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!!

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 :)

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.

You Don't Need A Shirt To Have A Button

 You know, I'm not perfect; no one is. As I like to say, "We are all perfectly imperfect!" But I do my best to put the highest vibration I can into the world. So I have a bit of heaviness in my heart today as I reflect on places during the past few days where I didn't meet up to my own expectation.

There were a couple of places where I took someone's reactions personally. The old button of "No matter what I do or how hard I try, it's not good enough..." got pushed and I went into my own reactions of feeling frustrated or even angry, small and unworthy. Right beneath that button is "... and something bad is going to happen." Then I feel hopeless and victimized. This is a very old emotional "knot" for me and I've worked hard to unweave the threads that keep it in place. Yet if there's one thing that can knock me off balance, that's the one. When this button gets pushed, I might as well be about 5 years old - a small, vulnerable child.

I "watched" myself slip into this pattern yet could not stop the emotions that arose, so I went fully into them. This is a trick I learned through my spiritual studies with the Austin Toltec Center. There's an emotional healing practice of going fully into the experience of emotions that arise rather then pushing against them or pushing them away. This allows the energy behind them to move through the body rather than being stored or getting stuck in the body.

This doesn't mean "go emote all over someone!" It means find some private space to release the emotional energy that arose in me. My emotions arise, exist and dissolve away again within me, not outside of me. They don't belong to anyone else; they belong to me. I am having the reaction; it's happening inside of me and has nothing to do with anyone else really, but that's an entirely different blog... It does have to do with my emotional wounding: my reactions show me where I still have healing and clean up to do within my own being.

When I stepped fully into my reaction, I found myself wanting to isolate myself. That's what I used to do as a child when I felt threatened; I'd go hide in a closet or up in a tree, away from everyone. Now, rather than hiding, I "take space" to feel into what's going on inside of me and figure out what's mine and what's the other person's responsibility. This time, once I connected with the button that got pushed, I was able to do something specific to release the emotional energy from my body (another trick from the Austin Toltec Center), shift out of the reaction and gently get on with my life.

Sometimes that process takes me a few minutes; sometimes several hours. This one, because it's such a deep-seated button for me, took several hours but by the next day, I was feeling more like myself again. The gift is that each time it happens I unweave a bit more of the knot that keeps this button in place, and each time the reaction gets smaller and the shifting gets easier. And now, sometimes I have no reaction at all.

I'm realizing on a much deeper level that walking through this A Year To Love means that I am learning to love myself more fully; then, I can truly love everyone else more fully too...

Love and Ego

So, this is my year to really, really pull love into my being as the foundation of my interactions with the world around me. I'm keeping a close eye on it, as they say. I'm opening my awareness to all the places in my life where my heart closes and I separate myself from love.

In her book A Return To Love, Marianne Williamson says "Any situation that pushes our buttons is a situation where we don't yet have the capacity to be unconditionally loving." Hmmmm - that's powerful food for thought! In the past week, I found two places where I shut myself down to love:

The first was around a phone call I received from an ex of mine. Having no active relationship with this person today, I had a reaction to the call that was inviting me to an art opening in which they had four new pieces. My ego got angry and said "What - I don't hear from you EVER and now you just call to invite me to see your new art? No 'Hey, how are you? What'cha been up to? etc...' Just 'Come see my new art!'" 

 Oh boy, did my ego want to run away with that one! I heard a resounding "F--- you!" in my head, and it surprised me. How strange it felt to hear my mind scream this out about someone that I love, because the truth is that I do love this person, despite years of separation and limited communication. When I explored what was beneath the "F--- you!" I found that the truth is I miss this person; I miss sharing life with them, connecting about what's going on in our lives, and there's a part of me that still grieves the loss of that closeness and my "importance" in their life. This is not about anger or hatred; it's love... It may not look like love on the surface expression of it, but it is love.

So my question became: "What keeps me from responding from my deeper truth of love rather than the surface reactions of anger, blame, resentment or whatever else?" The truth is, it's only my ego and my ego's attachment to things other than love that keep me from being able to open to love in all of its expressions. And the reality is that this ex who called to invite me to the art opening was inspired by love - love of the art pieces, of the inspiration to create them, of the show itself, and of me. It wasn't their closure, but mine that kept me from responding from a place of love in that situation.

The second place I shut myself down to love was with my partner during an interaction we had this weekend. When I was called on to listen, I jumped in and took the first opportunity to "speak my mind" instead. I didn't allow the space they needed to feel complete before I launched into my own perspective... which, when I'm radically honest with myself, was about some unconscious part of me that felt right and wanted to make my point so that my partner "would understand; would get it; would agree with me; blah blah blah...."

 Whew - that was hard to admit to myself and even harder to admit to my partner! But I did: I told myself first and then told them that it was not my intent to shut them down, that I would explore this more deeply within myself, work to be more aware of it, and that I loved them. In essence, I opened to love and was able to reconnect to myself from a place of self-love and acceptance, and then express myself from that place of honesty, which allowed me to reconnect to them. My closure was actually to myself because I felt guilty and ashamed for shutting them down (however unintentionally it was done...). It was only after shutting down to myself that I shut down to them. What a beautiful mirror for me to learn and grow from! 

 Today I sit on the other side of these discoveries, determined to shift the dynamics that led to them. And that is the beauty of this journey: endless opportunities to open my heart to love even more!

The Opening

 Ever have one of those days where everything just goes your way? The traffic lights turn green as you approach them; you see someone you've been meaning to call; you find the perfect parking spot; someone gifts you with something you've been wanting...? It's easy to hold love in my heart on those days.

But what about those other days when nothing seems to go your way? You're running late; the traffic lights go red as you approach; people are driving slow all around you; you miss important phone calls; you can't find a parking spot; you want something you can't afford...? What about on those days?

 Can I still hold love in my heart?

I'm finding myself practicing opening to everything around me - especially to the things that feel uncomfortable. I've done this type of practice before, but this time it feels different, deeper, more real.

To have a life here is a gift. To feel the things I can sense here is a gift: the warmth of the sun on my skin; the cool breeze; the beautiful sound of wind chimes; the touch of a friend; the wetness of a sip of water; the tickle of blowing hair; the gentle crunch of the grass beneath my feet; the weight of a blanket in bed...

These are all things I get to experience here, just because I am here. They are just a part of being here. Opening to these sensations is a joy; it brings tears to my eyes...

In balance with that are things like accidentally bending a fingernail back; stepping barefoot on a sharp sticker bur; the death of someone or something I love; burning my wrist on the oven; stubbing my toe; a distressing phone call; having a migraine; getting a paper cut... These are also incredible sensations, just not what the mind would label as pleasant ones. They can also bring tears to my eyes...

 Can I open to them too?

This is what I'm playing with more deeply: opening to all experiences and sensations... with love in my heart. Is it possible? Is it worth it? I believe that it is. It reminds me that everything is just a form of energy moving, some gently and some intensely... yet it is all just energy moving and expressing itself. I don't have to control or define any of it; I simply have to carry myself through it. I can do that in an open way or a closed way; I am choosing open this year.

This adventure is about deepening into the experience of carrying myself through life with an open heart to every bit of it...not only opening to what is, but loving what is. I don't know if I can, but this is the year to try!

This is my life... for 20 more days

Wow - just 20 days left! Suddenly a part of me panics at the thought..."OK. You have 20 days left. What are you going to do with them? 20 days isn't very long..."

Of course the truth is that although I have 20 days left to live in this A Year To Live experiment, I may really only have a few minutes or hours.... The Angel of Death can tap on our shoulder at any moment of any day. That is the truth. So why am I worrying about 20 days?

There's a part of me that would have loved to go to Italy, France, Holland, Spain and all those other places before I died. And there's the part of me that has been completely full and happy just being right here, living my life and loving the people and things that are a part of it.

This weekend I went to the Texas Renaissance Fest with my sweetie and a couple of friends. I walked into the fest dressed in jeans and a t-shirt but walked out dressed in a gypsy outfit complete with a jingle-jangly belt around my waist. Oh boy, did we have a blast! We danced and laughed and flirted and ate strange food and got henna tattoos and saw all kinds of great things happening around us. It occurred to me while we were there that it would be my last fest in this year to live, and who knows... maybe ever. So I played hard and felt free.

This is my life: filled with service work that I love; a sacred partnership that fills me with such sweetness; friendships that are true, intimate and playful; and a heart filled with joy at all of it. I look at my life and it makes me happy to see what I've created. It didn't always feel this great, but it does now...

If the Angel of Death tapped on my shoulder right now, I would leave this life feeling full and happy in my heart. So don't be too sad to see me go; celebrate the gifts that life offers in every moment and claim them in their fullest expression for yourself.

26 Days and Counting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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