Take a deep breath.

As you exhale; watch your breath. Watch it even though, of course, you cannot ‘see’ it. Watch it move out of your body into the wide space of not you that surrounds your body; watch it swirl into oneness with that space, that airy emptiness that is not empty at all – that air that is boundless, just as you are, and swirling with life, with light, with love.

Imagine that as you inhale and exhale the air – and the life – around you; the air and the life is also inhaling and exhaling you.

Imagine that as you breathe,  life is breathing you.

Love is breathing you.

So is light.

Breathing you.

You are part of a vast and interconnected universe; a wholeness that is not a conceptual wholeness – not a poetic metaphor to convey some sort of spiritual truth – but is in fact, a fact.

It’s science.

We are all energy. Albert Einstein said it. Physicist Max Planck said it while accepting the Nobel Prize for his work in atomic energy. Lynn McTaggart says it… and so beautifully in, The Field.

It’s all energy

Every breath that you take, energy – and that energy is made of smaller bits of energy, all of it breathing, moving, swirling into and out of form. Every particle of air, of light, of life is a tiny universe; and each of those universes, breathing.

Now imagine that you’r standing beneath a crystal clear canopy of stars and that every cell of your body is breathing, drinking in, their light.

You, breathing starlight. And each of those stars, millions of them, also, breathing you.

What would change if this were true? How would you live? How would you think? How would you love? How would you breathe, knowing that you are life, love, light breathing – and that all of life, love and light is, also, breathing you?

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My sister and me with umbrella

Here, at the beginning of the year, it’s a good practice to scan your life: what themes are emerging? What is rising in you? What calls from the future to be built toward in the present?

For me, things once ‘incomplete’ are now moving toward form - 

Family ties are deepening in a way that feels precious and private and rich.

New friendships emerge: calling me into partnerships that feel pregnant with beauty and potential

These unfinished ebooks are staring me down, asking: is this a real project? Is holding it here, in my imaginative space, adding to my world? Is it time to burn the notebooks?

My Soul Caller Training is pulling into a form that is shimmering with clarity, more beautiful and life changing than I imagined when, last year, it blew open the doors of my life.

The memoir, which I ache to work on, feels as if it is now aching for me. (This, for me, is a kind of calling. An irresistible merging with this story that is asking to be told.)

Travel, as always, and education. 

The trip to Paris that needs to be taken – with or without my daughter; and, as my son graduates from college, my own education calls to be finished. It is time to put some letters – M.A. and even, Ph.D. after my name.

As I work with clients, I understand what it means to put yourself fully into service; how working with others, on their stories, calls the best out of us… out of me.

I understand, also, what my elementary school principal meant when she said I was “not living up to” my potential. I understand this because I am coming closer to living up to it now. 

Not living up to my potential means, for me: shrinking from edges – in life, in myself, in my capacity (and by capacity, I mean: my ability to widen and deepen.) It has also meant using my past ‘failures’ as excuses to not do my best in the present.

Oh well, I used to say, I guess I am not the kind of person who does her best.

This year, My clients have shown me: we can change the kind of person we are. They showed this through their engaged enthusiasm, courageous edge crossing and the discovery of their own constant connection with themselves and with grace.

You are constantly connected with grace.

You know that, right?

You can change the kind of person you are.

You know that, too, don’t you? Nothing is written in stone; nothing so deeply woven in that the fabric can’t be pulled apart and rebraided.

You can reconfigure the architecture of self out of which you approach your work, your health, your sense of purpose. You can rebuild what you thought was broken. (It’s not broken.) You can re-encounter the people you thought were lost to you. (They’re not. Even if they are no longer alive.)

You can begin this process from where you are – no matter where you are.

Recalibration isn’t difficult. It only takes awareness of the places where you are not aligned, not resonating with the core of light that is, at the essential level, ‘really’ you.

This core of light is in everyone. No matter what has happened in the past. No matter what you have done – or not done.

This core of light isn’t difficult to find; though it may take some training to discern the particular feel of it; to learn your particular way of sensing it. After that, all it takes is practice.

You can experiment with this.

• listen for it (the core of light has a sound, a vibration that some people can ‘hear’ with a kind of inner listening),
• feel for it (the core of light has a vibration can be felt and sensed in the body – every cell in your body is vibrating toward resonance with this light, all of the time.)
• look for it (sometimes, things just glow.)
• align with it (adjusting thought, intention and action until it feels ‘right’.)

This kind of alignment will require you:

• To trust your own senses, your own impressions.
• To be willing to stop, sniff the air, feel into a situation.
• To become, more and more… physical, even as you expand and open to divine light.

It requires you to discern and then, to set some intentions.

These are mine, for the beginning of 2012:

• To align my life with people who inspire me.  Collaborate with resonance and support it.
• To discern and defragment my life. To do this, I will withdraw my energy from projects which will never be finished; give them a proper burial, grieve them, if grief comes and let them go. Fully.
• To reassign the energy I’ve been investing in the past and in unfinished projects into the present.
• To give my full attention only to that which truly resonates; to animate this and love it into full expression.

—-

During the first half of this year, I will launch:

1. A new Wisdom Series. Part video, part blog post. part book review. Each week, I’ll bring you someone who’s inspired me. Someone living at (or beyond) the edge of their comfort zone. I’m looking for people who move between the molecules of the world, people who plant seeds, nourish the world, and who, when they are thirsty for something, know how to make it rain. (If you know someone like this, please let me know.)
2. The Soul Caller Circle – a supportive, interactive community for graduates of the Soul Caller training, a virtual campfire, a gathering place, a well. In practical terms: a once a month live gathering with me, an ongoing discussion space for sharing and supporting one another.
3. The Soul Caller Training – LIVE! Details TBA.
4. The Soul Call Book Club – a free, ongoing discussion group, on Twitter and Facebook. One GREAT book a month.
5. Sunday morning #SoulCall - a living conversation about living a spiritual life in the middle of a material world. We meet every Sunday at 10 am/EST. To join the conversation, simply search for the hashtag #SoulCall.
6. More products like this:  My Shadow and Light Cards. Use them to spark your soul journey this year. http://amyoscar.com/shadow-and-light/

As always, I love to hear about your journey, your challenges and breakthroughs by email or here, in the comments.

Happy New Year (again)

Amy

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This year, don’t waste all of that bright bubbly new year’s energy on fixing your body or changing the way you balance your checkbook: use it to change your whole life.

Here’s how to craft a vision you won’t give up on – and won’t be able to resist.

1) Get quiet. Allow images to drift toward you, watch for flashes and glimmers of what could be. Let them come all day long. Let them bubble up through your dreams.

• I do this while sipping tea with cream.
• I like silence. You can add music if you like.
• You’ll want to keep your notebook close by.

2) Follow the energy. You know that little burst of excitement that flares when something new arrives? That’s guidance. Don’t let it get away.

3) Get curious. Keep asking: what is this? Scan it for detail; for contours and color, texture and temperature. What shining something has caught your inner eye?

4) Start taking notes. Even if it’s a bit fuzzy around the edges, write elaborate descriptions of the details that you can discern – invent the ones that you can’t quite make out.

• I am wearing black yoga capri pants, my feet are bare, I’m walking across a large sunny room – the floors are hardwood, the walls are white – except for one wall of French doors, which open onto a balcony overlooking the sea. Over my shoulders, there is draped, a sheer silk shawl, the color of the water glistening outside the windows.

5) What else? As you write, keep looking at the image and asking: What else? When this vision manifests, who will be with me? What rooms will I walk through? What will my day be like? What will I wear? What will I eat? What will I see when I look out the window?

• After working all morning in my writing cottage, I prepare for a meeting with my publisher. 

5) Make things up. As your vision forms, there will be things that you can’t quite make out. Make them up. For example, in my own vision, I don’t have any idea what the other rooms in that beachfront house are like. I can’t make out the location of the kitchen or the color of the bathroom tiles. That’s okay. Take out your mental paintbrush and play.

• • After working all morning in my writing cottage, I prepare for a meeting with my publisher. 
  • My maroon jade green convertible roadster is parked at the front door of the house – a stone Spanish Colonial with a circular brick-paved driveway. 
  • My husband works happily in his attic studio. As I drive away, I plan the dinner we’ll cook tonight. Fresh fish, which I’ll pick up at the market in town; a bottle of wine; a green salad; a wedge of sheep’s milk cheese. 

6) Feel into the vision. Use all of your senses. See it, hear it, smell it, taste it. Feel your vision surrounding and enfolding you. You are a part of the vision and it is a part of you.

• My hair is long and wavy, pulled back in a loose braid with a pearl-studded clip. The sun warms my back;  the air smells of ocean, eucalyptus and lemon.

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In the Old Testament story, when Isaac was called by God, he answered, “Hineni.” Translated from the Hebrew, hineni means, “Here I am, for you called me.”

In the Bible, the word hineni is used when God personally calls on someone to do something difficult and important. “Here I am,” Abraham responds to God’s call; “Here I am,” replies Moses. It’s such a simple statement and yet, it’s one of the most powerful things a human being can say. Here I am: ready, willing and able.

Ready, Willing and Able

This is how angels show up in our lives: ready, willing and able to help. Here I am, they tell us, through signs and synchronicity. Here I am, for you called me.

When they show up, we feel blessed, reassured—and seen; and that’s something everyone needs. The experience of God’s presence is bracing and affirming. It lets us know: you matter to me. That’s why the angels are willing to send sign after sign until we get the message. We are that important to God.

Our presence to ourselves can be just as powerful.

Though in the past, we’ve made promises to ourselves — to make healthier choices for our body; to show up at work on time; to always keep our word — and though we may have broken those promises, we can begin freshly, today, to show up for ourselves.

We can commit to support the choices we make toward better habits, better health, better relationships through our actions—and through conscious daily practice.

I am here: we tell ourselves. When we bring this presence to our relationship with God and the angels, we are saying: I am here.

This is a sacred practice — it’s showing up with intention to connect,with the expectation of miracles. That, in a nutshell, is faith.

The Light, Love, Life That Calls to You

The angels showed me: When you reach out to us, we always reach back.

Are there really angels? Of course. Can I prove this? Not yet — though the thousands of stories I’ve read build a strong case that something is going on. From my perspective, it seems as if angels are appearing more often, to more people than ever before. Is this true? How could we possibly know?

Still, there are some things we can measure—some things of which I am certain. When I ask for help, help comes and, in a kind of Divine alchemy, when I live as if the world is a sea of miracles, it becomes just that: My body heals, my relationships transform, opportunities present themselves, problems become gifts.

This will happen for you.

Once you have established connection with the chip of Divine light that glows at the center of your heart; once you have seen that the Divine is in everything; once you have peeked behind the curtain of your own astonishing beauty, even if you’ve only been able to do so for a moment…

… your life will never be the same.

For when you connect with the energy of the Divine, you open to a stream of signs, synchronicity and miracles. Your cares lighten, your problems ease. You begin to experience a kind of inner spaciousness, a feeling of quiet, restful alertness, and you may experience flashes of acute awareness, sensing the presence of who you are beyond form.

Chances are, you will notice this first while doing something that allows the chatter of your mind to quiet — something like driving or washing the dishes or sitting in the back yard and watching the sun set behind the house next door. This sudden momentary glimpse behind the curtain will intrigue and perhaps, move you, activating a sense of wonder and curiosity.

Cultivating this peaceful, mindful state of presence will increase your ability to see and to receive symbolic and intuitive guidance.

You can do this by walking out-of-doors, without cell phone or music player, simply holding yourself in a state of relaxed and expectant listening or by doing the exercises in this book. You might choose to take up a practice of meditation, yoga or tai chi or even, a meditative activity like knitting or listening to instrumental music.

One day, you may experience flow, the psycho-spiritual state in which you feel positive, energized, focused and alive. This flow state is available in all parts of your life but most people experience it first, through deep concentration while doing creative work or fully engaging in physical activity or through meditation.

You will seek out the people with whom you can be yourself and the places where people like you are gathering. This is a natural phase of spiritual unfolding, the search for the soul’s true community. As you connect with your true self, old interests will reemerge, and dreams that you once cherished—as a child or young adult—will bubble up to fill your life with new energy and new meaning. What joy you will feel as, one by one, you open the closets of your soul and reveal these once hidden selves—the creativity, talents and interests that were always there, were always you.

As Divine light streams into your life, people will notice.

“You look different,” they’ll say, and you’ll know just what they mean because you feel different—lighter, with more energy and enthusiasm. As you lose tolerance for stale or toxic relationships, mind-numbing activities and inane entertainments, they will fall easily away and more nourishing and empowering friendships and interests will bloom.

You will develop a mountaintop perspective.

One day, you will lift up from the story of your suffering, your entrapment, your diagnosis and see it through a higher, wider lens. You will see the other patterns — of family, community and culture — that are woven into your story, becoming increasingly aware of the collective story that affects everything and everyone in the world.

Sensing your part in this story, you’ll feel more responsible for the choices you make, for the way you treat others—even for the thoughts you think. You’ll become fascinated with your own story

— and you’ll begin to share it. This will help, and even guide others to examine their lives, their stories, more closely. When they do, you’ll offer support and partnership. You’ll give generously, from the heart, knowing that in a Divine universe, what you give is always returned to you, multiplied by Grace.

You will hurry less and put less pressure on yourself to ‘win’ some imaginary race to the top. Now you see that the race and the top are both illusions. You’ll experience less stress at work and at home and yet, strangely, you will have more. Money will show up when you need it. Opportunities will materialize out of thin air.

You will begin to experience yourself as part of a flowing, living universe..

Your life, once fragmented and compartmentalized, will pull into wholeness. For your life is not just a series of unrelated events; it is one story, one gesture. You will become curious about that gesture, wondering, what is the deeper purpose for my life? What am I here to accomplish? As you ask these questions, answers will come.

This is how it is in the Sea of Miracles — a sacred story, a sacred world in which all things are sacred — including you.

Today, as I sit to write this, one image keeps returning to my mind: the vision of one person rising from a chair. I see this image again and again: one person, standing; one person, rising up. The vision arrives, as visions often do, with a download of understanding. I understand that I am being shown this vision to illustrate the wave of change, the global awakening that is sweeping the world one per- son, one ‘rising’ at a time.

The person in this vision is you. (It’s also me—and everyone we know.)

You see, I believe that the angels are here for a reason: You. You asked. You called. You want more.

You are not alone in this. People all over the world are praying for hope, for help, for intervention; for the healing of our planet, our bodies and our broken hearts. In every language, we are calling out to every deity: Please.

In response, there is this rising — a rising so powerful and so huge that it is shaking our very institutions to the core—crumbling walls and even, governments. At the same time, breakthroughs in technology, medicine and science are transforming the ways in which we live, communicate and congregate. All part of the rising — the most astonishing example is our rapid evolution into a globally interconnected world.

On a more personal level, my clients tell me, “I feel so unsettled. As if there’s something I’m supposed to be doing. But I can’t figure out what it is?” They are having powerful dreams, they tell me. They feel as if they are swelling from the inside out, bursting with energy and an urgency they can’t explain and can’t understand how to use. And of course, this is what happens when we pray for change: change comes — but it rarely comes in the ways that we expect.

When we ask: please guide me to health, we are guided to: eat healthier food, give up caffeine, and exercise. When we pray for an end to the arguing in our marriage we find a ballerina magnet in the mud. We look outside for rescue and we are returned, endlessly, patiently to ourselves.

Which brings us to the secret that all masters know: when we pray for change the Divine changes us. It’s the simplest truth of all, the cornerstone of all spiritual teaching: to bring the Divine to Earth, you must bring it here yourself. To live in a Sea of Miracles, you must create it and let it shine into the world, through you.

When you do, you will discover that the whole world is a miracle — designed to support, nourish and love you into the fullest expression of who you really are.

This love is in the rain falling from the sky, gathering into puddles and ponds — and asking nothing but that you hold out your cup. This love is in the air that you breathe, the sun that warms your skin, the food on your plate. Are you hungry? Here’s a plum, a purple valentine. You don’t have to believe in God to enjoy its color, its scent and its sweetness. It’s a gift — and it’s all for you. This glass of water, glistening and clear; this plum with its magic seed at its center — a seed that could, if you simply planted it, yield a tree!

This is a miracle! Every time you sit down at the table. A gift: the light that illuminates this page, your incredible body with its marvelous senses; your mind with its ability to question, your heart with its wisdom and vast capacity to love.

You are a miracle—you and me, and everyone we know—and the rising energy that we feel is the answer to our prayers.

Did you get that? This rising that you feel is the answer to your prayers.

How do I know? I have lived it. I have seen it. I am a witness for the angels—and the rising of the gifts that they inspire: Peace, Wholeness, and a love so sweet and a light so bright that it burns through any darkness.

The rising in the world is wiser and wider than a faltering economy; it’s a peace with roots so deep that no terrorist could ever shake them. It’s the rising of a response from an interconnected All That Is which, whether you call it God, Collective Consciousness, The Uni- verse or Baba (or any other name) is not going anywhere—a force that loves you so fully and so fiercely that it will settle for nothing less than the fullest expression of who you are.

So, what are you, really? What is this fullness that is pushing to express itself through you, through me? Nothing less than the light, love and life energy of the Divine itself!

So while I can’t prove that the angels are showing up more openly and more often than ever before, I have never been more certain of anything. To me, the angels’ presence is a call to action, a call that we called into form. I believe the angels are here to help us live in a new way — and to create a new world — because we asked them to.

I look out into this time of terrorists, tidal waves and social upheaval and I ask for help. How can we live with- out driving ourselves crazy with fear? How can we tap into the deep and ancient wisdom of the world? I ask and I ask — and each time, I get the same answer: Turn toward the light. Choose toward love. In this way, you will create a new pattern and the energy of the world will flow to fill it.

I don’t ask you to believe in angels. I don’t need you to change anything about the way that you think or perceive the world at all. All I ask is that you take one simple step, and make this one request: Quiet your mind, take a deep breath and, with a willing and open heart, say: Show me.

In this way, you’ve invited the angels into a sacred conversation that can (and will) change your life. And that will change the world.

—–

This post is an excerpt from my book, Sea of Miracles.

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