SOUL AND EGO: Writing Our Own Stories

This is what Soul Would Say:

Earth has an ego and a soul – just like we do. The massacres in Boston yesterday, were the ego – an ego we are ALL responsible for.  The Ego wants to make a point, it wants to be RIGHT it wants to “win” and it wants to “own” the material.  This makes absolutely no sense at all.  Does it make sense to you?  Ask yourself the hard questions. It won’t hurt.

Often it takes a catastrophic event to remind us that we are all a part of a living cell; a macro-cosmic environment which is our planet.  Just as with our human-physiological selves(the microcosmic version of earth) when one system is out of whack, the whole thing goes a little screwy.  The planet has an ego just like we do…and it has a Soul.  Yesterday Boston saw another ugly display of Ego trying to make a point about something unimportant and completely motivated by fear. This is a difficult time of change.

The fact is that right now  the energetic system of our planet is readjusting, and we are seeing all sorts of strange  happenings personally and globally. Bombs at the Boston Marathon, epidemics of cancer, teen suicide, grown men shooting children in the face for wanting to go to school, mental illness at an all time incredible high.  The planet is sick. Did you know nearly 850,000 people this year alone will kill themselves?

We have incredible strength and power in our thoughts.   What you think will be created.  I not only believe it, but when my Ego is quiet enough, when I am diligent in my spiritual practice, I can even work with this idea directly. We all can. It’s not some special magical power like a super hero or religious leader that only special people get. It is a power which resides equally within each of us.  The choices you make will directly implicate how much of this power you become aware and connected to.

That is why there is so much power in prayer – no matter what your belief system; prayer is universal.

Information and a relatability between each other is also emerging at a furious pace.  We need to both acknowledge and use our “powers” as soon as possible.

Beyond how you eat and and whether or not you do yoga, this power is accessible and available to you. You just have to decide it really. The amazing thing is that once you know how to access your own, then you can directly help the entire planet. We all can.  One person – one light at a time.   Quantum physics is constantly re-proving how far reaching the implications of a simple single thought can be in epic detail.  It’s really an amazing age to be living in.

But we have so much tragedy. That’s the way it is when things change. Similar to the 60′s when an energetic shift in consciousness caused tremendous social upheaval as well.  It amazes me how we still idealize the 60′s in our popular media, with it’s flowers and love, cool beads, music, sexual liberation and civil rights – often forgetting that these great acts of creation, either ideological or artistic, were propagated by tremendous national and international pain and fear.  The 60′s and 70′s were a precursor to what is happening now, and they were chalk full of tragedy and drama and horrifying events.  The death’s of great minds and leaders, social upheavals - again a readjustment period.  We are experiencing a stepped up version of this time in our current circumstance I believe.

Now events are much more powerful and pervasive. We have a physically globally connected singular world mind, in the form of the internet. Its consequences and effects are beyond anything we could ever have imagined and we are just at the very tip of something that is inclining us to learn how closely connected to all of the energies around us that we really are.

Some people are starting to understand the implications of this and are hopping on the bus with both feet towards a fearless conscious evolution.  This emergent understanding of ourselves as energetic spiritual beings, connected in every way to and from our creative source, far supersedes anything religion has ever attempted to delve into. Why? Because weren’t ready.  Learning anything, I have been taught with horses, is like learning the alphabet.  You cannot make too many words if you skip learning certain letters.  You need the whole alphabet to make sentences. And so, now, we have access to the whole alphabet, and we are starting to write our own stories.

The only things that will last are the things we attach to the only aspect of existence that doesn’t change – and that is our own personal consciousness. Our energy. Our US-ness. The I AM part of you. Even if you have never heard this, I bet somewhere inside of you this makes some weird kind of unrelatable sense. That’s the way deep truth feels. Intangible but solid.

Boston was a horrible tragedy. But so are the countless deaths in Afghanistan every day.  There are many hundreds if not many thousands of children who have watched their own fathers die there, as did the little 8 year old boy who sadly experienced this with his own father at the Boston Marathon Bombings.  Are those fathers less important to their children?  I don’t think so. We just need to stop killing each other.

Segue…

I am going away for a few days to be alone. It will be good to clear my mind.  I like to meditate and gather my energies back when I have a chance to do this – unplug from technology and remember what I feel like – unhindered.

I am very lucky in my life to have the help and support of an incredible Tribe. My tribe is very special. We have consciously chosen one another.  We choose to be honest and supportive. We help each other be brave and fearless in our life choices, and we mostly spend time reminding each other of who we really are.

Everyone needs a tribe. Ego hates my tribe. When I “hang with my tribe”, in whatever form it is in that day, ego is mighty quiet.

He wouldn’t get a word in edgewise over the cackling anyway.

~Namaste~

ROUND 13: Soul Sings a Song!

There are two things I have come to know for sure in life. The first is you WILL get what you pray for – SO BE CAREFUL!  Maybe (probably) it won’t arrive in the form, shape or colour you thought it would arrive, but I can guarantee you my friends, that if you pray earnestly for something..you will get it.

The second thing that I have learned is that the more we think we know how this life will turn out, the more incredibly wrong we will find we are.  There are surprises EVERYWHERE! At every turn, I have been shown the unpredictability and absolute adventurous magic of this life, and I am in awe.   Sometimes, the story bends and turns darkly.  It can be filled with loss and drama and grief, as much as it can overflow with love and gratitude and joy.

How I experience any event in my life entirely has to do with how determined I am to stay spiritually connected.  Soul keeps me and my overly active mind on the straight and narrow.   Ego is always  busy lifting power weights and gearing up for when I let my presence and awareness slip away.

Ego has a chance to come out and play if I don’t sleep enough, don’t eat well, don’t excercise and meditate. Ego has an especially great time if I forget to set boundaries, go around motivated by people-pleasing and allow myself to dwell in the illusion of guilt from the past or anxiety in the future.  Ego never seems to exist in THIS particular moment.  Where there is a desire to maintain a conscious contact to our creative/creator source, without the encumbrances and limitations of human expectations on that relationship.

But life isn’t all very predictable, and knowing where and when to head off Ego at the pass becomes a challenge of staying present and aware in this moment. I think God keeps it real – so there are curves in the road.  And thank God for those curves!  If we could know the ENTIRE story and how it were to unfold BEFORE hand, we would probably just stand there terrified to move forward at all like deer caught in the headlights.  It’s those curves that give us space and allowance and time to assimilate the next set of challenges on the road.

 

There are always surprises…you never know how anything will turn out really.

******************************************************************************************************************************************************

Soul hears a knock at the door…

She opens it and finds another – just like her…

Loneliness lifts. The sun shines.

Thank God for the curves in the road.  She is surprised that she is not on her knees.

In fact…She is elated.

A song fills the room – a sweet soulful melody, moving in and out of time gently like silk.

Soul begins to sing inside, deep in the place where songs are created.

Ego sends out a muffled barely audible sound from beyond the mind- Soul doesn’t hear him.

“That song sucks”.

Soul smiles and continues her sweet composition.

The stars turn their faces towards the Her and stand still in rapt attention.

The sun and the moon dance lightly between one another in the falling midday sun.

Her song is a breath of relief that she is till here – she feels it deeply in this moment- the one that is her gift to herself.

Soul is on fire. In this moment there is only her song and nothing else.

The sound of something like a summer night compliments the tune. Soul feels like she is writing with the whole world as her orchestra and Love is her muse.

Ego…?

What ego?

 

Round 12: Ego Vs Soul – The Wait

It’s a funny thing that this 12th round of the big boxing match between my soul and my ego is all IN MY HEAD, because if you would look at some chakra charts, that’s exactly where your 12th chakra is, right above your head, way up in the sky.

That’s about how I feel.

Many people don’t give credit to the effects that the moon can have on our general temperaments, but I am starkly aware that a new moon is coming tomorrow, and my soul has gone into ZZZZZZ mode. Ego is up, on fire, and ready to tango.

Some moons have the effect of greater energy and creativity, like the past full moon in Libra. I was a creating MACHINE!  I was painting, sketching, singing, playing, writing. it was a blast.

Then a sort of darkness falls over me, and I lose my speed, chug chug chug down to a slow…and there is no more.

I sit quietly.  Look around. Wait.

I hate waiting.

I prefer Chaos to waiting.

“But you have self awareness…you will not create chaos. ” Soul reminds me.

Phewf. That’s a relief.

I will just sit and wait.

While ego tries and tries to knock me down, over and around.

Soul has a little nap – getting herself ready for the next stage.The next round. The next game.

It’s going to be ok.

She told me she had faith I could handle myself with Ego.  He’s just-a-big-bully. Hmph.

“Just tell him to go to his room”, she said before yawning widely and sauntering off for her nap.

“How?” I asked.

“You’ll know”, she yawned again. “I need to refill”. Were her last words.

Without hesitation, Ego sees his chance.  He comes crawling out of his lair where he had been quite ignored for a long time.  He is dusty, dishevelled and annoyed.  He stretches and yawns, his foul breath filling my nostrils.

“Ugh…not you again”, I feel the tension in my gut.

He gnashes his nasty teeth and growls his nasty roooooaaaarrr…and rasies his eyebrow.

I sit up straight and close my eyes prepared to do what i was told: wait.

So I begin my wait.

Because I know

When soul wakes they will dance under the darkened moonlight.

~Namaste~

MAJOR LESSONS IN BLUES

My recent performance at the illustrious Femmes en Blues III in Montreal taught me some grand lessons for which I will be eternally grateful!  I’ll share them with you in the hopes that you won’t make the same mistakes I made.

First I have to begin by making a terrible admission to you:

I never really liked the blues.

It’s boring. Standard. Repetitive.

Right?

Wrong.

The music I chose for the event was selected admittedly haphazardly. Every song to me, up to thAT point, sounded like one of only four songs which represented to blues in my head.  Each song only differed by changing lyrics and cadence so I paid little regard to any of the real complexity of the songs.  I threw the general choices out to my Facebook friends and followers and a few good suggestions came back. I had to pick four in total, so for the final two remaining,  I really had no idea what to choose. I looked mainly for what sounded like ”standard blues” to me – like”Ball and Chain” by Janis (everyone “expected me” to do a Janis) and “Hound Dog” (easy…right?) originally by Big Mama Thornton, and crucified later by Elvis.

The F.E.B. festival is created by some very talented and professional women. An all female band, we only had one rehearsal prior to the show and everyone was expected to learn their songs on their own.  I went into the rehearsal thinking (there was my FIRST mistake!) that I could “wing” these songs./ They’re just blues after all. I was so very very wrong on so many levels.

I came home after getting my ass kicked in rehearsal, and sat down to do some real work. When I began to learn Big Mama’s “Hound Dog”, I realized I was faced with a song that was intuitively complex. I had paid no mind to the intricate and off set patterns of vocal and guitar entry and exit. I had sung everything in a 4×4 (my entire life??), but then later realized that most of the earlier foundation blues was extremely complex because it had not followed what we established later in the 50;s and 60s as a very predictable pattern of music.  I discovered we have dumbed down our music over time!  Sadly we have often have lost the real passionate feel of the intuitive offset patterned blues. As I was learning this lesson, my fingers accidentally touched a YouTube video for “Ball and Chain”, the last concert given by Big Mama Thornton in 1984.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSAOHwQhPcQ

In the video, we see a very old Mama. She puts out her cigarette, sits down, looks carefully at the audience as though she is sitting at a table about to tell a frank and frightening tale. It looked so intimate,  except that she was looking out at a sea of thousands of faces. She announces she is going to do a tune “in my own way”, and so begins “Ball and Chain”. A rebuke to Janis Joplin’s interpretation of her music in the 60′s. I had a rough history with this song.  Firstly, many people because of my rough voice and my big red hair, feel Janis when I sing, so I almost feel a pressure of doing her songs, although I don’t relate to her as an artist or singer at all.  I was at first doing Ball and Chain, which I had plucked quickly and mindlessly off the internet. I listened to the beginning, it sounded like a standard three chord blues and I just threw it into the mix, only later taking the time to really listen to the whole thing and discovered that in actuality it was  Janis screaming a horrendous lament for 8 minutes and seven seconds.  Recorded live just a few months before Janis overdosed, it was truly an anthem of misery. I couldn’t do it.

I quickly got in touch with the organiser of the event, apologising for pulling a song after the deadline, but I explained there was just NO WAY I could do this song.  I remembered this as I watched Big Mama Thornton focus her eyes, clearly in the past, and tell some man how she felt about his “hanging around her neck – like a ball and chain”…wow. I was blown off my chair. Her face twisted, her eyes rolled back in her head and her wide smile shone like a diamond in the blue light of the stage. It was magical.  This was a level of blues so honest and so completely visceral it entirely changed her appearance. She became at once beautiful and awesome…bigger than life.  I watched her eyes transform, and I saw her energy move the band through the ins and outs of the story. My heart-felt full, my eyes had tears and I realized that at that moment…I GOT the blues. I felt it, I knew it…and I was humbled. How could I have taken such a vastly important song as ‘Hound Dog” (which contrary to Elvis’s meek interpretation is not at all about a dog at all), and sung it with such a lack of respect! I could clearly feel Big Mama beside me, poke me with her elbow and say “girl…if you is gonna sing my songs, you better do ‘em right!”. “Yes Ma’am”, I replied silently and reverently. Oh boy. That night being called up on stage to perform my songs at The Femmes en Blues, I was not surprised by the feeling of calm and companionship I felt with this wise elder. She had stayed with me the whole week I diligently learned my songs.  I stepped up to the plate alright…but not alone.    Nothing that is as fabulous as what happened that night could ever be done alone.  Only grace, and the help of a friendly guiding hand, can bring you to this kind of experience. Here’s to hoping you all get the blues!

~Peace~

ROUND 9: A NOTE FROM SOUL

A NOTE FROM SOUL:

I have been struggling for years with the idea of what God is, but tonight, and not ironically, I found God in Big Mamma Thornton and the blues.  So, I really don’t know what your idea of a Higher Being is, I’m pretty sure we all generally believe in something yours sure can;t be any stranger than Big Mama Thornton. God is our pure creative instinct. It feels separate and apart from us only because religion has interceded as a unnecessary middleman in our divine relationship. So, my version of God includes a bunch of religions that i found appealing, philosophies and beliefs. Even some rituals which can make me feel like I am being more actively connected to my spiritual life.  I don’t know what to call that “creative being” that made us and everything, but I do believe one of those exists.  Not separate and apart from us, but very much inside of us, and equally accessible when we choose to remember we have access to it.

This pure divine energy in us can best be used in creative pursuits.  We humans are creating machines! We create cities, countries, people, technology, science. We create cultural norms, beliefs systems, and entire patterns of illusions that we have all agreed to live by, mostly to our detriment.

Everyone at some point asks who they are and what their purpose is in life.  I really don’t find the answers so difficult. We are all each other, and we are here to learn ourselves and then take our highest creative talent and use it for good in the world. That’s it.  Sounds impossible, but Star trek has been right about lots of things, so I am hoping Old Gene was n track with his future Utopian Society, which enabled New Generation to have an entire world of people who studied and didn’t need money.  Doesn’t that sound ridiculous?  It shouldn’t though, should it?  We can’t achieve what we cannot even imagine.  SO, if we can IMAGINE Utopia, then we can move towards it with global conscious effort.

I say let’s shoot high. Stop focusing on the symptoms, like our crappy doctor’s do, and focus on the BIG PICTURE, which is that the world needs a quick and dramatic overhaul. Either we do it, or I guarantee you She will.  At any rate, the more we perfect our skills in communicating with each other, as we do here in blog land, the better off we are in all areas.  I find people get away with allot less these days, and that is a comfort.  It means we are forming a global consciousness, a sort of planetary cultural belief system. This will really make all the population spill over much easier to integrate and absorb into hosting cultures, simply because they have prior knowledge through the internet.

The fact is we all have a deep inner knowledge of exactly who it is we are.  It is our quest to define it falsely that has led to each and every one of our most brutal moments in evolutionary history.  From a micro or macro cosmic view, everything from personal ego to global religion, to greed – people are at war to gain a definition of themselves. Palestine, the jews – this fight won’t end until defining themselves by their religion is understood to be extremely self limiting. We are born to be creative beings – by labelling ourselves, we definitively narrow the definition of experiences we are willing to have.

But, the fact is, we are all given a creative talent, some spark of passion for something, that when we undertake this activity, we are transported; we feel at peace, out mind is quiet and whatever we come out with at the end it always feel like time well spent.  I feel like this when I sing, or play guitar, paint, sketch or write even.  This is our inner creative being.  It is the highest expression can undertake to bring to the world.  Each person in the world should feel free to explore in freedom and peace and joy, no matter who they are or where they live.  But we all KNOW this at a very fundamental level.  It’s not like the world is full of BAD people, there are very good people as well. So, why, if there are 7 billion of us, can;t we make it so that everyone has what they need, so that children get an education and sick people see a doctor? Why is this simple stuff so difficult?

It’s difficult, in part. because of “who” people think they are.  The wealthy hold their riches like in an eagles talon, while those who have known suffering or lack, more freely give of their material goods and themselves.  The fact is, suffering is the best route to understanding compassion.  The Buddhists have it.

I am optimistic.  I believe that the technology which has been emerging will bridge the gap and create fellowship and understanding, maybe not in our lifetimes, but eventually, people will no longer be able to focus on differences and ignore the fact that we are ALL THE SAME.

~Peace~

ROUND 9 UPDATE: EGO is biding his time, quietly taking notes like an undercover reporter hiding in the back-alley of my mind.

ROUND 7~ EGO Makes a Devastating Comeback – SOUL Steps Back – Bob Marley Makes an Appearance

I haven’t written in a while. When ego is running the show, my ability and desire to write gets crushed.  That should be my first clue.

This past week was like that.  One horrific thing after another. One step backwards after another.  I hate that.  The thing is, I need the steps backwards, because without them I would quickly delude myself that I don’t need to work at my emotional and spiritual life, and that i can just coast on what I have learned.

Just like a horse with its convex vision, I need to occasionally step back and take a clearer look at my life and what is in and around it.  I need to be honest with myself and look at what is working and what isn’t working for me.  The hardest things to consider are the situations that are not working or are causing you undue and unnecessary harm and pressure in life.  The second hardest thing to do is to set boundaries, end relationships or make any necessary changes to your current circumstances to allow you different, perhaps more productive and positive choices.  But, then again, any change you make to your life is really a crap-shoot.  We can only do the footwork, and really can expect no outcome, because everything changes so quickly and so seemingly randomly, you just never know.

During my first divorce, I experienced some life threatening levels of guilt. I remember my mother saying in so many words:

“Take the steps, do the footwork and let go of looking back for one year.  Just move forward, with no evaluation.  After a year you can sit down and see if the choices were good for you or bad for you.  If you don’t like how you feel, then you can change it again, because you always have choices“.

You know, I thought I was a pretty smart gal; I have read some books and gone to some good schools. But until that day the sure knowing that I had CHOICES had never really occurred to me quite like it did then.  Before I had felt stuck and governed by the situations that crossed my path. Unconsciously pushed around by life. My life had become one big “red alert”;  always waiting for the next shoe to drop, shrouded in impending doom, looking for a crisis to manage.  And let me tell you, I became an expert crisis manager. I perform fabulously in the midst of chaos.

EGO grows when we manage chaos.  It gives us self-purpose and direction and motivation – chaos takes the focus off of having to look at yourself, and allows you to focus on issues outside of your self. It coats you in the wrong kind of motivation. EGO loves to make us unhappy and depression is its coup-d’etat. EGO’s biggest lie is telling us that we have way more control over things than we do.  SOUL is all about “let go let God”, but EGO only berates and cajoles for not controlling the uncontrollable.  Like the promoter of a big illusion. Consciousness is its mortal enemy I have concluded.  Allowing continued ongoing frustration, feeling less than and being in the midst of a seemingly unmanageable life, will erode anyone’s joie-de-vivre.  Joy and serenity are our birthright, so identifying ego’s pull is our responsibility.

When life is quiet and balanced – SOUL can come into the light stretch her arms wide and expand.  Chaos stops us from being able to hear soul. It takes up the space where she should be.  The ironic thing is that it only takes a moment of knowing where you are and where she is to bring her back into full conscious force.  Everyone has this ability.  Some use meditation to call it back.  Now we are beginning to understand that SOul is available all the time, when chaos isn’t so loud as to obliterate her call.

It’s the quiet times I don’t do well with.  EGO works hard in my head when everything is going well, reminding me that i don’t deserve happiness, that I am less than and shouldn’t even bother trying. The times where everything seems ok and quiet and manageable, peaceful happy and balanced seem to only take up less than 5% of my life.  Even my dreams are insanely chaotic.  I have recurring dreams of always being in natural disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes. and in each on I am saving animals. Tons and tons of animals.  It’s exhausting!

So if your “daily habit” is to be managing chaos, and you get up every morning expecting chaos, I guarantee that you will be given what you are asking for.

It’s an entire other level of understanding to be conscious of a potential habit towards chaos, and consciously allow SOUL the uninterrupted quiet she needs to come forward and take back the helm of your thoughts. When you start to feel like you can accept all of the situations and people in your life, then you know SOUL is coming out to play. When you feel like you can handle the next door bell, phone call or surprise visit – you can be sure SOUL is in charge of helping you live in this moment.  And the fun part is that, you don’t have anything you need to learn. You have everything inside of you that you need to do what you need for today.  Isn’t that great news!  You just have to make the decision that it is the Truth.

SOUL just whispered in my ear – sounding remarkably like Bob Marley;

“I said don’t worry, about a ting. Cause every little thing…is gonna be alright”.

~Namaste~

ROUND FOUR: THE AWESOMENESS OF NOTHING

Round four folks -  both EGO and SOUL are having a little nap today.  These are the days when my mind goes to sleep and I celebrate doing NOTHING.  By not trying to do it all,  I feel the quiet hum of peace wash warmly over my chest.  Days like this are important.  We can’t always be ON, even if SOUL is out front.  It is true that when SOUL is out and EGO is not, I am more energize, creative and excited about my life.  But there are times for quiet, for reconnecting inside myself -for DOING NOTHING -  to which I dedicate today.

Doing nothing isn’t as easy as it sounds for some of us. No thinking, no fear, no negative self-deprecating thoughts, no future projecting; it is time for quiet. Shhhh….the world won’t fall apart if you’re not thinking it into the way you believe it should be.

I feel SOUL beside me, like a steady companion, patiently awaiting my attention.  I know the minute I give it to her, in meditation, prayer or creativity,  she will transport me to some other miraculous inspiration.  But for now – just for today, I am peaceful and happy, unafraid and equally unmotivated to do anything but nothing.   It is a day to just BE.

My husband came home the other night to find me sitting in a chair.

He said “what are you doing??” Since he is use to seeing me either springing into action or laying half dead with exhaustion.

“I am just doing nothing”. I smiled at him.

” Are you ok? What do you mean “nothing” did something happen?” his questions come at me in a concerned barrage of machine-gun fire queries.

I smile at how much he loves me.

“I mean, I am sitting here, and not meditating, not praying, not thinking – not nuthin…I am doing NOTHING”.

He looks a little baffled, but shuffles out of the bedroom leaving me for my five more minutes of mandatory nothing.

Being overly active in our lives gets to be a bad habit. It creates chaos. You train yourself and those around you to become habituated to constant motion, thought activity and action. NO one can sustain this their entire lives!  The body has to rest, and if you’re like me, even sleep isn’t rest.  I travel, save animals, put out fires, handle floods, fire, famine…craziness. My sleep is better than TV.  Last night I had meteors raining down on the farm and I was saving children and dogs.  Sleep is not restful for me.  I think SOUL has a whole other life going on while my body is asleep.  Then when I am awake, even if my body is still, I think. I think and think and think about everything. I realize that if I’m thinking about a thing it doesn’t actually mean I’m doing something about it, right? Wow…only took me half a century for that one.

From my waking moment to the minute I put my head down to sleep, inevitably, I am active.  I am fixing solving, planning, doing, running.  I get up and go…and go,…and go. It’s a bad habit borne of being raised in a  family that put a high value on how active you were.  If you were doing – then you were useful. Not doing meant laziness, to which few sins could compare.  Breaking bad habits takes conscious decisions to make a different choice about what to do with the minute you are existing in right now.  Becoming aware of the [patterns and habits we are taught from infancy, the most pervasive of which are the ones which are not spoken, but exemplified, is a part of growing up and becoming your own person.  

This kind of programming had me believing that if I wasn’t like a “June Cleaver” 50′s mom, while I was upholding a  singing career, running a barn full of horses and managing my home – then I was a failure.  Stopping and doing NOTHING helps me realize how wacko this kind of unconscious thinking can make me.

I fight the habitual urge to get up and do laundry, read a book, clean a floor or yell at my teenagers for making another catastrophic mess in the living room.   I instead  choose not to care for that moment, simply not to care. The mess will still be there, the bills will (unfortunately) wait for me to struggle to pay for them.  I can just be for a while. When thoughts of worries, unpaid bills, how will I handle next week, what is going to happen to my mom…stuff…came up in my mind, I just reminded EGO that for a little while, we were just going to do NOTHING.  I reminded myself that the world would not fall apart if I wasn’t directing traffic for fifteen minutes.

I am not meditating.  Meditation holds within itself another kind of intention; purpose to reconnect to our spiritual energetic centers. I’m not looking to do anything that fancy right now.  I am doing nothing. and when I am compelled to do something, I once again give myself permission to be slack, loose and I fall easily into peace.

I stand up renewed and ready for the next leg of my day.  I feel my shoulders softer, my belly less tense and my smile comes more easily and less contrived.  I could get used to this “doing nothing”.  Try it – I promise you’ll like it.

~Namaste~

UPDATE: The past four rounds have been up and down. Ego wining the first round clearly, SOUL making a slow but steady come back. EGO could make a come back next week as real life events and stress management become of key importance.  I will need SOUL to be rested and ready to come out fighting…on Monday.  For now, our score remains at: EGO – 1 SOUL 3

ANGELS, ALIENS and GOD

Every day I get these emails called 11:11 prompts.  They are supposed to be channeled messages from a man in Australia named George Barnard. I had never heard of George until a few years ago, when someone I had met said I may be interested in what he had to say.  The reason for my interest was because throughout my life I had always seen and noticed when the time was 11:11. over time I had developed my own superstition around this time, feeling that it was my angels or guides that were giving me a heads up that i was on the right track, or I was being watched over and cared for.  I didn’t know, until George Barnard that there are many thousands of people who hold this same belief and seem to be prompted to remember their guides almost daily. Some say that the people who are the observers of the prompts are earth’s “Midwayers”, people who are meant to help wake up the earth spiritually. These are people who have had a mystical experience or some form of transcendence which has allowed them to understand their connected nature to Source.  Like carriers of light in a dark room,  Midwayers  are intuitive people and work with guidance to take their next step.

The road to opening my mind to being able to believe in what I could not see, hear, feel or touch was a long arduous process.  I have probably spent the better part of my life being fascinated with all things otherworldly and ghostly. My favourite Christmas story as a child was Scrooge from my father’s old “Book of Knowledge” – 1921”. In it there was a lithographic print,  old fashioned and dusty looking, of Fezziwig and his wife, in ghostly form, dancing eerily around their workshop at the Christmas party they threw when Scrooge was a young man. The picture scared the hell out of me and I loved being scared.

I read voraciously and my understanding of spirits grew over time until I lost the fear factor in lieu of greater and greater curiosity. At some point my ghostly studies became enmeshed with my spiritual beliefs. Somehow, they came together as the mysteries of each were unveiled for me. Not that I am in any way completely clear on everything, but I have my moments.

Throughout my 30 years of studying ghosts and superstition, I went through all of the possibilities. I studied magic, Christianity, Satanism, Voodoo, Hoodoo (the American (New Orleans) version of voodoo), Judaism, Shamanism, Wicca, Buddhism, Yoga, Hinduism, Sufism, and Meditation.  I never claimed any one religion, but instead found myself with a personal understanding that more combined elements from each – resulting in a Sufist understanding of the world.

So, you can see that put in order the progression for curious mind seems pretty natural. I went from not really believing in anything but wanting to, to believing in a SUPER-UNIVERSAL Divine Mind that is both sentient and loving and is the place we all emanate from. THIS to me makes sense. It’s the kind of “concept” that feels right inside of me. I can connect to it; I can try and work with it. It is a functional concept of God that has brought me to living my life in a very different way than I used to. But, over time I saw that God wasn’t limited to what I know and understand. God could exist all over, at every time in every place.

And so, as the Universe will, I was asked to stretch my mind even further…

I had to go from Super-Universal Divine Sentient Loving Mind – the ALL that is EVERYTHING – To believing that this Spirit has sent us other aspects of itself to guide us with. Beings from “other places” that are able to travel back in time to convey messages of hope and spiritual direction at a changing time in our planetary history.

I’ll tell you that, as with every other stage of my learning, the skeptic in me demands some form of five sensory proof. Part of me thinks “Oh, just have faith” and then another part of me says “Yeah but show me”

But show me becomes a type of prayer. The Universe wants to acknowledge our request, because the only thing it desires is unequivocal union with us, and so It shows us – over and over again. We are shown direction, we are given inspiration, we are crossed with coincidences and synchronicities. And yet, we continue to look for what we think we are supposed to see, and so we fail to see what is right in front of us.

Listen: Every day that we get up and take a breath and put our feet on the floor and begin making choices an decisions, is a MIRACLE.  That fact that we even exist is a miracle. Then, we run around, not even understanding the level of power we have as individuals- we impact the world around us, with every thought and intention from start to finish. There is no getting around the fact that we are all so intricately connected through a web of such fine fabrication, that we could not even begin to understand the most basics of the impacts the ripples of our decisions make.

Not to mention the fact that our learning has increased by ten times what it was when you and I were young. The internet and the openness in human communication is causing a blowing up of the mind, such as we have never before seen in history.

It is becoming clear that if we on this planet believe we are the only forms of life in the Universe, we are completely in the dark. It is not possible to be a logical and thinking person without concluding somehow that there must be life elsewhere. How far of a stretch then is it for us to believe that this other kind of  life has abilities we don’t have yet? And that they have transcended the limitations of time and space, such as a we have been seeking to do since we first walked on earth. (I wonder if people acted as obtusely about Copernicus’s discovery that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe as we are about finding out that we aren’t the only ones in the universe.  I can see how both things would cause great turmoil and confusion in society. )

I can be scientific about this after all.  As crazy as “aliens from the future are speaking to us through mathematical prompts like 11:11” sounds, can you disprove it?  Are we able to clearly DISPROVE the POSSIBILITY of alien life? Of course not.  So, if you can’t disprove something – then must it not exist?

Our own science has proven repeatedly that the energetic world is far more complicated and intricate then they can even begin to understand.  Quantum physics has shown us that our mere observation of a quantum packet impacts the way it moves.  Time is a significant consideration too. It is no coincidence I think that if “aliens” were trying to reach us they would use how we observe time to get our attention, like using 11:11. Is it coincidence that computer language is 101010011110001 , ones and zeros?  I don’t think so.  Time is after all only of this place.  Science has shown that the Universe bends and shifts and is constantly expanding outwards, changing the nature of time in its very fabric, since Time exists only relative to space.

Just keep an open mind – remember – the miracle is not in the act, but in the observer.

For more information on George Barnard please visit http://www.1111spiritualguardians.com

The Next Right Thing

Many years ago, I had a very dear friend who demonstrated to me the power of doing the “next right thing”.  He taught me that this philosophy is available in all types of life circumstances.  He probably demonstrated it to me best when he kept following the philosophy through his cancer and awe-inspiring life challenges to the very moment of his death; he seemed to die a very happy and contented man.  I believe that this philosophy, available to everyone despite religion or spiritual belief, is the key to living a balanced spiritually connected life in any circumstance.

Many people look for a way to live a spiritual life.  They try all sorts of crazy things; waving incense around, banging on metal bowls,  twisting and contorting themselves into unnatural physical positions, they shave their heads and decorate themselves with symbolic tattoos that they don’t have the first clue about.  They look for magic in religion and find only the trappings of the human ego.  They look into things like wicca and magic, trying to find a way to gain more control over their lives.  Yet it seems the answer to living a spiritual life is not in all of these exterior solutions, but lies instead in a very simple philosophy of thinking.  It is the kind of thinking which, in a breath and with honest intention, can bring every effective prayer you know into action and can make your life make sense.  It will relieve you of all anxieties of you practice it enough and will help bring back that “joie de vivre” that you might remember from childhood.

JUST DO THE NEXT RIGHT THING….

The philosophy of living by “doing the next right thing” means that for every decision and choice that cross your path in a day, you access your inner feeling and follow your highest intuition.  Sometimes doing the next right thing is simple.  For example on the farm, there is a lot of work to do, so often doing the next right thing is completing the physical work that has to be done.  One job leads to the next leads to the next, so putting your head down and following is not a very difficult thing when you work in nature.

Sometimes life gives us what seems to be bigger obstacles to overcome, more impacting situations which have the power to change everything about your life.  For example, if the main breadwinner of your household gets laid off, which is something happening quite often in this strange economy of ours.  This requires a rethinking of what your expectations of your life were.   Or perhaps a diagnosis of cancer side tracks all of your plans.  In the case of these life altering events, you only have two choices. 1- accept it 2- don’t accept it.  If you choose not to accept a circumstance as it is, then you begin to fight against it. You enter into a state of denial about the situation and you give your interior power over to fear.

In order to live with the philosophy of “doing the next right thing”, you don’t just accept a thing, you remind yourself that there is a reason for everything, that nothing happens by accident and that if you are aware, you will find that the universe will lead you safely out of the maze of whatever if happening.  This is taking the action of living in faith; the path of least resistance. We don’t take the action of doing the next right thing because religion has told us that our God (in whichever form you believe) will judge us and punish us for our supposed misdeeds.  We take the action of doing the next right thing because it is the thing which will cause the greatest harmony in our lives.  In reality, we aren’t seeking “happiness”, we are seeking contentedness, and the ability to deal with life on life’s terms – even when life isn’t giving us the answers we think we should have.

Sometimes we can clearly see that the direction we are heading in is only bringing us misery, unhappiness, conflict, pain, uncertainty.  If thisis the case becomign aware and looking at other directions that life may be leading you is a good use of this philosophy.  Clearly, God or Source or whatever you’d like to call the creative force that lies behind life, can only have our best intentions at heart since we are one of its creations.  Following the next right thing to do in your life, even if that means just getting out of bed and brushing your teeth, is working within the powerful intended balance of how every living thing functions in unity.  By intending to place yourself in that wave of energetic intention for your life and others, you will naturally lead a more peaceful and balanced life.

Humility means the ability to follow your instinct – your gut about a thing even though your head may give you every reason why you are not capable of doing that thing, or why you shouldn’t.  Your mind expresses your fears – the limitations of your ego.  There are many different techniques to understanding how to hear the difference between your interior voice (which is connected to source) and your exterior voice (which is naturally impaired because it is contorted by your incorrect perceptions about your past and is rooted in fear). Today, Western culture is becoming more and more interested in meditation and yoga because it is becoming obvious that become more in tune you are with the natural and energetic world around you, the more able you are to make clear choices rooted in creative forward thinking energy and not fear and avoidance.

Finding your intuition comes in many forms.  Primarily, you may find that you follow synchronicity and coincidences more closely.  You may find that you pay more attention to what your heart is telling you and less attention to your mind. You see the world epaking to you more clearly, and you honour what you need more often so that you have the abliity to be of service in your life. I have never learned this lesson the easy way. When i am reminded of the strength of this philosophy, it is usually at a time when I am on my knees looking around and wondering what will come next.  Change comes in waves in everyone’s lives, and it seems my wave has arrived and I am forced to bring back to the forefront of my mind the discipline of reminding myself to follow and just do the next right thing.

Last night in my garden newly planted and brimming with butterflies and birds all looking for the freshly dug up worms, I felt the presence of my friend with me, his strong hand on my shoulder warm and comforting reminding me to just “do the next right thing”.  It has always been ok…it will always be ok.

In my gratitude for the patience and love he has and continues to have for me,  I wanted to share his wisdom with you.  I know my writing cannot do as good a job as having watched him put it into practice even to his last day, but I hope it gives you some ideas of your own.

~Namaste~

SoulFusion…literally.

I don’t usually talk about this in my writing but I am a singer. I have a fantastic band (SoulFusion) and the music we make is absolutely amazing.  I have the joy of being surrounded by some of the finest musicians you could ever hope for, and together we are quite a force of nature ~ literally.

I don’t say this to ring my bell but it’s a fact.  We all five  have something, very unique and powerfully soul driven when we know to get out of its way. Something we know in outr own way that was given to us as a creative power to express our innermost selves.  This inner expression can surpass words.  This is the ultimate gift of the creative self;  to give everyone the ability to communicate beyond the limitations of our words. We can see how important this is becoming today since we have begun to learn things at an insanely fast rate and in some cases we don’t even have the linguistic vernacular to describe what we are newly experiencing or learning.  Music in particular tends to attract a rather extroverted passionate bunch. Interestingly enough, many of the musicians that I know are quite shy off stage. But on stage you cold set off a bomb and they wouldn’t flinch.  When I sing I feel like my soul is bigger than my self.  It’s as though time stands still and I am completely and literally “in my element”.   That’s because I am lucky enough to have discovered the gift I was given. But I truly believe every single person has a gift, and one of the essential purposes of life is to find it and use it.

Saturday was a night like this.  The band hadn’t played together in a while, and as we say, all of us were pent up. It was a real treat for me…you simply can’t screw up with a bunch of guys like that behind you, so you relax – and that’s exactly what I did.  I began to experience miracle after miracle as the night went on. And I don’t mean “little interpretive” miracles, but great big obvious ones that shake your foundations.

First off, I had lost my voice from the previous two nights singing. I knew I was being a moron, but I just had been through so much since last August when I had stopped singing because my mother was diagnosed with cancer; we began playing again after she was in remission, and this was our frist gig. I literally let loose and COMPLETELY LOST my voice. By the fourth set (it was a long hard night) I was so exhausted, I could barely make it to the car. I cried all day saturday (that’s a real treat for your voice to – not) and at home I tried everything to regain my voice for this show, but came up hopelessly laryngitic (if that’s even a word!). OK…I was “blowing air” as we say in the live music business.  And it was two hours before show time. I was dead.

So I did what every good recovering Catholic would do in a snap reaction to a stressful situation. I jumped into a long hot bath and prayed.  It isn’t a religious thing with me, it was an “I’m scared because I’m about to make a fool out of myself” thing, and God was my last resort. Wow do I have things upside down sometimes. At any rate, I went at it honestly”

“God…I know you don’t take special requests but if you would just give me a little hand here, I really need my voice back. I am looking for a real miracle tonight”

“And if you can;pt do that (I figured too big and obvious)_ then just cancel the bloody gig.” i was really at a loss.

“Give me an idea…how do I get over this I’m ok with footwork, just tell me where!”.

Then came my part in this prayer deal…I had to actually LET IT GO. I had NO CHOICE. I had to TRUST that when I needed it, the thing God gave me would just be there. Wow..that was like jumping off a cliff, but it was allot less work and really allot less gross than gargling with luke warm sweet jasmine tea. That was one of six, but definitely my worse idea of curing Laryngitis. I had to give it all up.  It was a very freeing feeling and not as exhausting as trying and trying to fix it always coming up with no result.  I had topped steaming, breathing, meditating, praying…nothing. I just knew I had to assume that this had already worked and that when I needed my voice it would be there. And that if i did show up with no voice, I would handle it as best as I could and deal with it.  I settled on ok with any scenario. Acceptance.

Then I remembered Janis used tequila. I hate tequila.  Ask my husband; it’s his greatest disappointment that I won’t drink tequila with him. It tastes like gasoline and I don’t like it. But, in that bathtub I had a sudden and clear thought to take a couple of shots of tequila. It was the craziest notion and really the total opposite of what is recommended in the case of laryngitis. In fact every doctor or specialist alive will tell you never to drink anything that dehydrates you, like caffeine or alcohol when you have lost your voice. But there I was, wrapped in a towel, now clearly insane, my wet hair sticking to my face and shoulder and freezing cold in our old farmhouse. I leaped into the kitchen startling my worried husband and declared – we need tequila!

“Really?” was all he said as he poured two shots.

He set em up and we took and shot. I pinched my nose. It wasn’t so bad so I had a second and finally and third before we left.  I was in a pretty fine mood by the time we got to the gig and I had to meet up with band.  We had a start time of about 45 minutes after I arrived so we had time to set up our instruments, but we never really talked. I could sense a real anticipation that night, and I was happily surprised that everyone’s wasn’t more exhausted from the past night. We aren’t 20 anymore ya know.

On the stage we had a replacement bass player, someone we had welcomed back into our lives after not having seen him for a really long time. We had some really great gigs in the past and so because we were all old friends there was no discomfort, no wondering about styles or whatever – it was like a big happy reunion on stage.  And frankly, we could have given a shit if there was an audience there or not because by the second set, following an insanely slow 14 song first set, as requested by the owners (they had dinner clients who thought Highway to hell was a bit much  to compliment their steak and wine…imagine that? ) we were chomping at the bit like a bunch of overfed Kentucky Derby racehorses. We were “rarin to go” and wow…did we go.

I told Shawn, my guitar player that I had never felt so absolutely EXCITED to play music. This next set, I told him, would be extraordinary. Just you wait and see. He smiled and looked a little concerned.

First we blew Ramble On  by Led Zeppelin out of the water, and I don’t remember what the second song was supposed to be (I never stick to the set list ) but I know I had this sudden urge to play Move Over by Janis – I mean…I spun on my heel and gave dave the drummer a steely glare…

“Move Over” and I smiled.  It was a really cool moment between two people who love the rhythm of the music the most. We are both big followers and students of African drumming and so he understood I think what kind of power I was wanting to generate with that song.

The audience went immediately bananas when he hit the bass drum after only two solid “whacks”.  I started to sing and there was this moment where the song just went all perfect,, in this great cohesion. We were all at our PEAK of whatever it is we were doing. Me singing, John on guitar, dave on drums. Then, the most incredible strange and weird thing that I have ever in 30 years of singing seen…and I swear I am not lying I have 50 witnesses;

My glass exploded.

My water-glass, which was a beer glass with water sitting on my djembe blew up. Exploded. Shattered from inside to out. Glass was everywhere, and ironically, I had been reading Janis’s  biography Buried Alive and decided (abnormally) to take my shoes off and let my “Janis” all hang out. Which apparently attracted quite an energy.  No one was injured

But I noticed things. First, we didnt miss a beat and the audience really likes that kind of stuff.  Second, my body moved with ease which was amazing because I had just come 36 hours previously from a horrible back injury where I hardly walked in 6 days.  When I wasn’t singing, I felt the pain return.

I don’t know what it was that happened, but we all felt something big; bigger than us, but somehow coming from and as a result of he music we were making.  I think it simply came from the fact that at that moment, we were all our most HAPPY.  We were in our elements, as they say, quite literally. Where your creative spiritual self aligns itself with the intention of the universe for your highest understanding.  Simply put, it’s a tremendous sign that you are doing what the calling of your soul guides you too. It takes some kind of courage to listen to it though.

This experience had a very profound effect on me.  It really has shown me the incredible importance of the inner journey to find your creative center.  This is our most important task.

Can you imagine the energy of the planet if everyone were doing what they most loved in life?

I know it sounds impossible now, almost ridiculous, but really…IMAGINE IT - Because NOTHING is possible, until we can imagine it.

~Namaste~