Moment

MomentYesterday, 4:23 p.m. Here, on the east coast of the US, where it was already dark.My whole body was buzzing with energy.I panicked. I tried to swim up to the surface and catch my breath using all of my usual strategies - distracting myself with Twitter and talking on the phone, and pacing and making another cup of tea.I wrote the following entry from inside of the wave and writing it helped me calm down. What I realized, when I was finished, was that what had felt, when it hit me, like mania was actually a huge wave of ENERGY - the full force of the energy I'd called to me when I decided, this week - to step into my own power.Finally.The discomfort - which I'd tweeted out as a single word "Manic." on Twitter and Facebook, was my own resistance to the expansion and vitality flowing toward me. Once I realized this, I relaxed and had a great, incredibly productive ride.What I wrote:I seem to be starting things this week. So much that it begins to seem manic, or like another person - a person who has been reading too many self help books at the same time.A person who suddenly understands that, in order to start a fire, you have to light a match; in order to get in the game, you have to be willing to play.All of a sudden, I'm starting things.

• A book
• Another book
• A new freelance job where I've written, so far, four feature stories in one month
• A relationship with a real literary manager, who said, when I contacted her, "Funny, I've been following you on Twitter. I was going to contact you."
• A second knitting project - this knitted scarf - after years of not picking up my needles

I'm suspiciousIs this pathological? Am I attempting to conceal something from myself - some shadowy filament that has not yet made itself known? Am I all manic and creative as a reaction to something, or has the lid really, finally, been lifted from my life?I'm also excited . . . and catching myself trying to tamp that down, in case I disappoint myself...WTF?This is where I would usually squash the energy. This is where I would, normally, shrink back to my comfortable size and play small. But I'm not doing that. And it's freaking me out.This week:

• I prowled the Sarah Lawrence website, seriously considering the MFA program in Creative Writing
• I signed up for a year long online course that promises immersion in the ancient realm of the Divine Feminine
• I sat, listening to Celtic poet John ODonahue on NPR's Speaking of Faith with tears streaming down my cheeks
• A few minutes later, browsing the website at Wisdom University on an unrelated search, there he was, offering a class.

Something is calling to me. Something wide and deep and oceanic. Something that makes me feel like a whale, big and blubbery and full of plankton while feeling, at the same time, small as a seed.

• Yesterday, I was running my hand along the bookshelf when I drew down a copy of Mystic Heart. It's time for you, I greeted the paperback volume, laying it onto my desk to remind me, later, when I was looking for a bedtime read, to return to it. Then, I opened my Facebook page where my friend Diane Berke, the director of the One Spirit Alliance, had just put up a posting for a class called: Mystic Heart

The something that calls feels too big for me still - like the jackets I find at Goodwill, brand-new, tags still safety pinned to the sleeves. But I can feel, at the same time, the pinch of straight pins and seams as the something that calls is being custom tailored to my size. I feel it pulling closer, hugging the curves and contours of my soul, the sleeves folding up, the shoulder pads sliding away.I am standing in the cosmic tailoring shop, about to be recostumed.I have been here before.When I was 20-something, just before my first real initiation experience, I dreamed that I was sleeping in an breezy white room with a broom-swept wooden floor in a bed draped with clean white linens.I dreamed that as I slept the door of my bedroom opened and two people - a man and a woman - walked in. They were both dressed in sheer flowing gowns of the finest silk, layered under more silk, long tunics and over that, robes. The colors were beautiful. Azure Blue, turquoise, and a kind of lemony green.I climbed out of bed and stood between them. They opened my closet where a single garment hung - a white silk gown, cut like theirs but pure snowy white.I held my arms straight up and my nightgown fell away as the cool white garment swooshed over me. In the dream, my hair was long, plaited into a thick loose braid down my back.To this day, I remember that dream - how profoundly powerful it was.The man pulled open an invisible  door that opened to a staircase that led to a huge attic room, drenched in sunlight where people of all ages lounged about in conversational clusters. "You're here!" they greeted. And I greeted them back. Somehow, I knew them all - by heart. I felt as if I was re-meeting my true family, the friends of my soul."You may linger here a while longer," the man told me. But soon, you must return to the world."I woke up.Right after that, I began to see auras - blankets of light undulating over groups of people while I was leading a meditation. I began to read energy and noticed that, if I tuned into someone, I could receive imagery, impressions that, if I shared them, often made people cry with recognition.After the expansion, after the gifts and understanding, I had two children who led me, as children do, on my big deep study of the soul.This energy, today, feels like that. Only this time, I sense - I know - we are beginning the advanced study of the heart.