Wednesday, November 26, 2014

THANKS FOR NOTHING

I am living in a particularly rich and wondrous time of my life. I dwell in amazement as I see all the puzzle pieces of my life come together to form a picture that is truly beyond my wildest dreams. I arise each day aware of the profound blessing that it is to be alive and to be spiritually awake. To recognize that I am a part of a greater whole of humanity and that I am governed by the eternal whisperings of Divinity. It is not that some of my preferences are not challenged or that I am constantly getting my way. It is that my perspective has shifted in profound ways that leave me to recognize that everything is for good when I stay plugged into Source-God.

That is not the same as the old punish-reward paradigm that I was taught in the religion of my youth. Meritocracy is not authentic gratitude. “If you do right you will be blessed, and if you do wrong you will be punished.” While the Law of cause and effect is always operative, grace transcends our inadequacies and always delivers more good than we could ever put forward. Source-God is always containing everything that occurs, and gratitude is the magic key to unlocking the All-potential of God-Good that is ever available.

In makes no sense to the logical mind, yet as soon as you thank whatever may be occurring it begins to reveal illogical and unexpected blessings. Gratitude and thanksgiving is a lens in consciousness that reveal the greater possibility of any circumstance or appearance. No matter how dire the challenge, consciously saying thank you in advance of the solution creates a context which is miraculous and infallible. I know in my life it never fails. If I fall into the trap of worrying and cursing what I perceive to be a problem I block the flow of the potential good that is always seeking to come forth. I clamp down on infinite potential. When I awaken to what I am doing, and make the shift toward gratitude and blessing, the floodgates open. I always feel it before I see it. My energy system comes alive. I am in a real sense re-born.

While I have for many years kept a daily gratitude journal that lists what I am thankful for, I was gifted with a major perceptual shift a decade or so ago that truly changed my life. Rather than stopping at what I am grateful for, I choose to live in a state of gratitude that is beyond form, circumstance, or prize. I am living in a state of being grateful FROM. I am contextual Thanksgiving. I don’t need to have something to be grateful for. I am grateful for the sake of the experience of gratitude alone. I can truly feel at a sense-level the turn-around of a sarcastic phrase I used to hear in college; “thanks for nothing!” What used to sting now gives me internal zing! This quip used to point out that whatever had been said or shared had no value or worth to the resistant recipient. Being grateful from reveals that everything is of value and everything has worth. And so I am grateful for all that is, and I am grateful for nothing in particular. I am thankful because being thankful aligns me with the True nature of what I am.

So I am indeed living in a particularly rich and wondrous time of my life. The externals are good and very good. Yet it is the formless interior of my gratefulness that fills me with such joy. I can say to life “thanks for nothing,” and that to me is everything.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Radical Indeed

Sometimes I am being so “radically expressed” that I don’t have the time to sit and write about it.

Or at least that is how it feels. The last time I composed and posted a “Radical Expression” blog was just before beginning my job as Sr. Minister at Unity of the Palm Beaches. That was in March of this year. It has been a radical shift indeed. I have moved from being an itinerant preacher-free agent to leading a re-birthing and dynamic spiritual community that is in every way a full time commitment. And I have never felt such a deep and complete knowing that I am in my right place. I know in a profound and unflinching way that I am doing exactly what I was born to do. I feel as if every phase and adventure of my wild and wondrous incarnation was preparing me for this incredible form of service. I live in awe of how I landed here.

This is something that I in no way planned. I began to feel a stirring within myself more than a year and a half ago, and began to pray into a place of clarity regarding where that stirring was leading. I tapped in. I listened. I surrendered. I softened around my preferences. I asked the Source within me to use me in service of something larger than myself. And in the midst of this process came the unexpected: cancer.

I didn’t see it coming, and yet there it was. Diagnosed on July 3rd 2013, by July 4th I knew that my platform had such expanded. I never saw it as an enemy, only as an opportunity. I knew that whatever happened and however it turned out, it would be in service of my sacred emergence. It turned out to be exactly that. Now cancer free, I regard it as a rare and honored teacher and friend. Moving through the experience of cancer readied me for the task that was being placed before me. It was my advanced degree in compassion and acceptance. I am forever grateful for all of my academic schooling, and it in many ways pales in comparison to the practicum of a life challenging illness. Unity principles are in no way conceptual for me. Co-founder Myrtle Fillmore is more comrade than icon. Though my perspective certainly varied in ways, her example was a beacon in the dark moments of this path.

To be radical is to be rooted in. On this side of both the cancer and the career shift I am more rooted in my Source than ever. I must, then, remain rooted in order to accomplish the work that is before me now. This radical rooting is what sources my expression on a daily basis. I am in a very literal way living consciously in and giving way to my Source in personal and practical ways. I am blessed to pray with people every day. I am blessed to lecture, to teach, to train, to lead, to express about the Love of my Source every single day. Isn’t that amazing? I am ridiculously blessed! Outrageously! I am aligned with my purpose and so every day is a radical expression of what I am here to be and do.

And you, dear reader; what does your own radical expression look and feel like? What is stirring inside of you, seeking fuller and freer expression? What might you currently view as obstacle that with a breath of surrender could contribute to your own deeper sense of rootedness?

It all belongs, my friends. It is all for you. Life is for you. Life loves you. And Life is seeking radical expression through you. Let. Listen, let, live. The most radical expression is the experience of what you are.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

TO LOVE IS TO ATONE WITH

Much of what is called love today is in actuality a mental concept that inadvertently prevents a deep and abiding experience of true and felt-sense Love. I whole-heartedly believe that the greatest fear we individually and collectively possess is the fear of love. I know it won’t make sense to your mind, for it is indeed nonsensical. The unconscious fear of love began before we were cognitive beings. We fear the giving of love, the receiving of love, and, in particular, the unguardedness and vulnerability that the direct experience of love requires.

When our hearts were most open and unguarded was in the period from infancy to late childhood. We were then primarily emotional beings, and we at a deep level believed we were the energies that were coming at and moving in and through us. We could also in the early years still hear the faint murmurings of the celestial voices that speak only of Light and unconditional love. When we are attuned to that Spiritual sound we are entrained within our hearts, and we expect to be met and received with the all embracing energies of pure and boundless Love. We ARE at Essence pure and boundless Love. When we are instead met with judgment, criticism, shaming, closed-heartedness and indifference, our tender hearts become veiled and we begin to wince, flinch, and pullback where we once were open, receptive, and unprotected. This emotional imprinting distorts our truth and deadens our senses. Toward the end of childhood we begin to live within the stories we have been told and are now believing and telling about ourselves. We take on false identities and begin to live from pretense rather than from our natural loving presence. The veiling around our hearts becomes our shroud. We can no longer feel the energetic experience of vibrational Love and so the default is to think love with the dualistic mind. It becomes a concept that we try and get and even earn. As much as we crave the experience of love it also terrifies us. We do not want to re-experience the pain that came from the early rejection and shaming that occurred in our most open state.

Love requires that our hearts be open. Love requires that we be unguarded. Love requires that we be totally available. It is only experienced at the felt-level. You cannot think love. You cannot get or earn love either. It is a vibration that is extended from the open and intimately engaged heart. To love is to be atone with. It is a verb. To love is to consciously join and merge with the objects of our love from the subjective level of our authentic self. Dropping out of the mind is a prerequisite. The heart must be active, alive, and engaged. It must be totally open. As the heart is consciously activated loving atonement will be the natural experience. This atonement is in fact the activation of the authentic self. It is the engagement of what is Essential. It is in a literal way the practicing of the One Presence.

When our hearts are closed and we are not feeling the vibrational experience of love we are quite literally asleep to Who and What we are. We are lost in a trance of separation, illusion, and dislocation. The emotional veiling clouds our vision and deadens our innate vibration. In this state of amnesia we feel separate and alone instead of unified and atone. We think we have to get love by behaving in ways we were taught were acceptable and loveable. Love becomes a mental commodity, an ego-barter. In a very real sense, love is a one way dynamic. We are always living in and experiencing the level of love that we are currently capable of giving. This doesn't mean that we are not to receive love. Of course we do. It just means that love is always a choice we ourselves must make. We cannot make anyone else love us. It is also only as good as the present moment. We are required to constantly feel into the heart-space to insure that it is open and activated. Is my heart open? Am I choosing to extend love, regardless of what seems to be coming at me? When I am awake I am energetically feeling and extending love. No exceptions. Love is Who I am and extending love is what I do.

To love is to be atone with. I look at you, and I choose to relax open any guardedness. I choose to allow my heart to stay open and my eyes to remain soft. I invoke the love that is always present in my Sourced sacred heart center and I embrace you in and with that Love. Within that heartful merging is heaven itself. In that atonement is my liberation. I breathe into the Love, and I vibrate at the frequency of that Love. I meet you in that Love and realize that we indeed IS One. If I flinch, I choose to re-open into love. If I pullback, I choose to move forward within the love. I come to know myself as I choose to stay in Love with you. I come to know my Source when I give atone within the Love I am.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

DYNAMIC DISCOMFORT

I sometimes look back wistfully at all the ways I unconsciously tried to get out of myself. The paradox of spiritual awakening is that you don’t know you don’t know until all of a sudden: you Know. Then there is an unmistakable inner sense of “how could I not have known?”

I was a master of escape. An absolute Houdini of how to unplug. Addiction, story telling, mind-emotional identifying, pretense, defense, projection, and even schools of spirituality were ways I used to get out of the unworthiness and self aversion that comprised my emotional signature. There were temporary respites for sure. Yet the ways I tried to escape my inner discomfort were themselves both disquieting and uncomfortable. Isn’t that silly? The longer I used a particular escape route the more uncomfortable it became. Until one day I awakened to the realization that discomfort was never the enemy I thought it was. It was clear and unmistakable guidance. It was pointing to what I needed to look at, yet I kept choosing to look the other way. My pain was a messenger with a very important message. Yet I would shoot the messenger and then wonder why I never got the guidance I was so urgently seeking. I was dogged in my perception that when I became more spiritual the discomfort would go away. Once I fixed what was wrong with me I would be happy and the pain would be a distant memory. So another escape I would attempt, only to land right back in the discomfort that met me at every turn.

When I gave up my addiction to comfort and the demand that life happen in the way I wanted, something quite wondrous began to be revealed. Discomfort is a dynamic that shepherds us back toward our True Self. Discomfort is essential to the awakening process. When I began to inscape rather than escape, insights and internal aha’s were all around me. Of course they were all around me because they were being generated from within my own field of awareness. When I became friendly with the discomfort it became friendly with me. I came to know deeply and experientially that it was in service of something greater than my current story line or drama. I was feeling uncomfortable because I was temporarily out of alignment with my Souls greater purpose. It is a fool proof GPS. It is just as essential and valid as is inner peace. But when I chose to deaden the discomfort I killed the message I so needed to receive. A Spiritual being in the realm of physicality will always experience discomfort. It is a dynamic that helps us navigate through this land of duality and seeming separation. It is necessary and essential, and I have come to celebrate it. I don’t identify with it, or believe that I am in some way the message. I simply breathe into it, allow it to be what it is, and allow it to steer me back into my Souls agenda. When the message is welcomed and received, the discomfort subsides. Lesson learned. And the new containment of the pain and discomfort is a sense of inner peace even while there is pain.

Our suffering is a direct result of our resistance to pain and discomfort. The alleviation of our suffering comes as we open to the messages our discomfort is bringing, and to gratefully allow it to lead us to the awareness that we are being led to experience. There is truly nothing to escape. And by “inscaping” we come to directly know the Intelligence that is always within us and always moving us toward our Highest good. Whatever we can’t be with will never let us be. That I can promise you. I know from a lot of personal experimentation.

Say yes to all that arises and follow the messages that are constantly being energetically revealed. The dynamic of discomfort is leading you to a broader perspective and a clearer reality. Listen. Feel. Let be. Trust in the dynamic. Then you will finally know that you know that you know, and the power of non-resistance will be your greatest gift.

www.taylorestevens.com

Friday, February 14, 2014

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

So, what are you waiting for?

It feels clearer to me than ever before that the greatest human fear is the fear of love. Yes, I know. Your mind is disagreeing. All sorts of spiritual truisms arise that will prove my thesis wrong. And after twenty years of counseling countless men and women there hasn't been one for which an unconscious fear of love has been the primary cause of their distress.

When we were most open and vulnerable and innocent an unintentional message that who we are is not okay was delivered right into the center of our wide open and undefended hearts. It most likely came in the form of well-meaning parenting. It came in the form of early education and theology. It came from older siblings and unloved others. This wounding happened before we were cognitive beings. It happened at the time when what we felt emotionally was who we believed ourselves to be. And so those initial arrows to the heart became a felt-identity and an unerring attractor. We then built self-stories that matched this emotional degradation. And so instead of living as wide open beings of love we began to wait. We withheld our love until we sensed what was coming at us. We sniffed out every situation in an effort to not re-experience those staggering pangs of grief, fear, and shame. And in withholding the deeper identity of love, we became imposters to what we truly are.

So, what are you waiting for?

The only way out of this early hurtful programming is through. Moment by moment we are called to make the choice to no longer wait and withhold but to make the choice to return to the open and undefended state of being which is love itself. We are called to take the risk to meet the moment with an open heart and an undefended presence. We are enticed to summon the courage to be the first to open. To be the first to reach out. To be the cause of the connection. To compassion the inner child that still winces from the hurt but knows intuitively that the deeper identity is a unidirectional force of love, kindness, and caring. Waiting to be loved is waiting to live. We are here not to wait for love but to be the love and to give the love in which we then live. Trying to get the love we perceived we lacked is the greatest illusion and the most insidious suffering. We are not here to get love. We are here to give love. And then through that same aperture of openness we receive the reflection of the love we have chosen to give. Giving love is our identity and our purpose. As long as we wait we will not know who and what we are.

So, what are you waiting for?

So, okay. I’ll go first. I am writing these words as an expression of my love. I sense the little boy within who knew great criticism and far too little encouragement. I will not let the remaining wince result in my withholding. I will take the risk to put my love into perhaps unskillfully constructed sentences and allow my caring to supersede my syntax. I will give beyond my thoughts of how this will be received. I will not wait to express my heart. I will love because that is ultimately what I am, and the pain of withholding is far greater than the risk of being rejected. I will no longer wait for you to love me. I will love you now. As is. Your choice to wait is beyond my control. My choice to love is my choice to wait no longer.

So here it is. Here is my heart. Here are my words. Defended no more, here is my love. Receive it if you will. Or wait. It will still be with you when you choose to open to it. Let my love heal the hurt. Let my love restore the innocence, the openness. Let my love. Just let my love.

So, what are you waiting for?

www.taylorestevens.com

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

IF I BUT STAY

I feel as if the Universe has somehow pressed my pause button, and I suspect it will be the best thing that has ever happened to me.

As I have discussed here before, last July I received a cancer diagnosis that truly stopped me in my tracks in a most profound way. While the normal activity in my life continued as it had been, the place in which I was experiencing it was somehow radically different. I continued to see clients, speak in churches, exercise, eat, meditate and pray; and yet all of this was occurring in an atmosphere that was unfamiliar yet only mildly uncomfortable.

In anthropology this is called liminal space. The word actually means threshold. It indicates a sense of displacement in which something new is able to come forth. It has been historically used as an initiation rite. It interrupts the status quo of our lives and opens a space in which something different can come forth. It can be a most transformative time. I say can be because the transformation depends on the relationship we choose to have with this space as it arises in and seemingly around us. If we choose to cooperate with the process, an integrated level of faith can come out of the chaos and uncertainty. If we revert to the ego-impulse of getting rid of the discomfort and immediately filling the space, nothing is learned or gained.

In a word, liminal space asks that we stay. That we simply stay with the feelings of fear, uncertainty, chaos, and loss. That we stay with the temptation to escape and pull away. That we stay with whatever is moving within us, yet is most clearly not being generated by us. At least it is not being orchestrated by the surface self. The Soul works wonders within liminal space. Miracles are born within liminal space. It can be a threshold to a whole new way of being. And it is scary. It challenges who we think we are. It calls us to look squarely at our habitual ways of being; at the ways we show up and the ways we don’t show up. When embraced, liminal space can result in nothing less than a quantum leap in consciousness. When denied, a subtle sense of suffering descends like a shroud upon us. Possibility has been rejected. The false self has won this round. And I assure you; another opportunity is on its way.

Just prior to my cancer surgery I was given an opportunity to enter into an inquiry around a rather enormous shift in my Dharmic expression. Since November, the liminal space around the cancer diagnosis has been multiplied and expanded by an additional liminal space surrounding my career. Uncertainty met with uncertainty. The well got deeper, and down into the space I went. It has been a blessing of epic proportion. For someone who years ago could not and would not stay with anything uncomfortable I have willingly and readily stayed afloat in a sea of I do not know. I am still there. And as I have made the choice to stay and to be conscious within this space moment by revelatory moment, blessing after blessing have come forth within my consciousness. Awareness after awareness concentrically flow forth from me. In this vast sea of uncertainty I somehow feel more certain than ever. Not about what is going to happen in my world of form. But in my sense of Who and What I am, and in why I am here in this incarnation.

While uncertainty and discomfort used to be my greatest foes they have become my greatest allies. The uncertainty of this period of liminal space is a chrysalis in which my Soul has been melting and remolding me into a truly different creature. While I am someone who has long embraced and dedicated myself to periods of silence daily and for periodic extended periods, I guess it was time for some quantum unfolding via this additional space. I have no idea how this is going to turn out, but I know that I trust what is moving within me at a deeper level than ever. I am profoundly grateful. I am incredibly humbled. And I am different than I was before.

And all I did was stay.

www.taylorestevens.com

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

THE LOOK

I was parented and disciplined largely by “the look.”

If you were too you will know what I mean. If you are one of the rare exceptions no amount of description will let you in on the experience.

The look was always enough. Piercing, intense, unwavering, the look would stop me in my tracks more than any words, promised punishment or withheld privileges. If I was pushing the boundary of acceptable behavior, the look was all that was necessary to put me in my place. I melted.

It has been decades since I have been of an age where literal outer discipline has been enforced. And yet I still find myself at times buckling under the energetic frequency of the look. Projections of the look can still at times stop me in my tracks and melt me in the moment. Intellectually knowing that it is a projection does not stop the experience from happening, though it does lessen the duration of the impact. Realizing where this imprint came from and who the originating eyes belonged to has also not stopped the look from occurring. And so I know there must be additional blessings to be had from occasionally finding myself in a scrutinizing stare.

I have lived much of my life experience within the intensity of my own critical evaluation. I have spent a vast amount of time living within the look, and I have come to realize that the eyes now belong to me and only me. Though my childhood emotional imprinting includes the grief, fear, and shame that were triggered by the intensity of the look, my liberation is in how I come to relate to those feelings in the here and now.

An enormous factor in the overall quality of our lives is the quality of our own attention. Twenty-plus years of counseling others has confirmed my own experience that living life in a critical, condemning, punitive look is common among those here in the western world. Self opinion and evaluation is crucial to keeping the ego thought system in authority. Theology has been pitifully effective at amplifying this sense of living within a scrutinizing stare. There is a largely unconscious sense that some Outer God is looking down both literally and figuratively. We then create spiritual systems that seek to compensate for this damning lens. We so often stay and hide in our heads to avoid the enduring pain within our hearts; the pain that comes from thinking that we are judged by our very Source. Parental images of the Creator often contribute to this sense of being watched and found wanting.

If we do indeed live now within a Look it is not one of criticism, judgment, scrutiny, and condemnation. I have come to know experientially that though I still can sometimes fall into the trance of the look I am always living within a Loving Gaze that surrounds me in unconditional Wisdom, Compassion, Mercy, Guidance, and a Love far greater than the mind can perceive. I live much of my life experience now in the felt-sense glow of that Vision. My heart soars as I realize that I am living within the literal look of Love. If I find myself within the emotional feel of the evaluative stare, I step back behind that look and align in the Vision that sees the totality of who I am, and never judges what It sees. Life flourishes when we begin to live in an affirmative gaze. That look then informs our own focus, and we begin to see a self and a world alive in love. And so I practice now re-parenting myself with that Look. It melts me in a radically different way. It melts away my own habitual scrutiny and self aversion, and entrains me with a Higher, Broader, Truer vision of who and what I am.

As is so brilliantly stated in the motion picture Avatar, I see you. I feel like the Universe is always whispering that to us, “I see you. I see all of you, and I love you as you are. Live within my Loving gaze, and unfold easily in the Light of my look. Surrender your needless scrutiny, and live in my Look of Unconditional Love.”

And that is a Look that is 20/20 Vision for sure.

www.taylorestevens.com

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

THE LIFE OF MY DREAMS

During the beginning weeks of any New Year my inbox is flooded with invitations to programs and workshops’ offering to give me access to what is often called “the life of my dreams.” Sincere and truly gifted teachers are peddling multiple formulas to help people get what they want in the newly minted year. I in no way wish to minimize or denigrate these offers, though it is rare at this point in my life that one would appeal to me. I am all about celebrating anything that will awaken the sleeping magnificence in people, setting them on a course that will light them up and let them shine. There are few things more painful than enduring a lifetime of minimized self worth and unrealized dreams. Dreams and visions are integral to our spiritual unfoldment. They are central to the way in which the evolution of the Soul occurs. While I am clear that I have learned just as much from dashed dreams as I have from actualized visions, it is in the transcendence of the obstacles that arise around dream manifestation that we grow and spiritually emerge.

As I look back on my life journey I see a child and a youth that had a lot of big dreams and visions for how my life was going to unfold. I saw a life of success, fame, and wealth. I was going to go to Broadway, and they were going to hand me the keys to the theatre district. As much as I would be enjoying my Broadway success I would feel compelled to answer the call to Hollywood and to film stardom, work that I would squeeze in between my wildly popular recording and concert work. My dream was to be the first male to win a Tony, Grammy, Emmy, and Oscar award. I took what was a huge leap of faith to venture forth alone in New York City, and while I enjoyed some success in the entertainment industry, no one was waiting for me with the keys to the city. I didn’t win the big four awards. I was never even nominated for one of them.

Do I grieve the death of those dreams? I did for a time. I gave them an appropriate amount of loving attention, and as I did I discovered something quite miraculous. They never really were the dreams of my deepest heart. They were mentally manufactured ways that I thought would lead me to getting the affirmation and accolades I so desperately wanted and believed I never got. As I deepened into the loss I came to the compassionate knowing that while I did possess a degree of talent in terms of singing, dancing, and acting, I did not have the drive it takes to make it in such an extremely competitive industry. And the reason I didn’t have the drive was because it really wasn’t my dream.

While I thought I went to New York to become a star I was actually being led there to have my entire world turned upside down, emptied, and refilled so that my authentic expression could be activated. It was not a material success that was being initiated but a spiritual one. I went there not to have lights shine upon me but to learn to allow the Light to shine through me. I got to have enough of a taste of the business to know that it really wasn’t for me. I was clear that if I put the time, energy, recourse, and drive into becoming somebody then I would have to maintain that stature. I would spend my life striving to stay relevant, and that was not in alignment with my deeper values. I was clear that what once seemed a life of my dreams would lead me to an ongoing cycle of nightmares.

Today I celebrate the realization that it is service and not stardom that I was destined for. While I appreciated and still appreciate the talents and gifts I have been given it is the way in which they are expressed that gave me pause. It was the content of what was being expressed. As much as I loved playing juicy roles on stage they eventually felt hollow and unfulfilling. To not express the deeper truths that my Soul wanted to give voice to left me feeling inauthentic and under expressed. While it was the desire to get out of myself that originally led me to the stage it was the desire to come back to my self that led me to seminary. I am truly at home now in front of audiences delivering not a script but a transcendence Truth. I get to express my deepest heart and my greatest love. I get to come from Presence and not from pretense. I have the rare gift of having in alignment the depth of who I am with what I do in the world. That is better than any slew of awards and fleeting fame and success.

And now I truly am living the life of my dreams. And it gives me great joy to inspire and to help awaken others in living their own greatest expression. It may not be what you think it is. It may not be what it once was. But when you tap into it, you will know an inner bliss that will always give you the power and energy to activate and to fulfill the dreams and visions flowing through you. Ask to be shown. No matter how old you are or how many dreams have died, ask to be shown what the Universe is seeking to express as you. And then give yourself fully to it. Let it breathe you, live you, shine forth through you. And in that shining, you too will live the life of your dreams.

www.taylorestevens.com

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

NEW YEARS SPILLAGE AND BREAKAGE

I have begun the New Year in a very unconventional way; by spilling and breaking things.

I haven’t done so intentionally. My intention for 2014 is to fully embody Truth and to live and to serve life from that actualized inner space. Those preceding words are an attempt to verbalize what is far beyond the limitations of words. It is also a compacted version of a very personal commitment that makes it fit for public consumption and for these purposes.

So as I felt and responded to the depth of what Life is seeking to demonstrate through me during the coming year I decided to celebrate with a health drink concoction rich with acai berry concentrate, tart cherry juice, cranberry juice, protein powder, and some assorted fruit for good measure. Then after making it I promptly spilled it on the dining room table which was covered at the time with a white lace cloth. Hmm. And this was New Years Day.

The next evening after enjoying leftovers from my favorite traditional New Years feast I preceded to knock my plate off of the kitchen counter and watch as it shattered into a ceramic, food laced mess upon the floor. I might mention that this is the first dish broken from a set I obtained in 1993. And hmm again…

Now I am not the type of metaphysician who is compelled to force a mental meaning on everything that happens to and around me. And I am an ever curious and intense observer of life that recognizes when my Soul is delivering a message to my sometimes obtuse personality self.

Embodying and actualizing Truth is an often messy and uncomfortable thing. Anyone familiar with my teachings has heard me say this before. This is not to make it so. Yes, I recognize that trap in misinterpretation. I say it because I wish someone had let me in on that secret sooner. When you dedicate yourself to living in and from a spiritual paradigm things get spilled and things get broken. Parts of the personality need to die and aspects of the Soul relentlessly seek to be born. It is not a journey for the timid or faint hearted. We are called to finally spill all the illusions we have clung so desperately to. We are beckoned to break down the walls we have hidden behind; erroneously believing they have kept us safe. We must drop our defenses and surrender our self images. We must give up our addiction to comfort and release the demand for instant gratification. It is not for me a surface perfect picture that I am seeking. I want the whole thing. I want my whole self. I want to know my Source in such a way that allows It to Shine through me. I am committed to allowing Life to break me open in order to set me free. I gratefully surrender my need for comfort and order and control. As if I ever had it anyway.

As I started my year with breakage and spillage my husband Donald was right there both times, patiently helping me to clean up the messes I had made. Life is like that too. Life has always been there for me. Help has always been there. I haven’t always recognized it or allowed myself to be assisted. But I know that there are angels and guides all around me. There job isn’isn't always about making sure things don’t get broken or spilled. There job is to be right there guiding, supporting, compassioning, and loving me amidst the messes. That is the most confounding thing of all. The Divine is always there, right in the middle of the mess. If we never spill or break we miss that beautiful recognition.

And so I mindfully place glasses and dishes in there proper places and I am strangely comforted to know that other things will eventually spill and break. Things within me are in a radical state of change so chaos is part of the plan. I trust in that. I trust that my moments of discomfort and confusion are in service of something far greater than what appears to be happening. I am placing my faith in that. And in a Universe that is always available to help me clean up the mess.

www.taylorestevens.com