adviser. In the Toltec tradition of the Eagle Knight lineage, we refer to it as The Angel of Death yet s/he goes by many names across cultures (e.g., Kali, Ganesha, Hunhau, Uacmitun Ahau, Kisin, Mictlantecuhtli, Hades, Hecate, Pluto, Hel, Ereshkigal, Cerridwen, Arawn, Skatha, Yen-Wang-Yeh, Ani-lbo, Anubis). You can find mythological or spiritual references to the keeper or guardian of death or the Underworld in just about every culture in the world.

My view of the Angel of Death is that she greets us with the gift of freedom from whatever binds our hearts. She bears the completion of one cycle and yet the beginning of something new. Without this completion, we would remain buried beneath the weight of our own hearts; we would never have the spaciousness to invite healing, change or growth into our lives.

The Angel of Death walks with clear steps and a keen eye. As She approaches, things change. She sees the obstacles to the blossoming of unconditional love in our hearts and does what's necessary to remove them. The gift of Her touch brings acute presence: suddenly nothing matters but the truth. She wields destruction for the sake of construction. It may mean a physical death yet it may also mean a symbolic death.

There's something healing and opening that emerges through the eyes of death. If you've ever sat with the dying, you know that the only thing of importance to them is the clarity of their own heart. I've heard stories about people blurting out their heaviest heart-burdens in the moments of their last breath, revealing family secrets that had been hidden for generations.

This is the gift of the Angel of Death; she offers the soul an invitation to surrender it's burdens and open into the wellspring of freedom born of a clear and unobstructed heart. From this view, nothing matters in life or death except that truth - the truth of a heart broken open. And in the spaciousness of such a heart, only love exists.

For all the human struggles I participate in, for all my searching and clearing and healing around love, there is always more deepening and opening to do. As I approach another opportunity to surrender what obstructs my heart - to hand it willingly over to the Angel of Death so that I can open more deeply into love - I find myself feeling calm and at peace inside. And so I prepare for yet another death of who I am to something new and (hopefully) more purely aligned with my spiritual intentions.

"Today is a good day to die for all the things of my life are present." I've written of this Native American saying before.  This is the state I want to be in when I die, when my body takes its last gasp of air and then releases it with a sigh of surrender. And in that sigh I want to feel the full freedom that comes with a completely clear and open heart, one without obscurations in which everything - all the baggage of my life - has been cleaned up and brought into a present state of love.

Sunrise at Rockport, TX.
Photo copyright 2006: Cecilia Zuniga

So today I do my best to attend to and clean up any areas of heaviness in my life. I heal what needs to be healed, speak what needs to be spoken, request what needs to be requested and I forgive what needs to be forgiven. I choose love and connection over being right and separate. It's not an easy way to live; it takes all the courage and willingness I can muster. It means risking relationships and identities and habits. It means letting go of the old and familiar for the new and unfamiliar. It means taking a radically honest look at myself and claiming responsibility for who I've been, who I am and who I want to become. Sometimes I'm not ready to stand in the blurry and oftentimes painful and muddy lines of personal truth, to risk what I know for the unknown. Yet it is as authentic a life as I can manage right now.

Some days, such as during the past two weeks, I question what's happening. When another layer of mud surfaces from the depths of my being for healing and clearing, I question my integrity. Questioning is a natural part of this journey. It helps me discern what is mine to clean up and what is someone else's. Yet it must be done with radical honesty and heart-centered action. Otherwise, it serves little. This process of questioning helps me return to a clear sense of my own integrity so that I can clean up what needs cleaning, take responsibility for what is mine, and honor my truth in the moment, despite the feelings or reactions of others.

Through this process I've learned that what is true for me requires no defense or explanation; it is simply my truth, whether others understand it or agree with it or not. Expressing my truth does not require understanding or agreement from others or that they change their behavior based on how I experience a situation. And this is true for them as well: I don't have to understand or agree with their views or change my behavior to acknowledge what feels true for them. The best I can do for each of us is listen deeply, honor the feelings that arise, keep my heart open, allow spaciousness for what's next and keep love present through any disagreements.

Limestone heart.
Photo copyright 2007: Cecilia Zuniga

I've learned over the past several years of exploring dying and death more intimately that there is a pre-death process that supports me in preparing for the transition from old to new: whatever obstacles are currently blocking the open flow of love in my heart will be flung into my full vision! Something always happens to enable me to see clearly where my own blocks to love are and where the next step in my healing work rests so that I can go about the business of doing it.

At the time of my own point of rememberance - that moment in death when I suddenly reconnect with my true, pure nature beyond the physical limitations of this body - I want to melt easily and gently into freedom. And so tonight I die knowing that I've done my best to keep learning about and opening to love in all of its expressions; knowing that I am, step by step, killing off love's obstacles and gently growing a deeply faithful, trusting and open heart.

As Stephen Levine so beautifully reflects in his book A Year To Live, I consciously cultivate a heart that cannot be distracted even by death. This is my chosen mission this year as I make my way through Adventures Of A Year To Love.

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!

Lessons from Geese

My parents live in a secured subdivision that has a small man-made lake in it. Some Mexican Whistler ducks, mallards, turtles, a Great Blue Heron and other critters have taken up residence around the lake but the most inspiring residents are a mated pair of Egyptian Geese. They hang out on a tiny circular island with an oak tree in the middle maybe 30 feet off the shore.

The female Goose is sitting on eggs. She's been sitting for literally two weeks without hardly a move (say my parents). Her mate hangs out on a wooden bridge nearby, perched on the handrail watching closely and scaring off any possible predators. This Momma is very dedicated! She lays so low in the grass that you can hardly see her head and only when she stretches her neck out. Otherwise, she's hunkered down doing her best to be the invisible protective Mother over her precious eggs.

They only have a few babies a season and oftentimes the babies drown, are eaten by big fish, or are snatched up by predatory birds. Yet every season this couple goes through the whole process again (sometimes twice a season), fussing over each other, their eggs and then their hatchlings until they are big enough to survive on their own.

Each one in the pair takes their job very seriously and shows their mate the highest of respect. They honor the role that each of them has; they support each other whole-heartedly; they mate for life and they don't let distractions pull them away from all they love.

We humans might learn a thing or two from them...

What About Love?

OK - I gotta say that I'm really beginning to wonder what's happening to love in this world of ours!

Today I've been entrenched in a situation with a dear woman who was threatened by her lover of many, many years. Apparently, his behavior shifted a couple of years back following a traumatic incident he was involved in having something to do with drug deals and he's become abusive and threatening to her since then. She's been covering it up so people wouldn't know. You know - the usual of lying about the bruises and other "injuries," staying home a lot and pretending everything was A-OK...

This has been going on for a couple of years? That's a long time! We called the cops so she could file a statement and get a restraining order. Her first report to us was that this guy had threatened her but as she talked with the Deputy Sheriff, the truth emerged. Not only had he verbally threatened her but he'd "slapped" both sides of her face and pulled her hair. Then she admitted that he'd been physically abusive before and had threatened her many times.

As time went on, I noticed bruises emerging around her eyes: "That's not a slap unless he had some mighty big rings on his fingers!" The Deputy Sheriff took a closer look, changed his report and wanted to take pictures of the marks. When he asked her why she was filing now, her response was "I'm scared." When I heard her say that, I knew this was serious. This is a brave woman who is no pushover and doesn't scare easily if at all under most circumstances. Apparently, she's been trying to get him out of her house and life but every time she tries, he threatens her and has hit her several times before; she is afraid for her pets too.

Until today she felt that doing nothing was better and safer than doing something. Why today? Maybe because of the bruises on her face; maybe because of how he threatened her; maybe she's just had enough; maybe she heard something different in his tone or felt something she hadn't felt from him before... Who knows? I'm just glad that she decided to stop hiding and take a stand to reclaim her life from this deeply wounded and dangerous man.

The guy managed to grab a set of her house and car keys when he left so we called a locksmith to change all the locks on the house doors and re-coded her electric garage door opener so he couldn't get in. We moved all of his stuff into her garage and then we began to problem-solve the next move for her protection. She said, "He will be back. I know it; he has nowhere else to go and all his stuff is here. And he'll be pissed off!" That's what we're dealing with - a pissed-off, drug-involved, abusive man who has nowhere else to go.

The Deputy Sheriff suggested she not stay at her home alone, if at all. He was headed downtown to file an Emergency Protective Order on her behalf (EPO in cop lingo). The guy is on the police radar already for other things so our hope is that he'll be picked up before morning and arrested. Clearly, he is dangerous yet despite this, she didn't want to go and leave her pets and house alone. This woman argued that she could call 911 if the guy showed up, but we all discouraged that. "Sure - you can call 911 but a lot can happen in the time it takes them to get here." The cop confirmed that depending on what else was happening, it might take them a while to arrive. We talked her into staying elsewhere, at least for one night.

 How does this happen? How do two people go from deeply loving each other to deeply hurting each other? It seems that every time I turn around these days I hear of another couple I know that's divorcing, of relationships ending, of betrayals, of lies and affairs and deeply hurt hearts.  

Are we humans so scared and wounded around love that all we can do is hurt or be hurt?

Heart Matters

For the past few weeks there's been a drama happening in a dear family I know. One of the women discovered that her husband had "cheated" on her. First I will say that when someone leaves "evidence" in a vulnerable place, maybe it's true that some part of them wanted it to be found, perhaps to end the sneaking, guilt, fear and discomfort that goes with being out of your own integrity and living a lie every day. Perhaps as a catalyst for something to change that was well past its time. Perhaps as a chicken's way out of admittance. Who can really say, but somehow, some way, these types of secrets always surface.

Once when I was going through a similar situation of feeling deeply betrayed by a partner, someone said to me "Well, isn't it better to know the truth?" My answer was "Yes" although I would have preferred that the truth had always been exposed rather than it slipping through a crack in the foundation to knock me off my feet after months of what felt like secrecy and lies by omission. When you have a heart agreement with someone, to find out that they disregarded it is deeply wounding. Everything you might initially feel toward them winds up being used against yourself: the disappointment, loathing, doubt, judgement, anger, hurt, blame, etc. It's a tangled up emotional mess.

As the story of this particular situation continues to unfold, more and more drama arises. Details are being uncovered that shine a bright light on the lies that have been told; emotions are blazing; gossip is stirring... This beautiful family has been flung head-first into an ocean of confusion, anger, hurt and fear. They are all in what I call high reaction.

There's a question of whether a lie detector test should be used on the husband. "Really? Why?" I asked. Their answer: Because she wants to know how many other lies there have been.

Huh. I had a lot of questions about this choice. What difference would a lie detector test make (especially with all the false readings they give)? She already knows he is capable of lying (we all are) and that he has lied to her on several occasions now. What will the lie detector test add? Does she want an exact count of the number of times he's lied? Does she want to know how recently he lied? Does she want to know just how big of a liar he is? Does she want to know just how false her idea of their marriage is? Does she want to be right? Is she looking for some kind of validation or justification?

But my biggest question is: Should we really trust the technology of a lie detector test above the truth of a human heart?


To me, the only question to ask now is "How willing is she to risk trusting him again?" Maybe that's what she's trying to decide based on just how big of a liar she finds him to be...

Then the conversation turned to the concept of love. The husband says he still loves his wife and that the "other" doesn't mean anything. Really? Then why did he do it (and more than once)? Why did he lie about it? Why didn't he speak to his wife about their marriage before things reached the point of betrayal? None of us can really answer these questions with any certainty. While it may be true that the human heart is a dynamic and mysterious part of our Being whose trappings we can't always predict, things like honesty, openness and integrity are things we choose. As it is possible to be swept up in the emotion or energy of a moment, isn't it just as possible not to be?

How much choice do we really have in love? And is love nothing more than what we make it?

Good Dancin' & Glowing Wrist Bands

This past Saturday my Sweetie and I went out dancing with a group of friends. When we walked through the door of this particular bar, they passed out glowing wrist bands but we didn't get one. They were for singles only. I thought that was an interesting concept - to glowingly identify all the "singles."

Why would they do that? I wondered what the incentive was for this: So singles could find each other more easily? So there wouldn't be any question about availability? So no one would tread where they best not? To avoid any fights or bar brawls? To make girl/boy friend shopping easier?

And I wondered: What ever happened to dialogue and getting to know someone? What's wrong with talking to a married or coupled person? What's wrong with flirting with them? Dancing with them? Enjoying them? Is this not allowed? Did the glowing wrist bands signal "I'm open for business" or "Hands off?"

As I watched my friends dance with each other and strangers in the bar, I got this weird sense of isolation. Was it true that people avoided me because I wasn't wearing a glowing wrist band? I tried to see the wrists of all the gliding two-steppers on the dance floor but it was hard to catch a glimpse as they passed. And there was my Sweetie - wrist-bandless and taking turns dancing with everyone. I have to admit that for just a second, I felt the green-eyed monster that night, but it wasn't about my Sweetie having so much fun; it was about me feeling a little bit left out. I'm still recovering from an injury in March and I wasn't feeling all that great so was taking things slow. Not so for everyone else; they were beer-drinkin', two-steppin' fools!

It's a good thing to shake up your comfort zone once in a while. I got to see my Sweetie as a well-sought-after commodity that night - a fabulous dancer and partner that other people would snatch up in a split second if the opportunity was there. I deepened into my appreciation, gratitude and love for the trust and partnership we share as I watched all the energy swirling around that bar and dance floor to the beat of an old country song.

About halfway through the night I heard one of our friends say "We need to find me a girlfriend." And immediately everyone's eyes began to scan the room for the perfect girl. As I sat on my bar stool sipping a Boilermaker, the rest of our crowd were pointing and discussing the different women they spotted wearing glowing wrist bands: "No, not her; how 'bout HER?" Was it really that simple? Are girlfriends nothing more than good dancing or a glowing wrist band?

   

Later that night I considered what those glowing wrist bands really meant: nothing. It comes down to people's own integrity. If you want to sleep with a single and they want to sleep with you, it's gonna happen whether they are wearing a glowing wrist band or not. Being in a couple isn't a guarantee; it's an agreement, and that agreement is only as good as the two people who make it.

Today I am deeply grateful that the person I've made that agreement with is a person of integrity that I can rest into.

Just Who's Driving?

Ever have one of those times when you wonder "Just who's driving?"

I had one of those the other night. I was driving home from a gathering in Austin and found myself obsessed about getting some fast food french fries. It's true that maybe a few times a year I eat french fries at a restaurant but I never eat fast food. I have to be pretty desperate before grabbing anything at the drive through... It does happen but only in the rarest of odd moments of starvation and crankiness.

So the fact that I suddenly had to have french fries was curious to me. I decided to get them. Well, the truth is that I'm not sure what happened but I found myself at a Wendy's drive through ordering not a small but a large order of fries. Hmmmm. At that point, I can say that I decided to get them; I chose to drive to the window, pay, grab my fries and go, even though I debated screeching out of there in disgust.

I admit that I ate the whole lot of them and I enjoyed them too - every single one. A part of me felt incredibly nurtured and nourished by those greasy, salty fries. She relaxed all the way home. She groaned over their crispy hotness. She smiled. She felt relieved and satisfied...

"Who is that??" I wondered what part of me was so fulfilled by those icky french fries. I realized that I do my best to eat healthy, even if it means not eating at all. What happens next is that a part of me feels neglected when I don't eat enough, and it is she who wants nurturing then... not with healthy food but with comfort food.

Here's what I learned about myself that night: When I feed myself consciously, I eat regularly and healthy. When I put busyness over food, I skip the eating, get cranky and tired, and then crave comfort food. It triggers feelings of vulnerability and a lack of love. It may seem odd to say "love" but it's true: Nourishing the body with healthy food is an act of self-love.

And since my tummy is grumbling loudly as I write this, I'm going to sign off now and give myself some self-love... fresh fruit, nuts and granola for breakfast!

Surprise!!

Today I woke up early to see my sweetie off to a Saturday gig... I mean, early: 5 a.m.! That might not seem early to you, but it's early to my body, which is generally not ready to be up until there is a hint of sunrise outside.

Sometimes when I arise that early, I feel cranky and not quite awake. But today, I woke up feeling happy and full.  I saw my sweetie off and went back to bed to meditate and dream. I love dreaming just before sunrise because the content is rich and creative for me.

Maybe two hours or so later, I made my way into my meditation space. That's when I saw it: a beautiful surprise set up by my sweet Sweetie sometime outside of my awareness, which is a tricky thing to do because I spend the majority of my time in my office where my meditation space is, and I'm in and out of that space all day long until I go to sleep, generally.

But there it was - my Anniversary surprise: a vibrant yellow Marigold; a beautiful and sentimental card; a certificate acknowledging the day we met at a car wash; a red "Love" candle; a Chinese 6 Coin Hanger for abundance; and several of my favorite chocolates!

My heart burst open at the sight of all the love that was sneaked into my day...Oh - what a feeling it was! I cannot describe how such a simple yet deeply thought out gift touched me to the point of tears.

My sweetie got me; my sweetie got me really good with that surprise. My mind was not in the space of "anniversary" because we debated and ultimately agreed that our official anniversary would be what we both considered our first date: November 9th.

But we met on March 26th at a car wash. Yep, I was waiting for my car (which conveniently got "lost" in the back some place) and there we found ourselves sitting on a bench outside engrossed in conversation for an hour. My sweetie's car came out before mine even though I'd been there for some time before...

That's when I discovered that my car was "lost." When I asked about it, the college student girl with the drying towels in her hand said, "Oh - that blue Mazda back there is yours?? We were wondering who it belonged to!" Um, yes, that blue Mazda is mine. For some reason I'll never know, my Mazda wasn't driven up to the front like the rest of the cars. It had been sitting out back for over an hour, and I had been sitting at that car wash for two hours by that time, thoroughly enjoying the visit with my new sexy and sweet friend. I'm not sure who they thought that Mazda belonged to but it was parked out back, clean, dry and ready to go.

That "delay" gave me and my sweetie plenty of time to decide we kinda liked each other, and to make a date to reconnect in a month or so after I returned from some travels I had coming up. I like to believe that it was divine intervention so we could meet, but that's just the romantic in me...

So when I discovered this beautiful gift this morning, I was completely surprised. "Anniversary" was nowhere in my brain. Until I read the card, I had no idea what the surprise was for; and even then, I was a bit confused: "Anniversary? But we decided that was in November!" It was the perfect art of surprise.

I was reminded that love is simply that: a random expression that reaches out and unconditionally touches the heart of another, just to love. How blessed I feel to be the recipient....

I love love!!

A Pain-Filled Lesson

It's been an interesting couple of days following an injury on Saturday. I'm deepening into the spiritual teachings I've been practicing for a few years now around opening to pain, particularly those of Stephen Levine: "...resistance turns pain into suffering; soften and explore the constant state of change within the sensations; watch the unfolding of sensation as a process; when we begin to respond to discomfort instead of reacting to it, an enormous change occurs. We begin to experience it not as just 'our' pain but as 'the' pain. And it becomes accessible to a level of compassion perhaps previously unknown; (and we begin to experience) the personal in its universal aspect."

The practice I'm focused on now through the Awaken series on conscious living is to reprogram the body's response to pain, including and especially the reaction of the mind to pain. Most of us grow up learning to avoid pain. It starts very young when we hurt ourselves. If you watch small children fall on a playground, they generally show a short-lived reaction to pain until or unless the adults around them react. Then it becomes a big drama! But if they are not critically hurt and the adults either don't notice or respond calmly, kids express their pain with some startled sounds and then get up within seconds and keep playing.

Usually what happens in our growing up years is we get message after message from adults to avoid pain, that pain means something is wrong, and that pain is something to be scared about. These adults are well-intended; it's their job to care for and protect us. They are responsible for our welfare and survival. Yet what we carry into adulthood from these experiences is a belief that pain is bad.

Believing that pain is bad as adults, we avoid and resist pain, which means we close our energy body around it. But what if we could stay open through pain? What if we could simply experience it as fully as we allow ourselves to experience other sensations in life? What if pain was not something bad to be avoided, but just an intense sensation instead? How might that change our experiences of it?

That is my practice. It's a practice in moving beyond the mind to open the energy body no matter what the sensations. In the realm of dying and death (as we are exploring in the Awaken series), it is a way to reprogram the body and mind to respond openly to pain rather than closing around it, so that as we die we can experience peace no matter what. When we master this,  a level of separation develops between us and 'the pain' that offers spaciousness to find joy and peace despite the sensations that may be running through the body. Since none of us know what our dying or death experiences will be, this is a great practice to master! Ultimately, it allows us to create and hold a container of bliss through the transitions of the body.

I got to practice this yesterday. I can describe how much pain I was in by saying it was tremendous! I (carefully) taught two yoga classes and interacted with people all day who had little idea what my body was experiencing (though the shiner around my left eye gave them an indication that something was different). My goal was to open my energy body so large that the pain would simply be a tiny part of my day's experiences, and to create enough space around the pain that I could bring in and hold joy.

I succeeded, mostly. I was aware of my pain yet not ruled by it; I acknowledged it instead of resisting or ignoring it; and I consciously opened beyond it to bring in joy. The pain was there and so was everything else; it didn't dominate my experiences. I shed some tears last night over the pain that felt linked to old body memory and energy that was ready to be released; it felt good to release it. In the end, I experienced a day filled with healing, joy and love instead of just pain.

Today I remember what it feels like to be in chronic pain. I remember experiencing chronic pain for two years following a serious car wreck in my thirties. Back then, I fell into a deep depression. Pain was the focus of my life as I took steps to find healing for my body. Although not the most pleasant part of my history, the experience led to a dramatic life change that I consider an awakening for me. 

Today, my body aches from my neck down to my hips and I still have a pretty nice shiner beneath my left eye. I know what to do for my body when it's healing, so I'm doing those things. And yet I notice myself leaning into the comfort of knowing that this pain is temporary. I wonder: "How might this experience be different for me if this were not a temporary condition?" I cannot answer that question, yet I do contemplate it.

Sometimes accepting what is gives us the opportunity to experience it without any temporal boundaries, since we can't know when or how what is in the present moment will change. But things in the present moment are always changing; that's the nature of energy and everything here is rooted in energy. I find comfort in that. When I attune myself to the subtleties of the pain in my body today, I notice the shifting sensations. The pain is not a static experience; it is a dynamic one in my body. As I deepen into that awareness, my body relaxes and opens, my breath softens and slows, and I find spaciousness within my being to expand around the pain and beyond it.

I could choose to view this experience as nothing more than a painful, unfortunate accident. My choice instead is to view it as a brilliant opportunity to reprogram my body and mind's experience of and response to pain. It is an opportunity to move toward mastery of opening big enough that I can find the spaciousness within my being to experience inner peace and joy no matter what... even tremendous pain and (ultimately) in the face of whatever my own dying and death may bring. Tonight I teach two classes, and I will teach them filled with joy, love and pain.

Every experience we have in life is an opportunity to grow and open. Today I am reminded of what a gift that is and my heart is full and happy despite the pain. I think that is pretty amazing...

The Garden of Life

 I've always wanted to be a gardener, mostly because I love the beauty and energy of the plants with their varied colors, shapes, textures and vibrations. On a deeper level, I realize it's because I like nourishing things into creation. Whether it's a pastry, a book or a plant doesn't matter. There's something fulfilling about starting with a few separate ingredients and mixing them together into a whole new thing that has its own purpose, design, flavor and energy. There's something magical about the alchemy of this mixing process and how it generates a new expression of being that wasn't there in the separate ingredients.

I've never had a garden of my own before. When I was a child, my parents grew strawberries, bell and chili peppers, green beans and tomatoes in a small flower bed but I've never had a whole space dedicated to a garden. It feels good to have one now, with fencing high enough to keep the local deer out. Yesterday I planted some onions, potatoes and a tomato plant in my garden. It may not look like much, but it is fabulous to me!

Each step of the way toward creating this garden has been exciting: from getting the fencing up, to gathering the dirt, to starting a compost pile, to creating a dedicated compost pile, to building the beds, to adding the worms, to mixing in fortified soil to our dirt... and finally to planting a few things.

I don't really know how to garden. I only know that I love playing in the dirt and nourishing things into bloom and fullness. I love seeing a bud grow and open into a beautiful flower. I love seeing a tiny sprout evolve into a vibrant plant. I love watching a blossom turn into a piece of fruit. I love lifting a plant from the soil and finding food down there. It's like magic!

Gardens are great metaphors for life. We nourish what we want to grow; we give it our attention and our love. Sometimes things happen and we watch what we've given our nourishment, attention and love to die before it reaches its full expression. We can't stop it or change it; it just dies. And sometimes we get to witness the full movement of what we nourish all the way to it's complete expression, it's last breath, and then it dies.

Either way - whether a thing is here only a moment or a lifetime - we get to experience its unique beauty and expression. It is sacred life force energy moving through space and time in a way we can't control. But we can give it our nourishment, attention and love if we choose to. And we can open to the full experience of it - whatever it is - if we choose to.

This year, I want to; I choose to. Each day offers me another opportunity to build and create the garden of my life.  

What will it be? What will I plant? How big and full will it get? What will die young and what will reach its complete expression? What will I nourish, give my attention to, and share my love with? What will I notice and what will I miss? How will I honor this garden of my life?

"Can I love all that is in my life ~ all that comes and goes ~ wholly and unconditionally, just like the plants in my garden?"

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.

GNH: Yes!

There's a small country in southern Asia named Bhutan. Recently, the 50-something-year old leader "passed the leadership torch" to his 26-year old son, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. The son is well educated and brings a fresh perspective to the politics of Bhutan. His desire is for Bhutan to be a notable player in world politics without compromising it's culture. In his view, this means strengthening Bhutan economically and keeping up with technological advancements without sacrificing the country's heritage.

In his wisdom, Jigme Singye Wangchuck did something brilliant: he borrowed the USA's concept of Gross National Product as a leading principle for Bhutan by changing it into Gross National Happiness. He defines Gross National Happiness as "inner contentment for all people living in Bhutan" and offers four pillars of what it means:

1. Good Governance
2. Balanced Economic Development (high standard of living for all, free education, etc...)
3. Environmental Preservation and Sustainability
4. Preserving and Promoting Culture (maintaining a national identity that distinguishes them from other countries)

Wangchuck says things like:

"Imagery leads to thoughts, thoughts lead to actions and actions create our world" (referring to imagery from the USA on televisions and the internet, which were only recently allowed into Bhutan) and

"Human progress does not equal economic growth" and  

"Happiness does not come from 'more'" and  

"Economic growth at any cost is not acceptable."


He believes that happiness is achieved by taking the middle path, balancing the needs of man with the powerful spirits of nature.

So, he is allowing technological advancements in Bhutan, yet in balance with their cultural traditions which are founded in Tantric Buddhism and the principles of peace, an end to suffering, wisdom and joy. Both pieces - technological/economic expansion and traditional cultural ideals are promoted and maintained; growth with integrity and balance; authentic happiness... Sounds like a great way to live from a place of love to me...

I might have to live there...