Michele Morgan

"Staying the Course" Webinar

2012-01-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I’ve finally decided to step into the cyber age, and take advantage of one of the many amazing ways people are connecting these days via the Internet. I’m hosting my first ever Webinar!

Those of you who’ve been hanging with me all these years might remember my “Staying the Course” presentations at East West Bookshop in Seattle… a psychic reading on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual qualities of the upcoming season, and then individual “quickie” readings for audience members. The information, and the ensuing energy, was always so powerful, and so much fun!

I’ve had countless requests since then for something similar… and I’m jazzed to be able to offer the “Staying the Course” experience to my expanded and loyal audience.

Click the link below for all the details:

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/932527862

Looking forward to the party! :-)

Instead of Going to the Party, I Stayed Home and Wrote About It

2011-12-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

By Alizabeth Rasmussen

I
'm not going to the holiday party tonight, but this year I'm not going in a whole new way.

Historically, I've spent the day changing my mind: am going, not going, should go, kind of want to go, really want to go, really don't want to go, why not, why bother, okay I'll go.

And that's final.

Repeat (this time ending with "not going").

And so on.

This would continue until it was finally too late to show up. I'd resign myself to the fact that I wasn't going, feeling guilty and anti-social, exhausted from all the back and forth, and irritated by the fact that I didn't so much make a decision as just let the clock expire on the deliberation process.

I don't have any good reason for not going. I really do like many of the people I work with (and for that I'm grateful every day). It's not a matter of finding something to wear. I don't have another party to go to. I don't have Ian with me this weekend so wouldn't need to worry about missing out on time with him or finding a babysitter. And I'm feeling just fine, thank you very much.

The food's going to be amazing, the decorations gorgeous, the mood festive. It's going to be fun...just not my idea of fun.

Because here's the thing: I despise parties. Always have. And finally (finally!) I've decided to stop expecting, wishing, trying to be different. Finally, I've decided to stop judging this aspect of my personality as some kind of character flaw that I should push through, ignore, or fix.

This week, a lovely poem made it's way into my in-box from Samantha Bennett, called "In Praise Of The Over-Sensitive." It's deliciously long, but here's the part that grabbed me:

You may not believe in psychic ability, but it does seem pretty freaking obvious to you pretty much exactly what is going on with pretty much everybody pretty much all of the time.
And you can't believe we can't see it, too.

And all that discernment and intuition and, yes, sensitivity, makes
Going to parties a horror show and
Getting dressed for parties even worse -
And not being invited to parties the very worst thing of all.

But remember about your need for solitude.
My need for solitude. It's significant. At times I walk a fine line that begins to blur into isolation, and when that happens I know God is nudging me in the direction of connection. But I know that to balance out the solitude I need real connection. The kind that nourishes and inspires, not depletes and overwhelms. For me, that generally means fewer than eight people and little to no alcohol and talk that may be light and fun and funny...but would never qualify as "small."

I'm done wishing I was more social, more of a party girl, more "fun" as defined by people who love that kind of thing. Because in order for God to show me ways of connection that do work for me, I have to be willing to acknowledge the ways that don't.

So this year I'm not going to the holiday party because I'm simply honoring who I am.

Merry Christmas to me.

* * * * * * * * *

And for you this holiday season, the Faith Squared virtual Advent calendar. Twenty-five images, poems, songs, video clips and other surprises to inspire, delight and make the countdown to Christmas a little more fun. Check it out and let us know what you think!

We'd also love to have you join us on Facebook and Twitter!

December

2011-12-08T11:15:00.000-08:00

The following dissertation has become my “tradition” each December. Written in 1993, for my newspaper column in the Island Independent; it came to me in a rush of inspiration, whispered by the muse and birthed in a moment of pure emotion. I was invited to recite it with my daughter at a holiday festival that year at the Whidbey Island Theatre, just before Christmas.

Kaeleigh was six, poised beyond her years, beautiful in her forest-and-crimson flowered dress, black patent shoes and ribbon roses in her hair. I wore a claret-colored silk-velvet dress, circa 1910, a treasured souvenir bought in an antique shop outside of London when I was twenty. The stage was frosted in blue light, with a thin scattering of imitation snow; a forest of bare willow branches loomed in the background and George Winston began to play December through the auditorium speakers.

We walked out on stage, hand in hand, my child and I. Kaeleigh climbed up on a wooden box, placed so she could reach the microphone, and we waited a moment before we began, just for effect, just to stand together in that enchanted glittering twilight. I couldn’t see the audience in the darkness beyond the stage, but there was an anticipatory hush, audible and warm as milk; green and red lights winked above the far-shadowed balcony and I remember the smell of my daughter’s freshly washed hair, the curve of her little cheek in the spotlight, the excitement in her eyes.

And that one moment was so full of sweetness and magic, so intensely symbolic of what this time of year is all about, no matter what religion or culture we come from; every once in awhile, for no reason at all, I pull that moment out and hold it, like a jewel in my hand… and especially now, in this most sacred and joyous of seasons. It remains one of my dearest memories, and the following essay remains my favorite offering to the spirit of the passing year. I hope you enjoy it.

* * * * * * * * *

December, again. Is it possible? I could have sworn school just started. And wasn't it only last week that Kaeleigh was wrestling with the gravity of her decision between the fairy princess costume, or the black cat with claws and makeup whiskers? Yet, here I am, starting lists of holiday “have-to's,” flipping through my date book, marking deadlines and meetings and concerts and omigodwhenamIgoingtogoshopping?

And then, suddenly, in the midst of page flipping and phone calling, I am struck by the memory of a bus trip I took in college, over the winter break to visit a friend in Idaho. It was bitter cold outside, but the bus was warm and the engine rumbled and hummed, like a singer in his sleep. I remember, vividly, the images, the colors of the passing landscape, chocolate browns and velvets, earth and ice and steely sky. The trees were simple and bare, stark dancers trailing scarves of wood smoke over the horizon; three white horses ran in a field along the fence line beside us. And at dusk, stopped at a traffic light in some in-between, sleepy little town, I remember a small cafe' window, aglow with a string of twinkling faerie lights, and a sign that read, “Peace On Earth”. . .

December isn't an appointment in a date book. It isn't a calendar line, or a string of juggled obligations. It is a landscape, an experience steeped in color and sound and history. It is the fragrance of sugar cookies and cedar, the way the air tastes when the sky is so cold you're certain it will snow at any minute. It is red and green and tinsel colored, but it’s also purple, the color of plum wine; gold ribbon and silver stars on midnight blue paper. There are jolly elves and flying reindeer and singing snowmen; but there is also the longest night of the year, and the slow, quiet turning of the Earth towards spring.

December is the light of seven candles through a lace curtain, families holding hands around a dinner table, and a bell ringing for the hungry and the homeless. It is a time of magic and wishes; it is the power of love and the possibility of angels. And it is the face of every newborn child, bright with the fire of hope in their eyes, that we all might come together one starlit night, and realize a miracle.Blessings to all of you, this wonder-filled, magical season, and may all your wishes come true.

* * * * * * * *

For a VERY special holiday treat, follow this link to the Virtual Advent Calendar from Faith Squared: http://www.faithsquared.net/advent-calendar/

What's Better Than Faith? Faith Squared!

2011-11-30T10:53:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!

I'm very excited to announce the birth of a new blog site! Alizabeth Rasmussen and I are collaborating on a wonderful new project called Faith Squared...a site devoted to the celebration of God in real life. We've got an amazing line-up of content that we can't wait to share with you.

Currently we are in the development/design phase of the project, and will continue giving updates on our progress, as well as announcing our official launch date. In the meantime, Faith Squared is alive and inspiring on Facebook and Twitter. Come play with us!

Faith Squared | Welcome

Cyber Gremlins

2011-11-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone...

As you may have noticed, the formatting on my blog has been messed up for the last couple of months. Trying to fix it, so this is my first "test" to see if I chased away the mischief makers. Unfortunately, I had to delete all the posts from the last several months, but I'll probably re-post a couple of them in the not-too-distant future.

New blogging adventures await, anyway... so perhaps the mess up is more of a segue to the next cool thing: Faith Squared!

Stay tuned for more details... and hopefully, no more gremlins!! :-)

On The Road Again...

2011-07-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hi all…

I’m heading out on a road trip to visit family in Idaho…looking forward to sunshine, inner tubing on the river, and riding dirt bikes up the side of the mountain! :-)

Alizabeth Rasmussen will be holding down the fort for me on my Facebook Fanpage… and I’ll be sending pics from the road to share! If you’d like to join my Facebook family, or just pop on over and check things out (the "Nutshell Nostalgia" posts have been a lot of fun!), click on the link to the right…

Take care, everyone… see you in a week!

God In Real Life: Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs

2011-07-22T15:06:00.000-07:00

by Alizabeth Rasmussen

We all love getting signs - messages from God letting us know we're on the right track, synchronicities that aren't easily explained, evidence that the angels are watching out for us and guiding us. God shows up in all kinds of ways - an overheard conversation, an e-mail with the perfect message, song lyrics, license plates* - and, when He does, so does the feeling that all is right with the world. Sometimes.

The best signs are so powerful and so clear that there's no room for doubt. They bring with them undeniable evidence of God at work in our lives and a real-life definition of what "absolute clarity" feels like. For me, "absolute clarity" was what I got when I asked God to help me figure out why I'd lost all motivation to finish a Master's degree program I'd been working on diligently for four years...and a week later got the news that my school was closing. Very little room for interpretation there. This is the kind of sign that has a long shelf life (think Twinkies) and serves as a benchmark for other signs.

Most signs are not quite so dramatic or obvious. Most have a much shorter shelf life. My human self asks for them, wanting evidence that something my human self cannot even comprehend is at work in my life...but when the signs come, they have to be filtered and interpreted through my limited human perspective. And so I ask, "was THAT the sign I asked for?" I calculate the odds of seeing the same 3-digit number 400 times in one day. I ask for a sign that the sign I've just seen is a sign...and then question that when it comes. I wonder if I'm looking too hard, asking too much, trying to make meaning out of the meaningless and mundane. And worst of all, I worry that my constant need for reassurance is an indication of a lack of faith. Is faith still faith if it needs evidence of itself?

And then I remember (or as is often the case, I'm reminded)...it's not like it's a secret to God that I'm only human. If I had to pick one thing I appreciate most about what I've learned from Michele (and thank God I don't), this would be it...she's taught me to make room for my human doubts, fears and insecurities. And more than that - how to use those very things to build my relationship with God. It's okay to ask for signs...I have to believe that God wants to show Himself to us in ways we can comprehend. And it's okay to question the signs, because the questions with no answers are what ultimately strengthen our faith. The key for me has been in recognizing that there's a difference between being open to the messages God wants to get through and actively looking for them. "Looking" holds an expectation that the sign will show up in a certain way, and an expectation of how I will feel when it does. "Seeing" is about being receptive and allowing God to come through however He wants. Benchmark signs appear when I'm not looking and in ways I could never imagine, and that's what makes them so powerful. My human self can always find something to doubt or question, but the feeling that comes with a clear message from God is one that even my most cynical parts can't deny.

So I will keep asking, keep allowing and (no doubt) continue to get in God's way from time to time. It's all good, because I know that He "gets" me, and I know that He will always find a way to get through to me.

*If you're the kind of person who notices repeating numbers and patterns, you'll want to get a copy of Doreen Virtue's Angel Numbers book to keep in your car.

Better Than a Hallelujah

2011-07-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—

over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

—Mary Oliver

Sometimes living consciously in this world can be a pain in the ass. Even if you don’t subscribe to some slick, one-dimensional New Age idiom, love-light-and-bliss can still seem like the thing you’re “supposed” to aspire to, that “You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought,” and that The Secret is still all that. These spiritual precepts have been such a pivotal part of our cultural landscape for the last twenty plus years, it can be difficult to ignore their influence, even if you previously cancelled your subscription.

So what’s a human to do?

I know a place where being human is our greatest asset. Where it’s okay to be good, or not-so-good, or anything in between; where it’s more than okay to not be okay. A venue where it’s completely appropriate to give voice to the parts of you that you might not even want to acknowledge as your own, and where you’re absolutely safe to do so. A place where you are free to express yourself without having to clean anything up, hide anything, pretend, or imagine yourself to be anything other than what and who you are in any given moment… and where emotional nakedness is actually a sign of strength, rather than some indiscriminate display of human weakness.

That place is with God in prayer. In His lap or at His feet, depending on my mood or need, I’ve found it doesn’t matter if I’m screaming, swearing, or singing… God hears it all as a glorious noise of faith, longing, and sacred humanity.

We pour out our miseries

God just hears a melody

Beautiful, the mess we are

The honest cries of breaking hearts

Are better than a Hallelujah…

— “Better Than a Hallelujah” by Amy Grant

Our humanness is the channel through which we most deeply connect with God; in our weakness, He can be the strongest for and through us. In the darkness lies true power—a compulsion to reach out for God; the desire for something different, something better; and the clear direction for healing.

The light only contains the light. Once you’re there, you’re there… there’s nowhere else to go, no movement, no potential for growth. Our divine nature, like the universe, demands expansion; darkness lends the spiritual philosophies of any Age substance, and provides the foundation from which we can expand into our divinity. In bringing our human truth to God, in all its homeliness and drama and despair, we in turn are gifted with love, inspiration, and the opportunity for miracles.

You don’t have to be good for God. You just have to be real. And as Martha Stewart would say, “It’s a good thing.”

One Small Story

2011-07-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

I’m working on a book proposal right now. No question that God is inspiring me on this one… no doubt that He’s channeling the content, determining the format, expanding my vision to make the layout of the chapters more compelling, inviting me to risk the greater intimacy of writing myself into the story, rather than simply narrating it. To say this book feels destined from me requires no stretch of my consciousness whatsoever. And there is no question whatsoever that my human self is, in this moment, finding the entire process COMPLETELY questionable… and not the least bit inspired.

I’ve been writing since I was very small. I love words, the feel and the taste of them, the movement and the pattern of language. I remember wanting to be a published author from the time I was about seven years old. I used to sit at the fireplace hearth in our living room, writing and illustrating “books” on wide-lined notebook paper. I recall one time asking my mom who it was that wrote the biographies of the writers on the back cover of books, because I was ready to write mine! But as much as I love the rhythm of a story once it’s found its way onto the page, I find there are many times I literally loathe the measures necessary to get it there.

Once I’m “in the flow,” it’s heaven. I’ve been known to lose myself completely in the I’m-in-another-world of it, only stopping when I glance up, bleary eyed, and realize the sky’s beginning to lighten, and I’ve been writing all night. On a good day, I sit down at the computer, words and ideas purring away inside me like mischievous kittens under a bed, and after a few minutes of jingling the catnip mouse and calling to them in that weird but oddly endearing pet-owner voice, they come scampering out and begin shredding up the empty screen with Pulitzer Prize winning zeal. All I have to do is keep up, and keep changing the CD’s in the stereo.

On a not-so-good day? Coaxing the little buggers out of the bedroom of my brain and down to the keyboard feels like giving birth… and I don’t mean that in the miraculous-experience-of-bringing-life-into-the-world kind of way. I mean the bearing down, cursing, wanting to climb out of my own skin and strangle the doctor kind of way. If after 20 minutes or so I’m still looking to do murder, I give myself a break for an hour or even a day. But the words always come, and like babies of both the two-legged and four-legged variety, they come in their own sweet time, and nine times out of ten, with relative respect for whatever deadline might be looming. (This is not to say they don’t once in awhile play the squeaking-in-under-the-wire game, however. Remember the scene in “Broadcast News” where Holly Hunter’s character is editing the news piece right up to the very last second, with everyone in the editing room chanting, “Go, go, go!” and Joan Cusack literally running to the broadcast room with tape in hand, vaulting over a toddler and barely avoiding decapitation by sliding under an opened file cabinet drawer? Yeah… been there. More than once.)

I have a wonderful prayer by Nita Penfold taped to the front of my computer screen that reads:

Let my small story

connect to Your larger one.

May we breathe with one breath.

May we make this day holy together.

When I stop and remember who it is that’s speaking through me, whose story it actually is that’s tumbling down onto the page before me, the words always come. Always. And, then, happily, I find they’re more miraculous than I expected when they do arrive, and I’m humbled and grateful to have been chosen to be their messenger, no matter the process of getting there.

Gotta love that.

Living Human

2011-07-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

by Elaine Chukan Brown

Not quite two decades ago I took a month long Inner Child Workshop led by a pair of healers focused on using parts and inner archetype work to help us transform our own unhealthy beliefs and behaviors. Towards the end of the month the couple asked participants to offer to the group any insights gained through the work we'd done together. One of the participants spoke up and commented that the greatest gift they'd received from doing this parts work surprised them. In coming to better know their own inner child they'd finally come too to recognize and know their own inner adult. The gift of understanding their vulnerable childlike self was in finally having the space to understand and appreciate their own stronger responsible self.

In deepening and strengthening my relationship with God, and through that relationship coming too to recognize that divine communion within myself, I have received an accompanying gift similar to the inner child/inner adult relationship. Unexpectedly, by increasing my own prayer relationship with God, I have not only opened to the power of feeling His love on a moment-to-moment basis, I have also been gifted with a profounder understanding of my self as human.

The truth is that my spiritual journey has included deep seeded attempts to deny the importance, beauty, and even grace of my humanity. Over time I came to realize that some part of me believed I was only here on Earth alive to get on with the good stuff—what would come after dying—and that the truly beautiful moments in this life were the ones when I was so divinely blissed out I barely felt myself as human at all. I had a strong compulsion to escape and deny the utterly human aspects of my life.

The surprising gift of prayer prayer prayer prayer and more prayer has been that in opening up to God, my whole countenance, my spirit has finally slowed down and found its home. My spirit's home is in the rich, lusciousness of this daily life. It is here in this limited, sometimes pained, and mistake-making human self that I get to live in communion with God. It is in the moments when I honor that slower pace and focus in on the profoundly physical aspects of human life that can only be had BECAUSE I have a body—my breath, my pulse, the rush of my thoughts—that I find too God's love for me. I am here because He made me. I am here on Earth alive because this is the good stuff, even when it hurts, even when part of me is struggling to get out of this human skin. I am here because my life is also His love for me.

Giving Voice

2011-06-28T23:51:00.000-07:00

Why wonder about the loaves and fishes?

If you say the right words, the wine expands.

If you say them with love

and the felt ferocity of that love,

the fish explode into many.

Imagine him, speaking,

and don’t worry about what is reality,

or what is plain, or what is mysterious.

If you were there, it was all those things.

If you can imagine it, it is all those things.

Eat, drink, be happy.

Accept the miracle.

Accept, too, each spoken word

spoken with love.

—Mary Oliver

Pick a prayer, any prayer. Whisper it, sing it, shout it, force it out through clenched teeth with tears streaming down your face… just bring it out loud, with as much faith as you can muster, or as much as you can stand. Love the need that brought you to this moment, and give it voice. Your spoken invitation, whether accompanied by music or tears, is all that a miracle requires.

* * * * * * * * *

Speaking of giving voice… my newest guest blogger, Elaine Chukan Brown, is in her own words, “an Alaska Native, only parent, and full-time philosopher fashionista, that has been blessed with the patience of God's love, the persistent urging of my ancestors, and the daily devotion of my daughter.” I’ve known Elaine for many years, and love and admire her way of looking at the world. I’m thrilled to be sharing her voice here with you! Look for the first of her contributions coming soon.

Play It Safe?

2011-06-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

Our sight may bring discouraging reports about prayer’s effectiveness. Pay no attention to it. God is still in control. Even the delay to the answer of our prayers is part of His good plan. —Sarah M. Hupp

I’ve been hearing from a number of you recently who’ve been struggling with the Divine Timing portion of our program. :-) Faith demands patience; and that’s where it seems most of us get our knickers in a twist. But the truth is, impatience is not the biggest problem.

Maybe you’ve been praying for your soul mate…the perfect job…the perfect publisher to buy your novel…the perfect radio station to say “Hells yeah!” to your perfect talk show proposal. You’re doing the prayers, the visualizations, keeping the faith, and all your efforts are amounting to NOTHING…we’ve talked time and again about Stage Two of manifestation, when everything seems to stall, or even fall apart around you. But far worse than the external manifestations of Stage Two, for me, are the internal voices that inevitably rise up in the middle of it, saying, “Ok. So what if you spend all this time believing and hoping and praying, and it never shows up? What then? Don’t get your hopes up…don’t dream, don’t believe, because then you can’t be disappointed.”

Far more than stagnation or chaos or falling apart, the human psyche rails against the looming possibility of disappointment. Because at the heart of disappointment lies the ultimate fear: that either God doesn’t exist, or worse, He does, but you don’t deserve His favor.

Risk believing, or play it safe? No matter how frustrated or impatient or scared or tired I might become, or how seductive the idea of “safety” might seem in a given moment, I can’t imagine living without the magic and the hope that trusting in God engenders. Besides, the only true safety comes from faith. Without God, I am defined by my disappointments. With God, I am re-directed to a higher path.

So, whatever stage you might be in right now, hang in there… and in the immortal words of Fleetwood Mac and Journey (and probably a bunch of other bands over the years!): Don’t Stop Believin’!!

If you need an extra dose of inspiration, check out yesterday’s video post (6/21/11) on my Facebook Fanpage: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michele-Morgan/240973004139

For more information on the stages of manifestation, listen to the episodes on 5/10/10 and 5/17/10 of Living on a Prayer: http://www.michelemorgan.org/radio.html

God In Real Life: Commitment Redefined

2011-06-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

by Alizabeth Rasmussen

A little over halfway through 2011, and I've been reflecting on the Success Covenant I made at the beginning of the year. It's true that some amazing things have happened and yet—of course—it's the things that haven't yet happened that stand out and get the most attention. I've done a pretty good (not perfect) job of keeping up my end of the bargain--doing all the things I committed to in order to stay on track and make God's job easier. Lately, though, I've had a hard time connecting at all. The things I'm doing that should make me feel closer to God instead feel empty and meaningless. I don't mind being disciplined about things, and I have been. But the last thing I want my relationship with God to be is a "to-do" list. Pray. Tithe. Act as if. Check, check, check. Yawn.

What's missing? I've been asking and today (thanks to Michele) I got an answer (notice I did not say "the" answer). Commitment. Every successful relationship requires it and I have no doubt about God's commitment to me...but what about my commitment to Him? Yes, I've been "doing all the right things" but I'm realizing that there is a big difference between "discipline" and "commitment." Commitment holds the big picture. Discipline is disconnected details. Commitment is intention and passion in action, flexible enough to respond to changing needs and desires, open to intuition and available to hear when God whispers. Discipline is hard, unwavering, regimented and unfeeling. Commitment feeds on itself and gives back everything you put into it...and more. Discipline can get you through the day, but will just ask for more of the same the next day. So is discipline necessary? Absolutely. I especially love Michele's definition: “Being a disciple unto oneself." I've realized it's possible to have discipline without commitment, but I don't think the opposite is true. It's a package deal—discipline is wrapped up inside commitment in a way that makes it meaningful. Commitment is an on-going decision that it seems I've forgotten to make for awhile. It only makes sense that it would fall away over time, leaving in its wake the "go through the motions" remnants that discipline can be when not connected to something bigger than itself.

The commitment was there at the beginning of the year and has been off and on since then. It's time to find it again. Time to start over. Again.

Care to join me? Now is the perfect time to create or re-create your Success Covenant. Listen here to learn how: http://www.michelemorgan.org/radio/mm_radio%20shows/michelemorgan010311.mp3

A Few Things...

2011-06-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Hi all!

Just wanted to let you know that I recently adjusted some settings, and now it’s easier than ever to post comments here on my blog page… just click on the link at the bottom of any entry, and add your two (or twenty!) cents. I love hearing from, and staying connected to, all of you!

Speaking of staying connected… it’s been really fun over on my Facebook Fan Page recently… would love to have you join the family if you haven’t already! Here’s the link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michele-Morgan/240973004139

And finally… I’m going to be bringing on a guest blogger soon… one of my favorite writers of all time, Alizabeth Rasmussen, who also happens to be my dearest friend, as grace and supreme good fortune would have it. Liz has a profound and heartfelt real-world connection to God, which she expresses through a genuine love affair with words.

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.” —Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White, 1952

And so is my Alizabeth… and I can’t wait to share her with all of you! :-) Look for the first of her contributions in the days ahead.

Many blessings!!!

Another Human Moment

2011-06-08T09:59:00.000-07:00

Went for a run Monday morning, and as usual, my brain was running faster than my body… and in a whole lot more directions, all at once. Weary of the spin, I couldn’t even think of a prayer to say, so I just thought about God. My iPod was shuffling through my Rock collection; the very next song that came on was this:

I'm desperate for changing

Starving for truth

Closer to where I started

Chasing after you

I'm falling even more in love with you

Letting go of all I've held onto

I'm standing here until you make me move

I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Forgetting all I'm lacking

Completely incomplete

I'll take your invitation

You take all of me now

I'm falling even more in love with you

Letting go of all I've held onto

I'm standing here until you make me move

I'm hanging by a moment here with you

I'm living for the only thing I know

I'm running and not quite sure where to go

And I don't know what I'm diving into

Just hanging by a moment here with you

There's nothing else to lose

There's nothing else to find

There's nothing in the world

That can change my mind

There is nothing else…

I’ve listened to this song probably a hundred times before, but never heard it like I did right then, smack in the middle of my “what’s-it-really-all-about” rumination. I will never grow tired of, or even familiar with, the way God answers questions that I don’t even realize I'm asking.

Hanging By a Moment by Lifehouse... check out the original version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48RjmgOCtPU

Or a great acoustic version:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnXHUZLmoBo&feature=related

It's Easy For God

2011-05-29T18:29:00.000-07:00

Seen on a decorative plaque in a small shop in Snohomish: “Faith makes things possible… not easy.”

No one said it would be easy. Well, except maybe the love-light-and-bliss bunch… but ya’ll know my considerable opinion of THAT camp and their aspirations. Truth is, some days the whole faith, prayer, relationship with God, thinking big, I’m a believer thing is just a whole lot of freakin’ work… without a lot of seeming progress or reward.

So it comes back to the most important element of the entire process: PERSISTANCE. Keep going, even when you don’t want to. Persist in believing, even when you doubt. Persist in prayer, even when the words feel and taste hollow in your mouth. Persist in expecting God’s help and favor, even when it appears from all outward evidence that He’s apparently taking a very long lunch.

There’s a Bible verse (Galatians 6:9) that says: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up.” FYI: “Doing good” would be that aforementioned faith, prayer, relationship with God, thinking big, I’m a believer thing. :-) God’s actually the one who has to do the hard stuff in our lives… all we have to do is keep holding the space for Him to do it. Faith makes things possible, by making room for God to make EVERY thing possible.

There now… that wasn’t so hard, was it?

“And for God, it is easy of accomplishment, and His time is now.”

Minute By Minute

2011-05-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Wouldn’t it be great if making a commitment were a one-shot deal? If it was really as easy as making a decision, speaking a vow, and then riding off into the sunset happily-ever-after?

Any time you commit to something, it results in change. Even minor change results in human discomfort on some level, because it requires experiencing the unfamiliar. Wanting something badly enough to make a commitment to it is awesome in the moment; you can ride on the passion of that decision for quite some time, depending on the level of your desire. But sooner or later (or in my case, this last weekend :-/) you come to the end of the rush, and then the voices of “reason” (aka doubt, fear, cynicism, fatigue, overwhelm, what-if, remember-when, etc.) gain the stage and longing sits once again in the back row, waiting, once again, to be seen and acknowledged for what it really is: God. Asking to be expressed on earth, through us.

And that requires a minute-by-minute, breath-by-breath covenant of willingness, courage, prayer, faith, and right action.

Here’s a perfect declaration to add to your daily practice of thinking big:

I will not die an unlived life.

I will not live in fear

of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid,

more accessible,

to loosen my heart

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance,

to live so that which came to me as seed

goes to the next as blossom,

and that which came to me as blossom

goes on as fruit.

—Dawna Markova

Minute by minute, gang. :-)

If you want some other great tools to help bolster your commitment to living your fullest life, check out the archived Living on a Prayer episode on “Success Covenants” (original airdate 1/3/11): http://www.michelemorgan.org/radio.html

What Are You Thinking???

2011-05-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

Big thinking requires big courage. I know this intellectually as a spiritual truth, but of course, my human self usually requires a big dose of experience before I really know something.

As soon as I left the studio after my final show on Monday, I mean the minute I got in my car and started to drive away, there came a cold twist in my ribcage and a voice in my head, saying, “Uh, hel-LO?! Anybody home? You just closed the door on a good, solid thing, with nothing solid in the queue to replace it?? What the hell are you thinking?”

BIG.

Big thinking is always a risk, because it requires big change…letting go of things outgrown or no longer true to your vision. Sometimes we have to let go in order to think big; and sometimes we have to begin thinking big in order to let go.

Dr. Ernest Wilson said, “We must be willing to let angels go, that archangels may come into our lives.”

Daily prayer and considerable contemplation over the last few months have led me very clearly to the good, solid realization that it is indeed time to take the risk to move on, to stretch myself, to afford God an opportunity to expand my world and how I express myself in it. I have a vision, I have more than enough passion, I have a considerable track record of every other time I’ve leaped and God has carried me somewhere amazing. I don’t know how He’s going to pull this one off yet, but I know enough to keep praying in order to let Him. Amazing how much we can know, and still question the wisdom of letting angels go.

Good thing archangels are bigger.

Big thinking is a big risk, and requires big courage. Big courage requires big faith. And big faith? It is built… one risk, one leap, one prayer at a time.

I let go what goes. God has greater and better good for me now! —Catherine Ponder

To listen to past episodes of "Living on a Prayer," click here:

http://www.michelemorgan.org/radio.html

New Adventures

2011-05-16T07:54:00.001-07:00

Welcome, or welcome back, to my blog page! Been on hiatus for a while, and I’m back with a new format—short and sweet snippets of inspiration, information, prayers, quotes, questions—delivered with a LOT more frequency. I won’t be writing a novel with each entry, so I’ll be able to keep up this time, and so will you! :-) I want to encourage you to add your own wisdom and insights to this page, by posting a comment whenever the spirit moves you.

This is also the place to find out what I’m up to next. In the spirit of today’s Living on a Prayer, my final show on Contact Talk Radio, I will tell you I’m definitely THINKING BIG about what’s next…and I’m appropriately psyched and freaked out about it at the same time!

If you listened to the show, you hopefully got a shot of clarity about what thinking big means, and what it entails…if you missed the show, it will be up in the archives in a few days:

http://www.michelemorgan.org/radio.html

In the meantime, I want to add yet another awareness to the whole “thinking big” thing. Remember that “big” is a moving target. Back when the opportunity first presented itself for me to do a show on internet radio, it was a take-my-breath-away risk…up until then I’d only co-hosted on the radio, and only a true handful of times. The idea of developing, writing, and hosting my own hour-long program was exactly what I had been praying to manifest, and at the same time it felt pretty damn daunting to accept. By trusting God and saying yes to the risk, I stretched myself and my faith, and consequently my world, and that big idea morphed appropriately over the next 17 months into what ALL big ideas essentially are: a stepping stone to the next big, scary, exciting, risky, breath-taking, destiny-fulfilling answered prayer.

So if you’re currently challenged by the idea of thinking big about your life, I encourage you to look back at the chances you’ve taken, either premeditatedly or spontaneously, that stretched your world and ultimately elevated your faith; and celebrate the fact that you already know how to think big. Now, it’s just time to add a “ger." :-)

God’s boundless, limitless power, that created the Universe, is now accomplishing in and through me all that is for my highest good in mind, body and affairs. I give thanks that I am now divinely equipped to accomplish great things with ease.

The Tower...9 years later, and still apropos

2010-09-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

I wrote the following essay in the aftermath of the events of 9/11... today, 9 years later, I felt compelled to pull up the document and read it. And sadly, weirdly, not surprisingly, it still seems to fit with the current atmosphere of our common experience. In my prayers today, I'm asking for a renewed commitment to utilizing the profound energies of global upheaval for true, conscious CHANGE... both in the individual, and the collective.

THE TOWER

A tower on an island in a stormy sea, split a third of the way down by a streak of lightning from out of the heavens. Stone explodes into flame. Bodies fall from the burning wreckage, tumbling through a blackened sky; the world is changed, in an instant, transformed by blood and fire.

No, this is not some poetic discourse on the events of September 11, 2001. This is a description of the Tower card, one of the Major Arcana cards in the Tarot. The Tarot is an ancient and mystical tool used for divination and spiritual connection, comprised of seventy-eight cards, each one with a specific picture and symbolic message. The imagery of the Tarot has remained unchanged for over six centuries. The twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana depict the spiritual life lessons encountered by every soul on its journey from innocence to enlightenment; the Tower’s specific lesson is one of radical change and release.

It is over. The actual event itself, unfolding in a matter of minutes, is now an encapsulated frame of history, a series of images in our minds and in the media, a doorway through which we have all emerged, utterly changed. The dust has settled; the smoke has cleared; shock has given way to anger and mourning. Now comes the true test—what do we do with ourselves? How do we navigate this new and uncertain landscape? How do we walk the line between faith and hopelessness? And how will we choose to see ourselves, and God, as a result?

In the hours and days following the terrorist attack, I ran a gamut of emotions, and fielded dozens of questions from clients who, like me, desperate to understand, found their human selves zealously at war with their spirits. My mind could not comprehend what I incessantly witnessed via television and radio; I was paralyzed, unable to turn away, even as some wiser part of me said, “Enough! Turn it off, change the channel, close your eyes…” I watched two jetliners become a thousand; two towers falling, then rising to fall again, and again; listened to every possible “expert” citing statistics and spewing presumptions. I felt the terror of those whose earthly lives were ended so horribly; I cried for the families and friends left behind; I felt a primal rage of territory and revenge, followed by the futility and fantasy of war. And I felt a deep, instinctual fear rise up in me, looming in the shape of fighter jets suddenly circling overhead in a sky that had been weirdly silent for days. When I realized finally that there was nothing new to watch or listen to, no missed camera angle or fresh commentary, nothing more for my human senses to try and assimilate, only then did I turn off the machines and tune into my spiritual voice, and only then did the questions begin to subside, leaving a space for awareness, and ultimately, understanding.

* * * * * * * * *

I have struggled for weeks to write this. I am so weary of talking the whys and the hows of September 11th; yet I have felt an unnamable passion to express something on paper about that terrible, awesome day. I have four pages worth of symbolism, synchronicity, and attempted answers as a result, none of which I’ve been able to put together into any kind of coherent flow. I am, ultimately, sick of the questions.

It is over. The doorway has been passed through. One of the definitions of the Tower card is, “the destruction of long-standing structures that no longer serve, so that something truer can be raised from the ashes.” Now, we stand as a nation on the potential brink of recession, and war; but we stand as a species on the edge of an unprecedented shift in consciousness. It’s critical that everyone who has the awareness to do so, look upon this situation with a spiritual eye. Everything that happens does so for a very specific and intricate web of reasons. We are creating our realities, every minute, by the choices we make, the energy we expend, and the lessons we afford ourselves the opportunity to learn. As humans, at this level of consciousness, we still seem to require hard, tangible, physical, crisis-induced experience in order to change. Rather like an alcoholic, hitting bottom; it often isn’t enough for the addict to lose their job, or their house, or their family. Sometimes it requires killing someone in a car accident before they’ll get help with their addiction.

What might happen, I wonder, if everyone could stop looking at this situation as a tragedy, and start seeing it as an opportunity? It was tragic, absolutely, in the form and scope with which it showed up; the lives lost in order to bring the rest of us out of our spiritual coma. But what might happen, I wonder, if everyone could own the fact that we did indeed bring this experience into physical manifestation for a powerful, essential change, and then make the necessary choices in order to actualize that change?

Stop asking, How could this happen? Given the nature of Man, our particular stage of spiritual evolution, and the current energetic state of the planet, how could it not? Action, emotion, thought, intent; all are forms of energy, and energy begets energy, attracting its own kind like a cosmic magnet. We have been a predominantly fear-based culture for centuries; with an emphasis on the negative in our media, our commerce, and our governing institutions. Energetically speaking, we called those planes out of the sky. We need to change the signals we’re sending out, so we aren’t a tractor beam in a starless heaven for humans living in even more fear than ourselves.

This is not about blame; this is about accountability. And this is not a conflict of governments, or nations, or religions. This is the simplest and most profound of battles: Fear versus Love. Divine love. The essence of God. Love is pure, and singular in nature. Love begets love. Fear, on the other hand, is complex and seductive; it rarely remains in its true guise, preferring to morph itself to fit its emotional vehicle. Pain, anger, guilt, depression, rage, hate—many names, many faces, one source, at its core nothing more than a knee-jerk, animal reaction.

It is the human nature to fear. Our human selves operate from the instinctual mode known as the “fight or flight syndrome”; poised, always, to react to both internal and external stimuli in order to survive. Our spiritual natures stand instead in a neutral zone of consciousness, seeking always to learn and change and grow towards enlightenment, knowing only the truth of that Divine essence of love. Fear is an impulse; love is a choice. And that, I believe, is the threshold on which all of us as individuals stand in the aftermath of this experience—to turn away from fear, and to choose love.

Here’s where the eyeball rolling and head-shaking starts…another “New Ager” saying all we have to do is love this whole thing away. I’m not saying that. If every man, woman and child on this planet hit their knees at the same time and sent a collective prayer to heaven, then yes, I guarantee you the entire situation would be resolved by love in an instant. But if we were evolved enough to do that, none of this would have happened in the first place.

This situation is like cancer. What has finally taken root in the physical, began first as a spiritual, emotional, and mental imbalance. And, just like a physical disease, it must be dealt with on a physical level, and then cured on the spiritual, emotional and mental levels as well, lest it show up again and again, each time deeper and more obvious than before. We cannot march into Washington and stop the President from going to war, but we can pray, affirm, and visualize that the actions taken by our leaders and our military are divinely guided, miraculously peaceful, and result in the swift, easy and ultimate end of world terrorism. Physical action will do nothing more than buy us some time—then it is up to all of us to change the spiritual temperature of this planet so we don’t re-create the experience of the Tower.

Don’t pray for the victims of the attacks. The souls of everyone who died that day are circling above our heads, bright and dancing, limitless, waiting to see what the rest of us do with this opportunity they helped us set up. We all chose to participate in this—honor those who were on the front lines by living your life with passion, joy, and purpose. Stop questioning whether it’s alright to laugh, to be happy, to move on. It is essential. Walk in the world for those who were brave enough to cross over, and pray instead for comfort and healing for the loved ones left behind in the very human house of grief. Pray also for those who are so blinded by their fear that they’re ready to call anyone with a foreign name, accent, or hairstyle The Enemy.

Fear is the true enemy. So stop watching the news. Stop reading the newspaper. Believe me, you will remain well informed, simply by overhearing conversations at the post office or grocery store. All the rest is conjecture, opinion, and alarm-inducing manipulation. Love sustains itself, because it is the nature of God, but fear must be fed, housed, and nurtured in order to survive, much like its human host. In our culture, fear is not only fed and housed, it is carried into the temple and worshipped.

If love is to reign here, all we need do is create a space, and then hold it. Right now there is a hole in the New York skyline; there is an opening in the consciousness and in the heart of every human on this planet. What we choose as individuals to fill it with will determine the face of our collective future, and the form in which our future lessons appear to us. Each of us is a microcosm of the Tower—each one of us has long-standing structures and issues in our lives that need to be destroyed, so that our higher good can be raised in its stead. Take responsibility, and choose to change what no longer serves you. And stop worrying if your neighbor or your spouse or your congressman isn’t in choice—all you have to do is your part, and love will beget love.

Lightning strikes; a fortress crumbles. Twin towers, representing light and dark, life and death, masculine and feminine, yin and yang. Love and Fear. Both have fallen; this is an equal opportunity experience. What gets erected in their place, both literally and symbolically, will be up to each of us individually. We can’t go back to the morning of September 11th and prevent the lesson we were meant to learn, but we can alter the landscape of our future experiences by being conscious in the aftermath of this one. It happened. It’s over. The threshold has been crossed. Now, let’s make it count for something.

Dream of the Archer

2010-02-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

Another nod to another epic rock band, in any era: Heart. The Little Queen album completely personified my gypsy-wagon, Robin-of-Sherwood, knights-in-shining-armor high school musings, and I can still conjure the autumn smell of the Prince Matchabelli Apple Musk perfume I used to wear (Yum!), the weight of the bohemian hooded coat in raspberry velvet I couldn’t live without (Yum-O!), and the easy flow of words as I would sit in the school courtyard before Creative Writing class, armed with ruled notebook paper and a purple felt pen, already a seasoned poet at seventeen.

Okay… so I’ve been totally agonizing over this damn blog for weeks now. (Apparently my inner critic skipped high school a lot… but now that he’s all grown up, he takes his job very seriously.) I had a couple of great topics I wanted to write about, then ended up using them in my radio show, so of COURSE I can’t RE-use them! Sacrilege! Must be fresh and original at all times! And I truly had no idea how much prep time the show was going to require each week, so it seems like all my writer’s mojo of late is spent on notes and anecdotes for Mondays at high noon. (Excuse #2,423.)

To hell with that. I’m going to completely plagiarize myself here. Yesterday morning, in response to a dialogue between some of my awesome peeps on my Facebook Fan Page, I reeled off this little ditty in mere moments, like that seasoned poet in the courtyard I still aspire to be… although now my tools of trade are a blank computer screen and a blinking cursor. Maybe I should go back to notebook paper and purple ink. Anyway, here it is, in all it’s recycled glory… regarding a subject that seems to JUST KEEP COMING UP, both for myself, and for every one of my clients… that infinitely challenging phenomenon known as Divine Timing:

The excellent marksman does not waste his ammunition. The archer will not let his arrow fly until the wind is right, the path is clear, and the target is directly in his sight.

I get this image of me, as God's arrow... He's got me strung in the bow, tight and clean, and He's waiting, rock solid, for the perfect moment to send me soaring... and I start wiggling around, impatient as hell, figuring I can hit the bull’s-eye, no problem... let's go, get on with it, I'm totally ready to fly!

Of course, I can't see as far as He can... can't tell which way the wind is going to push next... don't have a clue about all the myriad tiny details that have the potential to blow me right past the target and neck deep into the brambles... but He does.

And so God sighs, and lovingly rolls His eyes at me, and lowers His aim, and waits with infinite patience until I'm quiet and willing to trust... and the moment I am, I mean the MILLISECOND I settle down and relax completely into His hands, He raises me again, and waits again, rock solid, until the timing is perfect to let me go, so I can hit the mark, dead on.

It's really hard at times, but I'm holding to my faith, not only in the target I'm longing to strike, but most important, in the bowman who not only wants me to land where my heart most desires, but will guarantee that I do.

To get on my Facebook Fan Page and join the discussions, go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michele-Morgan/240973004139

To hear my radio show, Living on a Prayer (excuse #2,423) go to www.contacttalkradio.com Mondays 12:00pm PST, or access the archives of past shows at http://feeds.feedburner.com/michelemorgan

Livin’ on a Prayer, Part Deux: Patience, Faith and Party Dresses

2009-11-18T08:32:00.000-08:00

When I was in junior high, a friend of mine got a poster for her birthday, depicting two cartoon vultures sitting side-by-side in a tree. One vulture leans over and says to the other one, “Patience, my ass. I’m going to kill something.”

My Sagittarian sentiments exactly.

My two-year enlistment in Saturnian boot camp hell officially ended on October 29. (At precisely 1:09pm EST, but who’s keeping track?) So of course, at approximately 1:15pm EST, a very old, very familiar part of me rose up as if on cue, righteously assuming that everything should be happy, peppy, and bursting with love, right now—Saturn’s done, the pathway’s clear, my eyes are bright, the course should be smooth and I should be sailing full speed ahead. Chop, chop. No excuses. And I do mean RIGHT NOW, dammit.

Fortunately, one of the many gifts to come out of my recent astrological tour of duty is that I am able to be somewhat amused and peripherally inspired by that part now, rather than unconsciously joining forces with it as I might have in the past; running off hand-in-hand into the darkness, swinging from high-voltage wires and trying to light houses and park benches on fire, just to make something, anything, happen.

I have, and always will, struggle with the P word. My I-wanted-it-yesterday nature has forever propelled me at a pace most others can’t even hope to keep up with; there have been countless times when my own head was left spinning by the measure of my passion. Yet for all its dizzying recklessness, that aspect has also gifted me consistently throughout my life with a priceless willingness to take risks, explore opportunities and say yes to the wild unknown, and to stretch myself and live beyond the cage of my own and others’ stolid comfort.

But perhaps the biggest drawback of that side of me is that it never allows for the sacredness of a moment, or for any acknowledgment of the process or the journey thus far. It simply wants to get on with “the good stuff”… the definition of which can be as mercurial as the part itself. Like so many of you, I have had my life turned literally inside out in the last two years, and the expectation that within a matter of days it should all be put better than right, is a Saturday Night Live skit of absurdity. (Makes me think of a certain political tone that’s currently circulating in our nation… let’s see… eight years vs. ten months… Hmmm…)

Put into curious perspective during a recent CSI session by my brilliant friend and fellow practitioner Roslyn Ericksen, it is as though I’m standing in the middle of my own private country, devastated by war—bloody ground, torn and tangled bodies, not a single building left standing, sour smoke drifting over rubble and the sounds of the dying still whispering in my ears—and there is someone inside of me tapping their foot, arms crossed peevishly, demanding to know why I’m not yet cleaned up and wearing my party dress.

Right now we are all standing at the center of a very personal, and at the same time, universal battleground, bearing witness to the profundity of collective fear and loss; weary, restless, longing for peace, healing, safety, truth. The struggles and skirmishes have gone on far too long; it seems new hostilities continue to rise up nearly every day. Hard not to want to close your eyes, click your heels together and instantly conjure a brand new landscape, far from the stink of chaos and the whispers of uncertainty that will likely continue to prevail. Harder still not to know when, or even if the smoke will ever clear, or when this particular war zone might finally be declared a memorial site, the grass left to heal and grow and cover the scars and the ashes of what has ended.

Divine Timing is one of the most difficult spiritual concepts for us mortals to accept. That is a product of the C word… human aesthetic says that if we can control the when of our destinies, than we obviously control the whether-or-not of it as well. And a very human, very typical notion that rises up in any waiting game is, if it hasn’t happened yet, it might not ever happen.

Inarguable experience has taught me over the years that it is always in my highest and best interest when God manages the clock and the calendar of my aspirations, regardless of my imaginings that I know better. I’ve looked back in the afterglow of every major manifestation and known so clearly that I wasn’t ready for the dream even a moment before it materialized. Doesn’t mean I haven’t tried to dispute, negotiate, and strong-arm the process as it was happening. I very definitely have, and likely will continue to at times, despite what I know. But I now have a clear image in my psyche that rises up in concert with my impetuosity—the Dolby Sound ad on the theatre screen, four words in bold lettering, following the impressive surrounding roar of engines and atmospheres: THE AUDIENCE IS LISTENING. And I have come to appreciate the wisdom in not unveiling a master opus to an absent, potentially hostile, or worst of all, apathetic congregation.

“The waiting is the hardest part…” Tom Petty

It’s in the waiting that faith is put to the ultimate test. Can you continue to believe in dreams coming true, when it feels as though everything and everyone around you is trapped in some strange, primordial sleep? Can you continue to believe in possibility, in goodness and in mercy, when it seems the world has gone insane and God has left the building? Can you still imagine the phoenix rising triumphantly from the ashes, even while whatever fires you face insist on flaring up again and again with a fresh and spontaneous appetite?

“Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith requires patience, and that’s where prayer really comes in handy. It gives the part of you that needs to DO something, something to do… and keeps you relatively out of God’s way while He orchestrates the next leg of your chosen adventure. And most important, faith gets stretched and strengthened in the waiting, creating a broader foundation on which God can build something truly amazing. As Catherine Ponder says, “The longer your good is in coming, the greater it will be when it comes, so hold on!” This I also know from inarguable experience… although you can bet, from time to time, I’m going to argue.

For right now, it seems, my charge is to simply remember, and acknowledge. To stand at the graveside of my recent past and honor the fallen, and look back on all the times I’ve stood on similar ground, sooty, tired, questioning, and God showed up with impeccable timing and without fail, completely amazing me with His love, His humor, and His extraordinary favor. By human right and machination, I will continue at times to struggle, and be anxious; to worry, and to fear. But I will do my best to remember and acknowledge that God always knows the perfect time for the gifts and the guests to arrive... and He will never, ever start the party without me.

Whoa-oh… Livin' on a Prayer

2009-08-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

A quick nod, if I may, to one of the greatest rock bands that have ever graced the stereo, stage, or salon (as in hair)… of course I’m talking about Bon Jovi, and the BEST era for power ballad/guitar-crazed anthems full of love, lust, longing, leather, and L’Oreal… the 80’s.

Can’t help it. I’m an 80’s girl, through and through. Leg warmers, cropped shirts, the Brat Pack, the whole bit. And Jon Bon Jovi still has a killer voice… and awesome hair. Sometimes I find myself wistfully longing for the good ol’ days, when John Hughes ruled the box office and bi-level haircuts were synonymous with 280Z’s and wine spritzers, as opposed to Monster Truck rallies and chewing tobacco.

Wait a minute. What did I just hear from the back row? What’s a ‘bi-level’ haircut? You’re kidding me, right? I know someone out there knows the answer. Class? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? It’s a mullet, people. Track with me here, for crying out loud!

Alright. Enough waxing rhapsodic. Or rambling paradoxical. Or babbling incessantly. Your choice.

Let’s talk about prayer.

Those who know me hear the expression “prayer practice” a lot. For me it is a literal term. Prayer is an art form, requiring commitment, intention and action; a distinct curvature of language and need, worthy of reverence; a discipline of essential communication that can alter the landscape of a moment or a life almost instantly. And I continuously field questions from clients, students and readers about prayer—why, when, and how to do it.

The why is easy. Prayer stirs up in the human psyche and self the most powerful form of energy known to mankind. The act of prayer creates a distinct vibration that is both ethereal and corporeal in nature, capable of literally changing events, circumstances and experiences to divine ends. It is the crucial component to the “Secret” of successful manifestation, going far beyond the “Ask”; it is an elemental necessity in “Believe” and “Receive” as well. But most important, prayer is the invitation to an intimate kinship with God.

Contrary to much popular belief, we don’t need to pray to earn or entreat God’s love. We need to pray to open up to receive it. The one aspect of the human being that simultaneously stands between and connects us to God is our mind… and prayer gets the mind in line with the Divine. (That would make a great little jump rope rhyme, wouldn’t it? Try it sometime!) The human brain processes through words and pictures, and prayer offers the ultimate treasure map to kingdoms and blessings beyond.

When is easy too. One word: constantly. I think God should be involved in picking out your breakfast cereal in the morning, as well as mapping out your career path and helping you raise your kids. Prayer is an ongoing dialogue with the one resource you can count on without fail for unlimited insight, favor, and support, no matter how large or small the issue at hand. And if you’re starting out with a less than solid belief in that resource, prayer will help systematically build the foundation necessary to allow you to naturally consort with faith and witness miracles.

The how of prayer is infinitely more complex, faceted by imagination, ideology, and desire. I definitely believe in a particular attitude when it comes to prayer—affirmative, authentic, from the heart—but the means and the motions by which your prayers are executed leaves plenty of room for exploration and personal interpretation. Consistency is key, and at the same time, like all aspects of a great relationship, your spiritual practice should change and grow as you do.

I’ve maintained a daily prayer practice for over fifteen years. Sag though I am, my Virgo and Capricorn sides make me a child of constancy and routine in certain areas. I am downright devotional when it comes to disciplines that feed my emotional and physical fire—nothing and no one gets in the way of my workouts, my meals, my morning cup of tea in my favorite mug, TrueBlood and Dexter on Sundays and Saving Grace on Tuesdays, or my daily conversations with God. And, as everything has its shadow, my temporal nature can also lead me to become complacent, mired in protocol and just-this-side of superstitious when it comes to altering my sacred routines.

Over the years my daily spiritual regimen has definitely morphed in its expression and location—my altars have changed, grown, moved from room to room; leather bound prayer journals have given way to dime-store notebooks, and back again; crystals, feathers and prayer beads have all spent well-worn time in my hands. But the prayers and the time I’ve spent saying them have, for the most part, stayed relatively uniform. Short and sweet, or quick and dirty, depending on your outlook. Powerful, to the point, and more than doable. And by virtue of the hairpin learning curve of the last year-plus I’ve come to find that it’s not nearly enough anymore… and I’m thrilled with the wanting.

I need time with God. Time to settle down, to breathe, to listen. Time to say what I need to say, in all the ways that occur to me to say it. I spend the vast majority of my life going mach 5 with my hair on fire, and it suits me to the ground. I’m also coming to appreciate the smolder and hiss of an ember; the revving of an engine at the intersection, just before the light changes; the quiet of an ignition switch turned off, with just the faintest click of cooling metal winding down in the darkness.

So I’ve made time, found time, and been given time, quite magically, to engage in a deeper communion, and to cultivate in an even more conscious way my own personal rhythm with God. And I’ve come to understand on an intrinsic level what I’ve always suspected, but thought for years was merely a folly of my astrological tendencies: I don’t ever want to be satisfied. Nor can I be.

“Jesus said, when you would pray, let your longing pronounce the words…” Kahlil Gibran

That longing lives in all of us, and it is the same in all of us: God is, in fact, what we’re searching for, what we’re yearning to touch and taste and realize; what lies at the heart of everything we seek to create and express. No matter the argument, no matter the resistance or dissociation that exists in the mind, the human psyche will continue to reach out beyond its own limitation in an unceasing attempt to satisfy the primal hunger of the spiritual nature… the instinctual desire to merge our human and spiritual selves in an intimate union with God.

Is it irony that the desire is never truly sated? No, it’s the whole point. Hunger. Thirst. Orgasm. Breath. Just as our physical needs are satisfied for the time that we answer the urge, they will always rise up again, to be answered again, over and over, as long as we exist in physical form. And so it goes with our spiritual needs, as well. God is found in the reaching out, in that sweet moment between starvation and surrender—when we let go of the human trapeze and hang in the air with only faith and blind courage to carry us to the next landing place. It is in the searching that we ultimately find ourselves, and it is in the aching that we open enough to know God. The temporary satiety of awareness and answered prayer, no matter how profound, is in fact just a perk of our willingness to yield to the moments of our deepest human vulnerability, and fly without reason towards heaven.

Prayer is how we reach out. And the human heart is always reaching. We are hardwired to partner; to merge with a truth greater than our own; to die to our selves and be born again and again in the light of something more than we can ever be alone. Prayer gives voice to the longing, and it is the longing that draws us ever forward… and in the reaching out, we find our wings.

So, About This Whole Blogging Thing…

2009-07-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

I know, I know… blogs are supposed to be written on, or in, or whatever the correct terminology might be, on a consistent basis. I began this blog with the bright-eyed freshman goal of monthly entries, at minimum. (That should be really easy, to start. Then I’ll quickly work my way up to posting weekly, seeing as I have sooo many things I really, really want to say…)

Let’s see… hmmm… my daughter’s been twenty-two now for an entire season.

I can reason that the last three-plus months have literally vaporized, leaving me wondering if I was out of the room when spring came and went. I can certainly shake a deserving fist at Mercury, for one wicked retrograde sabotaging the entirety of May… and I can also lay claim to an ongoing Saturn transit, following straight on the heels of a two-and-a-half year vivisection, courtesy of Pluto, that my dear friend and trusted astrologer, Andre Kahr, candidly refers to as “brutal.” (What I candidly refer to it as is unprintable.) I can bemoan the fact that I have been righteously uninspired in the last number of weeks, finding it nearly impossible to round up enough stray thoughts to compose a coherent entry, let alone one I think anyone might find remotely interesting, or of any value. And, as I find it nearly impossible, once I get going, to write anything much under a thousand words (and of course, every one of them needs to be the right word, thank you very much!) I’ll also plead a sterling case of rookie overwhelm, inspired by the prolificacy of veteran bloggers and the impressive array of options available for cyber self-expression and networking. Web Sites. Facebook. MySpace. Twitter. Holy Crap. How will I choose? Or, perhaps more appropriately, since I typically subscribe to the idea that more is always better, how will I possibly keep up?

Turns out, my techno-block runs deeper than a temporary state of overwhelm or lack of inspiration. At first, with my classic double Sag, jump-in-headfirst, check-for-sharks-later disposition, I pounced on the idea of a virtual pulpit I could commandeer at a moment’s notice, giving my teacher/preacher side free reign to do what she loves best—teaching and preaching. Evangelizing unabashedly to a vast, imagined audience? I mean, really… how in the world could I possibly resist that? And as I vowed to keep my internet musings in absolute integrity with the way I’m determined to live my life, and do my work—as passionate, deep, honest, and real as I possibly can—I neglected to imagine a time when the very private, monastic, idealist side of me might balk at the idea of baring certain human realities, even if it was for educational purposes.

I am, after all, known in some circles as the chick with all the answers.

So… here’s the larger conundrum being volleyed around in the boardroom of my brain for the past few months: What do I write about if all I have right now are questions? What happens to my place at the podium if I’m not all clean and shiny and dressed up for the spotlight? What will become of my audience if they find out I don’t, in fact, have it all figured out? I mean, what if they discover I’m… audible gasp… only human??? (Please, everyone, do not panic. Remain calm… and move immediately in an orderly fashion to the nearest exit.)

I came into this world with a mile-wide perfectionist streak. Karma, ancestral legacies, and the planets all entwined brilliantly to insure that not only would I always reach for the stars, I would usually hit them dead-bang, and I would mentally horsewhip myself on a regular basis as part of the process. And, I would never, never, NEVER give up… on either the reaching or the whipping. I have done diligent personal work over the years, to fairly miraculous ends, in order to cull the blessings from that near-manic drive and calm the parts of me that continuously call out for another lash, just for good measure. But given the ongoing cerebral conference of late regarding my blog, it became apparent I’d uncovered yet another angle of the argument… and another opportunity to dive into my shadows and dig for fresh treasure.

And what a freakin’ fabulous opportunity to practice what I preach. (Don’t you just love those?) I am constantly admonishing my clients to be kind to themselves, to honor their very human emotions and experiences, rather than judge them; reminding them that even Christ himself cried, threw tantrums, and was utterly convinced that God had abandoned him, at least twice while he was here on earth. So, I can reason for others, if even the Masters have their moments, why in the world shouldn’t the rest of us? Or, more precisely, the rest of you. According to some of my parts, I apparently continue to remain exempt from that particular grace.

Funny, isn’t it, how easy it can be to help others to see their light, and still blatantly turn your back on your own? To be a paragon of patience and compassion for the people around you, then turn around and beat the tar out of yourself over an identical situation, as if the rules of love and mercy apply to everyone else on the planet but you. Amazing.

So here’s my unapologetic, human truth: For the past year and a half, I’ve been in the center of a deep and intimately challenging process—devastating personal loss, huge questions about my life and my beliefs, on the edge of an epic change that I can feel but cannot for the life of me begin to get a hold of in any tangible way. And in the last three months, the volume got cranked to an apex.

Those of you who know me, know my love of movie analogies, and that I believe God created Hollywood and the film industry exclusively for my personal use and reference. To that end, do you remember the scene in Dances with Wolves, when Kevin Costner’s character is sleeping in the soldier fort and he is awakened by everything rumbling and shaking around him, like some grand, Sisyphean earthquake? Jars and bottles falling from shelves, dust sifting through the chinks in the sod walls and a glorious accompanying clamor, a prehistoric rage of motion and sound. And he runs outside and stands in the dust and sweat and moonlight, terrified by the noise and the movement, but blinded to its cause. That unknown seemed to stretch on forever, until the dark humped shapes of the buffalo emerged out of the wind and the chaos and the world made sense again… the landscape utterly changed, but once more negotiable.

I’m still standing in the dust and noise and moonlight, and it’s reaching a crescendo… and there’s a part of me who is not entirely sure whether it’s a herd of sacred buffalo, come to bless me with their passing, or a friendly freight train set to flatten me. I’m keeping the faith, but I’ll tell you, I am squirming a bit.

Meanwhile, in the myopic state of the last few months, my blog became this big yawning chasm of declaration, and I struggled with the inarguable value of sharing my personal experience and the need to honor the sacredness of my own journey. A blog can be a divinely intimate thing; an unedited, all-access pass to the soul and sanctum of anyone brave enough to draw back the veil. For a writer, or at least for this writer, that’s a near intoxicating opportunity, and one I haven’t quite figured out the boundaries of.

The Web has engendered an extraordinary fantasy of intimacy, inspiring an open-wide-and-dump-it-all approach to everything from fashion, to sex, to death, and everything in between. And in my process of Internet initiation, I’ve come to wonder, how much is too much? What happens to true intimacy in the land of virtual, and viral, relationship? If you give absolutely everything you have to an invisible audience of disembodied strangers, what’s left for the people in your sacred circle? My internal jury’s still out on that one.

But here’s what I will tell you. The last eighteen months have been a truly extraordinary experience of pain, growth, redemption, and discovery; pushing me to plumb depths I had no idea were in me, and to come out the other side, bruised, bloody, and exalted. I’ve cried a lot, and prayed a LOT. I’ve yelled at God, blamed Him, questioned Him, convinced myself that He was blaming and questioning me… and at the end of the day, still ended up in His lap or at His feet sleeping like a baby. I’ve isolated myself, and opened up wider than ever before to friends who continue to amaze me with their level of love and understanding. I’ve felt insanely alone in my experience, while at the same time marveling at the kinship in the churning, chaotic darkness we all seem to be traversing in one form or another. And I’ve witnessed just how hard I’m willing to work, to continue being the woman I know God imagined me to be… and if I do say so myself, it’s kind of inspiring.

So, I’m determined to continue defining the boundaries and distilling the balance between what is sacred, and what I willingly give away—anticipating the significance of being accessible, reachable, human, not only for my audience, but most important, for me. I’m going to remain the rebel-chick who curses like a trucker, hangs with angels, meets everyone at their heart, and who’s still learning to truly honor her own… and who trusts she will be led to the answers, all in perfect timing. Albeit, not necessarily in her timing, but that’s a Sag thing.

As far as the whole Internet thing goes? I’m going to stick with the blog for now. I think the only one I want to be tweeting at this point is God.

Message to My Daughter

2009-03-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Twenty-two. A master number, symbolizing magic, a date with destiny. To me, right now, it just seems an impossibility. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve never been the kind of mom who mourns the passing of the years, wishing their kids would stay kids. And to be honest, I’ve always felt a bit aberrant in that. More than a bit selfish. I reveled in Kaeleigh’s natural independence from an early age; welcomed her metamorphosis from needing me, to wanting my company, to defying me, to finally knowing me, to sharing a powerful and at times, personally epic history. It’s just that twenty-two years doesn’t make sense to a part of me. How did time move through and beyond us in such measure, while so many other things seemed to stand still? How did my daughter become such a beautiful, unique, maddening, glorious reflection of me, almost without my knowing? I only turned my back for a second, I swear…

Cleaning up some old files on my computer recently, I came across an entry from a column I used to write for a newspaper called The Island Independent. I wrote it in September 1993, on Kaeleigh’s first day of school. Reading it again after so long, I was hit with the same breathless, stinging rush of emotion I felt when I was writing it. I still feel exactly the same way about her, only the years have served to deepen it, to make the love in me spark and shimmer like a flare in dark water; elevating and humbling me at the same time in the wide open and terrifying lawlessness of parenthood.

There truly are no rules, no definitions, as a parent… only the certainty that you will hand over your legacy to your children and they will run with it, in whatever direction their soul’s path asks of them. And you will feel for them more fiercely than you ever imagined being capable of; and you will question and cling to your faith more desperately than any saint or martyr should ever have to; and your heart will shatter and expand a thousand times over, a hundred times more than you think you can possibly survive. And in the end, you will know to your soul that you have witnessed God, and that you have endured the truest, sweetest pain there could ever be… the love of, and for, a child.

Here is a birthday/thank you card for my child—the most extraordinary, delightful, stubborn, talented, powerful, and magical young woman I have ever been blessed to know. And the message is still exactly the same as it was all those years ago:

To my daughter, Kaeleigh...

I watched you this morning, all the way from our house to the parking lot of the school. You were busy looking out the window, but I flipped the rear view mirror down so I could see you. I kept my eyes on the road ahead, but I was continuously drawn by the sunlight teasing the curls that escaped your braid; the freckles that summer has only recently gifted your nose and cheeks with; the curve of your little tomcat chin and the cool, self-possessed air of your smile. And I found myself wondering, who is this creature? This little wise woman-child in the back seat of my cluttered car, holding tight to her lunch basket and her expectations of the first day of first grade… and I marveled at how lucky I am, how I must have been doing something really remarkable, in some completely perfect moment when you looked down from your celestial flight path, pointed a tiny finger and said, “That’s her, that’s the one…” And then you came into this world, giving me a brief and glorious opportunity to share a time and a space with you. Thanks, baby, for coming in through me—I love you so…

(To find out more about my amazing kid, please visit her on the Web at www.divinecreations1.etsy.com)

La-La-La-La-La, I’m Not Listening…

2009-03-08T22:13:00.000-07:00

I don’t read the paper, or listen to, or watch, the news. I haven’t, in years. I stay remarkably up-to-date just following the lives of my clients, overhearing conversations in grocery stores and post office lines, and of course, signing on to Yahoo! to get my emails. Yahoo! headlines can top the drama quotient of the National Inquirer by no small margin, some days. And the talk on the street seems to always circle back to these “troubled times,” no matter where the conversation might have started.

Lately I find myself having moments of infantile fantasy, imagining standing on the cosmic playground, fingers in my ears, chanting at the top of my lungs that de-lightful little sing-song ditty that is only slightly less annoying than its infamous cousin, “I know you are, but what am I?”

I just don’t want to hear any more.

Years of studying and applying the theories of prosperity consciousness from Catherine Ponder and Florence Scovel Shinn has thankfully given me a phenomenal arsenal of protection against the Saturday Night Live skit of fear we are living as a nation. I thoroughly understand and zealously employ the power tools of affirmative prayer, visualization, and surrender to God’s unfailing good on a daily basis. I personally have lived more stories than I can count of angelic intervention and bona fide miracles, and a huge part of me is actually excited to see what God is cooking up for everybody on this one. I also happen to have an award-winning theatre in my psyche, famous for its state-of-the-art digital picture and sound technology and unsolicited late-night showings of Oscar worthy Worst Case Scenarios.

I may only be 5’2”, but apparently that’s tall enough to be buckled into this particular rollercoaster.

Here’s how the ride typically plays out for me: Last week, day off, I wake up with a list of things to do, and more than enough energy and positive attitude to accomplish it. Following a great morning prayer session and a rockin’ workout, I sign on to check my emails, scanning the sad headlines… I shrug and send a scattering of fairie dust and compassion to all the people who choose to buy the idea of an economy that has allegedly been flushed and gone swirling. In my mind, I hear Catherine Ponder’s awesome, soap opera Southern drawl: I do not depend upon persons or conditions for my prosperity; God is the source of my supply, and God provides His own amazing channels of prosperity to me.

Obama’s The Man, and besides, there’s something far bigger afoot here than merely our human experience of commerce and finances. God’s got our back, I’m certain of it. So I’m choosing to ignore the words of the woebegone, and keep my ticket firmly in my pocket this go round. I’m going to stand on the ground and hold the purses for a while.

Driving to the grocery store, I notice in the mile-and-a-half radius between my house and town, two huge office/retail outlets, a condominium project and a housing development, all busily under construction. Key Bank, Subway, and a hair salon all have Help Wanted signs in their windows. I whip into the parking lot of my local Top Foods, and on the back window of the very shiny, very sporty car parked beside me is a bright yellow bumper sticker with playful black lettering that reads, “I refuse to participate in a recession.”

Halle-freakin’-lujah! says I. Thanking my angels for all this divine confirmation, I bop into the store with a smile on my face, a twinkle in my eye, and feathers sifting the air all around me. (I walk in the charmed circle of God’s love, and I am divinely irresistible to my highest good now!) I fill my cart, and then stand boldly in the check out line, unflinchingly prepared to pay full price for organic produce and gourmet pasta, trusting fully in the laws of the Universe as I have known and experienced them, intimately, for the last twenty years. Act as though ye have faith, and it will be given unto you. The same, I have found magically, holds true for money.

Somewhere, the rollercoaster is screaming down the loop-de-loop, and so are the people on it… I watch and wave, sprinkling more magic dust, the concrete solid and glittering under my feet.

There’s a woman ahead of me at the checkout counter with a small cache of groceries and an impressive pile of coupons. She begins arguing with the cashier about the price of a box of Rice-a-Roni; apparently, it’s ringing up at an amount contrary to the coupon she has, and she is determined to save the twenty-five cents. A stock boy is sent scurrying; the line grows long and restless behind me. And then the cashier and the woman begin an animated discourse on the shaky economy, how frighteningly easy it would be to end up homeless nowadays, and how crucial it is to cling to every penny. Several others in line nod or mutter in grim alliance. My smile begins, ever so slightly, to strain… and the ground, almost imperceptibly, trembles beneath me.

I pay for my groceries, and the total seems somehow exaggerated now; I get out to my car, and the shiny sports car with the angelic message is gone. I get home, grab the mail… my insurance rates are going up as of the next billing cycle. (God prospers me NOW!) I check my office voice mail, and have only two messages—both from new clients, BOTH canceling their sessions at the last minute, due to financial concerns. Suddenly, I have holes in my calendar and the words SELF EMPLOYED stamped on my outstretched hand… and Yahoo!’s telling me it’s gonna get a whole lot worse before it comes close to getting better. And just like that, I’ve handed the weird, scary looking carny my ticket, I’m strapped in, climbing the first big hill, and I’m fresh out of fairie dust and feathers.

Sigh. It’s sooo easy to climb on board, isn’t it?

We talked last time about the pendulum swing, the dance of opposites, the light incomplete without the shadow. The ride is inevitable, especially right now—with the world, and certainly our nation, deep in the birth canal, wild in the throes of a radical labor. So how the hell do you keep your faith when it seems like we’re all about to be spun off into the abyss?

Take as much advantage of your fear as you possibly can. Something is trying to get your attention, to make you see and take ownership of some momentous aspect of your own power… but you’ll likely ignore it unless it unnerves you first. That’s human nature.

So ask yourself: What does your fear inspire in you? Mine inspires my control issues… facets of my personality and belief systems that I have owned, examined, and shifted dramatically over the years, and are now rising up again, asking to be looked at from yet another new and portentous angle. It also inspires a sharp, bitter questioning that bares its cynical fangs every so often, when I am tired or sad or uncertain of my next steps—what if everything I teach, everything I practice, everything I believe, is in reality a crock of shit? What if this is all there really is, and no matter how hard I work and pray and trust, there really isn’t a pot of gold in the aftermath of the tsunami? What if God is the one on the playground with His fingers in His ears, chanting… and all my prayers are lying tarnished on the asphalt around Him, ignored?

From that dark moment, I am in choice. Sometimes I fight the darkness for a bit, resisting its message, but I am forever allied to the parts of me that finally step in and take those questions, and those issues, and throw them like gasoline on a bonfire to propel me towards the truth of God… and to the knowledge that I, in fact, am the only one in that particular relationship who will ever turn their back, plug their ears, and shut themselves away. And I’m then inspired to remember every single time before when I have been on the downhill run of this incarnate thrill ride, exhausted, sick, stubborn but finally surrendered… and there’s God, waiting patiently at the exit gate the whole time, with a miracle held carefully just for me in His wide and capable hands.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” --M. Scott Peck

If I felt no fear, I wouldn’t be moved to find a more profound safety... to work to strengthen even more my connection to God and to all that I believe in. If I didn’t feel the sharp edges rise up in me, I wouldn’t choose to smooth them down, polish them so that my life can reflect and glitter even more brightly.

So, I’m going to ride the ride. I’m going to pray and eat gourmet pasta and see angels in bumper stickers, and then sometimes I’m going to listen to headlines and question my purpose and wonder if it’s all a big joke. And the next time I find myself cresting that big ol’ hill, holding my breath and wishing I had a little fairie dust handy, I’m going to do my best to notice that there’s a railing in the car to hang on to, and a magnificent view of the fairgrounds—and kindred spirits strapped in right beside me.

And, since I’m going to be in fear anyway, at least for the downhill part of it, I figure I might as well make it count… so I’m going to choose to follow it to the treasure in the darkness that God is always holding for me.

Here's to the primal scream...

(I would like to thank both Clare and Angie for inspiring this entry with their posted comments… give me an analogy, and I’ll go a hundred miles! J And thanks to Roz for the perfect quote, as usual.)

A Beginning

2009-02-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

“How should we be able to forget those ancient myths,
that are at the beginning of all peoples,
the myths about dragons, that at the last moment
turn into princesses;
perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses,
who are only waiting to see us once, beautiful and brave.
Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless,
that wants help from us.

So you must not be frightened, if a sadness rises up before you,
larger than any you have ever seen;
if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows,
passes over your hands and over all you do.
You must think that something is happening with you,
that life has not forgotten you,
that it holds you in its hand;
It will not let you fall. . .”

-- Ranier Maria Rilke

I’ve lived a lot, seen a lot, in my forty-eight years. In my nearly twenty-year career as a counselor and psychic, I’ve borne witness and been a midwife of sorts to even more. As challenging as things have been in the past, there have been times lately when I found myself wishing they could be that easy. I don’t know of anyone right now, myself included, who isn’t being rocked by changes, challenges, questions, endings, of no small magnitude… wondering how to keep centered in faith, and still face the headlines or the bank statements or the angry spouse each morning… wondering how, in fact, to face the morning, not knowing what the next few hours, or even the next few moments, might bring.

At the same time, seated in the packed-to-capacity auditorium of our personal and collective fears, true hope and optimism are once again raising a fervent and courageous hand from the shadows of the back row. Candlemas; the Year of the Ox; a true hero, finally, in the White House… a sense that there is actually much to imagine and anticipate each morning, not knowing what the next few months, or even the next few weeks, might bring. There’s a bright new promise, breaking over the horizon… and the Law of Attraction is walking the streets, flashing his badge in the sunshine. We should all be able to go straight into, and stay in, that brave new light now, shouldn’t we? And shouldn’t the shadows disappear around us, given the brightness of possibility?

Despite all I’ve lived and seen in my forty-eight years, I can still “should” on myself with the best of them. I can still judge the fear, condemn the shadows, feel like a hypocrite for fraternizing with uncertainty while claiming allegiance to faith. I can still make myself believe that I should be above the humanness of these times… surely, since I teach and preach and practice, hard, all this spiritual stuff, I should be beyond the drama and the headlines and plumb in the blissful secrets of enlightenment.

Well, it’s taken me a lot of years to finally understand one critical truth, that is, in fact, not a secret at all: It isn’t about one vs. the other. The light and the shadow are NOT adversaries… nor are they mutually exclusive. They are twin souls of the same flame, a yin/yang of the highest order, and there’s never been a more extraordinary time to witness the power and sweat and orgasm of their coupling on this planet. While it is true that you can’t be in a state of divine love and in the grip of human fear simultaneously, it’s not about fighting fear and scrambling to grab hold of the light. It’s about whirling along in the dance of opposites, breathless and awestruck, arms wide to claim the gifts that are born from honoring and fully experiencing both.

I have lived the pendulum swing in true Sagittarian fashion, arcing between days of absolute faith and moments of the darkest possible despair—at first seemingly without choice, and later, because I came to understand and value it, with open, if not entirely welcoming arms. My strengths have all been born out of darkness. My ability to see and hold the best in my clients and in myself has come from recognizing and claiming my own worst aspects first. Do I do it gracefully? Hell, no. Am I happy about it when I’m floating to my eyeballs in the cesspool? Not remotely. But I’m learning to move into it, rather than fight it; to allow the shadow to sweep over me, trembling, reminding myself that nothing comes against me that doesn’t pass through God’s hands first… and He always has something up His sleeve that makes the challenge more than worthwhile.

“I will go before thee and make the rugged places plain; I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron, and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.” Isaiah 45:2-3

God created us to swing. It’s how we return to Him. We will only reach out for His hand when we aren’t sure where our feet are going to fall next. And we can only recognize the warmth of the light if we’ve huddled shivering for a time in the shadows. It is ultimately our choice how long we stay in the dark, of course, and how vehemently we resist reaching out—that’s where the tools of consciousness come in. But we are made to witness, and express, every nuance and every color of every human emotion and experience, good and bad. That is how we know who and what we are, and more important, how we come to know God.

As it turns out, everything terrible is in truth something extraordinary, rising up in us, trying to get our attention… wanting nothing more than to be seen and utilized in a brave new light.

Welcome to my blog. I invite you to come along with me as I traverse this crazy-cool, fiercely beautiful, delicious and terrifying earthly experience, exploring every facet of the shadow and every corner of the light—the myths of illumination, and the treasures in the darkness; all the ways we can make ourselves nuts and talk ourselves down from the ledge; the influence of planets, and the idiosyncrasies of angels; conversations with God, and observations of humanity. And I’ll offer my perspective on living the magical and sometimes elusive true balance that can only come from the dynamic alliance of opposites.

Looking forward to sharing the ride…