The Quest for Authenticity

Black/White Heart 2011

One day several years ago, I opened a door and said to the Universe, “Hey, I’m ready to find whatever it is I’m seeking. I know it’s there, just show me how…”  That simple request started my life in a new direction that has become an amazingly rich adventure. Once I made that commitment, everything that might have kept me from moving my life forward came up and was in my face; and yet everything I needed to support me on my path also arose… teachers, friends, healers, opportunities, etc.

I’ve learned that this is how it works: once we make the commitment to “seek,” everything that is in our way comes forth for clearing so we can move beyond it. And, everything we need to support us on the journey also comes forth. There’s no turning back; we have no choice but to keep going. Well, that’s not exactly true. We always have choice. The thing is, if we stop, it’s like standing in the middle of the fires of change. And if we go back, we return to a life of self-denial and lies, only they feel bigger now because we know what we want. And that truth continues to eat away at us. In the silent spaces of our minds, we cry out and die a little bit more each day, not knowing how to get from where we are to where we want to go. All our energy gets used up in denying the truth as we do our best to pretend we’re happy, which isn’t a complete lie yet it’s also not the whole truth. For if it were, we wouldn’t be seeking in the first place.

We open that door because there’s a part of us that knows the truth. There’s a part of us that wants so desperately to remember who we are. There’s a call inside our hearts that says, “Hey, wake up! Remember!” We open that door – we make that commitment – because there’s a part of us that does remember, and the rest of us seeks the beauty, power and peace that is held in that part. We recognize that there’s more to our selves and our lives than we’ve been aware of, told or shown. And so we become seekers of the truth, like archeologists exploring the hidden world and history of our inner being, so we can gain a clearer understanding of the material remains in our outer lives.

As we align ourselves, our intention and our energy with this path, things begin to move and shift. We arrive at new levels of awareness, and dormant parts of ourselves begin to stir and awaken. It’s like taking a flashlight to the dark corners of a room we’ve lived in for years, but never fully explored. Suddenly, the light shines on things we had no idea were there, and we see them for the first time, and everything we thought we knew about that room and our life in it changes.

This is where the magic begins! Once we have a more clear perspective on our place in the world, we can navigate beyond the obstacles that keep us bound. We can dismantle the parts of our lives that aren't serving us and bring in new parts that do. And we can reclaim our personal power to inspire and fuel our future vision. I call this the spiritual quest for authenticity.
As the Fall season comes to a close, I realize that I have made this quest. The emptiness and disillusionment I felt years ago in my life as I began my quest have long since vanished. I have stepped firmly into my authenticity and I express my truth in the world as best as I can every day.

The approaching Winter Solstice marks our movement out of the longest, coldest and darkest nights of the year and into growing days. This seasonal shift is not only about the returning of the daylight but it is also about reconnecting with our own inner light - our essence. This year as I enjoy the colorful Christmas lights all around me, I celebrate that I am doing my best to express my own bright light - my authenticity - in the world. Living from my authenticity is a gift that I cherish and don't take lightly. It's a "Merry Christmas to me!" 

May your own bright light shine out into the world, a gift for all to receive.

[Adapted from the book The Six Sacred Gifts: A little book of wisdom for fellow seekers, which will be released in March 2012 as a part of Spirit Paths™: The Quest for Authenticity, a 6-month Circle I am co-facilitating with Gerry Starnes. This Circle is designed to support seekers along their spiritual journey and into a new place of authentic being in the world. It is an intensive and experiential journey of contemporary shamanic wisdom for living authentically. For more details, go to http://www.shamanicpassages.com/SpiritPaths/.]

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.

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...

Sacred Spaciousness

It's been a week since my sweet dog Maia died. I'm doing my best to carry on in her absence. There is a noticeable void in my world without her, an emptiness that can't be filled with just anything. The spaciousness that her death created feels sacred to me, like a holding tank of all the love and memories we shared. I don't want to fill it with anything else right now; I just want to feel the beauty of it.

I'm aware that her sudden death was just another one of her loving gifts to me. It's as if she said "It's time for me to go. It is not my intent or my purpose to burden you with slowly declining health, incontinence or neediness. It was my job to support you through some rough times, help you heal your heart and get you to the place where you could shine again. I've done that; my job with you is complete. And so I can go now so that you can go now too. My presence in your life was not about draining your energy; it was about helping you shine. So shine on..."

I sometimes wonder about some of the things she heard me talking about: "We can get her some doggy diapers and I can just take them off when she goes outside. It'll just mean that I won't sleep as much and she'll take more of my time and energy. I'll check on what other things we can do to deal with it. I'll feed her the vegetarian food she likes and give her the more expensive meat in between meals for a snack so it won't cost as much. She loves that meat! I'll make time to walk her every day. No, I don't want another dog; I love Maia but she has pushed me to my limits; I'm full-up..."

Sometimes I feel bad about these things. Did she take them to heart? Did she knowingly and lovingly spare me all the added stress by dying so suddenly? Was she ready to go or was she serving me yet again through even her death? I wonder...

I may never know for certain, yet I do feel that her death was a necessary part of what's next in my life. It's as if I couldn't take my next step forward and deal with her in the ways I wanted to. It would have created too much stress for us both. Wherever my life path is taking me, she couldn't go with me; that much feels clear.

I miss her every day and every night. I know the missing will soften, yet it's with me strongly now. I hear her noises all the time; I feel her presence. I mistakenly believe - just for a second - that she'll be in all her usual spots at the house as I move about it. I yearn for the touch of her soft fur and cold nose, and the way she pawed at me for attention. Oh what I'd give to feel that paw brushing against my leg now!

I miss looking into her eyes. It sounds like a lover, I know, but it's true! Her eyes were incredibly expressive with a depth and a sweetness to them that held sensitivity, compassion and raging love. They were forgiving, accepting, willing and allowing... What an incredible teacher she was; everything I strive to be as a person in this world was held and reflected in her eyes. She was a gift and a teacher. And I am truly blessed to have held such a gift and known such a teacher.

I've realized that she is the first death to me that was such an intimate part of my life. My grief around her death is more profound than it has been for other beloveds in my life who have died. But I've learned that my reaction to death has little to do with how long I've known someone or even how much I've loved them; it has to do with the nature of my relationship to them. The nature of my relationship to my dog Maia was deep, honest and unconditional. She was a big part of my daily life, and held a large part of my attention and energy. The void left in her absence is unmistakable. She is the first death I've experienced of this nature. I guess I can consider myself fortunate for that...

As I make my way through my grief at her death, I find myself feeling quiet, emotional, vulnerable and maybe even a bit empty outside of my typical busyness. I enjoy what I do but I enjoy the quiet of night even more now than before, so I can sit in the spaciousness of her love and memories, and honor the amazing beauty of the gift and the teacher she was to me, the extent of which are just barely beginning to sink in...

May my life become a more clear reflection of all the beauty she brought into it.

Me and My Ego

Me and my ego are friends now. We weren't always friends but over the past several years, I've made it my mission to befriend my ego as much as possible. I spend much of my time watching it closely through reflection from others and through my own self-witnessing. For a time, it was a part of me that I resisted and tried to rid myself of, mistakenly believing that I could. In some circles, people speak about the ego as a kind of a Human curse to overcome or even "kill" from the Being. The ego is blamed for some not-so-pleasant aspects of being Human...

Yet, as a Human Being created by a Divine Source, I believe there must be a reason for the ego aspect of who I am. I could make all kinds of guesses as to what those reasons may be, but all that really matters in the end is that I accept it as a part of me. In all my resistance to my ego, I discovered that as long as I'm a Human Being, I'm part ego. If I were not a Human Being, I might not have ego; and certainly once this body dies, I will no longer be bound to the ego that lives within its makeup. But for now, I am an ego-linked Human Being. And so the old saying Keep your friends close and your enemies closer is my guide around my ego these days. Not that it's my enemy, but that it is a difficult part of myself to witness since my humanity is so entangled with it.

I don't enjoy being in servitude to my ego - blindly allowing it to dictate my choices and behaviors. To shift this dynamic, I accept that it is a part of who I am, and as with my other "dark sides," I seek to find its gifts. One of those gifts is its knack for independence and uniqueness. My ego is what separates me from everyone and everything else here. It is the part of me that identifies with "I am" and allows me to honor my individuality as I interact with the world. Granted, the ego's version of "I am" is always attached to something, so it is always "I am this" or "I am that." Eckhart Tolle points out that this is because our egos live in a constant sense of lack that leads them to seek to have or be something all the time. And yet, there is no one on the whole planet exactly like me, and my ego not only knows this, but celebrates it! I am a unique contribution to and expression of the Divine. The question is: Who is this "I am," really?

And herein lies the paradox of being Human: "I am" is a false separation because I believe that at my core, I am pure essence and united with all else. The quantum sciences are showing this to be true - that every part of this life is nothing more than energy at its core. And with that energy comes mass, awareness and consciousness. When we take away our physical aspects and drop down deep into the root of be-ing, we find only energy, mass, awareness and the possibility of consciousness. This means that at the quantum level, we live in a energetic soup without a sense of separation yet with pure awareness and possibly even consciousness. Wow - try and wrap your mind around that one!

Yet for now, with my pure essence housed in this physical, sacred vessel, there is ego present. I can do my best to be aware of my ego; to stop over-identifying with it or allowing it to rule my choices and behaviors; to connect more deeply with my pure essence beyond ego, and to live my life from that place more than from my ego. Yet in the end, until I die and shed this body, I have an intimate relationship with my ego, even if I can't identify exactly what my ego is.

I believe that ego and mind are infinitely linked. Language is what links me to my ego; thoughts are the energy that feeds the ego. With language and thoughts come stories and judgements, desires and resistances, attractions and repulsions... dualities. Dualities are a construct of the mind and its language. The dualistic language and stories that my mind creates generate emotions in my body, and if I believe those stories (if I attach meaning to them), I fall into drama and suffering...That is why some - myself included - often refer to it as "Ego Mind" or "Parasite Mind." Eckhart Tolle calls it "the Pain Body." The constructs, stories and attachments of the ego are a mental part of Human be-ing linked to our suffering.

The "non-ego" part of who I am is the part of me that strives to live beyond the mind with its constructs, stories and attachments and in what some call Unity Consciousness - no separation. Non-ego be-ing is based more in the essence of who I am - my purity of be-ing beyond the mind. It's that divine or loving witness part of my Being that is timeless, changeless, deathless and, according to certain Buddhist traditions, primordially pure.The non-ego part of me is the part that is considered my true nature - the part of me that remains after the body dies. Some people call this our "Original Face." This part of be-ing is not limited by a sense of separation, but instead is connected to the whole of the infinite energetic field out of which it is believed we are all born.

In my forthcoming book about our mystical journeys, I describe it this way: "Energy is the common factor in all things. When we distill life down to its roots, it is all energy and space. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, a Tibetan Bon Buddhist master, explains that 'everything begins with primordial space, the Great Mother from which all things arise, in which all things exist, and into which all things dissolve.' He goes on to say that within this infinite primordial space, energy moves. This energy, also called lung, prana, chi or qui, is pure, boundless and pervasive. No one knows what causes this movement or flow of energy to arise; it simply does. Inseparably bound with this energy is what Rinpoche describes as a 'primordial awareness, pure and without identity.' Energy and awareness exist together, resting neutrally within the infinite space of the Mystery until 'there is movement' and something arises out of the Void - something is born and an energetic pattern emerges."

To unite with this part of my Being or what I call my essential self - the pure essence of who I am - I must detach from my identification with the mind and its antics, and instead, identify with this essential self, even though I cannot completely separate the two while I'm living this Human life.  This is my greatest challenge: To reach toward a place of living in non-ego, I must go about the practice of "un-egoing" myself!

Non-ego be-ing has little to do with the mind and everything to do with the heart. Non-ego be-ing is about shifting my awareness away from identification with my thoughts and feelings, and into identification with my pure essence - that primordially pure part of my Being that is my Original Face. How? How do I do this? Well, this is the journey, isn't it? Life is - if we choose it to be - a process of un-egoing ourselves. The task as I've come to see it is not about purging my ego from my Being, but about befriending my ego within my Being. As a friend, the ego informs me of where my work is to move beyond my fears and into a greater sense of wholeness and love. It shows me where the obstacles to identifying with my Original Face are, so I can do practices to overcome them. Each time I find, heal and release one of those obstacles, I get clearer and clearer in my relationship to my Original Face.

Un-egoing myself means that as a friend, my ego becomes my ally rather than my enemy. I undo it's hidden hold of my thoughts, choices and behaviors, and step into a collaborative and supportive relationship with it instead of a power struggle. By undoing it's hold on me, I un-ego myself, giving my personal power back to my essential self rather than mistakenly giving it to my ego. Eventually, I might reach a time when I am living completely in non-ego. That's the dream though I'm not convinced it can be the reality 100% while I am a Human Being.

My latest challenge at un-egoing myself led me once again down the road to don Miguel Ruiz's four agreements, particularly don't make assumptions and don't take things personally. Yes, these old friends of mine resurfaced in a big way! I recently witnessed myself taking things personally from friends, colleagues and my sweetie, so I brought my attention fully to each experience to see what I could discover. And right there in full view I caught my mind taking their statements and making them about me, filling in gaps with assumptions and stories, wanting to be right, and then judging and criticizing myself for what it created. Oh, my ego is a stinky little devil...

Now, it's true that a creative and active mind can easily jump into assumptions about what these folks really meant by what they said - dissecting and adding to the words between the words that were spoken and making inferences about their true meaning about me. And an even slier mind can use spiritual lingo and concepts to prove its point. And still, these are only assumptions, inferences and stories. In the end, it doesn't matter what their meaning was. All that matters is that I am clear about my own dream and how I choose to live it. I have no control over the perceptions, preferences, needs, desires or repulsions of others. I only have choice around how I hold my own and how I respond to theirs.


 And so I move steadily onward in my journey to un-ego myself along this endless road to liberation. I've learned to keep a close eye on this sly friend, and to appreciate the ego's company for what it offers me: clarity and endless opportunity to clean my Being even more deeply than before.

The Heart of the Matter

Warm Heart 2008

Our hearts are so strong and yet so fragile around love.

We can open or close them. We can expose or protect them. We can risk or guard them. Yet most often we forget about them until something happens that either cracks them open or slams them closed. What is it about the heart that is so significant? So magnificent?

The heart is our gateway to our essence - the part of us that is boundless, infinite and unafraid. Through opening the heart fully we find completeness - a sense of purity, wholeness and unity with something much greater than our mentally-constructed selves. Beyond the realm of our projections, beyond the realm of our minds we find... mystery.

I call it "mystery" because we can't define it with our minds. It's a spaciousness that defies what the mind can grasp. It's not based in the past or the future. It rests in the expansiveness of the present moment which is infinite. It is only our minds that define the present moment as "finite time" in a limiting way when beyond our mental projections, there is no time, only presence.

Beyond the mind we find freedom. In the Toltec tradition, they describe the antics of our mind as "dreaming," or a mental projection, a concept or interpretation of our experiences that is not the experiences themselves. Thinking about our experiences is not the same as having them; thinking about them is a reflection of the experience, not the experience itself. Yet all too often we believe that our thoughts about our experiences are the truth when actually, they are only mental reflections of the truth.

Distortion & Reflection 1: Chicago 2008

This is what leads us to an over-identification with our minds. We believe that what the mind tells us is the truth, yet we forget that it is merely a reflection of the truth, which leaves room for personal projection and distortion. When we believe our minds, our thoughts, projections and distortions stimulate all kinds of drama and suffering in our lives, especially around matters of the heart.

Consider that having an emotion is a movement of energy through the body. The mind will enter and label the energy as something specific (e.g., pain, fear, sadness, anger, rage, joy...) and then judge whether the experience is OK or not - safe or not. When we attach labels of the mind to our experiences, we are left with stories about what's happening to us and at the deepest places within our being, our mind is assessing whether or not it's a threat to our survival so it can dictate what action to take next: fight, flight or freeze. It is also signaling the body to prepare for that action: our hormones, muscles, adrenalin, breath, etc. immediately respond to the signals of the mind.

Distortion & Reflection: Chicago 2008

The tricky part is that our physical bodies are geared to respond to the mind's signals, whether or not the mind's signals are accurate, relevant or true in the present moment. Remember that the mind is never operating in the present moment. It pulls up information from the past or projects information into the future based on the past, but it is never directly engaged with our present moment experiences.

Why? Because the mind does not directly experience anything. It gets information second-hand through our sensory and energy bodies and then interprets that information based on past experiences or future projections; but it does not directly experience anything. The mind's job is to interpret or reflect to the rest of the body what it believes is happening based on input from our sensory and energy bodies - what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch and perceive (energetically). The mind says "I recognize this sensation; it means blahblahblah and this is what we need to do next!"

Here's the problem: What the mind believes (based on history) may not apply in the present moment or the future, so it's signals limit our ability to act from the infinite field of possibilities that are available to us in each moment. This is important! By freeing ourselves from over-identifying with and believing in our mind's projections and stories about what it thinks is happening or going to happen, we open ourselves to the infinite and can move beyond old obstacles in our lives.

Over-identifying with the mind and turning our experiences into concepts and stories puts limitations on the vastness of what we truly are: the pure essence of mass, energy and consciousness. Many traditional spiritual practices are designed to create spaciousness between our mind and our pure essence so that we can become more of a witness to our mind's games rather than be driven by them. Meditative practices are a beautiful way to begin shifting away from over-identification with the mind and to build a trusting relationship with our pure essence.

Pathway to Mystery: Paris 2004

Connecting with and trusting in our pure essence is a pathway through the heart rather than the mind. When we build a stronger relationship with our pure essence, our hearts open and take rest into something much greater than what our minds can comprehend - something boundless, infinite and beyond the mind's reflections - the mystery of Being.

This is what makes our hearts both strong and fragile: in opening them to the mystery, we may feel vulnerable yet through this act we become stronger in our connection to our pure, infinite essence. It takes strength and courage to allow our hearts to open beyond the limitations and fears of the mind. And yet through that strength and courage - through opening ourselves to the mystery - we may experience what I can only describe as "pure love" (which is only a limited description and reflection of what is really an indescribable experience of what I feel to be pure love)...

Tree Teachers

Sycamore Tree. Copyright 2011

There's something magical about the coolness of the morning when the sun is just beginning to rise and the birds are singing wildly into the air from all directions. It's mid-June in Central Texas; summer will officially begin in two weeks and we are in extreme drought conditions, which makes the coolness of the mornings these days extra special. When I checked our thermometer Friday afternoon, it read 108º! I doubt that's what the weather guy will say but that's what our meter read.

 As I sat quietly with the world waking up around me, my attention was drawn to the large Sycamore trees in our backyard. I noticed some of their leaves turning colors and every once in a while, one of them would let go, gracefully finding it's way to the ground. Sycamore trees naturally shed their outer bark toward the top limbs yet the lower areas are also shedding right now, an unusual happening. It is clear they are stressed from lack of water and high heat.

For just a moment I felt bad for them and then it dawned on me: "The trees don't have a story about what's happening; they are simply doing what's needed to survive: dropping leaves to surrender anything requiring excess energy, and shedding bark to take in more nutrients however they can. They aren't afraid or questioning what's happening. They live as fully today as they ever have. Whether they'll die tomorrow is not relevant; they are focused on surviving and living fully in this moment. They are simply be-ing... or tree-ing."

What a great teacher they are for me. During these times of rapid movement and change, they gently remind me not to be afraid, question or make up a story about what's happening; not to worry about an unknown future. All I have to do is live fully in each moment, present and trusting the process to lead me to the next step, whatever that may be. Maybe it will be more life; maybe it will be death. It doesn't matter; it's all part of the natural cycle and rhythm of things. Neither is better or worse; just different.

So today I'm focusing my energy on be-ing... or people-ing, or Cecilia-ing...

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!

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?

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!

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?"

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 :)

Life's Poetry

Life fills me with breath. My body expands... and then empties, collapsing. One beautiful breath. One spectacular moment. This is it; this is it... the only moment that counts. "Take it!" screams my heart.

And so I do.

"How? How do I take this moment and use it fully?" ... My mind wants to reason it's way through the moments of my life, yet I'm learning to soften my mind and enter my heart for direction instead. My heart has a guidance system of its own, but its system is not based on reason. Nope; it's based on something entirely different, something that can't be explained because it must be felt instead.

Inspiration; joy; love; compassion; equanimity: these are concepts, yes; and yet they reflect the vibrational fuel of a heart opened.

My heart yearns to be opened... more and more and more... to life, to each breath, to each moment as the blossoming of something grand and beautiful, even if perceived by the mind as painful or ugly to witness.

How does this work? How does one move beyond the mind's labels to witness what is with neutrality and beyond that, with inspiration, joy, love, compassion and equanimity?

My experiment of A Year To Love continues...

A Fullness of Being

Lives are ending all around me and I am drawn into a quiet space. The cold of winter beckons me to slow down, be still and deepen into my being like the Bear. Take pause; listen to the softness of each breath and feel the richness of rest. These are contemplative days, each moment arising as a bright gift to be cherished and never neglected. The things of my life are beautiful and one day I will leave them, sadly yet filled with awe at the freedom of surrender to the next movement of energy outside of this physical place. 

I don't know where the dead go; I only know that they go somewhere. I have glimpsed it. I remember it as if it happened yesterday. For the dead, it is miraculous; for the living, it is mysterious. 

The recent death of a friend has flung me to a new level of connection with death. I can't say what's different this time than previous times my beloveds have died. I can only say that something is. Perhaps it's me.

Suddenly, every tiny bit of my life is magnified as a magical encounter never to be repeated. How special that is. How lucky I am. How grateful is my heart to behold each bit as sacred, with love. Today I am full.

Death Visits

Tonight I learned of a friend's sudden death yesterday in a car accident. This was not someone I knew intimately, but someone I consider a beautiful friend. She was one of those people I met and I knew right away there was something special - something a bit different - about her. I didn't have to know what it was; it just was.

When I reflect on this special friend, her face appears clearly in my mind's eye and her energy appears fully in my field. My heart smiles for knowing her. She was a bright light in this world, someone who brought a smile to those around her. Tonight I noticed that she is still bringing smiles to those she knew. Her wisdom, grace and humor resonate here even in her physical absence.

Yes, there is grief. It's the grief of knowing I will not be able to physically touch her again - hug her in greeting, say "Hey, good to see you!" and hear her "Hey! You too." back, look in her eyes, laugh and hear her laugh... all those ways we connect with people. And it's grief for those who had intimate relationships with her who will miss her in their own lives now. She's left a tangible hole she once filled.


It brings to the forefront once again for me just how important our relationship with death is.



Any moment could be our last, or the last of a loved one. This is not to be slighted; it is a part of our reality.

 And as that moment arrives, have you said what you want to the people in your life? Have you cleaned up any heaviness in your heart? Have you planned for your service, your belongings and your body? Have you resolved your fear around dying and death? Can you die in this moment with ease in your Being? Are you ready?

The Native Americans have a saying: "Today is a good day to die for all the things of my life are present." I'm beginning to understand just how powerful this saying is. For me, "present" doesn't just mean "here." It also means that I've truly brought presence to all the pieces of my life: I hold them with love and honor, respecting them as a gift in every moment; I am current in my relationships with myself and with life; I am in my integrity; I am living with presence: all the things of my life are present. Then, any day is a good day to die.

As I prepare for my tele-conference series about conscious living through conscious dying, I am given a new opportunity to deepen into my relationship with death and to remember with more intensity why I embarked on this A Year To Love journey... which is to hold every moment of my life as a precious and temporary gift...

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.