A CANDLE IN THE DARK

There is something about the lighting of a candle in a conscious and wakeful way that expands my heart and enlivens my Soul. To light a candle as a sacred act of devotion and dedication touches something deep within me. It connects me to the millions of other spiritual aspirants who have lit candles around the globe in so many places and for a plethora of different intentions. The act itself is transcendent of words and engages the senses in a way that no other sacrament really does. It is a simple act, and perhaps its profundity is in its simplicity. It is a highly personal act when it is done heartfully, even when it is done in a crowd of other people. To stop and to connect to the depths of my inner Being before actively lighting the candle that is before me in many ways reminds me of how I want to live in this world. I intend to live a conscious and wakeful life. I intend to live a life that is permeated with devotion and guided by a dedication to living in the Light of Truth. I intend to live in such a way that brings Light to every situation in which I am involved and engaged. I intend to live in such a vibratory state of reverence that my Presence, like a candle, brings the Light of Love wherever I go. I intend to bring the Light of higher awareness into the darkness of human unconsciousness and unskillfulness. I intend to be an instrument of Light within this world. I intend to shine brightly with the Light of the One Source.

I was not born or reared in a tradition that had much to do with candle lighting. It was not until I was an adult that this sacred practice took on meaning for me. Perhaps that is part of what makes it so special to me now. It is not something that I ever did by rote. I chose to begin to use candle lighting as a meaningful ritual as a representation of the Light that I was finding at the core of my own Inner Being. I never lit a candle in an effort to get an outer Light to do something for me. I was and am lighting candles today to celebrate the Light that is already shining within me. I Light candles to acknowledge the brilliance that is already within others. I light candles to honor a person or occasion or holiday that I feel a call to more artfully bless. I light candles in times of sadness and grief and in times of joy and triumph. I light candles when I am praying, when I am writing, and when I am working with others. The candle light is a representation of the Source Light that is forever burning in the realm of the unseen.

And so in this beautiful season of multiple Lights I prayerfully light my Advent candles in the morning and at sundown my Hanukkah lamps. Between the candle lightings I live in the awareness that I am an instrument of Source Light that is choosing to shine within this world of so much pain, forgetfulness and darkness. I devote my days to staying awake to the ever-present Light that is always available and instantly accessible. I ask not that I be delivered from situations of darkness; rather I ask that when darkness enshrouds or surrounds me that I remember to rely on the only Source of all Light and Life. I ask that I remain open to be a space for the miraculous on this earth. I ask that my heart be used as a portal in service of the Light, and that my Presence be a comfort to those who are temporarily forgetful of the Light. Let me be a candle to light their way. Let my compassion and mercy remind them of how light shines in and through apparent darkness. Let my reverent way of Being be an embrace to all who enter my sphere. Let me truly be a candle in the darkness. Not just in this holiday season, but in each and every day of my incarnation. Let me Be Light. Let me Be Light.

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THE ADVENT OF WAKEABILITY

It is startling to me that we are now entering the final month of calendar year 2011. It has been a rich and wondrous year in so many ways. It just seems to have passed by so very quickly! It is my intention and more and more my felt-reality to live fully within the present moment, and to intimately and profoundly experience the depth of my experiences. This seems challenging at times in this age of constant media, social networking, and critical mass mind identification. We are each plugged into the global brain, and we are all privy to all of the energy that is constantly swirling around and through us. It is becoming increasingly crucial that if we truly and authentically want a direct and sustained connection within our Source, we must claim for ourselves time apart in the stillness as a non-negotiable priority. With the celestial speedup being much more of a dynamic than a mere concept, we must anchor ourselves regularly in the timeless in order to take a respite from the constant busyness of time. We are invited to periodically stop, step back a moment from what we are doing or thinking, and simply allow for some conscious, wakeful breathing. It may not make the days and the time seem longer, but I guarantee that it will increase the quality of the time spent.

We are called to a level of awareness and awakeness that is beyond what any other generation preceding us has been called to. With the advent of the internet and immediate world access information, the power of our collective focused attention is greater than it has ever been. There is almost unlimited power in collective consciousness. The greater the number of individuals that are focusing their attention on a given situation the greater is the collective power. This affects not only the subject of the collective focus, but also the way in which the attention is focused. This calendar year has been rife with what could be termed devastating global scenarios. Mass murders, government overthrows, weather disasters; the ability to look upon these situations in real time has enormous numbers of people fixated on the unfolding of events that both terrify and traumatize. The ensuing chaos within the collective field leaves much of the world population in a trance of trouble and dismay. As vast numbers of people look upon the situations and only identify and resist the surface level of the experiences, transformation is temporarily unavailable. The situations are themselves the effects of mass consciousness perceptions. When they are then resisted by the same collective consciousness that brought about their creation, an almost insurmountable block to transmutation is in place.

A quantum leap in awareness and what I like to call wakeability is necessary to shake out of the trance of surface mind identification and to awaken to the Truth of our One Source. As more and more people devote themselves to staying awake and to seeing through what ultimately are the delusional effects of divided minds and closed hearts, the way we look upon these situations has a profound affect on how they continue to unfold. To see any scenario as if it were a fixed reality independent of conscious intervention is to be unconscious as to the continuing dance of matter and consciousness. The way we look upon anything; the quality of attention we bring to the content of the present moment has an energetic effect on that which we are observing. Looking back over the events of this past eleven months; if 10% of the number of people who were tuned in to the unfolding scenarios had stayed awake in a praying attention, the outcomes would have been profoundly different. If 10% of the people that have contributed endless chatter about how terrible the world situations were and are would have used their breath and voice in reverencing the ever-present possibility of Spirit right here on earth, we would have radically different outcomes to behold.

And so we have one more month until the year 2011 is a history to be remembered. None of us know what may occur individually and collectively during these last thirty one days. Yet we can choose in this moment to devote ourselves to staying awake internally regardless of what may be occurring in our external world. We can dedicate ourselves to surrendering into the One Source our moments, our days, and our remaining weeks of this precious year of life. We can allow our attention to be Light-filled and Love directed. We can commit ourselves to an increased level of wakeability, so that no matter what occurs, we won’t fall into the trance of the surface mind identification. In this time of Advent, regardless of what tradition you are from, we can be relentlessly attentive to “coming to,” which is what the term Advent really means. Regardless of how quickly or slowly the remaining days of this year pass by, that time may be used on behalf of what is ultimately timeless. It is a choice. It is a choice of how to look upon our world and from where. Stay awake. Engage your heart. Live consciously within and look out from the depths of your Soul. The way you choose to look upon this world will have an effect on the way in which it unfolds. Stay awake. For the rest of this year and for the sake of the One, simply stay awake.

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AN EXCLAMATORY THANKSGIVING!

A friend of mine who is also a writer shared with me a few years ago that I use too many exclamation points in my writing. Her thesis was that when you use repeated exclamation points they lose their emphasis and become ineffective as a tool of punctuation. As I both love and respect this individual as a writer and as a friend, I contemplated her council and allowed it to be in my awareness as I wrote for several weeks if not months. It in fact will pass through my field of awareness to this very day. While it was perhaps helpful as a useful criticism in my literary efforts, it made more of an impact as it began to infiltrate how I had and am living out my life experience.

If I were a punctuation mark in the story of human life, which one would I be? I love dancing with that inquiry, though it leaves me without a definitive answer. I know for sure I would not be a period, and I feel no real infinity with being a coma. I have felt most of life as if I were a question mark in search of being an exclamation point. Yep. That is it. A question mark in search of being an exclamation point. Am I sure? Yes I am!

Even in what appears to be a constant quest for happiness human beings have an emotional set point that prevents an extended experience of joyfulness and bliss. We tend to avoid both ends of the emotional spectrum. I know for sure that I was programmed to stay in the middle of the road in terms of felt-sense living. There was no encouragement to actively and freely feel the darker emotional movements, nor was there affirmation in vibrating at a frequency too close to rapture. Not too happy, not too sad was the acceptable range of expression. This was augmented by the admonition to not express too boldly, too vividly, too passionately. Do not shine too brightly. Do not love too radically. Do not praise too relentlessly. Why? Why? Why? I feel within the depths of my Soul a longing to exclaim life in shouting and resounding tones! I feel the call within my body to jump and leap and dance and bound! I want to passionately give my love beyond any reason and without a trace of withholding! I want to praise life blissfully and all that it contains! I want to vibrate at a frequency of gratitude and thanksgiving for the deliciousness of simply being alive! Why? Because I can! Because I choose to show up fully, passionately, powerfully! I want to ask into every single moment of every single day: what is possible here? How might I show up in a way that makes the greatest contribution that I am capable of making to this human family? How may I use my relentlessly questioning capacity to free me from the bondage of living in a perpetual semi-colon? How may I use this choice point moment to exclaim that only Truth is True in me?!?!

I am profoundly grateful for the moment in my life when by grace I began to question my own tale of Taylor. I bless the quantum leap that questioning provided in the emergence of my consciousness. I give thanks for the many exclamation point moments of my life that have followed the question mark around what had been in the past. With continued love and respect to my friend I do not believe I can use too many exclamation points in my writing and certainly not in my living. In this Thanksgiving season a period does no justice to my gratitude! I am dwelling in the question of how much good will I allow? How much joy will I express? How much blessing and praise will I shine upon my world? Unlimited ecstasy! Unlimited thankfulness! Unlimited blissfulness!

In choosing to question so called reality I become an exclamation point of Light within this world. I am a question mark in search of an exclamation point. And this is the moment. And so I question, and so I exclaim. And so it is!

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NOVEMBER RADICAL EXPRESSION

My dear friend and travel companion Susann delivers her earthy wisdom with unmistakable and succinct simplicity; “it’s all in how you choose to describe it.”

Isn’t that just wonderful? It sends my internal atmosphere into gleeful giggles and awing affirmation. And it is indeed her simplicity that makes it so very profound. In any of the experiences that occur within our lives the way in which we choose to describe those experiences is what will lead us either to resistance and suffering, or to acceptance and to peace. It is all in what we are saying about what simply happens to be. It is the internal dialogue that we so often unconsciously generate and then believe as truth that leads us into battle with the situations and the circumstances of our days. It is our evaluations and judgments of what is happening that sends our minds into turmoil, our emotions into chaos, and bodies into stressful contraction. There is what is happening in life, and there is what we are saying about it. The latter is optional. The former is not. An enormous gift of spiritual awareness is that we begin to gain the spaciousness and the conviction to be able to choose at any time how we are going to experience our experiences. We always are at choice as to how we will frame what is happening in our lives. We get to describe our lives in whatever terms we choose, using whatever words we want to use. Everything we think and say has an energetic effect in our individual field and in the collective field as well. Our words are a contribution, whether they are consciously chosen or not.

Words have power. Felt-words are power! They are literally containers of energetic power. Words carry the frequency of the pre-verbal intention that then imbues the words that are spoken either internally or audibly. The word goes forth, and it is a strong attractor for future creation. It does not go forth without returning multiplied. You cannot describe something without also prescribing its continuation. We all, unconsciously or not, have been declaring our lives into manifestation from the time we learned to speak. This is the very same dynamic we read in the biblical Genesis account of creation; “and God said Let There Be Light, and there was Light.” We were created with this very same dynamic within us. Whether we are describing something that has already happened or that we anticipate happening in the future, that description has the power of the creative Law behind it. And God said. And so it was. That is our nature as well. It isn’t something you can turn on and off. Creation is ongoing, and much of that creation is done through the power of the word.

Listen to what you are saying. Feel the energetic effect your thoughts and words are having in your body. It is an infallible guidance system. Describe something as you choose that it will be, and it cannot be otherwise. Not necessarily the particulars, but the way in which you will choose to receive and perceive it. If you declare that everything that happens in your life is for your highest good and for the highest good of all, it will ring true in your heart of hearts and in the circumference of your externals. You get to describe your life in whatever way you choose. You get to frame your past in whatever way you choose. You get to word a world of serenity, joy, and unending love.

It’s all in the way you choose to describe it. Thanks, Susann.

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THE AUDACITY OF AUTHENTICITY

A few years ago I presented a lecture I entitled The Audacity of Authenticity. The name of that lecture has been looping through my awareness lately, and I realize more than ever that really isn’t a talk to be given but a reality to lived. In these days of Halloween costume parties it can be great fun to step into a masked persona that is often as freeing as it is fun. Inhibitions are dropped as we re-enter a child-like game of “can you guess who I am?” Many a sub-conscious fantasy has been played out as men become women, women become pirates, good girls become witches, and muscle men become tinker bell. We are momentarily free of the confines of who we think we have to be, and the blissfulness is palpable, inviting, and liberating.

And so as I face the re-looping of my talk title once again as I feel equally into the flowing fun of the seasonal masquerade. I am confronted and confused by the esoteric question of the ages “well, who am I anyway? Which me is the authentic me, and which are the roles I have been conditioned and programmed to play in this worldly game of fit in or get out? If I were audacious enough this day to be truly and fully authentic, what would that look and feel like, and would I have the courage to live that out? There are certainly parts of my personality self that I have fought long and hard to suppress, control, and hide. Of course, these are the very same parts that occasionally come leaping forward when I am triggered beyond any measure of self control. Are the parts of me that I so want to be free of indications of an inauthentic me, or are they actually a healthy reaction to the self-stifling of the wild and wondrous being trapped behind the mask of tribal rules and societal convention? I fear that if I gave into and let loose all the darker aspects of my person I would be scarier than any horror house goblin! And yet I have found that these murkier traits only become stronger in the struggle of my inner resistance. I find that after years of hiding, mask wearing, role playing, and as many seeming tricks as there have been treats, I am left to finally become friendly with the wholeness of who I seem to be at this point in my emergence. While I would still at times rather out-picture as the perfect self-image I deem to be the greatest version of my self, that ideal actually and honestly feels as much a role as does the midnight monster of my hidden rage and despair. The smiling mask of my spiritualized self will slip and fall off as my heart aches and my fears arise and my valor droops. And yet it is all a part of the self I have become to be. It is only my self opinion that leads to my suffering and shame. It is the evaluation of my self that separates me from the Knowingness of Source.

I have come to value authentic presence over fictional pretence, and it is freeing and liberating beyond description. I am very clear that I am a Soul that is here with a body and a personality, and I am devoted to being the very best that my Soul is calling me to be. And that includes the fullness and the wholeness of my sometimes fearful, anal-retentive, hyper-sensitive, over-critical, generous, compassionate, bawdy, wildly creative, loving, often wordy, humorous, uplifting, totally devoted self.
I am audacious enough this day to finally be my full and free authentic me. I have played enough roles this lifetime, on and off the stage. And so I have removed the masks and relinquished the pretense and I am showing up in life as fully me as I know how to be. I am committed to living fully my Divinity and freely my humanity. I am committed to embracing the wholeness of me exactly as I am. I am committing to seeing through the painful roles that I and others sometimes play, and to relish the uniqueness and the beauty of the human race at large. I am audacious enough to know that behind these wondrous roles we have come here to earth to embody there is the constant Truth of the Authentic Self that transcends roles and masks of any kind. I am audaciously authentic enough this day to simply live as me.

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COMING OUT

It is late in the afternoon of what has been deemed this year’s commemoration of National Coming Out Day, and I am reflecting on what this really has to do with me and on what my current relationship is to my sexual orientation and in how it expresses in the world of my making. This is a day that is designed to encourage people that are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered to step out of the fearful hiding that is a prison for so many marginalized individuals, and to claim the freedom that self-referral and courageous authenticity provide. While the majority of people who will read this blog are people of proclaimed inclusivity and heartful acceptance, the ravages of race consciousness are insidious and often unrelenting. The race unconsciousness works in the shadows and is partly perpetuated by suppression and denial of what is really going on beneath the surface. There are many times when I feel as if this is a non-issue in my life, and then some situation or interaction will occur that reminds me that I am still plugged into a collective brain that states that LGBT people are second class citizens at best and spiritual abominations at worst. I am a gay man living in a world that is still dominated by a thought system that says that there is something wrong with who I am by virtue of a part of my human expression. My life has been in many ways shaped and molded by my sexual orientation, and countless choices have been made to compensate for the way I am viewed by the populace at large. I know that my ultimate acceptance and celebration must come from the way I behold myself internally; I am also called to do my part in expanding the critical mass consciousness and leaving a legacy of greater freedom and equality for the generations that come after me.

While in just the past few weeks we have finally seen and celebrated the repeal of DON’T ASK DON’T TELL it is still a hard fought battle with a distant finish line to the repeal of the DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT which makes it impossible for me to enjoy the 500 + liberties assumed by my heterosexual married counterparts. Religious equality or even tolerance is still rare in all of our world’s organized religions, and the alarming number of teen suicides related to sexual identity issues is beyond despairing. I am the first to recognize that there is a Soul-agenda component that cannot be denied or ignored by those of awakening consciousness, and I have certainly embraced how my own personal journey has been enhanced by realizing this aspect of my journey. I know beyond logic or reason that I came into this earthly experience to traverse a landscape that would lead me to the highest of spiritual realizations. Part of my awakening has come from living in a world in which I didn’t fit simply by virtue of a sexual orientation that I had no choice in aligning. These facts do not in any way however condone the continued bigotry and violence that are waged against the LGBT population. While there are still those who despite the science will posit that being gay or lesbian is a choice I can assure you it is not. With my religious upbringing and my life long passion for a true and deep connection In my Source I would never have chosen a sexual expression that I was taught was contrary to all things spiritual. I know today that there is not an iota of truth in that theology, but I suffered for many years the effects of that unconsciousness. I guess part of my coming out this day is to end my personal silence when it comes to these damaging dogmas. I was once denied my place in ministry by an evangelical seminary I attended, a school that after thirty years has begun soliciting me for contributions. I am grateful to be able to embrace the irony, and I also see how I consciously avoided informing the school of why it is I will not accept an invitation to return to the school to perform musically for a reunion. Apparently a change in staffing has returned me to the roster of eligible alumni. The invitation to come and to sing at a reuniting seminary event included a hospitable offer to accommodate me and my spouse for the duration of the conference. Something tells me that a gracious acceptance for me and my husband would have drastically altered my place on the program. And I do not have to judge or make wrong what is for them a theological belief. I do, however, feel compelled to be clear, committed, congruent, and articulate about what is Truth for me down in the heart of my hearts. Those theological views once led me to seriously contemplate suicide in my youth, and I simply must be a voice for those who feel they have no choice and no voice at this point in our evolution.

And so I guess I too again come out on this National Day of Coming Out, as I will most probably continue to do on every day of this incarnation. I come out in the name of freedom and liberty for all people of all walks. I come out in the name of a democratic Universe that gives volition to all of Its inhabitants of every expression. We have the choice of how to behold the other, and the choice to either reject or embrace that which perhaps we don’t fully understand. I come out in the name of self-referral and inner identification, regardless of the tribal dictates. I come out in the name of allowing this challenging journey of mine to be an opportunity of maximal growth and expediential evolution. I come out in the name of the Source that celebrates Loving expression in all of Its Infinite forms. Though being gay is not my total expression, it is a valid, important, and beautiful part of who I am. Though I do not yet enjoy equal rights in the country of my birth, I know that I am equal to all people everywhere. I come out this day in the name of love. Love for all people, even those who are consciously working to rob me of my freedoms. No one can take away my freedom in how I choose to see myself and how I choose to express and to love my world. For me and for all those who lived to give me this level of freedom, I come out. And for all those who will follow me on this path to equality and liberation, I come out. Yes indeed. I come out.

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OCTOBER RADICAL EXPRESSION

I am composing this blog entry during the period of time between the Jewish observances of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, commonly known in that tradition as the High Holy Days. These ten intervening days are referred to as the Days of Awe, and encompass the time between the opening of the Book of Life on Rosh Hashanah and the sealing of the book on Yom Kippur. These days give Jews the opportunity to atone for accumulated sins since the last closing of the Book last Yom Kippur. The failure to atone will result in the living out of these unresolved missing of the mark during the coming year. These ten days begin first in celebration, and then the feasting is followed by intensified prayer, fasting, and active forgiveness. By the time the Book of Life is sealed on Yom Kippur, Jews have every opportunity to ensure a sweet and prosperous New Year by forgiving what is in need of atonement since the preceding year’s ritual.
I have been for almost twenty years what might be called an observant non-Jew, though my observance is more metaphysical than literal. These High Holy Days are for me a profound time of introspection and insightful clarification. I relish the ten days as a time of both symbolically and literally looking at my own personal “book of life” and seeing where I am in need of forgiveness, integration, and atonement. I spend dedicated time during each of these ten days sitting “in awe” of what my prayers of revelation bring into my awareness. I feel deeply into my heart to find where there is closure, withholding, or resentment. I literally ask to be “revealed at depth.” This is very often uncomfortable and yet always spiritually beneficial. Though I do not share theological notions of what sin or atonement is all about, I do recognize that it is as a direct result of my own unconsciousness and unskillfulness that I create my own suffering. It is as well a result of my own inner reflection and surrender-driven forgiveness that I am then freed of that suffering. The journey here in this dualistic and fragmented realm of time and space reality is a Soulfully guided return to One. Every place that I am divided against myself will be projected into relationships and situations that present me with the opportunity to reclaim those projections, engage in inner forgiveness work, and integrate what had previously been disowned. All forgiveness is ultimately self forgiveness. Everything that seems to disturb me out there is an out-picturing of what is disjointed in here. When the pain of fragmentation becomes great enough spiritual surrender begins to have a very merciful appeal. When I have suffered long enough in my personal quest to conquer the world, I am open to the empowerment that Source alignment automatically provides. If I am willing to have my inner landscape revealed, illuminated, integrated, and renewed, a truly new world begins to unfold before me, from within me. The old fearful initiated and permeated book of life that I had been unconsciously authoring becomes a novel of newness, nowness, and profound possibility. Facing my fears frees my love, and within Love, anything and everything is possible. This is the power of forgiveness. This is the power of atonement. This is the power of Awe.

And so I sit quietly these days in openness, presence, and all embracing awe. I watch what arises in my awareness, and I feel the waves of energy as they move within the field of my awakening consciousness. I ask to be shown what is in need of integration, and I look upon the answers to that prayer. I know at a deep level that I am being revealed and renewed. I know experientially that I am being transmuted and transformed. I know that I am being restored to One. I know that the New Year before me may unfold in unpredictable and unprecedented ways by virtue of my forgiven perceptions. I know that I am free to be all that I am being called to be. And I know that my personal forgiveness is contributing to the transformation of the One field. The way that I now choose to inscribe my Book of Life is a radical Love story that holds a vision of Oneness, inclusivity, and harmony for all. And that unfolding vision indeed fills my heart with Awe.

THE BULLY IN HERE

I will be attending an anti-bullying symposium the week of this writing, and I am feeling great appreciation to the pioneering individuals and groups that are finally bringing this horrific practice out for closer public scrutiny. I am beyond grateful to those people who are on the front line in directly helping those on both sides of these abusive patterns. Not that bullying is in anyway new. Yet in an age of high speed internet connection and massive social media it has taken on a sometimes lethal velocity. We are seeing myriad reports of youthful males and females ending their own lives as a direct result of physical, emotional, sexual, societal, gender-based, orientation, and socio-economical bullying and harassment. Even more unreported suicides are occurring and have occurred that are unfortunately then placed into the “troubled teen” anemic category. Because bullying has been a part of childhood and adolescent development for generations in no way lessens the need for its cessation. I am attending this symposium with the intention to discover additional ways that I may directly influence the ending of such needless trauma. I say additional ways because my first line of “non-defense” is always to bring a prayerful attention to the issue and to those I know who are dealing directly with it. I am not in a sphere that includes many or sometimes any youth that are dealing intimately with this painful issue. I do not have children and am not exposed to a lot of kids outside of media reporting. I do also recognize however that bullying isn’t limited to youth, and it also isn’t something that is always occurring from the outside. And that reveals a primary way in which I can directly affect a change to this massive social problem.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination for those who personally know me to suspect that I myself was a constant target of youthful bullying from about the ages of six to sixteen or seventeen. I was certainly a recipient of further harassment and marginalization beyond those years, but it was perhaps most intense and damaging in my earlier formative ages. I recall vividly the four or five particular school bullies who made me their frequent target. I can still kinesthetically re-experience the dread of the recess or ending school bell when I knew I would have to face my oppressors. I was often terrified walking to and from school, just certain I would cross paths with one or even a group of the guys’ intent on making my life a living hell. I would sit in church on most particularly Sunday evenings and pray with my eyes squeezed shut that Monday would be the day they would finally stop the terrifying treatment. And yet Monday would bring another barrage of jeers, jabs, and humiliations. I was doomed it seemed to be the school sissy, and there were many times I thought I would rather die than face another day of terror.

It took me many years and countless tears to recognize that only deeply terrified people terrify others. Only emotionally abused people turn to the abuse of others. Only those who at some level have been bullied themselves will resort to bullying others. This in no way condones the behavior. But it did lead me to a causal awareness that helped me see my perpetrators in a different light. It also brought me to the rather jarring recognition that though the four or five school yard bullies tormented me for several of my pre/teen years, there was a bigger bully that abused and berated me for a much greater length of time. In a most profound and practical way, I was the biggest bully I ever encountered. I was the one bully that I couldn’t escape on week-ends or summer vacations. My own internal dialogue was berating and abusive for sure. I would have a natural emotional reaction about something that was occurring and immediately go into why I shouldn’t be feeling what I was feeling. I have gone into fearful withdraw more times than I can remember, and have only recently stopped mentally punishing myself for my “ silly and needless” fears. I have internally beaten myself up more than my detractors ever did. I have diminished myself with far greater frequency than any outer opponent. I have judged, criticized, labeled, picked at and generally made my internal atmosphere a living hell. I had an enormous “aha” several years ago when I realized that I often wouldn’t take a risk at something new or challenging because I was so fearful of my own subsequent diminishing critique. It really wasn’t so much others reaction I was afraid of. It was my own.

Our unconsciousness and subsequent unskillfulness is always a result of early childhood wounding. Our grief, fearfulness, anger, and shame all well up from the unintegrated emotional trauma of our early precognitive years. When we then berate the adult version of this unhealed inner child we are indeed bullying the little girl/boy within. By realizing this and committing to making my own inner atmosphere an unconditional safe zone, I directly contribute to a world where bullying will be a bad but distant memory. When I stop trying to kill off parts of my own traumatized self, I subtract energy from the dynamic of self abuse and even suicide. My prayer and my own self healing are powerful ways to help put an end to these painful, traumatic, and tragic occurrences. And right now symposiums and education are indeed also critical. Intervention is crucial. And in addition the bullying has stopped in here. My heart is a safe zone for all of the parts of me- the inner sissy included. And creating a safe zone for me extends as safety for everyone else I interact with. Healing the inner bully means there is no bully to harass or abuse you. My inner world is a playground that is now safe for all and what is within is destined to become an outer reality.

SEPTEMBER RADICAL EXPRESSION

I recently returned from a speaking engagement in New York City, undoubtedly one of my favorite places on the planet. I was blessed to live there for a number of years, and it will always hold a special place in my heart of hearts. Its specialness for me lies not in its culture, attractions, architecture, cuisines, or diversity. It is special to me because it did and does represent an aggregate of possibility unparalleled in this country and perhaps even in the world. There is a buzz that is present there beyond just the roar of transformation forms, construction sites, and closely packed people. For much more than a century, people have come to New York from all over the world and all over this nation in search of the realization of a dream. People have flocked to this cement jungle to live out a freedom they couldn’t seem to demonstrate in the place of their origin. They have in many cases faced their greatest fears for the chance to give their greatest gifts. Countless individuals have risked it all for just the chance of taking a bite of the mighty Big Apple. For sure many hearts have been broken and fantasies shattered in the process. As the popular lyric promises “if I can make it there I’ll make it anywhere…” New York City is a formidable opponent as I came to personally find out. But possibility masquerades itself in many forms and for me the reason I had thought I made the big move to the biggest city was not at all the reason I was called to be there. While it seemed the possibility of a dreamed of career was my instigating attractor it was a whole new way of living that was born in me during my tenure in Gotham. I came to learn that the possibility I felt as I pounded the pavement and pursued my dreams was deep within me and not so much in what appeared to be the lure of this magical city. There is indeed an undeniable collective energy of opportunity and a palpable passion. That energy touched something in me that had begun to be dormant and grossly under-attended. I had gone as far as I could go in the Midwestern city of my birth, and it seemed that my chosen profession was demanding a bigger arena in which to flourish. I came to learn that it wasn’t at all the case. My Soul did have another agenda that could best be fulfilled in this place of profound populous, and it was a possibility that transcended the surface reasons for which I thought I was there. I came to New York to grow up and to grow open.

One of the many things I love about revisiting this magical place is that it is the perfect container for me to check into my current sense of what is possible for me in this Universe of Infinite Possibility. To reiterate, I am clear that possibility lives in me and not so much in a geographic location. And there is a collective consciousness in places like New York that vibrate at the frequency of the concentrated mass. Thousands of people passionately pursuing possibility creates a vortex that can be quite literally felt if we are paying attention to our energy systems. On this recent visit I could feel more acutely the inertia of tribal agreements around aging pressing into my sense of what is still possible for me at this point in my journey. I was a dancer and a performing artist during the bulk of the time I spent in New York. Attending a couple of Broadway musicals brought back the memory of a flexibility and stamina not present in my physicality today. I no longer have the youthful energy to do the literal hours of walking I once did. And yet there remains a sense of renewal and possibility that I courted as I walked the familiar streets and drank in the exuberant energy. It is true that I am doing it a bit more slowly these days. And the collective sense of yes reminded me that what is in effect today does not define what is still possible in my continued emergence. The city reminds me that I have still have dreams to realize, and gifts to give. I am still alive within a field of vibrating, pulsing, unlimited life, and that life is always seeking to live more fully as me. The forms of my expression have changed and altered through out the years. Being back in New York and having the opportunity to lecture in a theatre that is also home to a tremendous and enthusiastic Unity congregation brought me to s deeper realization than ever that I am now clearly doing what I came to this planet to do. I am giving my greatest gifts from the deepest place within me. The possibility of Spirit flows through my open heart and into inspired words that then touch and empowers those who are in attendance and that choose to listen. They are moved to feel the possibility that is vitally alive in them. They are challenged to come more fully into their own highest sense of what is possible individually and collectively, and to confront the programming that may have been holding them back

It was for a whole new and deep spiritual connection and living felt-reality that I was led to the city that never sleeps, and I have never been more centered and relaxed in who I am. New York remains for me a reminder of what is possible and what is worthy of pursuit. The form of that will be perhaps different for all of us, but the journey to the core of our own being is a Universal journey. Traversing the road to fulfilling our dreams and desires is what teaches us who and what we are in practical and useful ways. The sense of possibility that is the very essence of aliveness is an infallible GPS. It is ever active within us and it is for us to awaken to its call. What dream did you perhaps long ago suppress, and what might be possible if you gave it the attention that will fan the flame of its realization? What inner call have you tried to deny, and are you willing to risk the comfort of mediocrity for the aliveness inherent in saying yes to your heart? What is still possible for you in your life, and are you willing to expand your probability to step fully into Sourced possibility?

It’s up to you. The possibility is ever and always in you.

AUGUST 2011 RADICAL EXPRESSION

Several years ago I learned a simple, practical, yet profoundly beautiful prayer technique that has blessed me more times than I can memorably recount. The only two things needed for this spiritual practice is an open heart and a flowing stream. As I spent the past few weeks in the mountains of southern Oregon I encountered several flowing streams which allowed me to bring my consciously open heart into communion with these large and small watery tributaries. The technique is most effectively utilized when a bridge is spanning the bed of the flowing water to provide a middle of the flow vantage point, though I have also prayed a stream from the side of its bank. The practice goes as such; begin by facing the down stream movement of water and simply behold the water as it cascades down the bed and around the natural obstacles that almost always are a part of a flowing stream. Lightly and spaciously allow the awareness to also include all that has already occurred in your own personal life experience. All of the history to include relationships, challenges, triumphs, health and body factors, situations, education, milestones, etc. Just allow for a full awareness of the actual movement of the stream in all of its dynamic motion, and equally all of the dynamics of your life as it has moved through and as you. When you feel thusly inspired, allow your focus to move to the upstream position, and begin to watch the moving water as it comes toward you. See too that is moves over and around natural obstacles and that these give added dynamic to the movement of water. As you take in the advancing of the stream, include an expectancy of what may be coming to you in terms of future experience. See how open and flowful you feel regarding what may be seeking to come forth as you. Watch the water as it pushes into a rock or limb. Watch the splashing that ensues, and also the continuing forward movement. Watch and intimately feel the flowing of the stream, and attend in a caring and spacious way to what wants to flow through you as a vital and dynamic energy system. Ask to be shown anything that you need to see, and let the stream teach you of flowfulness and forward movement. Let the stream teach you of ever moving life.

Whether you live in a region that has flowing streams and rivers or not, the natural flowing movement of water is a powerful teaching tool that is transcendent of the mind and inclusive of all that wants to flow. Life flows naturally when we dwell in non-resistance and heartful openness. It is our judgments of what is occurring that stifles the flow of what is meant to move through us. There will always be obstacles and challenges. Thinking that we can control our way out of these is infantile. Obstacles are not enemies. They add to the dynamism of life in this human realm. When we allow for the energetic relationship to these obstacles to flow easily and naturally, emotional contraction becomes a friend and not a dreaded foe. It is emotional resistance that congests the flow of life. It is the thought that life should be different than it is that dams the flow. Life is an ever moving stream. Trying to stop the forward movement is futile at best and diseasing at worst. There is an infinite flow of life that is moving within and through you. It is cascading from you as your past and flowing through you as what is yet to be. And you remain on the bridge of present moment awareness, fully experiencing the flowfulness of the life that is you. You witness what has been and remain expectant of what will be.

We are each invited to remain in the flow of life. There is ease in the flow. There is peacefulness in the flow. Even when the waters of our being are crashing upon the rocks and limbs of life’s obstacles we are invited to stay open and to allow for the flow of a Life that is far wiser than our resistant surface selves. Stay in the flow. Let life stream through you. Feel the movement now. You are the water. You are the bed. You are the obstacles and you are the flow. You are life. Let be and let flow.

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ALWAYS HOME

As I prepare for the first of several trips I will be making in the next few months, I feel a great appreciation both of my love of travel and my love of home. While I would not say that I have traveled extensively in my lifetime I have been blessed to see much of this country and experience the uniqueness of many locales and peoples. In the next few trips I will be on the shores of the Pacific, in the mountains of Oregon, in the flatlands of Ohio, in the river region of Maryland, and in the busy streets of Manhattan. I will engage both my passionate working expression and my playful childlike adventurer. I will excitedly enter and exit the gates of Palm Beach International, knowing that at both ends I am sent off and received in the arms of love. While there was a time for me when travel was a subtle form of running from what I didn’t want to face, I am very clear today that I go only to experience the fullness of my self set against different and varying backdrops. Being married now has added a new and revealing dynamic to my travel in that there is someone waiting at home when I return, and someone to regularly connect with while I am away. For so many single years it was the cat sitter who most needed to know my current where-bout.

The point of my contemplations on this eve of another adventure is that there is an energetic and yet very tangible part of my inner being that, no matter how many miles I may be traversing, is always and in all ways at home. The feeling that I used to ascribe to the particular building in which I was dwelling is clearly and unmistakably the vibrational embrace of my very own heart space. Whether I am climbing the golden slopes three thousand miles away or sinking my toes into the sands of my Atlantic backyard playground, I live in a sense of home now that comes from finally opening to a place within where all of me is accepted and none of me is repelled. I have seen and felt the futility of trying to geographically outrun my self and the circumstances of my life. I have tasted experientially and intimately the admonition that where I go there I am. I have compassioned the fleeing, and I have embodied the staying. Though my gypsy- personage will undoubtedly and frequently continue to cart the luggage I have relinquished the need to try and escape the baggage. In the choice to inscape I have lightened the load and expanded my inner dwelling place. I am who I am wherever I go, and my very own heart will forever be my primary home.

And so off I go and yet here I stay. I anticipate a series of “wows” and a plethora of “awe’s!” I will at last see ones I have long loved and physically missed, and I will greet many new loves in a state of openness and discovery. And regardless of the number of miles or the extravagance of the vista it will all occur within this loving home of my heartful self. I always knew Dorothy had it right. There is no place like home. And I never leave it no matter how far I go.

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JULY RADICAL EXPRESSION

Since my earliest recollections I have lived in the felt-sense awareness that I am here on this earth plane for a very specific purpose. I have always felt an inner calling to expand beyond what the rest of the world was telling me was true. I have always felt like a mis-fit in a world that demanded conformity. I have never and will never be what most people would call normal. This inner quest to stay true to me was long my hell until I came to the realization that my mis-fitness was central to my Soulful purpose. The fact that I was clearly and admittedly different was not the source of my inner hell. It was the ensuing disconnection that caused my torment. Since grade school I have been ostracized and outcast for being the abnormality that I am and have always been. Against this tumultuous background I have also and always felt a profound need to be and to actively give my love. I really didn’t care so much that I didn’t fit into the mold of the status quo society. I just wanted everyone to be able to see beyond the person to the enormous amount of love that I was capable and longing to give. So reject me as a weird non-conformist. Just do not reject my love. Don’t cheat yourself of what I have to give to you. And don’t rob me of the opportunity to be all that I can be in this world that is so in need of love.

I now celebrate the enormous strides I have made in the realization that though others may engage the capacity to reject the loving embrace that I am here to indiscriminately offer, they cannot take away my choice to continue to give my love. It has always been the mis-fits and non-conformists that have moved consciousness forward. They have often been reviled, yet that didn’t squelch their radiance. While I have no need to actively try and not fit in for the sake of non-conformity, I also refuse to live by the limiting constructs of what most people today will label as truth. I will not invest my precious life force in joining in the drone of the current critical mass consciousness. I will not disempower myself by fighting to be accepted by those who choose to reject me or the way I choose to live. I will not energize with my attention the causes that seem contrary to my own chosen way of being. I will not join into what often feels for me profound misperception, yet I also will not choose to disconnect from those who hold what is a relative opposing view. I get to be the authentic self that I am called to be, and your opinion of that does not cause my heart to close. You get to be what you are being called to be, and I will not push you away if your chosen expression isn’t resonant with mine. Beyond our differences and individuality there is a Oneness of Being in which we are eternally and inextricably joined. This Oneness is transcendent of our variances. I am not complete without you, and like it or not, you are not complete without me.

I recognize that I am here for purposes much deeper than that of surface reality. I am here to walk this earth as the authentic and self-referred loving being that I incarnated at this time to be. I can be marginalized but not undone. My personal liberty gives me the choice to remain in Source love. Though others may choose closure, I am choosing to remain in openness. Though others may choose to reject me, I am choosing the inclusion of my all-embracing heart. Though others may choose to pull away, I am choosing the Presencing power of my authentic self which always chooses to stay.

This is for me the very crux of independence. This is for me true freedom. It is not about getting anyone or anything out there to change. It is not about getting the world out there to accept or affirm me. The love I am is unwavering and unconditional. Though the residue of still un-integrated wounding may cause me to periodically wince, I will not close my eyes. I will come back to the essential expression of Who and what I am. I celebrate that I am free today to truly be free. I am free today to continuously make the choice to stay open in love. I am free today to rejoice in the authentically expressing me. And that is the greatest independence and liberty there is.

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FATHER'S DAY RECOLLECTION

IN THIS EDITION OF RADICAL EXPRESSION, I FELT MOVED TO SHARE WITH MY CURRENT READERS AN ESSAY I COMPOSED BACK IN 2002. IT IS PART OF A COLLECTION THAT WILL BE PUBLISHED UNDER THE TITLE "CONSIDER THIS." WHILE I CAN FEEL GREAT EVOLUTION IN CONSCIOUSNESS SINCE THIS WAS WRITTEN, IT ALSO EXPRESSES A SENTIMENT THAT WILL FOEVER BE A PART OF THE FABRIC OF MY BEING. LET IT INTO YOUR HEART, MY FRIENDS. YOU WILL TASTE THE BEAUTY OF A FATHER I WILL FOREVER LOVE.

June 11, 2002
CONSIDER THIS.......
As I contemplated a particular life challenge within the pages of my journal I found myself writing the word “Trust”. As I gazed there at the word, not sure why I had written it, or how to proceed from it, I saw within my mind’s eye that word written upon a green screen. It really wasn't a screen, per se. It was a wall. An institutional green wall, if you know that color. I smelled beyond the incense that was burning upon my altar the antiseptic smell of a medical facility, and I was transported to the day room of a V.A. hospital in Chillicothe, Ohio. I am fifteen years of age, and I am feeding spice cake to a man in a “geri-chair”. He stares blankly ahead while I continue to patiently give him bites of the cake by hand. Utensils are beyond his use at this point in the progression of his disease. Perhaps you see, as you read, an elderly gentleman of shriveled stature. In actuality, he is a man of only forty. Early onset Alzheimer's has taken him to a place undetectable beyond the stare. It is his birthday, though he knows it not. I do. I am his son. He knows not of that either. He seems to like the cake I have baked, and so I feed him. I am not known, but I feed him because I need to know. To know that I have acknowledged, in some way, the birthday of this one who gave me life. To know that there is some small thing I can do in this hell over which I am powerless. I cannot bring him back. I cannot make him know me. But I can feed him cake. I can wipe his chin. I can, even while still a child, be the father of my father.

The depth of feeling that arises from this image jolts me back to this day thirty years later, and I am still looking at the word “Trust”. The pain I thought had long ago been healed echoes through my being, and for a second I fear I shall be sucked into a vortex of swirling darkness, of excruciating vacancy. Only the expansiveness of my awareness keeps me in place, an awareness that is too large by acceptance to be sucked down any black hole. Trust. The remembrance of Father’s Day enters my mind and the paternal nature of my God. I see again the man in the geri-chair, and I grapple with the trust. He was supposed to feed me. I needed him! I needed to be known by him, and yet he stared. How can I trust? Where were you, O Divine Father, when I was covered in spice cake and salty tears? Like the Psalmist and the crucified Rabbi who quoted him, my soul screams out: “Why, O Father God, hast thou forsaken me?” Where were you in my pain? How do I learn to trust in a world where boys feed their fathers and are fathered by mothers who themselves weren't fathered? Trust? Trust, you say?
And just as suddenly as memory carried me to the room in Chillicothe, I am within the awareness that the Father was present as I fed my father. And beyond that, I fed my father FOR my Father. The institutional green becomes the color of my temple and the antiseptic, my anointing oil. I move..…..I am led from pain to peace, and in that peace, I trust.

CONSIDER THIS.......In a moment, I will hit the button “send”, and with my words I'll send my heart. Our heart. His and mine. I do it for us both. I do it for us all. There is no “my” pain or “your” pain. There is “the” pain. The pain of trusting in a world where boys feed their fathers, and fathers forget their boys. But while in this world, I choose to trust. I trust in my Father and in my ability to father. After I send my heart into the cybersphere, I shall go to visit in a facility with similar institutional green walls, and I shall feed cake to those who know me not. I do not feed them to be known. I feed them to know……to know my Father and to Be my Father here on earth for those who have forgotten. I do so, grateful to that father long ago transitioned. I do so, grateful to that boy who fed that father. I do so, grateful to Be a man who still chooses to feed. I do so, grateful to my Father in Whom I trust. Pain to peace, my Father…….I Trust.

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JUNE RADICAL EXPRESSION

In the corporate, entertainment, and coaching career worlds that have comprised a goodly portion of my professional life I have long heard about the necessity of developing what is termed staying power. For simplicities sake the phrase means pretty much what it indicates; the ability, motivation, skills, perseverance, and savvy to sustain a long-term professional and consequently successful trajectory in an ever-changing work environment. This doesn’t necessarily apply to a person who simply chooses to stay in the same job for a long period of years or even decades. It is a term more appropriate for those who effectively ride the waves of professional dynamism and are committed to continual growth and challenge and the risks those often imply. It is not a state of status quo. Staying power is required of the individual that is consciously drawing on their inner resources, motivation, and inspiration in order to attain career goals and achievements that also provide a legacy beyond just the self satisfaction of the personality. The person with staying power is centered and anchored in the broader part of their inner being. They are confident and assured, focused and purposeful. Something greater is at work, and it is palpable.

Though I have never felt particularly motivated by this dynamic in my professional life, it has become a vital and directional part of my spiritual unfoldment. I would frame it in perhaps a different way, yet many of the same attributes apply in remaining awake to who I am while in this experience of time and space humanity. To see this you only have to re-read the preceding paragraph. Spiritual staying power is about developing the inner musculature to remain centered in the Soulful Self while undergoing an almost constant array of changes. The trajectory here is not one of professional or even personal success per se, unless success is redefined to apply to an alignment with what it is the Soul is here to unfold. Spiritual maturity is grounded in an ability to stay centered internally regardless of what is happening in the external surroundings. It is the spiritual empowerment to stay present to whatever is occurring in the energy system while not resorting to suppression, projection, reaction, or self-recrimination. Staying power is all about remaining Soulfully centered and observing at the felt level the mental antics, emotional eruptions, and habitual reactions that undergird the personality self. In this staying observation there is transcendence. The ability to simply stay with an uncomfortable emotion without needless story telling, justification, blame, or interpretation empowers us and allows release of the constricted energy that is causing the unease. The power to stay in just this way does not come from the personality self. This kind of power is available as a result of a non-negotiable alignment within Source. This power is the power of Source Presence. Presence isn’t of the mind and can’t be generated by the mind. Presence is a way of beholding life that occurs as we experience and see through the portal of the heart. This is true vision. The heart has the ability to stay without distraction or dissection. It remains totally focused and attuned with the something greater that is always moving through us as spiritual emergence. This is the ultimate Source of confidence and assuredness. This empowerment is purposeful beyond just worldly accomplishment. We choose to stay because we choose to live and love as we allow life to move easily through us. Nothing is rejected as we moment by moment make the decision to stay with what is, exactly as it is.

In a world so filled with distractions and media-technical stimulations, what is your current level of staying power? How present do you choose to be with your own inner environment? When discomfort or distress begin to stir in your emotional body, do you choose to bring staying Presence to the movement, or do you react with one of the deadening distractions so readily available? Are you living largely in reaction to what is external? Are you ready to commit to a more awakened interior in which staying replaces suppression?

Your own inner Presence is your Source of Power. Develop a continual awareness of this Presencing Power, and you will have the staying power needed to go any distance.

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DYING DAILY TO LIVE

As the Memorial Day week-end ushers in the season of early summer, I am reminiscent of my Grandma who truly is one of the great loves of my life. As she entered into her final years she became somewhat fixated on the upkeep of her impending cemetery plot. Her name had already been engraved upon the shared stone as my step-grandfather had died some years previously. It was her tradition to make sure that the family plots were decorated for the Memorial Day holiday, a tradition she took very seriously. As she was not physically able to do the actual decorating, she began early in the month of May to find the person that would be commanded to help in that particular calendar year. My grandma was not one to suffer fools lightly, a saying that she used and took to heart. If someone was going to give an excuse as to why they were not able to help her decorate the graves on what for her was such an important occasion, they were sure to endure one of the forms of grandma’s wrath. Even if the chosen reaction was her infamous silent treatment, you could not mistake the power of her punishment.
You see Grandma wanted to be extra sure those graves were decorated yearly because she was adamant that her own grave would never go unadorned. She would threaten to haunt the family members who allowed “Decoration Day” to go by unacknowledged. She clearly equated that slight with being forgotten after she had left the earth plane. Though I have never placed a single flower upon my grandma’s grave, I have never forgotten the powerful woman who gave my mother life and so greatly enhanced my own. She was a relentless tyrant in many ways. She had ruthlessly strong opinions and life-long prejudices that frequently made me blush. And yet I loved her and love her still. While I can easily report upon her foibles I can also readily recall her radiance. She had a laugh that could light a room and an integrity upon which she could and did build a family. This writing is my way of remembering her this year. This blog is my Memorial Day tribute to my precious Grandma.

The deeper lesson for me of the Memorial Day holiday and of the preceding story is that though I was brought up with a tradition of decorating grave plots as a way of honoring the deceased it is more my personal practice to bring conscious honor to my relationships while we are still in this incarnate state. I do not so much share Grandma’s interest in being remembered after I am gone. I do choose to live in such a way as to leave a legacy that I trust will expand and transform the field of human consciousness. I feel no need to have a plot of land where people may come and visit and pay homage. If I am indeed remembered I pray that it will be because of the way I lived and the way I loved. I pray that a memory of me will be of the felt-sense way I made you feel when you were with me. The unwavering attention I gave to you, and my heartful invocation that called forth the best in you when you were in my presence. I will not pretend to ignore your human flaws and foibles, yet I will always embrace them as a unique part of your perfect sacred emergence. I will hold no judgment about the way you walk your path, anymore than I do about my strong willed yet wondrous Grandma. I will die daily to my personal opinions of myself and of you and of the way that life is unfolding.

And maybe that is at the core of the Memorial Day holiday. Everyday is a day to remember who and what has gone before, and yet it is also an invitation to die to the interpretations of such that keep us fixated on perceptual graves where there truly is no life. Everyday is a day to attend to the living. It is a day to honor the person that is right before you, even if that person is triggering the wounding that you are here to heal. If there are flowers to be given, give them now. If there are accolades to be spoken, speak them now. If there is praise to be proclaimed, proclaim it now. It will be the things left unsaid that will haunt you later, not the graves that go undecorated. Remember and see and feel it all this Memorial Day holiday. Shed the tears you perhaps never shed, and internally say what is calling to be said. And then live. Live this day as if it were your last. Love as if you won’t get another chance. Give your very best to this day, and know that when it is your time to go, you will have truly lived.

You see, Grandma. I did remember.


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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARY!

Everyone in the world deserves to have a Mary.

My dear friend and spiritual companion Mary Ownby is turning eighty this week, and I am as gleeful as a kid at Christmas time as I celebrate her rich and wondrous incarnation. I reflect back over the thirteen plus years since first we met, and I am more certain than ever that ours is a Divine appointment that we were both born to keep. Not that it was our sole purpose or appointment; certainly not. Yet it is a Soulful union that has enriched my days in ways immeasurable with words.
Mary grew up in a strongly Catholic home and education, and entered into the Adrian Dominican Order right out of Academy. While she left the Order several years ago, the archetype of Sister is in so many ways the lens through which she sees the world. She serves humanity as a way of being, and is always leading with her loving and compassionate presence. She embraces life and lives it with a gusto that is compelling and contagious. She is rigorously generous, and is a constant champion to those of lesser esteem and minimal resources. To be around Mary is to feel uplifted. Her laugher is free and full, and her wisdom rooted and profound. In these eight decades Mary has not only made a huge contribution to the planet and its inhabitants, she IS a contribution of the highest vibration.

And that being said; everyone in the world deserves a Mary.

I speak to my dear friend Mary almost every day. We share in a long time personal tradition of touching base at noon daily to connect in a prayerful presencing for the upliftment of the world. She is religious in this in the best sense of the word. Her devotion to Truth and her dedication to practice are unwavering. Though she calls me her spiritual director she continues to constantly inspire me with her chosen way of being. Her love for me is relentless, and I am aware that I am always living in the Light of her affirmation, admiration, and unconditional acceptance. In her vision I can do no wrong, and it is a daunting containment in which to dwell. Her boundless embrace continually calls me to step up to the highest Self expression that I am currently capable of. In her uncompromising encouragement my own courage is strengthened. I reach to be the me that she seems to see even when I don’t. She is a human rock on which I may stand, and though I know it is my own inner atmosphere that determines the quality of my life experience, she sets a standard of love that is a beacon for my own emergence. Because Mary is in my life, my life is better. I have become better. I have become more of who I truly am. I am eternally grateful for the gift of Mary in my heart and in my life, and she is and will remain one of the great loves of this incarnation.

Everyone in the world deserves a Mary.

And so I celebrate my precious friend not by showering her with material gifts, but by looking for opportunities to be the Mary in someone else’s life this day. I open to embrace those in my own circumference with the same uncompromising acceptance and affirmation that I have enjoyed with Mary. I expand my own sense of service to the world, and pray to recognize the opportunities to help, to uplift, to give to all those who enter my sphere. I freely and generously share of my laughter, my insight, and recourses, and my love. For you see I know experientially that everyone in the world deserves a Mary, and that everyone will benefit from basking in the kind of unconditional loving embrace that Mary provides. I am paying her forward in honor of her birthday, and embodying and giving the qualities of my friend that I so greatly admire and respect. The world is sweeter because Mary has lived. I am richer because Mary has loved. The world is blessed because Mary has been given. Everyone in this world deserves a Mary. Will you allow me to be yours?

Happy Birthday, Haily.

MAY 2011 RADICAL EXPRESSION

I have said it before and I am saying it again: PERSONAL INNER ATMOSPHERE IS EVERYTHING!

The vibrational frequency of our inner being literally is the quality of our life experience. As convinced as we may be that it is the things that happen and don’t to us that create the quality of our lives it is in actuality our general state of being that IS our life. We are first and foremost energetic and vibrational beings. We are Causally spirit here in the realm of time, space, and matter. While we are certainly affected by the energies that are constantly swirling around us and entraining within us it is the privilege and responsibility of an awakening spiritual being to consciously manage the field of consciousness that is ours by virtue of our creation. We live within emotional bodies that were imprinted early in our human experience. Those energy bodies still contain the wounding that has not been consciously felt-through, forgiven, and integrated. As masterful as most people are at ignoring and suppressing these festering emotional wounds, they literally control our lives and our internal relationship to self until these tender places are finally attended to with staying, compassionate presence. Our mental internal dialogue is always spinning forth from this emotional residue. The superego is constantly talking within our heads, and this chatter is always having an energetic effect in the form of subtle or overt sensations. The more we ignore or suppress these sensations and the more we believe and identify with these inner voices the louder the energetic messages become. Sometimes this takes the form of pain or dis-ease. Sometimes it materializes as challenging and even tragic circumstances. It may unfold in relationship drama or financial catastrophe. Whatever the seeming external message it is always an out picturing of the habitual inner atmosphere of the mostly unconscious co-creator. These manifestations are wake up calls for us to begin to become intimate and attentive with what is going on inside of our energy-attracting systems.

All of that being said lets allow this to be really simple. Our personal inner atmosphere is indeed the quality of our life experience. Our lives are not happening out there but in here. Our personal inner atmosphere is a product of our focus and of our quality of attention. It is not so much what we are focusing on as it is how. What are you saying about the content of the present moment? What are you making what is occurring mean about you? What is your internal dialogue saying- is it Truth? Are you ensconced in a story or radiant in Source? Are you giving way to Belovedness Presence, or are you locked in fear and resistance?

Stop often and simply and attentively feel what is occurring in your energetic Being. Release the tendency to judge or interpret it, and just feel. Feel with your body and not the surface mind. Question everything the mind has to say about what is, and curiously feel the life that is seeking to flow through you. Without commentary or resistance it will flow. There is a spaciousness to flow that promotes a natural joyfulness. Feeling everything that arises with equanimity results is an easy serenity. Attend to the pain and resistance that does arise, and allow a merciful acceptance to contain every emotional eruption. Moment by moment, bring yourself into harmonic resonance with your own Soulfulness. Allow whatever is seeking to emerge to come forth in faithfulness. Your inner atmosphere is your home. It is the seat of your Soul and creates the quality of your days. Claim dominion and respond wakefully to now life rather than reacting unconsciously from an unintegrated past. Allow Source to flow the inner atmosphere within you and you will realize experientially that indeed personal inner atmosphere is everything. It is your habitation and your contribution. It is your harmony and your legacy. It is who you are choosing to be while here in this majestic earthly realm.

AGELESS POSSIBILITY

As I watch another digit get added to my chronology this week I am even a bit more introspective than I usually am. I am fascinated by the number of numbing things we humans say in response to growing older. When I intimated to a friend that I was feeling a bit of discomfort around the rapidly increasing passing of time, they were quick to rattle off a few truisms to I guess assuage my minimal emotional reaction. “You know age really is a state of mind. You are only as old as you feel. You aren’t getting older as much as you are getting better.” While I am open to the relative truth contained in these tribal jewels, the fact is that state of mind or not, I am getting older. If I am only as old as I feel there are now days when I may feel much older than the fifty four years I have accumulated. Getting better? Yes, in terms of conscious evolution I know that I am. And there is no doubt that I am also getting older.

Now please be clear my wonderful reader that I am not saying that aging is a bad thing to be somehow denied or rectified. And neither am I saying that any internal response to the aging process is an emotional enemy to be suppressed. The fact is that this wondrous body that has carried me valiantly through this incarnation is not able to do many of the things it once was capable of. I am not clocking the number of miles while speed walking that I once did, and to even call it speed walking at this point in life is a bit of an exaggeration. I now need my progressive lenses to compose this writing while leaning into my lumbar supporting office chair. I have come to willingly wear sensible shoes, a horror I would have once railed against. And though I know that my biological age is not equal to my chronological age, I am wrestling with some of the ravages that time has seemingly tolled upon my physical body. I am grappling a bit with what is still possible for me in this lifetime. I am looking now into the legacy that I feel called to leave for my younger family members and for the next generation at large. I long to use the time I have left to expand past the limitations that have loomed large on the horizon of my consciousness. I so want to fulfill the destiny that stirs within my heart and beckons me into my ever-expanding Soul.

This morning a spontaneous prayer arose within my being;” Renew in me my sense of Infinite Possibility. Enlarge in me my sense of personal probability.” There is a strong tribal agreement that states that when we reach a certain age our sense of possibility begins to diminishment. This is a gravitational force to be reckoned with by those who choose to challenge its supposed wisdom. Though I am far from decrepit I can feel the pull of inertia that states that perhaps my best days are now behind me. That what may have been possible at thirty is far from probable at fifty four. I could easily wave away these subtle feelings with the shout of an affirmation, yet I am choosing to follow to where the nuances may be leading me. While I do not choose to be defined by age I will not ignore it either. The poignancy of legacy is a profound gift to my awareness, and the sense that the likelihood of less years coming than have already passed keeps me awake to how I am utilizing my moments. I intend that these fleeting feelings will open me further to the ageless life that is still seeking to live through me. And I will to stay ever-open to possibility, regardless of the passage of time. Creation is possibility and possibility is creation. I intend to continue to create until my final work of art is my final exhalation. I want to continue to expand my sense of possibility until I simply must release this body in order to expand any further. And expansion is not of age but of perception.

And so I am getting better as I am indeed growing older. Age is a state of mind that says possibility is still vibrantly alive in me. I am as old as I feel and thankfully age has taught me the incredible gift of allowing myself TO feel. I am open to celebrate this entire human adventure- slower paced, be-speckled eye, and lumbar supported fifty four year old me.

APRIL RADICAL EXPRESSION: FOCUSED LIGHT

I have long loved a reinterpretation of what is termed “The Lord’s Prayer” by the wonderful scholar and mystic Neil Douglas Klotz. The beginning stanza contains the line

“FOCUS YOUR LIGHT WITHIN ME, MAKE IT USEFUL AS ME.”

There is something that emanates from that declarative request that moves deeply within my heart and Soul. It is a prayer that I daily take into my being. It is how I intend to show up on this planet. It is the fountainhead from which my Beingness flows. It points to the very mission that I am engaged in while here in this incarnation. In each and every awakened moment, I am choosing to align myself within the Light of Source. I am choosing to alter my relationship to outer appearances. I am choosing to see differently by shifting the inner lens of my experience. I am allowing a new vision to be born within me, and then I am extending that vision out into the realm of manifest reality. By maintaining an inner, heartful focus, I am not seduced into believing the stories of this world. I am seeing with the Insight of my Soulful Self. And by the Light of that inspired vision, I am courageously taking the actions I am called to take. I am joyfully active in what is mine to do upon his planet. I am celebrating the unfoldment of my self, and the emergence of all others around me. I bring an embrace of compassion and mercy to all the unconsciousness and unskillfulness within me and all those in my sphere of experience. I breathe through the human judging’s of my personality self, and I remain open to having my programmed reactions softened and transformed. I allow my field of consciousness to be made useful by staying in synch within my Source. That is the One and Only Source of Life, of Light, of Love. That Living Light Love is my Essence, and by staying aligned in Who I Am authenticity, I am an agent of change within this world. Who I choose to be is useful when I maintain my focus. My inspiration goes forward as my spontaneous action. Who I choose to be is what I choose to do. My outer experience is directly reflecting my inner choices. I am congruent.

Truth is not theory and It is not concept. If it is integrated Truth it is active and useful. It is the One Truth that becomes a dynamic when embodied by a wakeful Being dedicated to becoming Who they are created to Be. How I am beholding the world in me is transforming everything that I look upon. By staying awake within the One, I am the embodiment of Light that shines through the forms of fear and separation that dominate this world. I allow Source Light to be alive and active in me. I allow myself to be used in service of the great awakening. As my inner world becomes transformed, the entire race consciousness is lifted up. The entire field is Lightened. The Love in my heart is very truly the Light of this world.

FOCUS YOUR LIGHT WITHIN ME, MAKE IT USEFUL AS ME.

Just for today, I am letting the Light of Source shine through my heart, my thoughts, my feelings, my words, my actions. I stay on purpose this day. I remain focused, and I am grateful to be useful. My focused attention is active as I choose to see the Light of Truth in all things. I am using the power of my volition to transform my inner world and so the world at large. To state my prayer in the affirmative present tense:

FOCUSED SOURCE LIGHT WITHIN ME IS MADE USEFUL AS ME NOW!

AND SO IT IS!

CARING MATTERS

As I write this mid-month edition of RADICAL EXPRESSION I am very mindful of the growing devastation in Japan. My heart swells with loving compassion for all those who are suffering. I invite you to join me as you read these opening lines in sending Light energy to this part of the One Human Family. Let us hold a vision in our Heart-minds of a return to peacefulness and to Divine Right Action emerging perfectly from all of the chaos. Such nobility, selflessness, and grace are being demonstrated there; so very powerful and inspiring to witness.

I am eternally grateful for a shift that occurred in my heart years ago that allows me to choose to be present to these types of catastrophic world events. There was a time I might have shrugged off a surface “that’s too bad” and a tertiary prayer, then gone about my business with nary a concern. After all, they are people I do not know in a country I know little of. Today I feel a true and deep connection to all peoples of the earth, and I appreciate in a profound way that there isn’t in spiritual reality an actual “us and them.” We truly are One people. It matters to me what is happening to that part of the shared creation. As a part of the One, the way I am choosing to behold this situation matters in its evolutionary out-picturing. My prayers have an effect. My faith is relative to the way this unfolds. That is the gift of an awakened and an engaged spirituality. I care and that caring adds to the healing process half way around the world.

The profound lessons that humanity is facing are lessons for us all. They may be occurring on what is termed foreign soil, but let’s remember that there is one earth and that geographic boundaries are a human device. We as people all over the world have in many ways abused and belittled our precious Mother Earth. Commercialization has replaced caring in a myriad of circumstances. There are certainly some countries and cultures that engage in this diminishment more than others, and any wakeful person will recognize that The United States is a major perpetrator. While I do not believe in a punitive Source, creation does reflect and respond to the energies and the actions that we of self-reflective consciousness are heaping upon our environment. We are witnessing a growing number of devastating natural events, and we must awaken to the fact that this is in direct relation to the chaos and lack of compassion within the collective human consciousness. We are stewards of our Gaia earth, and yet she has a collective wisdom that has been lost in our age of super-technology and vamped up consumerism. The earth is sacred and is an extension of our own body. We will treat the earth with the same quality of attention we bring to our own bodies. And in an age of mind-identification, most people barely realize that they are in a body. When we begin to treat these glorious instruments of incarnation with the caring, dignity, and honor they deserve, we will naturally bring that same honoring presence to the earth we live upon.

We are paying a high price for our pillaging. This living organism is quaking at our disrespect. Our waves of unconsciousness are being matched with literal waves that wash away our structures and tragically our fellow beings. We must awaken to the inseparable connection between earth and its inhabitants, and the profound effect one has upon the other. We must awaken to the responsibility we share for the tending of our earth garden and it waters. We must face the unconscious places in ourselves, and bring peace to the chaos that fills our minds and clouds our hearts. Our every choice matters. Our every decision to come from a higher place within ourselves has an effect in our Unified Field. Our every thought, feeling, action and prayer is a contribution to the whole. How you show up in each moment affects the One. It is time to own our innate power, and in doing so, to heal the earth. We have suffered enough the effects of our unconsciousness. Commit today to awaken and to make a conscious contribution to this glorious realm we have been given. Commit to allowing your individual field of consciousness to be a gift to the people of Japan and to the world as One. Allow this situation to open your heart and to increase your compassion and your wakefulness. Know that your relationship to this situation and to the world at large has an effect. How you care matters. How you attend to your inner world affects the outer world as well. How you treat your body has an effect on the earth. Let’s listen to the teaching of the Mother, and return to the reverencing care that She deserves. She is calling in unmistakable tones. Listen, and return to the love.

MARCH RADICAL EXPRESSION

The ever-endearing story of The Wizard of Oz has been a life long friend and teacher for me. I learned years ago in my clinical training that if there is a fairy tale, story, book, or movie that has particularly captured and sustained your attention, it is because it points to an archetypal pattern that is important to the emergence of your Soul. I have at various times identified with the different individual characters, and the myth as a whole is as powerful a metaphysical lesson as anything termed a scripture.



At this time in my Soulful evolution, I am feeling into the comical yet empowering image of the so-called cowardly lion. Through all of his tears and fearful meanderings, the lion’s innate courage is integral to the unfolding of the story, and also to the saving of Dorothy in a dire and doom-filled situation. His love for her and for his fellow Oz-sojourners is what compelled him to move through his fear and take courageous action.



It reminds me that courage isn’t about not feeling fear. Courage is about feeling and embracing the fear and taking inspired actions anyway. When we have the spiritual musculature to be able to accept, love, and embrace ourselves in our fearfulness, that love propels us through the fear and into eventual transcendence. Fear is never an enemy. Fear is actually often a sign that we are moving out of the familiar and into the unknown of a broader possibility. If we always stay with what feels safe we never really grow. If we always cling to the status quo, we withhold ourselves from evolving and expanding. The fear may well be offering caution, but it also is urging us to proceed beyond the perceptual boundaries that are energetically and soulfully being pushed. Comfort is not a reliable barometer for sacred maturation. We can be so addicted to feeling good that we miss the wisdom that is hiding in the suppressed emotional discomfort.



The English word courage is actually derived from the Latin word for heart. The heart is the seat of courage, and it is in listening to the heart that courage is activated and utilized. It is when we embrace our fears that we courageously free our love. This indeed is the path of courage. We may like the lion pursue our path with fearful tears and quaking diminutive advances. But proceed we must. Our Soul is calling us out of the limited past. It is longing to show us that the power we are seeking has been within us all along. We have always had the wisdom, the heart, and the courage needed to move along our perfect path of unfoldment. Sure it can be scary. It is bound to be messy at times. There will be tears- that is a sign that our heart is activated and healing is occurring. We will at times inch forward nervously holding our tail within our trembling hands. That is the time to go deeply within to the home of the heart, and to allow the courage of our Sourced Self to lead the way. Step by step we move forward. We never know what truly lies ahead. There will be munchkin thoughts and wicked witch fears. The world can be a scary place indeed. But though we are in this world we are not of it. We have never left the Beloved embrace of our Source. Our fearfulness is contained within that embrace. And from that countenance our courage comes.



So take heart my friends. Literally be in your heart. Cry when you need to cry, and feel into the fearfulness so that you finally may be free. Be the lion-hearted journeyer you are in this wondrous dream of time and space. The wizard is always there inside. Allow your love of life to truly save the day. You have always had all of the courage you need. It is right within your sacred heart. Let your heart indeed be your home. And remember; there is no place like home.

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THE RETURN TO LOVE

The return to the heart is the return to the direct experience of Sourced unconditional Love. It is the return quite literally to the home we have never actually left. In order to live from the heart, you must live within and from the heart center. There is nothing ambiguous about that instruction. To live from the heart you must allow the attention to remain in the heart. Nothing could be simpler and yet so confounding. To a world mostly identified with the content of the surface mind, the return to heartfulness is scary at best and often terrifying beyond reason. To begin to live in the heart rather than in the mind requires a level of honest feeling and surrendered thinking that as of yet appeals to only a few. We are so fearful of feeling the depth of pain we intuitively know is defending our hearts that to remain at the dictates of the mind seems a worthwhile compromise. The mind is somewhat controllable while the unleashed passion of an open heart will take us places our woundedness is simply too fearful to go. And yet it is within that awakened heart that our true identity lies. It is passion and not passivity that is emblazoned in our Souls and encoded in our hearts. To deaden a being of Sourced aliveness is unworthy of who we are at depth. We so often misuse our Indwelling Power to withhold and to withdraw. It requires enormous energy to stave off the Universal. It weakens our bodies and splinters our person. We are dying because we refuse to truly live. To cut ourselves off from our feeling nature is to defend against the very forces of creation. When we become open, available, and willing to feel through the veiling that has shrouded our aching hearts, joyfulness beyond comprehension becomes available too. When we commit ourselves to deep intimacy and abiding authenticity, blissfulness of Being becomes our context and our companion. Connection to our hearts is connection to our Souls and to our world. We truly return home to the realm of the One.

When we are authentically connected to our hearts and to our Source, we experience the feeling of Love. Not a thinking concept, but a felt-sense embodied vibration. We are meant to live in an experience of vibrational harmony of In-Sourced Love. If we are not feeling love, we are asleep to who we are. When we move from an experience of contraction and disconnection to one of openness and lovingkindness, a miracle has occurred in our inner-world. Every moment of incarnation is an opportunity to choose the direct experience of unconditional Love. You cannot access that via the mind. Love is not an intellectual construct. It is a passion and a frequency that will overcome you with its intimacy, beauty, honestly, and exhilaration.

We are here to let into the Love. Release the grip of fear and relax into the embrace of Love. Let your heart feel. Let it feel relentlessly and unashamedly. Believe not the interpretations and subsequent stories. Simply stay open and Presence the feeling of Love as it shines into the fear and frees it’s self to be. The return to the heart is the return to the direct experience of unconditional love. Uncomfortable it may be. Yet to reopen the heart is to reignite the passion. And when you reignite the passion you restore your innate possibility.

So come home, my friend. Feel deeply the heart. Feel deeply the content of the moment. Feel deeply the Love. Feel deeply the Source.