A second cup for me

Bringing through guidance is not for the faint of heartI was talking with friends about how we all receive and process (and perceive) guidance when I got to thinking about the moment when we let what we see/sense and know cross from thought to word.This is a powerful moment. It’s literally alchemical - the transmission and transmutation of thought to form.It's like that cosmic day when, in the beginning, the Divine, while hovering over the formless and void, had a thought - and that thought flowed, without resistance, directly into the word and the world began.Bringing through guidance can be like that. Well, not exactly like that. We are not God, of course and our work is much smaller. But light is scaleable, which allows anyone to work with it.So, anyway...... my friends and I were talking about how simple the process of receiving and speaking guidance is: We receive a download of knowing or we see a vision or watch a shining sentence float across the room of our awareness. We let it flow it through us. We speak it. And there is light.Except it's not exactly like that. Not yet. In fact, this opening your mouth and saying what comes is the most challenging thing that I (and they) have ever done.Because you have to get over:

• that thing that happens with other people: when they take a step backwards, and look at you in that squinty way that telegraphs: Are you really gonna put on that weird black robe? and,
• that thing that happens inside of you: where you suddenly realize that God - or even (and more likely) some angel, is speaking through you and you suddenly feel really really special.

in the beginning, that  just fried me - and/or turned me to salt.I didn't want that kind of responsibility - and also, I knew the truth: I was nowhere near special enough. I was selfish and easily distracted and really bad at math. I was also completely intimidated by authority.So, when guidance began to flow to me - like in my teens, when I was playing with a Ouija board or, in my 20s, when I'd lay out my Tarot cards or, later, in my 30s, when I was standing in the shower seeing flashes of truth or that time in the kitchen when the bee buzzed up and hung in the air in front of my forehead, talking to me - I'd freeze up.And that angel would come and wrestle with me (inside my head)If God thinks I'm special enough to speak through, well, who am I to question that?  Wrestle, wrestle.And anyway, I know Im not special - or gifted - so I must be fooling God, which either makes me very bad or makes God a little less omnipotent. I mean, shouldn't God KNOW he truth about me. Wrestle. Wrestle.Then, Oh my God! (And yes, I see the irony in that phrase), God must be testing me!  I'd imagine God, looking down from a cloud, saying: Okay, so, here's a magic wand -or better yet, Just hold the tail of this lightning bolt let's see how you do with it.   Like sending me the person I most admired to do a reading forOr sending me, even worse, HER teacherAnd of course, I'd freak out - cuz, you know - God was testing me!The testing would be followed by doubt: I don't have what it takes. I'm not ready. I'm unworthy.Followed by loss of faith: I don’t need a God who tests me - and judges me! Good bye, Charlie!I'd give up the whole blinkin' universe.I’d forget about God - and guidance.I'd get a straight job.And I'd do just fine  -- so fine, that I began to suspect that I was getting a little help...it was as if I were being, you know, guided or something...And then, while I was waiting tables or programming computers or later, filing a magazine column, God would show up.a feather would float into my lapa song would come on the radio - the perfect song - a love song  from the Divine, which answered the exact question I'd been askingor God would show up on a license plate or the bumper sticker - like that one on the Pathfinder which told me: Go For It, that day when I was wondering: Should I take a chance on this new job? Again and again, God showed up - quietly, gently.Again and again, I'd fall asleep and God would wake me up.And I'd be all like, "Oh, thank heaven you're back!"And God would be all, "I never left."And I'd be all, "Oh..."Oh!I must have done that dance a thousand times - a million times (if you want to count those passes through the wheel of reincarnation).

• It was my God dance.
• My hokey-pokey
• My endless one-on-one session with the Divine.

It was a hands-on Divine demonstration of unconditional, endless, constant presence.And through it, I learned how to show up for myself - and for my clients and for God.I learned that when I sense some truth that needs to be spoken or see some imagery that's calling to be shared - when God speaks through me - that's not me being special, it's God being special.I learned that this work is not about meIt's about a transmission that is feeling its way toward the client or student or friend sitting in front of me - and my job (which I am free to accept or turn away) is to get quiet and get out of the waywhile remaining fully present to what is here:Another person.An invitationA message from God.I am not the message.I am the feather, the love song, the radio, on which that song plays.And in that way, I am special - and so is everyone else.Today, when I work with a client,I am the cup through which God pours Godself into the world;I am the liquid contained in the cup.I am myself, sitting with each client in the breakfast room of the house of the Divine watching them swirl the brew around.Some people add a little cream, some sugar. Everyone comes to Grace - and receives guidance - in their own way.I watch them sip - and while I am falling in love with witnessing them falling in love with the light - having finally removed my attention from how special (or not special I am) I turn to find that God is pouring a second cup of light for me.