2020 WHAT A YEAR

What a year.

I know I do not have to tell you.

What a year.

2020 will go down in the history books as something none of us can really yet describe. I still recall the enormous feeling of possibility and promise I felt as late December 2019 moved me closer and closer to an experience that I felt would be transformative, growth producing, and genuinely like no other.

And that is exactly what it has been.

What a year.

Like so many people around the world I felt like the year 2020 would be about the birthing of a new vision for humanity. I was primed to do my part by opening into an inspired vision for a world that works for all. Not theory or concept. It is not a world that works for only a privileged few. Not a top-down power-over system. A world that is working for all people equally. Where everyone matters and lives like they matter. A world that’s foundation is mutual dignity and respect. A world that is fueled by harmony, reverence, and inclusivity. That is the world that I began visioning.

And then all hell broke loose.

Literally.

What a year.

In retrospect my initial mistake was in not realizing that in order for a new global vision to become reality we had to see how we had been seeing.

That was not a typo.

We needed to see how we had been seeing what we were seeing. We needed to see the lens we were looking through. We needed to know the prescription in that lens. The way we were seeing was not in service of a world that works for all. The prescription was distorting reality in favor of a few. We were seeing way too many others as being somehow less than. We were taking sides as enemies against enemies. We were internally and so externally divided, warring against ourselves and against each other. We were killing each other, including disproportionally black and people of color. We were raping our planet and destroying our resources. We were seeing through darkness and distortion, and it was and is having tragic consequences.

And so, in the name of 2020 vision we saw what had been festering only slightly beneath the surface. The intention of our new world vision showed us things we did not really want to see. Because we have seen things that worked for some of us. We clearly saw a world that worked for some and we did not like seeing it. We screamed at others about how we perceived they saw, trying hard to not own that what we were screaming at were our own projections. We have been trapped in a trance. It is clearing. We have the potential of becoming free. But it is messy. Messy and painful and humbling if not outright humiliating.

What a year.

I just paused to reread this, and it is not at all the blog I began to write.

And it is clearly the blog I am meant to write.

I can honestly say that I have not made 2020 an enemy. I have felt from the very beginning that something was happening in the collective consciousness that is in service of a greater emergence. I have remained willing to allow what I need to see in me to arise within my individual field, knowing that as I bring a wakeful and compassionate presence to it, it will indeed be in service to the collective.

It has not been pretty.

It has not been easy, comfortable, flattering. And it has been completely necessary.

There has been so much loss. So much suffering to bear witness to. So many things unfolding that I wanted nothing more than to rant at. Scream and shout at. Throw things at. So much injustice, greed, corruption, supremacy, bigotry, meanness. So, so much.

And I needed to see it all.

And now I cannot unsee it.

And I can vision beyond it.

I can look squarely at the darkness inside myself. I can own my part on the collective problems. I can courageously own where I am like those I rail against. I can claim the log in my own eye and worry less about the splinter in yours. I can wait to do my own work before I cast stones at you. I can peel my blame off of the world and I can return repeatedly to a vision of a world that works for all.

In me. Right here. Right inside of this heart. Here in my line of sight.

What a year.

The old hymn lyric has taken on a whole new meaning. “Was blind but now I see.”

I see more clearly than ever before.

I do not like what I see but I do not have to. I just need to continue to look with as little interpretation and resistance as possible. I need to reopen my eyes every time I flinch. I turn back every time I turn away. I take another look. And another. I make the miraculous distinction between the lens prescription and what I am looking at. I know beyond a doubt I am looking at what I am looking with. Always. And knowing that leads to vision.

What a year.

2020 has been hideous and miraculous. Enervating and inspiring. Suffocating and expansive. Isolating and supremely connecting.

I have no idea what 2021 will bring, and yet I bravely say to it “bring it on.” I am more as a result of having lived through 2020. I have suffered so much loss, and I have met it with both wavering and uncompromising love. There are fewer people in my sphere, yet there is also deeper connection. Having seen what I have seen this past year I am far less afraid to take a look at what arises next. I know more than ever that my vision is transformative. I know that seeing what is not yet here is co-creative. My clear vision is bringing about that world I have so wanted to see.

What a year.

I will not live long enough to know what historians will say about the year 2020. I will not be privy to how they will report about the people who were alive, and they met these great challenges. All I can know is what I am saying about it. About how I met the year 2020. What I learned from it. How I chose to serve it. How I gleaned a new vision from the way I had been seeing.

Whatever future historians will say, I look at 2020 with clear eyes and an open heart. And I say:

What a year.

LIMBO

Everything is literally in limbo.

And that is a very good thing.

As a clergy person this is a busy time of year for me. Even in a time of pandemic distancing there are additional services to co-create and added attention to those who are isolated and alone. Yet the time between Christmas and New Year has the familiar feeling of limbo and uncertainty that it has long had for me. The old year is not yet passed but the new is already calling to be intended and embodied.

Everything is literally in limbo.

The longer I have walked this planet the more comfortable I have grown with uncertainty and limbo. The energies for me are pregnant with possibility. There is tension that is ripe with potential. That potential is a pathway my Soul is seeking to unfold. And so, a feeling of holiday restfulness meets a simmering of new year restlessness. A beseeching to become more fills the space where I really long to do less. The gas and the brake pedals are depressed, and the internal motor is racing. There is a part of me that wants to speed out of 2020, yet I do not know what 2021 may hold.

Everything is literally in limbo.

I have repeatedly heard the cries from countless people wanting this year of 2020 to be over. I get that. I really do. I also get that time and calendars are arbitrary markers that do not signal or cease patterns that are independent of time. The unresolved energies of 2020 will be carried right over into 2021. The ball will drop, the corks will pop, and the dramas will be there when the hangovers pass. The work we did not do in 2020 will cry to be attended to in 2021. And 2025. And so on.

And so, this limbo time is precious.

Limbo time is liminal. It is a chance to be relished, cherished, and fully utilized. Beyond the Christmas leftovers there is internal exploration to be dived into and digested. This is the time to really stop and to look closely at what has happened in and to you during the preceding year. What is energetically trapped by resistance, remorse, or resentment? What did a year of 20/20 vision reveal that needed to be seen? What projections and blame are disempowering and robbing us of co-creative potential vitality? What was denied or suppressed that is calling for insight and resolution?

When embraced limbo is incredibly fertile. It is necessary for growth, forgiveness, and transformation. It can, if we choose, be the most important time of our years. Without limbo we tend to repeat. We unconsciously stay stuck in the name of feeling safe. But we must come to own that often suffering is bred from a false sense of what is safe. Beyond safety is the broader life that is calling to be lived. That has been calling to be lived. All year. For a decade. Perhaps even for a lifetime.

And we fill the limbo for fear of the discomfort and uncertainty. And our greatest living is in the discomfort of uncertainty.

It is in the limbo.

And so I write these words as a declaration that I am wading waist high in limbo and I am loving each and every moment of it. 2020 was beyond the definition of challenging. I saw more suffering than I have ever seen. More chaos, disruption, violence, greed, dishonesty, injustice. I also saw an energetic revelation of what needed to be seen in service of what is calling to be known. To be chosen. To be vision and embodied. We cannot heal what we do not look at and directly feel.

And I have chosen to do that.

And so, with added activity still to be accomplished I am also stealing as much limbo time as I possibly can. I am praying into a greater possibility for this arbitrary turning of a calendar page. I am seeking clarity and release. I am leaning into the limbo to see what it has to show me. I open into the uncertainty with very little sense of discomfort. For limbo has become a close and reliable friend. Liminal space, by experience, has become a comfort zone of increasing possibility. I love the limbo. And it has repeatedly shown me that it loves me.

Everything is literally in limbo.

Every possibility. All potentiality. Everything unseen that is seeking to be seen. Everything unknown that is wanting to be known. It is all there. It is all here. It is all within the now.

Limbo literally is everything.

Just wait, and then see.

THE BLAME GAME

The one sure way to be right about your painful life story is to blame others for it.

I have been pondering deeply what it is that I perceive to be one of the chief reasons for so much prolonged human suffering. After twenty-eight years of providing counseling and almost twenty-five years of fulltime ministering I think I have got it.

Blame.

Now, let us be real for a moment here.

We all do it.

We all think that we are experiencing discomfort and discord because of the actions, words, treatment of others. And as energetic beings that is a relative truth. People do and say unconscious things that go ouch in our energy-system. We tend to react with varying levels of recoil, payback, retaliation.

Blame.

That is not what I am pointing to. Not exactly.

The type of blame that I am speaking of is a prescription through which we see ourselves as victims to the circumstances and relationships of our lives. Now, again, in the relative there is most certainly victimization. We are all clear about that. Then there is self-inflicted victimization which is a way of showing up in life that is run by unconscious programs that we ourselves generate and perpetuate. We have strong expectations of how we are going to be treated. Those expectations are what is called in physics strange attractors. They also distort reality so that whether the expected treatment is happening or not we perceive that it is.

And then we seal the deal.

We blame.

I have watched these dynamics countless times. It creates so much unnecessary suffering. It is augmented and further perpetuated by self-sabotage. A perceptual and then behavioral set up by which the faulty core belief is sure to seem true.

For example, a core belief that I am never seen or appreciated. The prescription in the lens is strong and perceptually blinding. It becomes a manifest reality as the victim displays behaviors of not showing up or as showing up in ways that are not appreciable. Then when others react to the sabotaging behaviors they are blamed. It is their fault. They are the cause of the ensuing suffering.

Blame.

Now any of us can occasionally feel unseen or unheard or underappreciated. It does not feel good. Any of us can also not see, hear, or appreciate someone appropriately. It does happen. Yet when it is a chronic source of pain for someone than something else is going on. Something that can only be remedied by radical honesty and ruthless responsibility.

Yes. Responsibility.

The beginning of healing this chronic pain is to take responsibility for our part in our ongoing patterns. We must peel the blame off of situations and get radically honest about how we may be setting up the source of pain with our own sabotage. This all becomes possible when we realize that we are in fact the common denominator in all of our painful stories.

Ouch.

I feel compelled to share this as I know it from personal and practical experience.

I have been blessed by a few people courageous enough to tell me the truth about the patterns they saw playing out in my life. I was further blessed with the grace to not shove these truthtellers away. I listened through the wince. I looked deeply at what they were pointing to. I made a long list of situations and scenarios in which I was hurt and diminished. And I was indeed the common denominator. I saw how I had sabotaged situations so that the painful core belief through which I was seeing life would remain true. I saw how even when people tried to acknowledge and uplift me, I would not let it in. It would have been contrary to the story I was living out.

This was some painful self-truth telling for sure. It was not, however, as painful as continuing to live in the world of pain, blame, and sabotage. That had been a life of self-aversion and suffering. And I came to know that most of it was self-inflicted.

The only winner in the blame game is the painful self-story.

If you suspect you may be playing this blame game, I invite you to do a deep dive into the painful scenarios you see as other-inflicted. Make a list. Check it twice. Find the common denominator. Look closely for how you set yourself up by sabotaging and showing up in ways that support the damning story lines.

And then decide if you are willing to own your part, stop blaming, take responsibility, and to become free. You may not believe me, but it is a decision.

When you stop the blaming liberation is just around the corner.

You may well need to go through emotional withdrawal from the lack of habitual torment. It is chemical. It will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar. That is incredibly good news. It means something new is opening within you. It means that opening is a place where you can choose to own your experience. Self-referral is becoming available. Your back is getting stronger and your heart is getting softer.

There really is no prize and no winner in the blame game. It feels momentarily good to project out the internal pain. But putting pain out there puts it out of reach for healing. Healing can only happen in here.

Be brave. Let go the grip on blame. The impulse will still arise. It does for me. I just do not give into it very often anymore. People will still treat you unskillfully. There will still be opportunities for ouch. They just do not need to be used as evidence supporting a self-diminishing story. They instead are evidence that you have dropped the blame and stopped the painful game.

Cease the blame. Stop the sabotage. Just watch how much freer and lighter you become. It is certainly a game worth winning.

POSTCARDS FROM A PANDEMIC

This has undoubtedly been the oddest year of my entire life.

And this has been the most revelatory year of my entire life.

I am not alone in that. Yet it is only from my personal perspective that I can comment on what 2020 has truly been like. I was pondering this morning what it would be like if I could send postcards to someone who knew nothing of this Covid-19 experience. What would I say? How would I begin to describe the seemingly endless waves I have surfed inside of my own interior? How could I capture in words what it is like to stay mostly locked inside of your home, watching incredible levels of disturbance, disease, death, and despair all around you? Could anyone outside of this current dilemma understand my reporting that in order to go anywhere you need to wear a protective face mask, keep a several feet distance from other human beings, and repeatedly wash and sanitize your hands? How would they comprehend the notion that the primary way of connection and intimacy is occurring on a screen we call Zoom?

Wouldn’t the recipient concur that this is indeed the oddest year of my life, or of any life?

Would they think me mad? Would they suspect that I had been kidnapped by aliens and whisked off to a planet governed by science fiction and distorted fantasy?

What if I were to elaborate that the reality behind the masks and distancing and sanitizing were for the protection of myself and others? And that a goodly portion of individuals were refusing to follow the measures that were put in place to protect humanity? That countless lives were ending due to the lack of simple compliance and cooperation.

Would they believe me?

I still have trouble believing it all. And yet it goes on and on and on.

So, if I were to send myself postcards from a pandemic what would I say?

Dear Self: This is sure not how I thought I would spend 2020. I had such a feeling of potential and possibility when this new decade was beginning. I had vision. Inspired vision. As the years of my life roll by, I am increasingly cognizant that a new decade could be my final decade. I approached 2020 with enthusiasm and zeal. I asked that I be guided into the highest vision for myself and for the world. Wow. This sure was not what I thought I would see. And yet, I know I am seeing exactly what I need to see in order that a higher reality may be birthed within me. Even if it proves to be my final decade, I will be rebirthing myself day after day, for the duration. So self, I am having one hell of a ride here in 2020!

Dear Self: You would not believe how clarifying and prioritizing living through a pandemic can be! What I once thought was important has lost almost all of its luster. What pre-pandemic seemed almost meaningless has claimed centerstage within my being. Now that travel consists of heading only to my backyard the vistas, sights, sounds, simplicity is beyond what I could describe! Every leaf, bird, blossom, cloud appear as masterpieces in an ever-evolving wonderland of magnificent creation. To think that there were times I took this for granted! To think that I saw it only as a backyard that needed to be kept and most often ignored. Such magic! The moon plays peek-a-boo, and the clouds tease me with endless shapeshifting. The mockingbirds scoff when I fall into seriousness, and the butterflies wake me from the delusion that isolation results in loss. My God is a God of grandeur, and it is all right here beckoning me to join in. Where else need I go?

Dear Self: I have long suspected that prayer, meditation, contemplation of the sacred are the greatest joys in my life. This time apart has confirmed and solidified that priority. It is my passion. It is my central purpose. It is my reason for being. It is my contribution. It is what I am called to gift life with during this strange time of distancing and isolation. It is the context from which I spend my pandemic days. I know now that the Truth of Oneness is no mere concept. It is Reality. All is One. All has always been One. This is a time when that Truth is seeking realization, actualization. It is happening within me. Not theoretical. Actual. Intimate. All is One is my opportunity to pray and to stream grace, blessing with all other living beings. My quality of attending is why I am here at this time. We IS One, and so my presence impacts all that is. Knowing this, my days and nights are more meaningful, purposeful than ever before. 2020 has brought into being what I always sought to become. Imperfectly, admittedly. Yet relentlessly becoming. Radically focused. Undeterred by error. My conviction leads me to start again and again.

Dear Self: How could I have ever suspected that it would take medically enforced disconnection to teach me what deep connection is really all about? I have said my final goodbyes to several who did not survive the pandemic from which I write postcards. Indeed., my dearest, best friend did not survive this pandemic, How could I possibly report about that? Let me say to the self that I am writing to; love like you have never loved before! Risk it all. Open despite the fear. Take off the armor. Stripe away the defenses. Drop the dramas, the offences. Every interaction could be the last interaction. The words I speak could be the final words. The postcard I write could be the final missive. Humanity is running out of time. Decide how and with whom and at what level you will connect because ultimately connection is not an option. We are all, always connected. It is what we do with it that is variable. It is while we are apart that we can alter how we will come back together. There is one shared humanity. We are always contributing something to it. I am choosing to contribute love. This pandemic has taught me that I am here to contribute love at deeper and deeper levels.

And perhaps that is the only postcard from a pandemic that I need to write. That I need to send to myself.

Love.

This has undoubtedly been the oddest and most revelatory year of my life.

If I could send myself a postcard from this pandemic I would say, Dear Self: Love. Love now. Love yourself. Love the other. Love all of creation. And love every moment while you are still here.

Love.

And if perchance I forget to apply the postage on these postcards from a pandemic, a return to sender will still direct the messages to their intended recipient.

Me.

Oh, I forgot to sign.

Love, me.

META ME

There is always something greater than just me.

It is that knowing that finally set me free.

I have spent most of this time of pandemic distancing becoming clear about the power of conscious connection. Mine has always been a path of introversion and autonomy. One of my primary lessons to learn in this lifetime is to be self-determining. As a child this capacity was not cultivated or encouraged. In fact, it was punished. Though there was always a strong streak of independence inside of me that capacity was beaten down every time it arose. I am long past being a victim to this relative annihilation. I deeply know that it was and is a necessary part of my Soul-emergence. This broader perspective contributed to my sense that something greater was always happening as the context of my life.

In mid-March it was determined that the Unity congregation I am blessed to lead could no longer safely or responsibly continue to meet in person. I knew, and I knew that I knew, that the macro-pandemic and the micro-response were and are in service of something greater than just the surface appearances. And so, I immediately began to explore what that would mean for my internal experience and my external expression.

There is always something greater than just me.

I instinctually knew that this effectual pandemic was the revelation of something collective and causal. It was and is the outpicturing of something that we all need to see. While I believe this to be cosmic in scope there is only one place that I can effect any contributory change: inside of me. And so, I began that exploration as soon as distancing began. I started immediately to apply my life-long lessons of self-determination and autonomy to how I would show up during this time. I became more and more committed to being an awakened change-agent for whatever the duration of this distressing time would be.

Wow.

Months later I am still in the process of applying and reapplying the lessons. I have done deep dives into my own consciousness to see what I need to uncover and forgive. Though I have worked fulltime throughout I have also spent swaths of time asking Truth what it is I need to see in me that might prove to be liberating to the whole. This has been especially true in terms of relationships. I have been vitally invested in seeing how my ways of relating have been contagious in detrimental ways. I have sought to heal the ways in which my autonomy has not allowed for a deeper intimacy. I have explored the ways in which my self-determination has not been inclusive of the whole.

In short, I have become clearer and cleared that there is always something greater than just me.

And I am in fact responsible to that something greater.

This pandemic has global reach and consequences. There have been suggestions, invitations, and even mandates about how we could respond to lessen the effects of what is globally viral. It is a shared experience, though at varying levels of effect. There are places in the world that have policed the mandates. There are places in the world, the USA as an example, that have been far less rigid in its approach.

We are seeing the consequences of these distinct and disparate approaches.

The land of the free is not always the home of the brave.

I have never been clearer that my choices have consequences for more than just me. I am a part of the whole of humanity, and the whole of all living beings. Every single choice I make, conscious or unconscious, affects the whole. This is not conceptual for me. I have made decisions from it. I have applied it in very practical ways. I have based my Covid experience on the fact that my choices are contagious. That if I risk my health based on my choices it will impact others. Not it may impact others. It will.

I am in relationship with the whole. And I am responsible to that relationship.

I honestly believe that relationship-responsibility is one of the lessons we are collectively meant to learn from this pandemic experience. We ultimately cannot choose that we are connected. We can only choose how we connect. If we connect is only relative. We are inextricably bound by virtue of our connection. I can ignore you, yet I remain atone with you. That can be an excruciating lesson to learn. It most often is.

I distance because I am atone with you. I distance to remain in service to you. I distance because I know I am contagious, in consciousness and in physicality. I distance because I am responsible for and to our connection. If I claim relationship to you then I am accountable to my choices. And I choose to be in relationship with you.

There is always something greater than just me.

That something greater is we.

The meta-me is the connected we. How I show up during this time is my contribution to the whole. I am autonomous, and I am atone. I am self-determining, and I use that to make decisions that benefit all.

There is something greater than just me. The something greater is we.

Knowing this has set me free.

A THANKSGIVING BLESSING

I am blessed because I choose to be.

I grew up in a faith tradition that taught that blessings were something external that were either given or withheld from a far-off God. We were admonished that we should always count our blessings. We were not taught what to do in times when it seemed there were none to count.

As an adult I learned that the ancient art of blessing had a much more expansive meaning. Blessing was not a thing per se and did not come from an off-planet God. Blessing is the recognition and acknowledgment of the Divinity that is always ever present. Blessing, or to bless, is an invocation of what is always True. If Divinity is ever present, and I for one Know it to be so, than blessing is equally ever present. It is here, now. Everything is blessing potential. Absolutely everything. It is not a matter of whether or not there is a blessing to behold. It is only a matter of whether or not a blessing is invoked.

Hence: I am blessed because I choose to be.

This is unsupported in a dualistic version of God. Especially the theological God that humans made up. That God is divided into good-evil, dark-light, blessing-curse, etc. That is the God that seems to have a personality disorder as it smites them but delivers those. It leaves us to ask for blessings and just hope we catch HIM on a good day. We count our blessings believing they are variable and finite. Often, they are thought to be merited for our good behavior, or at least our pretense of Godliness. As we are made in the image and likeness of God we too see the world in dualistic terms, have personality disorders, and secretly seethe when those infidels appear to have more blessings than we.

This is a juvenile version of Source and of blessing.

As we mature and grow in awareness we are also invited to grow in maturity regarding blessing. We begin to bring ancient wisdom into modern parlance and application. We choose to bless whatever is happening as a recognition that everything is Divinity in process. Everything is emergence. Everything is blessing becoming. In time and space reality it is we who call it forth. It is we who invoke it in our more awakened moments. We deepen in a knowing that this Thing we call God is All that is. It is Law, Principle, Essence. It is never missing. It is frequently misapplied.

I am blessed because I choose to be.

There are wonderful things unfolding in my life.

I am blessed.

There are a few undesirable and even scary things happening in my life.

I am blessed.

Wonderful or scary, everything that is happening in my life experience is an activity of Law. It is happening through me and is for my highest Good. It is exactly what I need in this moment. It is Divinity ever present calling me to presence. Preferred or not it is gift in potential. I bring that potential into being by virtue of my decision to bless. And my decision to bless makes it a gift.

And so, I am always living at a choice-point of blessing or curse. My dualistic nature is what fuels that choice. It Reality there is only blessing. And here in this realm it is a choice. It is the most important choice I can make. When I curse, I suffer. When I bless, I am set free. Free to see the blessing that my choice invokes. It may or may not be obvious in the manifest. It doesn’t ‘matter. I can always perceive it through my spiritual sight.

I am blessed because I choose to be.

And I bless you, dear reader, by invoking the Divinity ever present within you. It is the same Divinity that is within me. It is One and the same Divinity. One and the same blessing. One and the same potential. It is brought into conscious manifestation by a simple but unequivocal invocation.

I am blessed because I choose to be.

I bless you because I choose to bless you.

Blessings abound in the recognition that everything is blessing.

And that is my Thanksgiving blessing.

I choose to give thanks for the blessing Life is.

A NOW APPRECIATION

Most folks will tell you that you cannot change the past.

I do not believe that.

I do not believe you cannot change your past because I have.

The way that I have changed my past is by changing the lens through which I see it. I am actually still in the process of changing my life prescription. It feels more accurate to say that the process of change is happening for and through me. The lens is being changed as I pray into my internal guidance, asking to be freed from the meanings that have caused my suffering. I ask to be shown what I need to see about the way I see. I ask to become clear about what program is running, and how it is distorting my reality and my way of relating.

I ask for help in seeing what I need to see differently.

And I am always shown.

In changing my past, the events and occurrences remain the same. How I see them and what I make them mean is what changes. In some instances, radically. I have intentionally accessed and allowed for the courage I needed to really look back. To go where I did not want to revisit. To return to the seen of the crime. While common wisdom may suggest that we not look back it has been a necessary journey for me. I needed to go back and to face what I had previously refused to see. I knew instinctually that I could not stop repeating my painful patterns if I did not return to them for a closer look.

And I have indeed faced my patterns. With barely a flinch.

Ouch.

I saw. I stayed. I looked closer. I looked closer still. I kept my eyes and my heart open. I cried. And I cried some more. And as the tears began to dry, I saw the patterns from a new perspective. I saw the people who I was sure had victimized me in a new light. With a deeper clarity. With a surprising level of appreciation.

Appreciation?

Looking back over this incredible adventure of my life I am being shown how every part and parcel of it has been a perfect part of my unfolding. I am seeing the bigger picture. The broader perspective. I am seeing how every pain and pitfall was a necessary element to the next essential part of the story. The dots are connecting in miraculous ways. I am having memories and dreams of things I have not thought of in decades.

In some ways I feel as if I am watching the technicolor movie of me.

I watch. I engage. I feel. I laugh. I cry. I see what I used to think things meant. What roles I used to cast others in. I see the heroes and I see the villains. I feel the dashed dreams and the bridges they became to what I was truly meant to experience. I watch as I am guided to a new perspective of what my life has been about. The distinctions regarding what I thought I was meant to do, and what I was authentically meant to become.

And day by day I appreciate it all more. More, and even more.

It is appreciation that is changing my past. And as my past miraculously changes my present becomes richer and freer and more authentically my own.

I do not become lost in projecting my unresolved past patterns onto current situations and relationships. Because I looked back, I now look forward with a new clarity and hopefulness. In appreciating all that the past has taught me I dwell in a readiness to appreciate the lessons of today. I open to the challenges knowing they will be bridges to where I am being led next. I consistently pray to see clearly. With a new and present time vision. I know not how many tomorrows I will have so I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. As is. This life experience. This relationship. This circumstance. I look upon it with fresh eyes. An open heart. A deep knowing that everything is a part of a sacred emergence.

Everything is a part of a sacred emergence.

Everything has always been a part of a sacred emergence.

From that perspective I appreciate it all. And appreciating it all changes my past.

The past no longer has power over me for the power of appreciation empowers me to embrace it in this present moment.

The dots are connecting. The patterns are resolving. The history is clarifying. The meaning is expanding.

The past is changing.

I so appreciate that.

So, don’t let others tell you that you cannot change the past.

You can.

I know. I have.

And appreciation is the key.

IN ISOLATION

Isolation really is not all bad.

I had made an art form of isolation long before there was a medical edict.

In fairness to myself the term isolation has been applied to me by numerous other people. It never has felt quite right to apply to myself. I simply like being alone. And more than that, I happen to enjoy my own company.

People that see and hear my professional expression would never guess what an extreme introvert I am. In order to fuel that professional expression, I simply must have large swaths of time to be quiet, and to be by myself. It is not a preference. It is a deep need. When I do not have sufficient solitude, I literally have physical symptoms. My breathing becomes shallower and more labored. My mind activity gets busier. I begin to feel closed in and cramped down inside myself.

I could break out in a sweat just typing these words.

While others may see this as pathology, I see it as healthy awareness. I love being with other people. In somewhat small doses and with lots of space between. My personal honoring of my need for aloneness allows me to give more freely when I choose to be in direct connection. My aloneness nourishes me so that I may hopefully nourish others as I interact. I am fed in solitude and I feed in communion.

So, for me, this time of isolation has not been all bad.

For one, this added alone time has clarified what I am describing in this missive. The social distancing in many ways has increased my personal connection. I am learning more about myself, and what has been running this show called Taylor. I have solidified my priorities. I have refined even more my purpose. I have come to a greater inner-awareness, and an embracing inner-acceptance. I am clear about how I want to experience my remaining years, if life indeed grants me those.

And I have never appreciated my life, my history, my relationships, and my expression more than I do right now.

The patterns I have lived out are crystal clear. The core beliefs have never been more apparent. My habitual ways of showing up and shutting down have risen in awareness like never before. I am quite certain my shadow has not emptied out. I am even less sure that is a goal. And I know myself at a level that I don’t think would have been possible without this extended period of distancing and isolation.

Isolation really is not all bad.

It has come bearing gifts, at least for me.

I do miss being with others in a very tangible way. I can feel that in ways that are equal to my reaction to too little aloneness. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my spiritual community. I miss those who have departed since this pandemic took hold.

I need aloneness and I need togetherness. I am not sure in equal measure. But I surely need both. Isolation has taught me that. Isolation has clarified my boundaries and what is most important to me in personal relationships. I am clearer about what I will tolerate and what I will not. I am certain that I have taught others how to treat me, and I am brave enough to alter those teachings. How others react is of less consequence than me staying true to me.

Me staying true to me.

That rings in my heart and throughout my being.

Isolation has taught me that I need to first and foremost stay true to myself. Not in some surface, self-help way. Deeply, intimately. All accepting and ever allowing. When I need space, I will claim space. When I choose connection, I will offer, and I will accept connection. I will spend as much time alone as feels right for me. And then I will share the beneficial effects of that solitude generously if judicially.

And this I learned from distancing and isolation.

So you see, isolation is not all bad.

HOPEFULNESS

How may my hopefulness be helpful to others?

That is my prayer today.

Anyone that really knows me knows that I am not an “everything is good” type of person. I am not prone to pink paint over poop. I am by persona somewhat hesitant, questioning, even skeptical. Attempts have been made to shame me in that. It does not work. I befriended those aspects of me long ago. Those capacities were needed and have served me well. By befriending them I now use them whereas they used to use me. They are now a part of my discernment process, and I appreciate that even when others do not. Like doubt hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism have been guides that have kept me on my path.

They have also increased my sense of hopefulness.

I do not immediately believe something just because someone says it is so. It does not matter how much authority the person has. It does not matter how many other people believe it. I forge my own path with hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism as part of my GPS system. It is what helps keep me hopeful. Even in times when many around me are losing hope.

Not believing something at face value has become a superpower for me. It gives me the opportunity to take my own dive below the surface of what is happening. In that dive I move through the meaning others are applying to situations and circumstances. I question assumptions. I am hesitant to react just because everyone else is reacting. I am skeptical about the individual and the collective stories that are swirling around me. When I am centered and clearest, I doubt before I believe.

This is all in service of my own personal sense of hopefulness.

Hope for me is independent of outer appearances. Hope is a state of being. A lens through which I view life. It is a process that becomes a verb. It is how I hold chaos, disturbance, and drama. I apply it imperfectly yet relentlessly. For this skeptic hopefulness is a fulltime job.

How may my hopefulness be helpful to others?

By always seeking for the deeper meanings via my hesitancy and doubt I do not fuel stories with my precious life energy. Stories that most often are not even true. When I question enough to discern another’s bias, I lessen the chance of getting caught in the web they are weaving. By not pouring the pink paint over the poop flowers of expanded awareness are freer to grow. By not calling evil good I can use my discernment to call out what is indeed dark, and not pretend it is Light.

I have said it many times and I will say it again: It is not all good. It may be all FOR good. Yet it is not all good. Not by a long shot.

How do I know?

My hesitancy, questioning, and skepticism taught me.

And now my hopefulness sustains me.

Writing this as the country waits in the balance of an uncalled election result there is tension all around. There is seemingly endless speculation and narrative. Pundits on both sides are proclaiming what it all means.

I do not believe a word of it.

Which is why I feel a deep sense of hopefulness that is transcendent of outcome.

I am hopeful in that I see unrevealed aspects of consciousness being streamed in ways that are unmistakable. What has not been questioned, acknowledged, integrated is up for review. We need to doubt what we thought was true. It never was. We need to be skeptical about the values we have said we live by. We have not. We need to be hesitant about trying to rapidly find a fix for all the problems we are being forced to face. We will not.

Only when enough of us hesitate, question, doubt, and skeptically look into the deeper recesses of our being will hopefulness rise from the depths. It will rise like the phoenix from the ashes of our despair. We as a country have said we were one thing and we have governed like something entirely unlike our constitution and declaration. And we have done so with far too little questioning. Hence our time of reckoning.

I am aware that this election could be called before this is even published. There will be many who will feel triumphant. There will be many in the throws of despair.

I will be in neither camp.

I will be hesitant to apply meaning to whatever outcome is decided. I will question what the deeper meaning is for me and only for me. I will be skeptical of the projections of the futurist. I will doubt the forecasts of doom or of delivery from some elected outer savior.

That is not pink paint.

That is the hopefulness derived from a doubtful dive into deeper consciousness. It is a hopefulness that is well earned. It was hard fought and profoundly unpopular when shared. And I am more than okay with that.

I rarely believe other’s opinions of me anymore.

I am too skeptical for that.

So, perhaps consider what I say. Question and be sure to doubt it. Try it on. Cast it away. I was admittedly a little hesitant to share it.

If it touches one heart and causes you to question, then perhaps my hopefulness will be helpful.

I pray that it is so.

JUST BELOW THE SURFACE

How could I have not seen it coming?

I guess I did not look closely enough below the surface.

From my earliest recollections I have always sensed things that were going to happen long before they happened. I do not see this ability as unique to me. I believe we all have it. It is just that we all do not choose to directly access it and allow ourselves to be guided by it. A big piece of this occurs when we perceive prophetically something that is going to happen that we do not want to happen. Rather than using our intuition to directly deal with the potential impact we fall into denial and suppression and self-doubt.

I know from whence I speak.

Countless times and in countless ways my internal guidance would begin to nudge me. I would feel deep within my gut an unmistakable “uh-oh.” This has involved people, circumstances, relationships, and mistruths. I would feel an inner chaos begin to churn. I would get an unmistakable signal to beware. Warning flags would wave, and alarm sirens would sound.

And I would ignore it all.

I did not want to believe that what was about to happen could actually happen. I did not want to believe that warnings against this person, direction, or potential threat would be accurate. More often than not I would doubt my guidance in the name of spiritual correctness. It took an awfully long time and mountains of pain to realize that spiritual correctness was also spiritual bypass.

To actualize the quote by the late great Maya Angelou, people would show me what and who they were, at least unconsciously, and I would not believe them. I would ignore the inner and unmistakable “run, fast” and sometimes stay for decades. To augment further my suffering, I would then make the untenable behaviors or circumstances about me. I beat myself up over what amounted to others lack of boundaries. This, of course, pointed me only to my own inability to apply autonomy and discernment where it was very clearly needed.

How could I have not seen that coming?

I did. I just did not want to see it.

When we ignore the warning signs in life the evidence of the underlying becomes more and more obvious. This is not punitive. It is reflective. It is the self-correcting nature of consciousness. The warnings are messages from our own inner wisdom telling us of what we need to beware of. We are each and every one of us perfectly and incessantly guided. It is not a lack of guidance that gives way to suffering. It is a lack of paying attention to it. If we listen and heed the toothpick it does not need to become a two-by-four.

It took a lot of two-by-fours to teach me that.

I have repeatedly chosen to share things with people who I suspected were not safe to open more deeply to.

Repeatedly.

Toothpick. Ruler. Bat. Two-by-four.

There have been people who I suspected were steeped in dishonesty and prone to gaslighting and betrayal.

Toothpick. Ruler. Bat. Two-by-four.

How could I have not seen it coming?

I did. I did see it coming. They showed me who they were, and I chose to not believe it. I chose to ignore it. I chose to take it on and to make it about me. I chose to bypass.

And then I paid the price.

It took a lot of two-by-fours to learn my lesson and fully listen to my gut and follow its leadings. I appreciate the part of me that always wants to believe the best in people. The part of me that believes that good will always win out. The part of me that first and foremost always seeks to understand and own my part in things. I consistently and relentlessly work with my resentments and projections. That is where I go first.

And sometimes when you smell a rat it is because a rat is right in front of you.

I remain committed to seeing and to invoking the absolute best in people. That is an important part of my prayer work. I also know that I need to wakefully relate to the relative. To how people show up in their personally self. To watch the warning flags and listen to the alarms. In that way I can heed the guidance, own my part in things, and choose a conscious way of relating that honors the absolute and also maintains boundaries. I am responsible for my own safety. It took a lot of two-by-fours to finally get that.

The beauty of listening and working consciously with my inner promptings is that my freedom has expanded to remain in proximity to some people who I suspect would hurt me in the name of their own advancement. By working and feeling through the initial uh-oh I find a place of safety and stability internally that knows I can sustain any potential pain that may indeed become inflicted. I make a conscious decision that I will risk potential betrayal in service of a greater becoming for me and for them. This is not martyrdom or even altruism. It is a conscious choice to remain in relationship though I know there is direct evidence of potential pain.

That potential is always true in any relationship. But there are some relationships that contain truly clear warnings to beware and to stay awake. Though these chosen risks have been few I have learned an enormous amount from them. About me, and about the human dilemma. About how we are hurt and how we are healed in relationship. About how some warnings say stay clear and others say alert and even open. These are the times I can then say that I saw it coming, and I met it accordingly.

These are turbulent and disturbing times. It is bringing out the best and the worst of people for sure. I must become more aware and spacious to meet people where they are. The potential for bad behavior is heightened. Those for whom I have already felt an oh-oh possibility I hold with particular care and sometimes with added distance. My augmented presence feels prudent. It keeps the two-by-fours from becoming necessary. I listen closely and respond accordingly.

This allows me to see it coming when it actually is, and to know I am up to the task of maintaining my sense of self regardless of what others do. I listen and heed my internal guidance, and I trust it more than ever. There are fewer surprises when I remain attentive to the below the surface energetics.

There will still be surprises for sure. But the more I pay attention to my internal wisdom the more I see it coming in advance. This gives me one of the most precious commodities of all: choice. Living below the surface helps me deal wakefully with what is happening on it. I can choose how, when, and if to show up to those I sense a warning about. Sometimes I will choose to take the risk. And sometimes I will not. But I will do so from a place of conscious choice.

Then I can say “I saw it coming, and I chose my response.”

STAY

There are few things harder for human beings than limbo.

And this period of extended limbo is trying our collective patience.

Call me crazy (and you would be far from the first) but the more mindfully and inclusively I dance with this experience of limbo the more hopeful I become.

It is uncomfortable. There is vast unknowing and complex uncertainty. There is sickness, death, division, and despair. Old structures are crumbling all around us. Religious structures. Political structures. Ideological structures. Ecological structures. The old order was no longer sustainable and so it is dying. Chaos and disruption are painful yet fruitful evidence that something new is rising. It is just below the surface. As it rises it unearths all that had been before. It is new possibility that is pushing over the old paradigms. The new is quaking and the effects are unmistakable.

Can you feel it?

And so countless people are beseeching: “how long will this last?”

The answer to that is above my pay grade.

I do suspect, however, that it will last as long as it takes for a critical mass of individuals to simply stay and to be absolutely present to this cosmic birthing of a new order. To stay with the sickness, death, division, and despair. To stay and to wait while the old structures crumble and the old order dies. To watch with open hearts and soft eyes while the unsustainable paradigms dematerialize in front of us.

This era of destabilizing will remain until we learn to stay.

Stay.

Is there anything more difficult for our mind-identified sense of self than to simply stay?

Stay put. Stay still. Stay quiet. Stay attentive. Stay hopeful.

Stay. Stay. Stay.

Can and will you stay with what I am saying?

I point to what I have often referred to as puppy on the paper spirituality.

Stay with me.

If you have ever or have witnessed someone else paper training a puppy you might catch my drift.

You want the puppy to do its business on the paper and not on the rug. And so, you place the puppy on the paper and firmly say “stay.”

You begin to move away, and of course so does the puppy.

The pattern repeats. “Stay.” Puppy scurries off. “Stay.” Scurry. Louder, firmer “stay.” Puppy then runs and piddles on the carpet. Then there is the seeming magic sacrament of rubbing the puppy’s nose in the piddle and back to the paper we go.

“Stay!”

While the effects are far more devastating, we have been collectively told to stay and we keep scampering off the paper. Even those who do choose to stay home or at a safe distance find it incredibly difficult to simply sit and stay. To stay and look deeply within. To pray for the guidance to see what we need to see. To change what needs to be changed inside of us. To listen for the new order that is seeking to emerge individually and collectively. To go below the surface while still attending to the crumbling effects of our old reality. To stay. To stay with the limbo. The liminal. The unknowing. The uncertainty.

For as long as it takes.

To practice building the limbo-staying muscle set a timer and simply sit while doing absolutely nothing. No goal. No endgame in mind. Ten, fifteen minutes of pure, paper-staying presence.

Watch the urge to pick up the smartphone: and don’t.

Watch the endless parade of thoughts, plans, goals, distractions. Observe the internal agonizing over how much longer you must stay: and stay. Think of all the things you would rather be doing out there: and stay in here. Obsess over dinner. Crave the cocktail. Argue over the pointlessness of this exercise.

And stay.

There are few things harder for humans than limbo.

One of them is staying.

For as long as this period of limbo lasts the one thing that I know I can do is to stay. Uncomfortable at times. Frequently distracted and yet ever- returning. I am giving attention to this limbo, this liminal space in purposeful and thus hopeful ways. I am giving lots of time to staying on the paper of my mind. As my thoughts and plans for the future seek to scamper away with me, I return, and I say firmly to myself: stay.

For the duration and for the sake of all, I am staying.

GOING QUIET

While it may be difficult for many of you to believe, I feel a deep calling to just go quiet for a while.

For someone who has spoken professionally for over twenty-five years I want more than almost anything to simply not talk. At all. To anyone.

And…

I scanned what I have blogged about since going into this time of distancing. I followed and felt the patterns. A lot of words, much of it in response to world events. It is part of how I process life. How I move energy through my system. I go into the feelings, curiously. I explore. I surf the energy. I claim and I allow the experience of it. And then I take that energy and I put it into words. I let the energy speak. I feel less like I am using words and more like I am allowing the words to flow as me. To use me. To use this platform in order to become heard, known, recognized.

And the process has been slowing. The words have more and more space between them. That space feels much more precious than the words that do come forth. The call to quiet is stronger than the need to speak. Or write. Or outwardly express.

I recognize that those of you who listen to me on Sunday will find this incredibly hard to believe.

Beyond anyone else’s belief there is a quiet in me that is calling to be attended to.

I need to feel deeply into all that this year has presented. I need to lean into it, preverbally. Non-descriptively. Energetically. Without forming that energy into words. I need to face head on all of the loss that has occurred and continues to occur. I need to have enough quietude to determine my own individual response to all of this. I need the space to say goodbye to what I thought life was and how it was going to be. What I thought was true and real in my country, in many of my relationships, in how I imagined this year would unfold. In what I perceived were my highest priorities. In what I perceived were your highest priorities. I need to settle into the tension between my values and the opposing values in people I care about. I need to breathe more deeply with that. Relax with it. Intentionally yawn and stretch with it.

I need the time and space to let the hope that I know is still there simmer up to the surface again. The constant chaos and noise make it feel at times far away. Remote. The commentary submerges it. My own commentary. My own narrative. Even if that narrative is affirmative. It remains noise.

I need to go quiet.

So, my current responsibilities include using words as tools to inspire and empower. I am currently and even contractually called to do that. I honor my commitments. And I equally honor this inner calling for more quiet. More spaciousness. More wordlessness. More presence. More intentional relatability. More times of rest. Of sabbath. Of true non-doing.

I exhale more fully as I type and feel these words. I am clear that they are invitations and not indictments. I say yes to the prompting. I know down deep in my body that this intuition is right and true. I need to give myself enough space to catch up with all that has occurred. The losses have been many. It has frequently taken my breath away. I need to sit, be still, feel it all, be with it all. In quiet. Breathe into the quiet.

I need to go quiet.

I will speak when I need to speak. I will say no to additional engagements which require more directed speech and energy. And I will trust the quiet that is calling to me. I know that calling is purposeful. I know it will be fruitful. I know it is intensely personal.

So, why share it publicly, using so many words?

Well, on the somewhat off chance that someone would notice that there is less chatter coming from Taylor. That my potential absence is in service of more presence.

And more than that, to encourage you to stop just long enough to see if perhaps quiet may be calling you as well. Distancing without distraction can be highly revelatory. Quiet just for the sake of quiet makes us privy to what is always simmering just below the surface. Overdoing is under-becoming. With all that we have collectively and individually been through this year we all need to stop when we can. Be still when we choose. Be quiet enough to come to a deeper knowing.

So, I have said enough. Perhaps I have said too much. I am okay with that. Because I have been authentic and real and intentional. And now I will be quiet. Until I need to use words and let words use me. They will come from a deep and quieter place. A place that has been intimately inhabited. A place that has been faced and embraced.

And now I will go quiet. Gratefully quiet

SORRY

I do not recall ever hearing told what my first word was. I suspect that I know.

Sorry.

If it indeed was not the first it has certainly been the most repeated.

Sorry.

It has taken me an awfully long time to recognize that I have lived most of my life as an apology. There have been countless things that I have been sorry for. That is not the ground of my suffering. What grieved me the most was being sorry for simply being. For not being good enough. For not doing enough. For not being what others wanted me to be. On and on. Sorry, sorry, sorry. There was a time I contemplated renting a billboard with my picture and the word: SORRY.

I did not rent that billboard. And slowly I have recognized that my constant state of apology had little to do with anyone else but me. I am not responsible for the initial imprinting of that “sorry state of being.” I am, however, responsible to it. I am the only one who can change it. I am the only one who can stop habitually saying I am sorry for who I am and for how I express. I am the only one who can stop taking on and apologizing for other people’s programs and interpretations. Why do I say I am sorry for stories that others are initiating and perpetuating? Why do I apologize when others hurt me? Why do I feel the need to grovel when I show up honestly and authentically?

Someone once said to me “you sure say I am sorry a lot.”

To which I replied, “I am sorry.”

I am sorry I have been sorry so often.

I grew up in the “Love Story” generation. I heard repeatedly “love means never having to say I am sorry.” Nice sentiment. Great movie making. Never resonated for me. My catch phrase was more like “love means always having to say I am sorry.”

I am not an apology.

I am no longer sorry for being me.

I will continue this imperfect journey through time and space reality. I will mess up. I will miss the mark. I will say things I wish I had not said. I will act in ways I will regret. I will be sorry for those unconscious acts. I will sincerely apologize, and I will amend my behavior.

I will no longer, however, be sorry for being me. I will not take on others hurts when I was merely a character in their story. I will maintain responsibility for what happens in here, and I will offer others the same invitation. If I express my authentic perspective, in as kind a way as possible, I will not be sorry for your reaction. I will also not expect you to apologize to me when I am triggered by what I make your words and actions mean about me.

And I will not apologize unless I am really, truly sorry.

Knowing I am not an apology makes apologizing far less scary and ever more sincere.

I have reflected much upon this topic during these months of distancing. I concluded that I have never received a sincere, heart-felt apology that I did not accept. I have had cases where I needed to remove people from my direct sphere. Those individuals, however, did not offer any kind of real apology. They gave no indication that they were sorry, or that they would amend their behavior. Even in a few cases when I was deeply hurt, a sincere sorry became a bridge back to connection.

And so, I am offering that kind of sincere apology to me. I am sorry that I lived so sorry, for so long. I am sorry that I took on so much of others pain. I am sorry I made it about me. I am sorry for altering my authentic expression in an effort to be what others wanted me to be. I am sorry for not being sorry for being so sorry. That sincere apology reconnects me to me. It is my bridge. My bridge back to an unapologetic me.

Sorry.

Wafts of habitual energy arise as I contemplate what I have shared. How long I have gone on. How raw and unfiltered and exposed I have been. I start to feel a constriction in my throat as some far too familiar words begin to form.

No, I am not.

I may not recall what my first word was. I may suspect what it could have been. And it will not be how I close this missive. Not this time. Not now.

Not sorry.

REUNION

I wonder what the reunion will be like.

I recently learned of the death of one of my childhood friends. I say childhood, though our direct connection lasted into our early twenties. We attended the same church, high school, and for one year, college. We were what I considered quite close. And then life moved on and we lost connection.

And now she is gone.

I felt waves of deep sadness that she had passed. I experienced a rush of memories of what we had shared. I could hear her unique laugh as if she were right here with me. It led me to move more closely into the sadness. I pondered the fact that in actuality my day to day experience will be no different now that she has left the planet. I had not seen her in forty years and would likely not see her again. Yet in the sadness I found that having that possibility removed created a fathomless void.

The slightest chance of a reunion had been taken away.

I have this unprovable theory that when we pass from this worldly experience, we have a reunion with everyone we have encountered during our lifetime.

Stay with me.

I do not mean only those who have preceded us in death. I mean everyone we have encountered. I sense some sort of a vast cosmic event hall where each and every person we have ever engaged with is there for a reunion. This reunion is a glorious celebration, regardless of what the qualitative engagement was when we were together on earth. The purpose of this reuniting is to thank each individual for what they contributed to our life experience. Some of these interactions were pleasurable. Some of them seemed downright miserable. Some were of decades long duration. Some of them were momentary. All of them were in some way significant. All of them added to our experience and our evolution. It is at that level that the reunion is of a celebratory nature.

Now, I am aware that for many of you this will be farfetched. And again, I certainly cannot prove it to be so. It does feel right to me, for me. I see it as a resolution for unfinished relationship business. It balances the scales somehow, the karma. We will be able to see the bigger picture that we could not perceive while in this time-space reality. We will discern the lessons we were to learn from each engagement of human interaction. We will feel a deep gratitude for each encounter, a thankfulness we well may have missed here on earth.

As I consciously sat with the sadness at the loss of my long-ago friend, I felt a preview of what our reunion will be like. I heard her laughter, and I felt her tears. I could sense a rightness to the end of our earthly enrollment, long before she left her body. At a level I could feel how without time the reunion was happening then and is always happening now. With each memory of her we were reuniting. It was slightly skewed by the fact that she still appeared at the age we last met, interacting with me at my current stage of aging. This brought a real giggle into the images and into the sadness.

These contemplations led me to what the reunion will be like on the other side of this pandemic. I have not physically seen most of the people in my direct sphere for months. Many of them are now viewable in two dimensions on a screen. They are a voice coming through an electronic device. They are photos on social media.

And some are no longer here at all.

I have changed significantly as a result of Covid-19. Things have been reordered within me. Some radically so. I have a vastly different take on relationships. A quite different feel for what is most important to me. I suspect in some ways the post-distancing reunion will be awkward. There will be those that I will not choose to reunite with, at least in this lifetime. I already have a sense of appreciation for that decision. I am already grateful for what people have brought into my life. For what they have taught me. There is no charge behind the ending of an engagement. There is only thankfulness. I well may not articulate that to them in this realm. I will await the reunion when it is my turn to step through the veil into the great cosmic mystery. Then we will celebrate the fullness of our beginning and of our ending.

That will not be the case for the vast majority of those peopling my life. There will be a reunion physically. There will be a time when we can hug fearlessly. When we can speak, sing, breathe unmasked and unrestrained. I believe it will be an astounding experience! We will perhaps never take for granted our direct connections again.We will hug as never before. We will relish touch, laughter, tears, every level of connection.

I pray it will be soon.

I wonder what the reunion will be like.

My heart is a great cosmic event hall. I am seeing you now. I am feeling, hearing you now. I am deeply appreciating you now. I do not care to wait. The reunion is now.

The reunion is now.

FLORIDA POWER AND LIGHT

Beyond what the title suggests this musing is not about public utilities, or only for people who live in Florida.

This musing is an invitation to anyone who chooses to read and to accept this reminder that we are each here to learn that there is an incredible and Cosmic Power within us all. The conscious usage and direction of this internal Power is why we are here. It is the Only Power that will set us free. It is the misusing of this Power that has locked us in bondage. Mired in amnesia we have turned the Power of heaven into a nightmarish hell. Literally in the blink of an eye we can redirect this Power to turn that hell into a realm of all-inclusive heaven.

As long as we are dominated by externals we are blinded by misperception. We are fighting the artifacts of our own miscreation. We scream at effects as if they are independent of what we ourselves have done. This happens both individually and collectively.

While this manifest realm is governed by what seems to be two powers of darkness and Light, that experience is merely relative. There is light and the absence of Light. Even that description itself is relative. Light is always and ever present. Yet in our identification with density we cannot perceive it. It is never missing. We just misperceive it.

The realization of this all-inclusive Power is what salvation is all about. The re-establishment of vision is seeing what is not yet physically present. It is not what we see but how we see.

This is the task of the incredibly powerful.

This is far beyond “woo-woo” spirituality. It is far beyond just vision-boarding what you want. It is far beyond concept or positive thinking.

It is claiming radical responsibility for the Power that is within us. The Power we were made from and have been entrusted with. It is owning that every thought, feeling, word is a unit of Power that will always result in consequence.

When we come from egoic amnesia we misuse this power. When we demean and dehumanize we literally God-damn other Divine beings. We place ideology before the Power of the collective I am. We fight and we use our Power to augment the problems our own consciousness has miscreated.

When we consciously come from the authentic Power within, we literally bring forth the Godness of our True being. We see not only with our eyes. We engage the vision of our hearts. We do not deny injustice or tragedy. We transmute it with our unwavering presence. We are tireless in facing our own inner demons. We do it on behalf of all beings.

When others become less, we stand strong and become more. We care, we compassion, and we shine forth with a transformative Power. We use what we are in Truth to serve all living beings. This makes our every moment an act of service.

So, because I live in Florida, I am a utility of Power and Light generating from this place in geography. And that Power and Light shines holographically throughout the Universe. I am a channel for that Power here in this manifest realm. By staying awake to the Power within me I am a conscious contribution, moment by moment.

When I forget and begin to fight externals, I sense down in my body the disempowerment that registers as discomfort. I bless this signal, and I shift to reconnect and reaffirm that I am a channel and a being for this Power and Light to shine forth from within. I am grateful to know that though I can dim down, my Light can never be extinguished. Prayer reignites me and I align to shine again.

I am not responsible for this Power, yet I am accountable to it. I am here to humbly own this Power as my purpose and my passion. I use this platform to remind you that this same Power is also in you.

For Florida and for the globe, I am choosing to express and shine forth as Power and Light within this world. It truly is a moment by moment choice. It requires radical honesty, relentless humility, and vigilant visioning.

And it is a choice I was born to make.

NOTORIOUS GOOD TROUBLE

I am suspecting it is time for me to start a bit of good trouble.

It is beyond unsettling for me that in these incredibly troubling times we are also experiencing the loss of two individuals that I consider to be among our greatest American heroes.

John Lewis. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Good trouble. Notorious.

I will not go into their incredible accomplishments here. Their contributions could fill volumes. Suffice it to say that they used their talents, intellects, faith, drive, their very lives in serving something greater than themselves. They were relentless public servants. They overcame obstacles and prejudices in order that the overcoming would pave the way and inspire others. They courageously challenged the status quo, risking themselves to uplift others. Through various forms of repeated adversity, they continuously pushed the boundaries of what had been, to make room for what was seeking to be.

He spent his life starting good trouble that benefited us all. She inadvertently became known as notorious just by being what she naturally was. I think she started more than her share of good trouble. And I think John Lewis was gorgeously notorious.

And just when we most need a huge helping of notorious good trouble, they are gone.

Or are they?

I can vividly feel their energy as I type these words. I can hear their words, and the tone with which they delivered them. I can see them laughing, and I can see them crying. They led us bravely, and they inspired us relentlessly. They set a high bar, and they also gave us clear directions how to jump the hurtles now before us. They continued fighting and serving through incredible health challenges. They showed up fully and authentically right up to the end.

And now?

They will be heroes for me for as long as I live. I know my world is better because of how they chose to live and to serve. I beyond admire them. I mourn their passing. I grieve.

And now I must act.

I was taught from the earliest age not to ever start trouble. Nobody likes a troublemaker, Taylor. Stay in your lane. Obey the rules. Do not ruffle too many feathers, and certainly do not offend those in power. Blending in is safer than standing out. And notorious? No way. Not in my tribe.

I am breathing a bit more deeply as I bring forth the energy in my heart and shape it into words. I feel some fluttering in my gut, and a slight constriction in my throat. My pulse seems to have quickened.

Can it be?

I can speak about my heroes. I can blog about their remarkable character and accomplishments. I can grieve and lament the loss.

And beyond that I can become a little more of what they inspired in me.

I will never face the unbearable torment visited upon John Lewis. I will never know the hardships and obstacles placed in front of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I will never serve in Congress of sit upon the Supreme Court.

But I can start a little good trouble right where I am.

I can be a little more notorious in how I confront injustice. In how I speak truth to power. In how I live and in how I love.

It is said that what we admire is a quality that must be within ourselves. We could not recognize these admirable traits if we did not also possess them.

So, somewhere in my Light shadow is a troublemaker for good. Lurking somewhere just out of awareness is a notorious being simmering to express.

In honor of my heroes I am going to notoriously start a little good trouble. I am going to get out of lane. I am going to stand up taller and speak out more clearly. I am going to risk the ridicule. In fact, I will relish it.

Fitting in is highly overrated.

Thank you, John Lewis.

Thank you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

You will never cease to inspire me. I will never cease to hold you in a heartful of gratitude and deep love.

And I will do more than just remember you. I will share a little more of you. A littler more trouble. Good trouble. Notorious good trouble.

And I know at some level you will be with me. Cheering me on. With angels like you, there will be trouble for sure.

PLACES ACT THREE

If as if Shakespeare said “all the world is a stage” this is turning out to be one elongated intermission.

After six months spent primarily at home due to the pandemic, I have come to the deep-seated recognition that I am entering the third and final act of my life. This recognition fills me with a personal sense of profound curiosity and wonder. I say that I am entering the third act because it truly feels as if this time of distancing is a period of cosmically enforced time out. A time of extended intermission. I feel as if this is a pause between the second and third acts of my life experience. It is not that I am not fully engaged in what is happening. It is more that it is such a unique and more solitary perspective that I feel both paused and vitally involved. Awake spiritually though distanced physically. There is a simmering of “yes, but not yet” right below the surface.

Though working full time albeit at home I have added time to reflect on what has occurred during the first and second acts of my life. There was the setting of the stage and plot. There was character introduction and development. There were the unfolding’s of the patterns and conflicts that I came here to rumble with and eventually resolve. There were many years of becoming that have been achieved by what at times felt like endless struggle, mistake making, and ego wrestling. It has been a messy story line. Plots have not unfolded according to this script writer. Countless people have not followed those scripts or spoken the lines I wanted them to speak.

Act one ended with the thud of me hitting the pavement. The folly of my attempts at control would leave the most audacious audience members wincing and hitting the bar during the first intermission. They would do so even though they had just witnessed what hitting the bar too often can do to a human life.

So act one lasted a long and adventurous thirty three years.

Act two begins with our hero (me) moving through incredible and mostly unforeseen changes and challenges. Still bruised from act one I had no inkling how dramatic act two would turn out to be. Generally speaking, it was a series of mountains to climb and rough seas to surf. I early on recognized that while in act one I was prone to initiating and instigating dramas for the sake of drama in act two the action had a distinct flavor of purposeful activity. I began to live with an unwavering sense that everything was a part of a greater emergence. Though there were many unexpected twists and turns I also had the sense that I was deliberately participating in the story line. It was all becoming clear that I was on a mission here. Everything that happened was feeding into that quest. It was all leading to something. It was messy and it was meaningful. The more I sensed purpose the less I pushed.

In act one I had jobs that supported me in what would become my career. Early on in act two career gave way to vocation. Trying to make my way in the world somehow landed me in living to serve the world. All the pain and struggle of act one and that of act two began to be channeled into ways to help others who were themselves struggling. I was plagued by self-doubt and incrimination for sure. As prayer softened this faulty sense of self that torment turned into compassion and mercy for others. Forgiveness became a higher and more precious practice. I slowly felt more stable and certain as to why things in this drama were happening as they were occurring.

Act two went on for a far less arduous thirty years.

This play within a play has lasted long enough for me to mostly know my way around this stage. Set pieces still get unexpectedly moved. But now I know how to adapt and respond with greater clarity and even equanimity. I have become masterful at adlibbing. I am far less demanding that others follow my script or stage directions. While I do not know how or when, I do live with a sense that everything is headed in a direction that will serve my characters greater evolution. I have a director that is Higher and Wiser than me and that makes all the difference for sure. My subtext has dramatically changed and so my lines and actions. I still run into the scenery and step on other people’s toes and lines from time to time. I periodically give into the temptation to upstage. Mostly acts one and two have tamed and tempered me.

I feel ready to face whatever the next act will reveal.

And then came an intermission that none of us saw coming.

I have come to see it as an inner-mission.

This has turned out to be a purposeful pause from my perspective. I have dedicated myself from the onset to staying as present and as prayerful as possible. I have remained alert to the suffering that is all around me and have actively sought to open to ways to alleviate that suffering. I decided that I would not deaden myself nor waste this time in mine and in human history. I have dived deeply within. I have faced things that I now know I desperately needed to face and unpack. I am different than I was even six months ago. I am still here and I know that it is for a reason. A reason bigger than just me.

And I am clear that this is my inner-mission before the start of act three of my life.

And so, I am exploring carefully how I will choose to show up for these final years of this adventure. I am relishing time, experiences, relationships with more fervor than ever. I feel that there will be far less mountains to climb or seas to surf. I am peaceful with that. I know there will be surprises. There will be challenges and changes and hurts and losses. I have groomed a lifetime to handle those. There will be no self-selected dramas. Simplicity is replacing thrill seeking. Peacefulness is my primary plan. And I will serve throughout the duration. The form will no doubt change. The vocation will not. Act three will bear the fruits of acts one and two.

At the end of act one I began to dread the future.

At the end of act two I have cleared most of the wreckage of the past and live primarily for the present.

Act three?

I await the Great stage manager to call places, letting me know the extended inner-mission has ended and that act three is finally ready to begin. In fact, I am already in a great place for whatever comes next. Let the action begin.

I look forward to seeing how this epic adventure plays out. How it all resolves. I know now that I am a great love story unfolding. It took a whole lot of drama to figure that out. A whole lot of drama.

The house lights may be dimming soon…

DISRUPTION AND DESTINY

I am allowing this time of disruption to lead me to a greater destiny.

How about you?

I have lived through countless disruptions to the individual and collective status quo. They have varied in intensity and in duration. For most of my existence I have at best tolerated these disruptions, awaiting the time when I and we could just get back to normal.

Could we please just get back to normal?

Though I have lived through countless disruptions there has never been one quite like this. There has never been one with such sustained intensity. Never one that literally involved the entire human race. This has been and continues to be in many ways a great equalizer. We are globally being disrupted and disturbed. Death and illness surround us in a collective shroud. People are screaming out “could we please just back to normal?”

I am not one of those people.

For me, this disruption is purposeful. Not logically and certainly not punitively. We have collectively been participating in a fate that was unsustainable. Disturbances and dramas were playing out in unmistakable ways. Divisiveness has become a cancer. Greed and immorality have been eating away at the truest of what human beings are capable of. People have been demeaning and dehumanizing other people on full display in our social media culture. Name calling is visible and audible in a nanosecond. Caste systems have been reinvigorated by the so-called powerful and unbelievably tolerated by the masses.

It was beyond time to disrupt that toxic reality.

I have no desire to return to that state of what had become normal.

I in no way deny the devastating consequences of this pandemic. I see, hear, feel the collective pain. It was made very personal for me by the death of my best friend from this rampant virus. I compassion all those who have lost so much directly and indirectly as a result of this mass disruption. I have remained awake and available to anything and everything I may contribute to help alleviate this quantum level of suffering. I do not know when it may end or even ease. But rather than just riding out this disruption I am seeking to glean every bit of lesson I can as to how I may let this disturbance lead me to a greater and more serviceable destiny.

I cannot and will not go back to where we or I was before.

I firmly and wholeheartedly believe disruptions can lead us to a greater reality if we let them. I have seen it numerous times during my lifetime. When I have been stuck in patterns that had run their course and were no longer fruitful life has disrupted those patterns by stopping me in my tracks. Admittedly I was most often disturbed by the disruptions. I did not like being stopped. I frequently pushed hard against the disruption, which only dug me deeper into the hole of my own resistance. Though the patterns had led me to suffering the suffering was familiar and so oddly comfortable. It has only been in perhaps the most recent decades that I have come to feel a sense of possibility in the disruptions of my life. I have come to embrace disturbance as part of emergence. I have begun to release patterns and relationships that I amazingly did not leave claw marks on.

With the broadest of brush strokes, I would say that this pandemic is a tragic out picturing of our collective fate. We have contributed to it individually and collective, consciously, and unconsciously. And if this pandemic is fate, then it can become destiny. But any desire or push to go back to normal must be sacrificed.

Fate is what happens. Destiny is what we choose to do with it.

It is my fate to be alive at this time of disturbance, disruption, and distancing. I am very clear about that.

It is my destiny to relate to all of this in wakeful, faithful, and even grateful ways.

I truly and deeply believe that not only is it not prudent to try and return to the unsustainable past, it is impossible. That normal is gone. It needed to die. It needed to be disrupted. It needed to be stopped. And people of destiny will spend this time looking deeply at our own internal dramas. Our own self-imposed disturbances and divisiveness. How we treat ourselves and how we treat others. How we may dehumanize and denigrate. It has to stop.

It has to stop, and we have been stopped.

I am choosing to welcome and even celebrate this disruption. I have no need to return to anything. I have a profound desire to surrender to a deeper unfolding that is tangibly happening within me. I have no idea what my life will look like on the other side of this massive disturbance. And I feel no need to know.

I am certain of little in life anymore. Yet I am oddly certain that uncertainty is always a friend and never a foe. I am certain that in many ways my life will now be lived from a clear demarcation of before and after Covid-19. Before and after a global and horrific disturbance. Before and after the time when my fate clearly became my destiny.

I will either consciously use fate or fate will unconsciously use me.

I have lived through enough disturbances and disruptions to know that how I relate to this fate will lead me to a greater destiny. I do not deny being disturbed. I am not deadening nor am I identifying with it. So, the disturbance is available and usable. My former way of being has been disrupted, and a higher and more wakeful expression is emerging. And that higher and more wakeful expression is my destiny.

I am letting this profound disruption lead me to a greater destiny. I am moving forward from that. I do not wish to return to anything that was before. I do not know where this disruption will lead. I only know I am being led.

AND LIFE GOES ON

Though this is my first experience of one, I am suspecting that pandemics radically change perspective. I know it has mine.

In November 1995, the at- the- time love of my life drew his last breath while embraced within my arms. Thus, began an odyssey into conscious grieving that actively continues to this day. As I type these words, I can still hear that final exhalation of breath that carried him back into immortality. I can feel the astounding array of feelings that moved through my body. I can see vividly the light level in the room. The numbers 3:59 displayed on the digital clock. The faint scent of fabric softener on the hospital gown that I had placed upon him just hours before, after what I did not yet know would be the final bathing of that precious body.

I knew deeply that I would never be the same.

I knew that I had been privileged to walk with another soul to the threshold of eternity. Though I wanted desperately to move through that portal with him, I also knew it was not my time. I knew that I was to remain, and that something had become available within me as those digital numbers moved from 3:59 to 4:00 that would be foundational to my purpose and my service.

After the workers removed his precious body from what had been ours shared home, I sat in stunned silence upon the terrace. I had slept little in days, nor had I consumed much food. I was in shock, yet I was strangely vibrantly clear. That clarity included letting me know that for the first time in many years I was really, truly alone.

I was alone.

I suddenly was brought to an external awareness that below my terrace two people were volleying a tennis ball back and forth rhythmically, methodically, and seemingly non-competitively. I became somewhat fixated on that ball going back and forth, back, and forth. I could sense the rhythm of motion in my beyond tired body. They were not speaking as they played. Just hitting the ball back and forth, neither one of them missing a shot. Time stood still as I become mesmerized by the constant back and forth.

It was then that I realized that these two people were engaged in a trivial game of not-quite tennis, while being observed by a person whose entire life had just been shattered. They had no inkling that a life had just ended only yards from where they were playing. They were innocently clueless that a large number of people would soon learn of this loss. That lakes of tears would be shed. That many hearts would be wrenched. That an occurrence of monumental import had just happened. They had no idea. None.

And the ball went back and forth. And I knew in a moment of stunning perspective that life goes on. Indeed, losses occur, and life goes on. People die, and for others life goes on. Pandemics happen, and life goes on. Beloveds, jobs, homes, seeming security is lost, and yet life goes on. Life experiences that will never return become distant and yet a different river continues to flow. On and on.

For many it is easier to remain mostly oblivious to the losses that do not directly affect them. The tennis ball continues to bounce, and the awareness that lives are being lost and shattered are consumed by the rhythm of the game. Bodies are being removed. Tears are being shed. Arrangements are being made under the most excruciating of circumstances. A grieving begins that will never really end. And life and the game continue to go on.

A life changing perspective occurred for me on that long-ago November day. I cannot and will not immune myself to the losses of others. I choose not to deaden myself to the death that is all around me. I will not look away or distract myself from the suffering of others. I know what it is like to experience the deepest of losses, and that has groomed me to stay by the side of those who are entering that tumultuous terrain of indescribable suffering.

By not turning my back on the suffering of others I learn experientially that there truly are no others. We are one at a fundamental and foundational level. Your tears are my tears. Your loss is my loss. Your life is my life and your death is my death. This is the level of spirituality that I want. This is the level of spirituality that I have. That is the level of spirituality that was gifted as a result of profound and sustained grief. My ability to be with the pain that I have endured opens me to be with the pain that is landing for you. It is not my pain or your pain. It is the pain. And there is pain, and there is suffering. And through it all life goes on.

I have obviously grown older in those twenty-five years since my Richard passed. There is far more sand in the bottom of the hourglass there is in the top. Sooner rather than later it will be my turn to walk across the threshold. I suppose someone will be there to make the calls and tidy up the details. There will be a few that will grieve. And after my body has been collected perhaps someone will be pondering my own departure. That pondering may be interrupted by the punctuating rhythm of a back and forth tennis ball. It will remind the observer of one very certain thing.

Life goes on.

WHEN FRIENDS WERE FRIENDS

Though it is becoming more difficult I still remember when friends were friends.

I still remember when if something important was happening in a friend’s life they would directly and personally contact me to let me know.

Now I am left to find out about all sorts of life events on social media. What used to be personal sharing has become impersonal posting. Deeper truths are tweeted, and reality is revealed in a newsfeed. In a barrage of collective data, the interpersonal is becomes buried. Intimacy, I fear, is stopping scrolling long enough to actually read.

Let me be clear: I have done it. I have found myself overwhelmed by the task of sharing important information with a large number of people. It seemed convenient and expeditious to use social media as a way disseminating something that also felt way too sensitive to post to the masses. I did so in spite of feeling uncomfortable and out of sync with the deeper calling of my heart and soul. I did, though, contact a few people who I did not want to learn the news by catching it in a public platform.

I remember fondly when friends were really friends. Not mere acquaintances. Not scroll by notices. Not hit and run news bytes. Friends. The I have your phone number memorized kind of friends. The something really good/bad happened and I have to tell you kind of friends. The I know your secrets and I still love you and I will keep your secrets kind of friend.

They have become fewer, further between, and infinitely more precious to me.

One of the many distinctions that has become painfully clear to me during this pandemic is that if I am left to find out from Facebook what it is really occurring in your life than we are not what I think of as true friends. I do not perceive that as a problem. It is an awareness. And it is a two-way street. If something significant is occurring for me it is my friends that I will directly notify. Or at the very least, notify first. My friends will not learn of my diagnosis, losses, tragedies, and triumphs on social media. If I would choose to then share it publicly, it will not be new news to those closest to me. It will not be new and surprising information. It will be a confirmation.

Though it is becoming more difficult I still remember when friends were friends.

I confess to wanting to go back to that.

I want more.

I want friendship to be more than 140 characters and posted pictures and shared sharing’s and multiple likes. I will gladly trade 240 Happy Birthday posts from people I barely for just one or two sincere telephone calls.

I want more of what is personal and intimate. More of what often feels risky because it is so real and meaningful. I want the awkwardness of vulnerability, openness, and frequent messiness. I want to know I matter enough to you to warrant a call, a note, a touch. I would like to know that you notice when I may go missing. I want to summon from myself the courage to go personal when virtual feels easier, safer.

I am committed to navigating this current landscape differently. I will likely continue to use social media, though I will not allow it to use me. I will be more mindful of what and how I share information. I will honor other’s choices of what and how they share, and I will honor how those choices land for me. I decide what friendship means to me, and I will not demand that my parameters govern other people’s choices. And if I am left to learn of something profound that is happening for you along with all the masses, I will take my place among them. I will recognize, and I will accept my place in your life.

This time of pandemic is a profound resetting of priorities for me. Levels of friendship and relationship are high among those re-evaluations. Social distancing has taught me how distant our current culture has become. Media is convenient, yes. And it is also in many ways disconnecting. Media rapidly reaches many people. It does. Yet it is more vital to me to touch a few hearts. It will take longer. And I suspect it will mean more.

It is often said that when times are tough you find out who your real friends are. That has been supremely born out for me in the past couple of years. A huge weeding of this garden has occurred. Some of that was of my intentional action. Some of it felt as if it happened independent of my own choices. Either way, there is plenty of room for new and existing flowers to grow. New ways of relating to flourish. New depths to be plunged and new heights to be soared. I am open and I am ready for it. It is a risk I am willing to risk.

It is not enough for me to simply remember when friends were really friends. I want that now. It is a perspective and an experience that I am actively cultivating. Part of that for me involves less media and more immediacy. I will undoubtedly miss events, birthdays, and life occurrences. I am sorry for that. But I will not miss the things that are happening for people who truly see me as a friend that they directly include in the moments of their life experience. And then if I do miss something, I will be told I was missed.

I have a great number of social media acquaintances. I have very few social media friends. I get to choose how I see that distinction, and how I relate to it. I see it in perspective. And I am using the framing to awaken me to the rare and precious gift of intimate friendship. I am vowing to make more direct contact, and to share at a deeper and truer level. You, my friends, will not learn of what is important to me along with the masses. You will hear it directly from me. If for convenience and expediency I need to share in order to disseminate sensitive information you will have known it first.

I am remembering when friends were friends by being that kind of friend now.