Happy Mother’s Day beautiful woman!

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This rose is for you! xxoo

Whether or not you have given birth to or raised a child, I know that you have mothered someone.

You have loved, nurtured, cared for, listened to, cooked for, cleaned up after someone you love.

You have slipped a $20 into the palm of a teenager’s hand.

You have driven someone to the airport, fielded more than one tearful midnight phone call, rushed to the hospital to sit at someone’s bedside, holding their hand.

Today, I honor you – wherever you are – whatever your story. We are all mothers for one another and for the earth. This day (and, in my heart, every day) is dedicated to you – and the love that, through your beautiful heart, you bring to the world.


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Q & A: Scar tissue in the energetic field of the heart

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Photo: Buffy Bernhardt

A client asks: Can you help me to clarify what you mean by ‘scar tissue’?

Sometimes, when working with a client, I perceive what I call ‘scar tissue’ in the energetic field of the heart. This appears, to me, as empty or energetically ‘flat’ areas – I sense it as if something is missing which should be there.

I have come to understand that  these areas are scars, left on the heart by experiences which have hurt, humiliated or frightened us away from our natural open-hearted state – a state in which we normally freely flow energy.

In such cases, there seems to be a barrier – an energetic “KEEP OUT SIGN” guarding that area of the heart. I sense that it is the mind that has done this, in an attempt to shield that area, that wound, from being hurt again.

The problem is that the mind, in trying to protect us from pain and the loss of love, has isolated a part of us from love.

Of course, no part of us is really ever separate from love – we are made of love, and so are all of our ‘parts’. So, even as that part is wrapped in scar tissue and stored away under the protective custody of the ego, still it continues to pulse light – its own light – calling, as all creation, does, and responding to the pulse of the Divine within.

As it pulses, it rubs up against the scar tissue, creating inflammation: feelings of shame, blame, rage and self-loathing.  

That bit of light, buried beneath the veil of scar tissue, bothers you, whispering shadow stories about your not-good-enoughness, your brokenness, your unworthiness.

For most people, the first response to this ‘soul inflammation’ is to numb it down with distraction or addiction. But inevitably, eventually, the scar tissue becomes inflamed enough to cause pain.

We can no longer ignore it – and we turn to address it.

When addressed in light – through therapy, energetic healing and awareness – the scar tissue will begin to show itself. Buried emotions, memories and stories will bubble up, asking to be healed.

The key to this healing is forgiveness. 

Not forgiveness of those who may have done us harm (though that, too, may occur). This forgiveness is wider, deeper.

We let go of (forgive) the idea that things should have been different.

They shouldn’t have. How do we know this? We look at what is. This is what happened so this is what ‘should have’ happened.

We let go of (forgive) the idea that we, or any part of us, or of creation, is separate from the wholeness, from love.

For this is not possible.

We forgive the world for its imperfection.

… and when we do, we see that life is a flow, including all things, that which we call good; that which we call bad. It is what it is.

Gently, easily, your scar tissue softens and falls away, and the flow of all that you have hidden, all that you truly are, is liberated into the light – and available to you in present time.

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The universe is expanding and so are you

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The Divine artist is exuberantly creative, detailing even the simplest forms with beauty. (These eggshells are not dyed; they are naturally green, aqua and pink/brown.)

The impulse to make forms, to create and be creative, is natural -in fact, it’s divine!

Like all creation, you are designed to expand. From the moment of conception, your body has been spiraling open,outward, upward and downward. LIke the universe itself, you are constantly widening, deepening, growing.

From the vantage point of your own life, your birth was the big bang – and, at that moment, YOU became the central, singular point out of which (at least for you, right now) all creation expands.

The impulse of all of life is to ‘go forth and multiply,’ to increase, to gain. You are a part of this creative impulse. Do not feel guilty for your impulse to want more color, excitement – more life – out of life. Instead, tap into your natural, organic impulse to stretch and grow.

Grow, live. Expand into the fullness of all that is within you, calling for expression.

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Come into the dance

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Image: Great Falls Optimist Club (isn't that a wonderful name?)

You are the match that lights the candle (or the fuse). You are the missing ingredient that makes the cake rise…

I am going to talk a little bit about me; and then I am going to talk about you.

Today finds me almost speechless with gratitude: I am about to begin the fifth cycle of the Soul Caller Training – a work that has completely changed my life.

I am astonished and humbled and, so moved by the beautiful beings who have taken this journey with me: more than 100, when this class graduates!

Since September when the first pioneering group signed up, this project (and the eager students its attracted) have called me to work harder than I ever have. Nothing, save childbirth, has been this challenging while being, at the same time, so soul-shatteringly expansive. This work is changing lives in practical ways and in personal ways. 

And of course, it’s changed mine.

Gone is the self-doubt, the self-consciousness, the apologizing for being powerful. Gone. I feel around inside of myself and I find this light, this strong, steady light.  I know who I am – and, unlike other programs I’ve tried in the past, this time, it’s sticking.

And yet…

None of this would have happened if I had not reached for it. If, on the morning that the inspiration called, out of the silent awareness of the morning, I had turned away, rolled over – gone back to sleep.

And I might have… I had done that before. But there was something about this work – and this time in my life that matched.

We were perfect for each other.

Every single day, the universe is offering us the opportunity to change our lives. When the offer comes, we may feel unprepared, not special enough, not ready.

As I have learned, from my own story, and from watching the stories of my students unfold, we are always ready. In fact, when the work arrives, it’s an invitation across a threshold into readiness – a readiness that can only be found IN THE WORK.

Here’s the thing:

  • You are the match that lights the candle (or the fuse).
  • You are the missing ingredient that makes the cake rise.
  • You are the musician that completes the song…
  • …. the wings that lift the angel of your own life.

You.

The project that is offering itself to you  needs you; and, in a way that only the angels understand, you need it, too.

You need it to get to the other side of the edge that (you believe) is keeping you from the gift. The git that is only available on the other side of that edge.

The gift is you –  the way you dream you could be: You, healthy, whole, joyful and free.

All you have to do is take that one simple risk: the risk of waking up – instead of going back to sleep – the risk of saying yes.

It’s like there is this big cosmic dance going on; and all of us are sitting by the telephone waiting to be invited. If we only understood the truth: that we are always invited. The doors to the dance hall are wide open; they have always been open.

It does us no good to go all shy and demure, and, “Oh, I’m not dressed for that.” or, “Gee, I’m wearing these uncomfortable shoes…”

This is it. Come into the dance.

What the Soul Caller Training did for me – and I think is doing for my students – is to say, “Come to the dance as you are. Kick off your fear, your hesitation at the threshold of your own life – leave those uncomfortable shoes at the door. Let’s dance.”

And now I am going to mix metaphors, but just this once:

Imagine that, just outside the door of the great cosmic barn where the dance takes place, there are two baskets: one filled with fairy dust; the other filled with gold.

Stop. Reach in and pick up as much as you can carry in the pockets of your apron.

Oh, I didn’t mention the apron? Imagine that you’re wearing an apron, with deep pockets.  Imagine yourself filling those pockets with gold.

Now, reach into the basket of fairy dust and walk into the dance, pockets bulging with treasure, tossing your handful of magic into the air and let it rain upon your head.

Imagine yourself walking through that dance hall, into that dance, where everyone is doing this crazy jitterbug of joy. Imagine the friends you’ll meet, the good you will do, the fun you will have.

—-

I will rely on the great Sufi poet, Rumi, to speak my closing today.

Many blessings

Amy xxoo

———-

There is some kiss we want

with our whole lives,
the touch of Spirit on the body.

Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell.

And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild Darling!

At night, I open the window
and ask the moon to come
and press its face against mine.
Breathe into me.

Close the language-door,
and open the love-window

The moon won’t use the door,
only the window.

Close the Language-Door

~From: “Like This” Versions by Coleman Barks

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Generosity, Resonance, Gratitude – the energies of the heart

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Even in bad lighting, you can see the glow of Danielle's generous heart. (at the NYC launch of The Firestarter Sessions)

It’s been a while since I posted an Inspiration Friday list – but I’ve been thinking of you, and gathering a big pile of goodies to share.

But first, the heart…

During this season of awakening and new growth, I find myself deeply stirred, awakening, most of all, to love. For me, this love is manifesting as acceptance – unconditional, fierce ownership of my own imperfect self. (Almost) gone is the impatience – with life (why don’t things happen faster?) with my husband, with my own development. Lately, instead of pushing life along like a mad cheerleader, I find myself sinking into ‘self’ with a kind of resting clarity; a deep settling in.

I like me. I like my work.

I like my family and the people around me.

I like things as they are – which, regular readers will know, has not always been the case for me. (I have tended to live with one eye on the past, the other on the future – which left zero attention on what was here, right in front of me. The Soul Caller work has changed that – for good.)

The other way this love is manifesting is in friendship – a new kind of friendship in which I am taking the risk of reaching out to people I would normally adore from afar. Suddenly, I’m able to meet them on common ground – which is what happens when you make contact with your own true heart and courage.

Which I why I want to tell you about one of these new, precious friends today and, with a bow of deep respect and gratitude, I offer you the link to her new book: an outpouring of her special magic that is (seriously) astonishing. Here, for writers, artists, empire builders and creative souls of all stripes: Danielle LaPorte’s, The Firestarter Sessions is insanely good.

Danielle lives and works out of a wild, all-encompassing and infectious generosity. Her support helped me open to my own wide and wild heart – cuz I’ve got one, too… which is why the work of this particular woman/teacher/friend resonates right down to my soul toes.

With her help, along with the yeoman support of the amazing Dana Reeves, who coordinates every detail of the Soul Caller Training, and the behind-the-scenes encouragement of Raw Foods Chef Susan Powers (with one more shout out to social media guru, Shelly Kramer who helped me early on) I’ve found a clarity of purpose; and out of that, a sacred circle of beautiful light has formed.

I can tell from their feedback that the Soul Caller Training is changing lives. To date, more than 80 people have passed through the circle. People are  moving  past ‘stuck’ and ‘blocked’ and ‘confused’ into grounded bliss; they are aligning every part of their lives with purpose and clarity.

After the program ends, the ongoing community of support (which I am holding open for free – because it’s important) provides a place where graduate Soul Callers are sharing experiences and finding support as they come to trust the spiritual forces that support and guide them and to call, more and more on their own inner core of certainty – the deep wisdom that KNOWS who and what they really are.

I wasn’t sure, when I launched this thing, if I had it in me to fully give myself to this work; to let it work its miracles through me. Leading this group has widened and deepened me. As I’ve opened my heart to let more and more beauties inside, its put me in touch with an aspect of myself that I didn’t know was there: a deep compassion and gentleness; and love for each and every person I work with.

Today, as I offer my list of Wise Souls, Beauties and Loves, I will begin to introduce my graduates and the beautiful work they’re doing. I’ll continue to reveal them to you, in coming months, as they launch their own beautiful programs.

Wise Souls, Beauties and Loves: offerings from my beautiful friends

- Andrea Mee Maurer’s 90-Day Revolution is part charity, part soul-level ass kicking. It’s fierce and brilliant, like her.

- I loved reading Lisa Robbin Young’s “Communion with yourself” series. Like all of her work, its deep and rich and just beautiful. When you visit her site, I hope you’ll check out her videos andher beautiful music.

- As Curvy Yoga queen, Anna Guest-Jelley writes, Curvy Yoga is about living in your body – plain and simple. (Except that, it’s totally not.) It’s for those looking for a body lovin’ yoga practice, regardless of our shape, size or ability.  (aka me, and maybe you.)

- Allison Nazarian’s Write Your Mess On Your Own writing program is a generous, supportive place to open to the writer that wants to come out with all the messy (and wonderful) things you’ve got to say.

This month, I have loved so many things:

 

This program, which is just so lovely – and so is its author/teacher, Goddess Guidance from Amy Palko

This scarf (which I purchased) and Pinterest, where I found and ‘pinned’ it!

This amazing manifesto on education from Seth Godin: Stop Stealing Dreams. It’s free.

This cookbook, from Susan Powers at Rawmazing, which has completely transformed my relationship to dessert. But then, EVERYTHING Susan makes is amazing.

This song: This magic moment, which reintroduced itself to me recently, forty years after I danced to it with my cousin, Bobby, in the living room of Aunt Ruth’s house in Schenectady, NY.

This video: You are here to wake up

Hiro Boga’s Become Your Own Business Advisor is a magnificent,  clarifying, shimmeringly beautiful exploration into the energy that supports, nourishes and helps you to co-create your particular brand of work in the world. It’s also really, really grounding.

And now, some gifts for you:

Book Love: My curated book list to intrigue, inspire and delight you.

Awakening: The Spring Wisdom Series ebook, with posts from so many beautiful beings (in case you missed it last year)

Q and A: Got a Q about guidance, prayer, angels, ‘the Universe’? Here are some A’s.

Other places you will find me yakking away: Guest posts, mentions, interviews

PS This September, encouraged by my graduate Soul Callers, I’ll launch part two, an ‘advanced’ Soul Caller Training in which I’ll reveal the imagery that was revealed to me when this program arrived, like a gift, last year. We’ll be doing more intuitive work – students will be doing readings for one another, working with collage and other creative activities. (I also have a teacher training in the works; and by next year, I’ll offer graduates the chance to offer the SC Training to their own tribes.)

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I now choose more of this in my life

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This is a companion post – part two of an ongoing vision project, and is meant to be read along with part one: More of this, please. In this post, you’ll find my own “More of This List,” which I update regularly. I encourage you to start and maintain your own “More of This” list and to share it (or a link to it), in the comments below.

More of this, please.

  • More peace, more gentleness, more kindness, please.
  • More opening to love, more integrity, more attunement to the things, people and experiences that make me quake with joy. Remind me that this quaking does not make me silly or childish or not enough. Remind me that this quaking is resonance – it’s love. The quaking is just my body’s way of adjusting to a new frequency; a sweet and pure and holy  vibration that is calling me to expand a little further, to reach -if I can summon the courage, and get past the quaking –  toward a new space in myself (and in the world.)
  • And then, I would like:
  • These slippers – boiled wool, with polka dots, please. (I will wait until they come in my size.)
  • An easel and a space in my life (and my home) for making art – collage, photography and watercolor.
  • Aquamarine…
  • 20 yards of silk velvet to re-upholster the sofa that I found in a jumble spilling out of the door of the church bazaar.
  • More storage drawers for all my little things.
  • And more stories, please – books and films; documentaries that expand and illuminate and old-fashioned romantic comedies where pretty people fall, together, into huge feather beds surrounded by white linen curtains. (I need these things,too, to nourish my soul.)
  • A trip to Paris to sip cafe creme and write in a quadrille-ruled cahier.
for the time they have left, I choose, for my parents, less suffering, more moments of wonder.
for my children, the continued unfolding into beauty, passion, and a deep connection with themselves.
for my husband, who has taken care of us for all these years, I choose the luxury of time to simply make art.
for my sisters, true love – and peace in that love.
For myself, I choose, also:
  • poetry.
  • A great book editor
  • A Ph.D. in Archetypal Studies from Pacifica, if you please.
  • and the focus to just do my homework – something which, ever since high school, has been hard for me.

Finally, I choose more of this feeling I’ve been having lately: that I am at home in the world, surrounded by support ; guided constantly toward joy, and now and then, completely filled with peace.

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coming home: the power of a clean kitchen

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This morning I woke up and walked into the kitchen and I found that it was clean. The counters were polished and clear, the dishes put away, the floor swept. I sighed – and a deep, rich contentment washed through me.

It was still dark when I sat down with my tea to ponder this tiny, perfect miracle: this clean kitchen.

These days, I am busy beyond my boundaries – and this is good, really good busyness- the kind people pray will happen – but it leaves little energy for housework. My husband, an artist/inventor/architect, is busier than me – and no more inclined to housekeeping. We keep up, in a loose and general way – and while it’s not scary messy, I always wish it were different. Which is where this story really begins…

You see, our family has lived in this rented house for 15 years; and for all of that time, I’ve been putting off settling in, waiting until we move into a different house – the perfect house in which I always imagined I’d raise my children. For years, I’ve been building that house in my imagination, envisioning upholstery fabric and window treatment; every bright and cheery corner:

  • the breakfast room off the kitchen, flooded with sunlight
  • the airy family room with plump down cushions where we all cuddle in our sweats and pjs, munching healthy treats and watching fabulous films
  • there are two bathrooms stacked with fluffy white towels
  • and a guest bathroom, a jewel box, wallpapered in French Country blue; the sink, sitting atop a grainy brown-green slab of granite, is a beautiful bowl, hand built by my friend Jane Herold,
  • the kitchen, wallpapered in Pierre Deux Soulieado, has white country French cabinetry made by Smallbone with Mackenzie Childs drawer pulls; there’s a Viking range (of course) and Le Creuset cookware; the wooden stools that we pull to the counter are upholstered with a tasteful red and white stripe that coordinates beautifully with the Soulieado.

Of course, my perfect house has gardens – raised beds bursting with organically grown tomatoes; kales, runner beans; in the shade there are iris from my mother’s garden; and, running all the way around the house, my masterpiece, a tangle of perennials, climbing roses, hydrangea, peony.

During all of this time, we have lived in a sweet old farmhouse with a kind and and understanding landlord who has let me paint and wallpaper the kitchen; tear up the floor tile; remove redundant doors between living room and kitchen. She’s let my husband build a home office. Several years ago, she gave me permission to dig up the side yard and put in that vegetable garden.

It’s a beautiful arrangement. The landlord maintains a stable of horses in the vast acreage behind our home; her daughter keeps a summer cottage here.  We cherish the ‘we’re all one big happy family’ feeling – and take care of our own home repairs, replacing rundown appliances, patching the roof.

In a very real way, we have all of the experiences of home ownership without the mortgage (and the investment value). It works for all of us. And yet, this other house visits me – in early mornings, in the shower, as I fall into bed – this dream, this phantom limb of a home calling me. And all the time that we have lived here, I have also lived there.

So anyway…

Yesterday afternoon, I cleaned up the kitchen. Rather than putting off the scrubbing in lieu of a blog post, a column deadline, an urgent email – I put on an apron and started doing the dishes. Midway through, arms up to my elbows in soapy water, I caught myself humming. (I really do like doing dishes, I remembered.) And then my son came home from work and I pointed him toward the skillet he’d used to make paella the night before.  As he took up the sponge; I pulled out the vacuum.

About an hour later, after the polishing and putting away was done, my son and I were driving to a family gathering in Long Island when he said, “Let’s do that all the time. Let’s live in the house as if we like living there.”

And I felt something shift inside of me. Something big and deep and wide.

As if we liked living there. Our children have a way of reading straight through our posturing and excuses; a way of seeing to the bottom of the wishing well.

Which is how I found myself sitting, at sunrise, at the polished kitchen counter with my morning tea, contemplating a little miracle. And that’s when that other house quietly, simply, easily slipped across the boundary between someday and today and shifted right into now. This is my home, I realized. Here, where my family gathers, retreats, visits, rests. This is my slice of the world – right here in this kitchen. 

It’s perfect.

I flashed back to a moment, a few months ago, when I was sitting beside my mother in a darkened theater watching “The Descendants.” In the film, a family was deciding what to do with a sacred land trust; at the same time, a mother was dying. People were saying goodbye; people were negotiating real estate deals. People were losing everything. People were about to become very wealthy. I was crying a lot. My mother, sitting beside me, kept looking at me. I was holding, on and off, her hand.

Today, I suddenly got it. I saw why that film got to me with its message of “cherish what you have today”. I saw how, with a simple act of devotion to this kitchen, a bit of scrubbing and a pot of white tulips, I had  finally honored the place that has honored and nurtured and held my family for 15 years. This home.

Today, I came into present time and accepted things as they are. I am already home.

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What to do if you’ve won (or haven’t won) the lottery

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Imagine that you just won the lottery – the big wild huge record-breaking Mega Millions prize. As you recover from the shock – with an extended vacation at a beautiful spa in the Fiji Islands (or a nice cup of tea in the kitchen) now is as good a time as any to spend a while (a good long while) scanning your life.

With hundreds of millions of dollars at your disposal, you are now free to do anything, anywhere, for as long as you like, for the rest of your life.

  • What will you give up? List all of it – all the stupid, boring, lame, soul-sucking things you no longer have to do.
  • What will you add? What will you now, finally, have time to enjoy: the projects you’ve been waiting to begin, the people you’ll call, the naps and the rose-scented baths you’ll take…
  • What will you keep? Your family? Your meditation practice? Your friends?
  • Where will you travel? New Zealand, Morocco, Europe, the moon?
  • What gardens will you plant?
  • What houses will you buy?
  • What matters to you now? Saving the rain forests? World peace?
  • What causes will you support with the vast wand of your wealth?

I’m going to let you in on a secret that wealthy people know: Money is just a symbol. It’s a powerful symbol but REALLY, it’s just paper and coin. The power is in the thing that symbol represents: units of energy. (It’s a flow, like electricity, which is why we measure it the same way we measure electric power – in units of ‘currency.’)

It’s a measure of power. That’s why we all want it; on a very deep level, we understand that money is a symbol of how well we are wielding the power we incarnated to wield. It’s a magic wand – and we are all wizards.

The energy/power that money represents takes three forms: Love, light and life.

Love energy manifests as connection, friendship, affiliation. Light energy manifests as intelligence, illumination and knowledge. Life energy manifests as animation, health, vitality. So you’ve got plenty of that raw material already.

All you have to do is wield it. Use it. Focus it. That’s all it will take to make that lottery list come true. You have to dream big and keep dreaming. You have to anchor the choices in your life to that dream.

Get out a fresh sheet of paper and work on these questions. Begin to consider what you would do if you had all the power in the world at your fingertips (because you do.)

Then, craft your list into a blueprint; a plan; a priceless road map, custom-designed by you, to lead straight to the driveway of your own particular happiness.

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Argue with the voice that says that life is a string of hardships, designed to trip you up: the voice that says, ‘not yet,’ ‘maybe next week,’ ‘you’re not ready’, ‘not pretty,’ ‘not enough’ to have the life that you want.

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The voice of guidance will surprise you in the most delightful ways!

On Wednesday morning, the day that the March Soul Caller Training began, I woke nervous, as I always am, just before a class begins. Making my way to the bathroom, I switched on the light and found that, in the middle of the night, in the dark, I’d put my sweatshirt on backwards AND inside out.

Then, I read the tag and instantly, every bit of nervousness dissolved. Grace Woman, it read.

Sweet.

It was such a little thing – a coincidence, a mistake, really. Yet, it changed my whole day: it reminded me that the voice of guidance is always there; always playing with me, dropping signs and messages into my world with whimsy and the most exquisite timing.

It reminds me that even though, every day – every single day – there is something new to push against; this nervousness or some other new challenge pressing against the other side of the gate: a symptom, a pettiness, a habit of settling for less than i know I am capable of,  I am going to find, when I wake up, some miracle.

The voice of guidance reminds me:

Wake up anyway.

Wake up earlier

Argue with the other voice that says that life is a string of hardships, designed to trip you up: the voice that says, ‘not yet,’ ‘maybe next week,’ ‘you’re not ready’, ‘not pretty,’ ‘not enough’ to have the life that you want.

The voice of guidance – the voice that whispers, “Go on …”

Ride the bike
Get the autograph
Leave earlier
Stay longer
Reach for the hand of the person you love
put on that new perfume that, even though it makes you feel exposed,as if you were trying too hard, makes you feel, also, beautiful.

Feel for that voice, even though it’s hard to get past (and through and over and beyond) that knotty thing in the center of the belly that tells you you’re not the kind of person who…

Transcend it, ignore it; that voice misunderstands; it’s forgotten how the world actually works: this sea of miracles where, if you want it, all you need is vision and clarity and intention.

A sea of miracles in which, the moment you ask for more, it’s there – waiting just outside the door, and all you must do is pull it toward you through time and space.

Find the voice of guidance, it’s there, under the knotty thing, whispering…

make the call
start the class
ask the question
rent the office
hang the shingle
send the manuscript.
Add that new ingredient to the sauce you know by heart
call the person you admire and invite her to lunch (she just might come)(she just might love you)(you might make something together)(Something amazing)

What’s the worst that could happen?
What’s the best that could happen?

Listen for it: the voice of guidance always argues for your greatness, your beauty, your more than enoughness.It has a different tone, a different timbre – it loves you.

So, next time the mean old other voice whispers, “That idea is silly/foolish/lame/old-fashioned/boring/stupid/so yesterday; turn away, turn deeper, listen from that place that knows who you really are – the place where the voice of guidance makes its home:

And follow its lead…

because even though you might …stutter a little

forget your lines
leave out a chunk of content in your first class
break a heel
skin your knees…

… you will have moved, reached, opened and let yourself live.

—-

PS I was going to suggest that you leave the dishes in the sink. But I changed my mind. Much better suggestion: do the dishes, but with tenderness – hands in warm water, the slippery soap – lemon Joy – sliding over the sponge; getting each glass to glittering like a jewel. Do the dishes that way – patiently, reverently. As if this moment mattered, too.

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That time that comes just before spring: selecting seeds, reading under blankets, perfect tea, and the power of dreaming

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Feet on the ground

Here, in this time before spring, I am practicing grounding, feeling the earth beneath my feet.

This year, as my work has taken off, so has the pace of my life. Frantic, frazzled and fragmented is not the way I want to go through my life; my soul – and this body that houses it – requires some love. Diving into Hiro Boga’s How to Rule your World from the Inside Out, I am finding just what I need to soothe and nourish my overworked soul: spaciousness, rest, new insights (many) and a deep (and much needed) grounding.

Hiro, a teacher’s teacher, with a gentle voice that flows like water reminds me, daily – as I listen to the week’s recording – to connect to the center of the earth with a strong grounding cord of pure gold, or sometimes, solid oak; or even, delightfully, bubbles!

It’s helping. It’s working. Yesterday, at the food co-op, I found a display of heirloom seeds – fat and lumpy tomatoes; scarlet runner beans, bright orange cosmos – and I felt myself unfurl a little bit. Spring isn’t that far away.

By the cash register, I found this gem of a thing: Stella Natura, the biodynamic planting calendar 2012 - which I am reading with pure delight. It has star charts!! And instructions for planting by moonlight!! What fun – and what a beautiful reminder that I am a celestial being landed on a planet for a time – and that, while we are spinning in a universe, drizzled with stars – part of my work here is to wiggle my toes in the soil.

So, I bought myself a gift:

- Dr. Haushka Lavender and Sandalwood Lotion which was on sale, because it smells so incredibly good and because touching and healing my own body is just as important as the work that I do to help and heal others.

and I tracked down the house blend black TEA at Legal Seafood – and ordered a pound. It smells like smoke and truffles and tea and earth and tastes like… ah, well, it’s perfect when swirled in a porcelain cup with a soupcon of sweet.

At 4:00 pm, alone in the kitchen. I sip it while listening to Radio Lab. Start with this one: Stoasticity

This week, I loved so many things

Danielle Laporte, opening her generous heart to mention ME!! It’s not to late to be…  you and why I changed my site name

Julien Smith, co-author with Chris Brogan of Trust Agents, a New York Times best-seller on Social Capital and the New Tribe. Here, Smith explains that every blogger, every podcaster and Facebook updater is actually a new ‘channel’  – a content provider, just like ABC, NBC, or CNN. Each of us has an audience and can become a vision leader, if, of course, we’ve got a vision.

Lori Portka, holding the space for love: What to do when you get pulled over for speeding (who was just sending me an email while I was commenting on her post…  - which reminded me how divine connections are made in this world of love.

A poem a day from Bentlily.com. Totally copying her. (Found this mentioned in Danielle’s post – more divine connection!)

Satya Colombo’s Epic Adventure (by the way, he’s hiring…)

Pinterest (OMG! They invented this thing just for ME!!!) and these shoes, from Eileen Fisher, which I pinned to my first board, which I called: Fetish

Watching Dear Sugar come out from behind the curtain. She’s Cheryl Strayed, the author of Torch, which I am devouring. There, I lifted this quote, “it is weak and silly to say that you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.” Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

This week I am working on:

Enrollment for the next Soul Caller Training: filling fast, please let me know if you want to join us so I can save you a seat.

The Soul Caller Materials – A six-workbook program with video/audio to be released this fall as an ecourse. Woo hoo!

The Wise Ones Series… coming in the Spring. Fall.

and also…

… my list of 10 things you don’t know about me. Because it seems like a fun thing to do.

… my list of Wise Souls; Beauties and Loves to share with you. Because I want you to know about their beautiful work.

and also…

… grounding.

Big love

xxoo 

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