AND YET

I am living in what I am calling the “land of AND YET.

There is nothing that I need.

There is nothing that I really want.

I have no goals. Nothing that I really want to achieve.

AND YET.

I am of an age. I do not consider myself old, though I tease about it. I certainly am no longer young.

AND YET.

There is nothing broken that I feel a need to fix. I really have no problems per se. I do not worry. I experience little fear and no anxiety. I would not say I have a charmed life. I am frequently charmed by life, however.

AND YET.

The man of my dreams is no longer alive. And so, I am a widower once again. I am alone though rarely lonely. I have a couple friends who have full lives in addition to their relationship with me. I celebrate that. I celebrate them. I celebrate the time we do get to share.

AND YET.

I am surprised that with all the contentment that I just laid out there is a very slight and subtle dissonance in my daily experience of me. There is an unresolved chord though I sense nothing in need of resolution. I feel a soft murkiness just below the surface. Murky, yet not dark. It is just barely moving. Not yet discomfort. The easiest of unease.

I never expected to be where I am. With this set of circumstances. With all this open, peaceful spaciousness. Yet open and spacious because loss has left its emptiness. Yesterday is radically gone. In today there is potential, yet that possibility is hazy and unclear.

AND YET.

I am literally smiling as I seek to put my internal experiences into words that may somehow land in another’s heart. A heart that might feel a tinge of resonance. Familiarity. A me too of now or maybe someday.

AND YET.

Being so blind slighted by yesterday has not shut me down. It has not walled me in. I am not braced against the future the way the bruised so often are. I am open. I do not miss the miraculous quality of finding myself open when it was openness that left parts of me in tatters.

AND YET.

With every comfort handled and with an untroubled mind and unshielded heart I sincerely have no idea what is next. That hint of dissonance is the awareness that I am not finished yet, though I haven’t a clue what is left to fulfill. What is still undone. What is yet an unformed goal. It is not disturbing yet it is calling for attention. It is a beginning ripple in a mostly quiet sea. A mostly quiet sea of me.

AND YET.

And so, I watch and I wait and I listen and I trust. I make no demand on the places of not yet. In the spaces of AND YET. I do not push on the tenderness of what is yet to be.

I am grateful to have the capacity to hold contentment with what is and the movement of what may be seeking to be. I have little if any push or force left. I have learned and honor the futility of that. I have a whole lot of” let.” It serves me well.

I am still alive which is direct evidence I am not yet done. AND YET I am not clear what may be next. I hold that unknown in peace. Or better yet I and my unknown are held in peace. I choose that peace. I court that. I allow that.

I reside with grief in a grateful state of being. I am not naive enough to think that I cannot be knocked down again. It has happened so many times. In so many ways.

AND YET.

I know that when it happens, I have the power within me to get back up and keep moving on. I have nothing left to lose in a very real way. It is directly connected to my contentment. To my trust. To my abiding faith that I can handle any yet.

And so, I am dwelling in what I call the “land of AND YET.” It could as easily be called the “land of BOTH AND.” The real estate is pricy, yet the views are beautiful. Clear. Uncluttered. Unobstructed. And they are earned. Paid in earnest. Every fall met with a rise. A choice to rise. A prayer to rise.

A daily prayer of AND YET.

NUMBERING ONE

“It’s not about the numbers.”

And I cannot begin to count the number of times I have heard that.

I have been an ordained, full-time minister for over thirty years. I have worked for two independent organizations. I co-founded and led my own spiritual community for several years. I worked as an itinerate lecturer, workshop leader, and counselor. I have been in my current position of Senior Minister of a Unity for well over twelve years.

I am blessed to know that what I do is truly what I am meant to do. I have a degree of talent. I have years of education and experience. I have dedication and a passion regarding sharing spiritual principles that I know are transformational when they are practiced and applied.

What I never have done is draw large numbers of people.

“It’s not about the numbers.”

I have a moderate attendance in my current spiritual community. I have a small number of followers on my blog list and my social media platforms. I have never been a “big draw.”

And…” it’s not about the numbers.”

The two primary metrics used for ministerial evaluation are number of attendees and money raised. That feels cold and calculating, I know. And there is a reality in our finance-driven culture that is the foundation for those metrics.

If my talent, experience, education, and passion do not equate to enough congregants to keep the lights on my tenure comes into question. The Light I may emit does not pay the light bill.

I am blessed to work for a board of directors who see beyond only those two cold metrics. They understand that many things have happened both personally and collectively that have contributed to our current level of attendance. They share with me that the quality of my message should be bringing in far more people than we currently see.

And they assure me that “it’s not about the numbers.”

And so, it has been and continues to be a dance within me between what I express and how it is received. What I dedicate myself to and how many choose to partake. I speak, share, write, and connect with a high level of passion. I put great amounts of energy into what I create and share. That is consistent whether there are fifty or five hundred participants.

It will surprise no one who knows me that I am very human. I have devoted my life to spiritual awakening, and my adventure in that pursuit has been bumpy and flawed. I believe that it is inspiration and dedication that has fueled my work for all these years. Yet it is the bumps and the flaws that has shaped the message into something relatable. Usable.

It is the human part of me that sees dwindling numbers and media engagements and feels a level of sadness and disappointment. I give it my all, and sometimes it feels deflating to hear that it’s not about the numbers while it feels that what I am giving is in ways so much about the numbers.

It feels like it is about the numbers.

I am sure that those who have read this far could give me any number of truisms as to why I should not feel this way. I can layer the same interpretations onto myself.

In an age where a large percentage of our population is collecting followers and numbers of likes it is a tough road. Yet I have dedicated myself to learning as much as I can from my experiences with it. While I aspire to live beyond numbers and followers, I am not fully there yet. And there is a perspective that is leading me through this landmine field of hurt and disappointment.

I am crystal clear that the work that I do is inspired and directly tied to my purpose. And so, the number one person that I need to answer regarding my work is the one who is typing these words. I daily listen to my guidance, and I produce the best quality of work that I can.

And while I am the one I answer to, I do not output for myself. I do it to connect to you. To touch your heart. To inspire and move you. To hopefully uncover something in you that you need to see. I am a messenger and I pray that you will receive my message and that it will make a difference in you life.

So, all of this is to say that I don’t believe the cliché that “it’s not about numbers. It is. But it is not about volume or income.

For me, you are my number. The message is about you. I speak to groups, yet I really speak to one person at a time. I put it out there, and I put it out there to you. To the one person who may need to glean something from what I am sharing.

You are my number one.

While I am clear that my style isn’t for everyone, I trust that it will be right for the person drawn to hear or read it. I have never claimed to be the best at what I do. But I am the best for the person who needs what I have to give.

As long as one person is listening and reading and benefitting, I will keep at it. I will keep giving the best of my love and trusting it will reach the heart it is meant for.

It’s not about numbers.

It’s about you. It’s just for you.

LATE LIFE MANIFESTO

I suspected it would be true: the less time I have, the more precious it is.

I never dreamed that I would embrace my latter years as much as I am. Even as I am facing life without my husband and as I face diminishing physical ability the sand that is left in the top of my hourglass keeps me focused, intententional, and grateful.

I am by nature a disciplined and organized person. I pay attention to how I am living. To what is fueling what I am doing. To my values. To what I am contributing. My energy is precious and vital to me. I know that it contributes to the greater good of the whole when I am aligned with my Soul priorities.

I have for many years had a personal manifesto. A type of constitution for how I live and operate. I let it govern me to the best of my ability.

My manifesto is a living document. I use it, access it in decision making. It is fluid and changeable when I feel as if I have outgrown one of my precepts. It is permeated with prayer. In fact, it is a prayer.

In a world that has become so chaotic and disruptive my manifesto is more important than ever. It is my invariant constant in a stormy world. It is a beacon in such intense darkness. Regardless of all the insanity around me my manifesto helps keep me grounded and anchored. Stable. Centered.

I will not get into the specifics of my personal document. I do believe it is evident by how I live. At least that is my goal. And it is one of the few goals that remain for me.

Achievement and success are truly no longer important for me. I have climbed enough mountains and crossed enough bridges. I have done enough. That does not mean I will sit and stare for the duration. It means for me that how I do things is way more consequential than what I am doing.

I am content to do way less yet with more focus and intention. My activity level is considerably less that in previous years. When I go somewhere I am very mindful of the energy I bring to the space I am in. How I treat others, both internally and interactionally. I want to leave space better than I found it.

And with less years ahead the urgency for contribution is amplified. Not in an ambitious sense. The urgency isn’t drive. It is a vitality that moves me through my days and helps me select what is most worthy of engagement. I don’t have time to waste. And how I spend my time is often directly shaped by my manifesto. By my priorities.

I am mindful these days that my next birthday will be my seventieth. I am still nine months off. Yet it has prompted me to do an even deeper dive into my current manifesto, and to determine where some updating may be in order.

I love the process! I love deeper dives. I relish giving time and attention to the things and processes that are most precious and important to me. And I celebrate that I am at a place in life where while my manifesto is a document of personal choice it is dedicated to something much larger than me.

I offer the remainder of my days to be dedicated to the collective more than to my individual goals or wants. I intend to die having fulfilled my purpose. I would love to think I leave having given more than I have taken. I want to be a man of my word. A beneficial presence upon this planet. And my manifesto guides me in that pursuit.

This late life revision could well be my last. I will continue to tweak. Yet I am poised to pray and to intuit how I will live the remainder of my days, weeks, months, years. I cannot know and am frankly not all that concerned with the duration.

It is the quality of contribution that matters most to me. I did some silly and unskillful things earlier in my life. I was focused on things that seem so inconsequential now. Yet it took what it took. If that chaos was necessary to bring me to where I am today, then so be it.

It is a late life manifesto. I am giving myself ample time to steep and to pray it into being. I trust my intuition impeccably. I listen relentlessly to the call of my heart. I open to guidance and I let it govern me.

And I know I can face anything that happens in these latter years of my life. With faith in my heart and my manifesto in my mind I have confidence that the rest of my years can be the best of years.

And it is because I say it is.

RETIRING DANCER

I have been dancing with retiring in ways that feel like my retirement from dancing.

I am a former musical theatre performer that left the stage in 1995. My training was in vocal performance, acting, and dance. Of those three disciplines it was dance that most captivated my creative imagination.

I did not begin formal dance training until I went to college. My parents did not want a son that danced. I was not permitted to take lessons until I went to school which I paid for. And so let the training begin.

By the time I was twenty I had already had each knee surgically repaired. This was not directly traceable to dance, though it was debated. My mother accompanied me to an orthopedic appointment where she applied her son-dance aversion to my medical condition. She presented her evidence for my dance cessation to the orthopedic surgeon. She had every confidence he would concur.

He did not.

The doctor shifted his focus from her to me.

“Do you love dancing?”

“I do.”

“Then keep at it as long as you possibly can.”

And I did.

Professional dancers know that our “life expectancy” on the stage is limited. Mine was shorter than most. But I loved every grand jete and every shuffle ball change. I was in my bliss when I was dancing in the studio and especially on stage. While I had frequent knee pain I pushed right through it until I simply couldn’t.

And so, I am a retired dancer.

I stopped acting and singing professionally at the same time. Without dancing I didn’t have my mojo. I did some television and film work while I was in my clinical training, a transition from performer to therapist and eventually clergy. The final traces of my entertainment career were concurrent to my seminary work. I moved out of New York with a clinical credential and was ordained shortly after.

I was formally retired at age thirty-eight.

And a whole new stage of professional life opened before me.

Since retiring from dance, I have worked full-time in the ministry for thirty-one years. As much as I love the performing arts and dance, I know it is ministry that is the true calling of my life. I feel deeply connected to and live from what is truest and deepest within my heart. And my “tasks” are various expressions of that internal moving flow. I often marvel that I am paid for being what I authentically am and then sharing that with others. I daily put feet on my spiritual practice. I tap into my creative impulses and then channel my inspiration into words and other ways of relating.

I have been the full-time leader of a spiritual community for over twelve years. While I began ministry as an independent contractor I felt inspired to agree to a more structured role for what I thought would be a relatively short period of time.

Many dramatic and even disturbing things have occurred for me personally during my tenure as a senior minister. This culminated late last year with the passing of my husband.

As a result, I have been dancing with the idea of retirement. Again.

I retired from dancing, and now I am dancing with retirement.

Most days this contemplation is an easy waltz that does not yet lead me off the dance floor of my profession. I can still move with the music of my heart. I can keep up. I am admittedly slower when I move. Yet the passion in my heart is as vibrant as ever. I sit while I lecture. Yet my vital energy is standing strong.

And I am aware that my general pace is slower and I am physically able to do less than in previous years. It feels like a very real example of “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The years of forcing my dance have taken a toll. I do not regret it. Yet I ponder how much longer I can maintain the pace of fulltime employment. While I am currently not feeling a definitive “stop” the body symptoms are clearly having a say.

I am clear that I feel no motivation to build a big community that I would then need to maintain. My focus is on touching and reaching one heart at a time. I feel compelled to channel decades of spiritual exploration and put it into forms and words that may benefit others. It is what I am doing as I type these words. I am pointing to something universal when I speak of my individual experience. Bodies often weaken even as our spirit strengthens and soars.

Ours is a doing culture. Success is seen as active achievement. Busyness is a badge of honor. Do. Do. Do. Stay relevant. Measurable. Do even more. Then tell about it. Take pictures of it. Post it. Build even more upon it.

I am personally called less by doing. My heart and my spirit are vibrating at the frequency of being. Much if not most of what is most important to me is not measurable or seen by the world as achievement. It is slow. Intangible. Etheric. I used to love leaping across a stage to a fast-paced crescendo of music. I am now sweetly content to sway to the serenade of my Soul. I then invite you to sway with me.

There will always be a dancer in my imaginary self. And there will always be a minister as my highest form of expression.

I embrace my slowing down. I celebrate that I have survived the past several years, and that I am spiritually stronger and more centered as a result. I dance with the notion that perhaps rather than retiring from my current position I can retire from the demands I place upon myself in terms of how much I do. How much output I can measure.

I dance with the truth that I have thirty years of experience of platform speaking. Individual and group counseling. Workshop presentation. Writing. I have earned the right to slow down a bit. I can allow my expansive being to take form as less doing than in past years. Slow dancing is still dancing. Inspiration does not take muscle. Practice, yes. Muscle, no.

So, for today I am giving to you this pondering on dance and retirement. I retired from dance, and I dance with the possibility of retiring again. It will not be happening today. I have sat in my chair to compose this offering. No warmup required and no sweat induced.

Yet I pray you can feel the music of my heart and the swaying of my spirit. I hope you will dance with me and that you will glean something that will lead you in your own explorations.

Life is indeed a dance. Will you let It lead?

BARREN LAND

I am feeling very much like barren land these days.

Desert.

I have spent my entire professional life working in creative fields. Even as a youth, I was involved in music and the arts. I began professional gospel music when I was eleven years of age.

Though my current title is Reverend, I consider myself an artist.

And I am in a barren period artistically. My creativity feels stifled, at best. Flat. Not vital. Which is interesting, because I do not feel the same about my spiritual alignment. I am attuned as much as ever.

I am not used to feeling spiritually and artistically dystonic.

I really don’t feel as if my spiritual and creative living are different. They are, however, varied expressions of the one life force. Spirit within me is the creative impulse. It is in all of us. We are all creative by creation. And those expressions are unique, and they ebb and flow in and from all of us. There are times when I feel more inspired and creative than at other times.

Barren, though, is rare.

As most of you readers know, my husband passed away in November of 2025. His passing was the culmination of nine years of illness for him and caregiving for me. It was progressive, and the last five or so years were very difficult. I am bereft at the loss. I took almost two months’ bereavement leave from my position as a senior minister. I simply could not function. As most of what I do is creative by nature, the hollowness in me stopped me in my tracks. I could not imagine tuning in and tracking with the inspiring movement inside of me. Not in front of a congregation.

When I returned to officiating Sunday services, I did so with no small amount of trepidation. With over thirty years in ministry, I do impeccably trust my intuitive impulses. In most circumstances. After losing a spouse was a different context to work from. The lamp from which I usually shine felt shattered.

The grief and the mourning have been intense. The sorrow, deep and immense. While it seems difficult for those around me, I have allowed fully for it. I lean right in. I sob when I need to sob, which is a lot. I have physical and psychological symptoms. I tire easily. I have cognitive space-outs. I irritate more easily than usual.

I frequently and consistently feel barren. Flat. Dry. Arid.

I continue to do my best at presenting effective and even entertaining Sunday sermons. I am writing infrequently. I amp myself up to occasionally record a social media video. And I pray and maintain my connection, regardless of what I may be feeling.

I am a lifelong creative and not feeling very creative.

Yet here I am.

While I am not sure this will ever be distributed, I am engaging in the art of creativity for the sake of engaging in creativity. I am writing because of my love of writing. I am demonstrating that, regardless of pain and sorrow, grief and mourning, art can be born from them. Not despite them. From them.

This is my desert rose.

Someone gave Donald and me a desert rose plant when we married sixteen years ago. Donald is now gone, yet the desert rose is in full bloom.

Donald is now gone, yet our love is still in full bloom.

I must believe that beauty can still be born from barren land. If the desert can yield blossoms, then so can I.

There are periods when our desert rose has nary a blossom. I have never once heard a critical voice coming from it. It simply knows that it will bloom again when it is time.

The same wisdom is in me. I have not been blooming very much recently. Yet I trust that I will blossom again prolifically when it is time. Maybe I just need some time to be barren now. To not produce too much, to embrace my desert nature. Perhaps the volume of tears is flooding my garden. And perhaps, after this venture, I will drop the term “barren” and know that I will soon be fertile once again. My consistent attuning to the Great Creator can only result in my own great creations

I began this creative experiment with the words, “I am feeling very much like barren land these days.”

And now, not so much.

Barrenness has borne creativity. It’s a small step. A gift of love.

And just like that, I am creating again.

LOVE RISES AFTER LOSS

I am fifteen years old. My father has been living in a facility due to early-onset dementia. He does not know who I am.

Yet it is his birthday, and so I bake him a cake and take it to him. With his condition, I must feed him the cake.

As he does not know me, he is fixated on each bite of cake. He does not look at me. He looks at the spoon and at the cake.

Only at the spoon and at the next bite of cake. He does not see this fifteen-year-old he doesn’t know. The one who so longs to be seen.

Fast forward fifty years. It is my husband's birthday. Due to Lewy Body dementia, he lives in a facility. I obtain a cake, and I take it to him. As he cannot use his hands or utensils, I feed him the cake. I do not miss out on the memories or the patterns or the pain.

This is different.

He knows me. Even with the advancing dementia, he knows me. He sees me. He relishes each bite of cake and gazes at the one feeding him. He sees me. And I see him loving me.

My dad. My husband. The dementia. The loss. The honor. The connection. The cake. The love. The feeding.

The love. The love. The love.

I remember every detail of not being known and of being profoundly known. Baked into those cakes was a love beyond words. Greater than dementia or memories. Greater than feeding or being fed.

Both of them are gone now, and yet they are both here. They are both great loves of my lifetime. I was blessed to have loved and fed and served them both.

In my own experience, that is my Easter story.

Crucifixion. Resurrection.

Loss. Love.

In my memories and in my heart and in this moment I am risen.

PURPOSEFUL GRIEF

I have never felt so bereft. And I have never felt more purposeful.

I do not recall the last time I sat down to compose a blog post. It would be easy enough to check. I just do not feel compelled to do so.

For those new to me and to my work, I am bereft because my beloved husband, Donald, passed away on November 8, 2025. At 10:49 p.m. I was holding his hand as he released his final exhalation. While he had been progressively ill for nine years, his death came as a shock. It was a shock that I am still grappling to internalize. To believe. To realize.

Donald died from complications of Lewy body dementia. In the last few years of his life, I provided almost total care. In early April of last year, I physically could no longer care for him. I made the excruciating decision to move him to a skilled nursing facility. From April until November, I lived alone in the home that had been ours. I trekked to his facility and watched as he continued his decline. His care was excellent. I went and I micro-managed that care. I was his loving husband and his fierce advocate. I personally participated in his care, and when I traveled, I spoke with him and to his providers with frequency.

And now he is gone. I have never felt so bereft.

I also am experiencing a deeper level of purpose than I have ever felt.

After two months of bereavement leave, I returned to my full-time position as a senior minister. I could not fathom how I was going to make it through the first Sunday service. And yet I did. And the second and the third. When the impulse to write began to move within me, I decided to give way to that impulse. As I type these words, I am uncertain as to whether this will ever be distributed.

And yet I continue to type. I listen to the movement in my heart and allow the movement to become words. I am imbuing every word with feeling. Feeling that is seeking expression. Grief. Sadness. Love. Loss. Purpose.

Purpose.

There were thirty years to the month between the deaths of my two spouses. I am a man who has been supremely blessed to have had not one but two incredible loves. Amazing love. Transformative love.

And agonizing loss.

I am a person who deeply believes that everything that happens has purpose and has meaning. I also deeply believe that it is fundamental to our evolution to discover and to embrace the purpose in what happens and to assign a meaning that serves our Soul and all who are involved.

Our pain uses us until we decide to use our pain.

And so, I am feeling the enormous pain in my heart, and I am also feeling the enormity of the equivalent love. I am intoning that love into words. I am processing the pain into pictures that I seek to share with you. I want you to read my words and feel my heart. I want you to taste the saltiness of my tears. I want you to hear the cessation of his final breath, and how it became a guttural howl that instinctively sounded through me.

I shared not quite seventeen years with the most delectably quirky, wise, loving, delightful man that I have ever known. No one has ever loved me like Donald loved me. No one will ever love me as Donald loved me. I am inexplicably changed due to that level of love.

And so, the impact of that love and of that loss is now an urgency to fulfill the purpose that is clear and passionate inside of me. The purpose is not new. The intensity has increased. Having once again faced death in an up-close and personal way, I am stunningly aware of my own mortality. I have lived far more years than I will accumulate in the future.

My time is now.

My heart is bruised. The grief is still new, and as the shock subsides, the waves are of tidal proportion.

And yet I am crystal clear that there is purpose in my grief. My non-negotiable commitment to emotional fluency and spiritual dedication makes my grief available to be used in service of a world ill-versed in feeling its pain.

Donald is no longer embodied. And yet my communion with his spirit is clear and comprehensive. As such, he will be a part of my creative expression for the remainder of my days. He will be in every sermon. Every class. Every podcast. Every blog.

Every blog.

I embrace that I will grieve Donald until I rejoin Donald with my final exhale. In the meantime, I will channel my grief into purposeful expression. Passionate expression. Full and free connection. I will hold you in your grief because I do not fear it.

For those who are the survivors of great love, there is great grief. It is the price we pay for being incredibly blessed. The love will always remain, and so shall the grief.

I do not lament that fact. I do not attempt to deny, suppress, or outrun the pain. Instead, I use it. I allow the grief to flow freely through my tears, my words, my counsel, my expression.

For you see, I have never felt so bereft. Or more purposeful.

Or more purposeful.

WHAT IS LEFT?

Each of us will physically leave this realm, and yet something very real will be left behind.

Whether we are intentional or not, we each leave behind us a legacy. That legacy is comprised of the energy that we have emitted while here interacting on earth. The energy is formed into thoughts, feelings, words, and actions. As energy can neither be created or destroyed, we are conduits of an Infinite energy that is constantly being molded and exchanged within the Field in which we dwell.

Energy comes into us, is informed either consciously or unconsciously, and goes forth from us. We are holographic beings, and so technically the energy doesn’t come or go anywhere. We seem to be separate distinct beings in this realm, yet we forever remain atone. We are granted access to the Infinite energy to have a free experience of it. We choose what to do with this energy. We ether enhance or detract from the Universal Field based on what we do with the energy given.

Enough of the foundational theory.

Let’s get personal.

My friend Pat was killed in a car accident last week up in Georgia where she had a second home. I am still in the process of coming to terms with her sudden passing. While I termed her my friend that may not be the best moniker for her. We were not friends in a traditional, though we were extremely friendly. We did not socialize or engage in chit chat. I was never in her home not she in mine.

We were spiritual comrades. Spirit-companions.

That does not minimize the sadness I feel relative to her sudden passing. I grieve and I miss her already. I know my life experience was enhanced by her place in it. I sense a dimming now that she has left.

And yet…

The reason that I began this tribute with a mini lesson in quantum physics Is while Pat is no longer with me and us in a physical way the energy that she left behind is vital, tangible, and unmistakable. I can feel her as I type these words. As I fumble to capture her energy in form I am uplifted and amped up by my direct experience of the wondrous woman she was and somehow is.

When I think of Pat I immediately think of prayer.

Pat loved to pray. Loved to pray! She loved praying and sharing prayers so much that she did not just pray, she was a prayer. A living prayer. A lilting prayer. A dynamic prayer. A somehow musical prayer. It had a feel like no one I have ever known. It was impactful in a most beautiful way.

As I reflect on a world without Pat in it I also know with certainty that every impactful, beautiful, living, lilting, musical, vital prayer that Pat ever offered is still here as an imprint upon the Field. Her praying transformed energy that is here with us, though she no longer is. In fact, what was most essential of Pat still remains. Still lives. Still vibrates. Still prays on in this realm. Her body is gone, and her spirit prays on.

The world is better because Pat prayed.

Pat was also very funny. Very kind, compassionate. Pat was passionate and relentless in her emotional and spiritual inner work. She owned her “stuff” like few people I have known. She took responsibility.

Pat was also intensely human. She could drop an f-bomb with the best of them. She spoke honestly of what was real for her. She called out the inconsistencies of others, while also being accountable to her own. She occasionally danced about. She quipped and joked and uplifted a room. She was awesome and ornery. Jokeful and joyous. She was real. She was very, very real.

And mostly what I will remember about Pat is how she prayed.

Pat served in many capacities in our Unity congregation. She served and she gave generously and lavishly. She showed up. Repeatedly. Consistently. She applied the Principles and acted upon Truth.

She did it all with a prayer.

And now Pat has left this realm, and she indeed has left something very real behind.

Pat has left an ocean of transformed energy that benefits all living beings. She has left traces, a trail of prayer energy that remains though her physicality no longer is. Prayer for me is Pat’s greatest legacy. Her living, vibrational memorial. I am better because Pat prayed. And so is the world.

And so, I honor Pat by typing these words, imbuing them with as much Pat energy as possible. I double down on my own commitment to being a living, vital prayer. I pray Pat forward. I will celebrate her by streaming prayer energy every time I think of her. While I could never lilt in the same way, I can vibe at my frequency to make my own unique contribution. Pat and I were indeed spiritual comrades who deeply knew the unparalleled power of prayer. It united us. It magnified us. It will always live as us.

Prayer is what is left now that Pat has gone.

That vital truth invites me again into my own personal inquiry as to what will remain when I am gone? And what, dear reader, will remain when you yourself have left this realm?

Thank you, Pat, for making me and this world better because you lived.

And because you prayed.

THE HEART KNOWS

“The longest journey we will ever make is from the head to the heart.”

I am certain that most of my readers will have heard some version of that declaration before.

I am equally certain that hearing it and applying it are two very different things.

I have indeed found it to be a long journey. It has and continues to be for me personally. And in my thirty years of ministry and counseling I have witnessed it to be an arduous dynamic for most people.

The head to heart journey begins with some sort of notion that it is a desirable and even necessary sojourn to be taken. At some point we hear a version of the opening quote to this blog post. Something internally clicks. The innate wisdom of the heart stirs at the potential reenactment of its power. Heart intelligence is primal. The heart beats before the brain is formed. This intelligence is always seeking to be directly known. Directly experienced. Directly applied. It is a call that can be delayed yet never fully suppressed.

Because of mind-identification the whispers of the heart are rarely noticed. This is the overriding dynamic of the current critical mass. The incredible prevalence of people staring at device screens mirrors perfectly how most humans are staring at the content streaming on the screen of the mind. These two factors combined obscure the wisdom of the heart. The language of the mind is commentary while the language of the heart of feeling. Herein lies the foundation of the predicament.

We are at a place in consciousness development where feeling is combatted and suppressed. The truth of the heart is that it is the portal of All Presence, Power, and Intelligence. All that Divine data is at the center of the heart temple. It is energetically encased in emotional wounding that is also a part of the heart atmosphere. To have a sustained experience of heart intelligence and Divine data we must move through the layers or veils of this wounding.

And this is central to why the journey from the head to the heart is indeed the longest. The most challenging. The most arduous. The most difficult. And the rarest.

Another common yet seldom applied slogan is that “we must feel to heal.”

I know it to be so.

Mental commentary is not primal. It is not original. In human development it occurs some years after our emotional wounding. Fundamentally the habitual narrative that loops through our mind streams up from an underlying emotional signature. While it is true that thought prompts feelings, in its original orientation feeling comes first. We are emotional beings before we are cognitive. The emotional signature is layered over the Vibrational which is our inherent vital Self.

We are called to reverse the order of our development. That could be called the journey of the head to the heart. We shift our relationship to mind-content, moving from identification to witness. We literally drop our attention down into the heart. We allow ourselves to feel the veils of raw emotions that shroud the essential heart. We disengage from the story we have attached to the feeling.

Hence, we feel to heal.

Hence, we move from the head identification to a centering within the heart.

This is clearly not for the timid.

It requires courage. It requires commitment. It requires humility and bravery. It requires a deep trust. Living from the heart and its primal knowing requires much. Yet is also gifts us with clarity, resilience, fortitude, deep connection, and compassion. It gifts us with wisdom, which is synonymous with heart knowing.

My own long journey from my mind to my heart is fundamental to my life-journey and central to my purpose. As I have dedicated myself to my own heart journey for decades, I feel qualified to join others on theirs. I am not afraid of the pain I have found in my own heart, and I am not fearful to experience the pain that is within yours. This is assisted by my intimate knowing of what is Vibrationally available just below the veils.

I believe that this journey is the journey back to the “God” we never left. Experientially we have been cut off because we have become deadened at the feeling level. We are a pain-averse culture. We prefer mind-spin to felt experience. We can somewhat control the mind. We cannot control mystical emergence. It is what we both long for and fear most.

And it is inevitable.

Heart-knowing mystical realization is inevitable because It is what we are. It may take lifetimes. It may come in a quantum moment of Grace. But it will happen. And it will come as direct felt experience from the heart, and not as thought stream from the head.

Whether you believe me or not I assure you that you already know everything that is knowable. You know it because it is the Essence of your being. Of All being. It is deep within your heart, awaiting your sustained attention. It requires feeling. Feeling without storytelling. Sustained unflinching feeling. It is for me the longest yet also the best journey I have ever made.

And you can make it too.

The heart knows.

The heart already knows.

Go there. Right now. Listen. Feel. Open to it. Allow the movement.

I am right here with you.

BEST FOR LAST

What will I be saying when I depart this life?

Not in a literal sense.

Stay with me.

After over seventeen years as a working minister my beloved Richard gave his final sermon in early September of 1995. It was to a small group of devotees gathered in our living room. Calling it a sermon may be a bit of an overstatement. It was a sharing. His health was declining, though we did not think at the time that his passing was imminent.

Though we did not know it would be his final lecture it did have a very definite energy to it. If not ominous it did feel somehow monumental. Circumstantial. Consequential.

Richard spoke about what are called the “fruits of the spirit.” The particulars of what comprises those are not so relevant. What was and is striking to me about his subject matter that day is that the aspects that are termed “fruits of the spirit” were central to the way Richard lived and served. He lived seeking to become more fruitful in his living and in his expressing. He wanted to align with and embody spiritual attributes in his human experience. He continually stressed this form of “ripening” in what he taught and in how he served.

I realized after his passing that while not a conscious choice he sermonized on what was most central to his heart in his final sharing.

He saved the best for last.

It was what Richard’s Soul was saying when he departed this life. What he was cosmically communicating. The energy his Soul was emitting. Being fruitful was a Soul mission and so he left behind a trail of spirit Essence in not only word but also form.

The best for sure. And it came at the last.

I do not currently have a prognosis that would lead to think that I am at the final days or months of my lifetime. I am not really that old, at least in terms of current life span statistics.

Yet I know for sure that I have way less time left than I have already lived. I know I am nearing the end of my active vocation in its current form. I ponder and contemplate purpose and legacy while giving little thought to goals or accomplishments.

If I were saving the best for last what will that be?

If I knew I was going to give my final sermon, what would I preach about?

If I were to laser focus my energy this day, knowing it would be my lasting emission, what would I choose to emit?

If this was the last blog I would ever compose, would I choose this topic and these questions?

What has been central to my living expression and to my personal ministry?

I pose these questions to you, dear readers, rather than supply my answers.

While you may not compose sermons or blogs, I assure you that your life is a ministry of sorts. You are always emitting energy. You are always leaving a trail. Traces in your path. That trail and those traces are indeed your legacy. They are what you will leave behind.

Richard left behind the fruits of the spirit. He continues to do so via my remembrance of him and his lasting best.

I am clearer by the day about what I consider to be my lasting legacy.

I am under no illusion that I have endless time left.

I get up every morning with a prayer in my heart that I will be of useful service while I am still here, embodied. I seek to become the best that I can be. I arise willing to forgive and open to evolve and thus uplift this world.

In living thusly, I know that if this is my last day on earth it will be my personal version of the best for last.

PRELUDE TO ANOTHER DIGIT

“I am older than I ever intended to be.”

That is a line from the wonderful play and subsequent movie A Lion In Winter. I first heard it in college, which I freely admit was a long, long time ago. I thought at the time that I had an accurate perspective on what it meant.

I did not.

As an aspiring performing artist, I believed at the time that getting “old” was the worst thing that could ever happen. I of course did not stop and consider the alternative. I also ignored the inevitability that if I lived long enough I too would one day be “older than I ever intended to be.”

One of the biggest surprises of my lifetime is how much I like being a man of an age. I will soon be sixty-seven, and the disbelief I sometimes feel around that is not accompanied by any unpleasantness or dread. I feel a greater freedom than I have ever felt. My priorities and sense of purpose are crystal clear. There is a certainty about why I am here, and what I am about. I dwell consistently in a spiritual reality that fuels my living and feeds my serving. I awaken each day with a granular gratitude that I have another day to awaken and contribute more.

There is way more sand in the bottom of my hourglass than there is in the top. Much more of my life experience is now downstream than what is flowing toward me. That does not trouble me at all. It gifts me with an urgency about how I choose to spend my remaining days. It clarifies the importance of applying my values and navigating via my priorities. Purpose is my compass, and my life experiences my map of awakening. I rarely lose a sense that regardless of what circumstances are occurring there is always something greater than the manifest realm with all its challenges and dramas.

My body and physical capabilities are not what they once were. I admit to having more cognitive pauses than in previous years. I see very little detail without the aid of my glasses. What used to be up there is now down here. What used to be tight and smooth is now saggy and crepey. And I humbly embrace that I also experience more clarity, maturity, and wisdom than I ever have. I let things slide off me easily. I have clear boundaries which also grant me a deeper sense of connection. My belonging is free of attempts to fit in, which is liberating beyond measure.

I appreciate deeply that against all odds I am older than I ever intended to be.

In a mostly youth obsessed culture I relish that I have lived long enough to proudly wear the moniker senior citizen. I do not hesitate to flash my Medicare card. I hold no shame around the disability placard that hangs from my rearview mirror. The feet that used to so frequently wear Capezio dance shoes and the latest fashion almost exclusively don Sketchers and Crocs. I have lived long enough to choose comfort over trend, and it tickles me more than I can say.

As I am poised to add another digit to the length of my incarnation I do so mindful that aging is no longer the adversary it once was. I am clear that I have no more mountains to climb. The fact that it is no longer physically possible for me to even climb stairs is secondary. Goals and aspirations have faded as my present moment experience is what matters most. How I am relating to life as it is, is what matters most. While I once wanted to change the world, I now want to simply love it as it is.

To those who say age is merely a state of mind I choose not to disagree. I know what it is to me. I do not identify with it, but neither do I deny it. I have been young. I have been middle age. I already experienced those places in the human experience. I do not need to pretend that I can somehow magically have that again. From this perspective I realize I did not fully inhabit those timeframes. I took them for granted.

And now I am committed to being a vital, awake, contributing senior who is content to be older than I ever intended to be.

TO to FOR

It has finally landed.

Life is for me.

Nothing in at least my world prepared me to know that, let alone live from it.

I was taught that life happened to me. The best I could do was to fend off what was coming at me. Life was largely something to defend against. It was dangerous. People were dangerous. That was the programming. It was not exclusive. But it was there for sure. It saturated my experience from an early age.

I also watched almost continuous attempts at control. I mean, defense is one form of control. Constant scrutiny for danger is a form of control. High level reptilian living is misguided control. Natural, but in many ways not helpful. Of course, these are all attempts at what can never be controlled. Life is happening to us, and we reach for the tribal tools we were provided with to try and deal with it.

Even as a child I suspected there was something very off with this “to” approach. It did not sit well in my gut or in my heart. I always felt something stirring and moving in and as a more expansive inner reality. My intuition was at odds with my familial and cultural programming. Yet I also knew I was on to something.

Religion in many ways only supported the notion that life and God happened to me. Praying to have things be different rarely resulted in changed effects or circumstances. God happened to the Biblical characters of old and God was happening to me, my family, my world. Trying to appease a God that was happening “to” me resulted not in increased faith but in increased anxiety.

The shifting in my perceptions and experiences was slow but also steady and sure. My suspicions gained traction and I gathered more and more evidence that life was not only happening to me. At first, I began to feel the way that life was not only happening TO but also THROUGH me. This was subtle at first, but by focusing energy into it, it began to gain momentum. Velocity. It came in tangible waves.

I began to surf the growing waves of intuition and my sense of cooperation increased. I began to live in a felt awareness of a Life bigger than “me” or “mine.” There is really no such thing as “my life.” There is Life, and there is my experience of it. This for me was quantum. It opened an entire new world of experience.

This for me was quantum.

And there it was. A quantum shift in my consciousness and in my experience.

This FOR me.

Life was not happening TO me. Life was happening FOR me. I only needed to choose to see it that way. I needed to go beyond standard reasoning and look FOR the hidden good in all things. It was always there. It had to be. FOR life was already FOR me. Even when I was not.

My constant defense against what was happening to me prevented me from perceiving the ever-present movement of Good that was always for me.

My constant attempts at control prevented me from cooperating with the Essential movement of Life in all Its grand orchestrations. In trying to fend off what I feared might happen to me I was also blocking what was seeking to happen for me.

And so it has finally landed.

Life is for me.

I know that to be true.

I trust it to be accurate and active.

And so, this is the perfect year to dedicate to knowing even more fully for myself and sharing widely with all who choose to listen that:

Life is FOR you! I invite you to join me in an embodied and actualized movement from Life happening TO you to Life happening FOR you.

2024. TO to FOR.

Let it be more than a concept. Allow it to be the Reality that it is.

Life is FOR you.

Let it be so.

CUTTING LOSSES

“Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose.”

I used to hate that quote.

It is actually a lyric from a song made popular by the late Janis Joplin. The sentiment activated all sorts of internal arguments for me until I grew into knowing how true it really is. I guess earlier in life I had not yet endured enough loss to understand what composer Kris Kristofferson was saying.

Now I have and so I do.

I began to experience deep losses early in my lifetime. From my current perspective I see them as evidence of an archetypal pattern that while extremely painful were also profoundly revelatory. When I became mature enough to consciously use the losses as fodder for growth and evolution the losses no longer used me.

My earlier belief was that every loss was about me. Someone died, leaving me. Someone put me out of their direct sphere, rejecting me. Opportunities were lost, robbing me of success and fulfillment.

Me. Me. Me.

The obvious common denominator in all my life losses was me.

Then one day I awakened to the deeper reality that while it was me that was experiencing the many incidents of loss the common denominator was loss itself and not me.

Holy Janis Joplin.

While this may not land for most readers, I pray that it will take root in at least one of you.

Loss happens. It happens for all of us. Life contains dynamics of both loss and gain. At the broadest level it is not personal. People do not die leaving me. People reject for all sorts of perceptual reasons. Ultimately it has little to nothing to do with me. Opportunities come and go, as do successes and modes of fulfillment. I may be a participant for sure. But opportunities, successes, fulfillment are bigger than me.

The recognition of the above is a perhaps narrow yet open door to freedom.

Freedom from the tyranny of me.

My life experience has been punctuated by a myriad of losses. Those losses were and some remain very painful. While I continued to take them personally, they led to great persistent suffering. Life was somehow tormenting me. Losses were being hurled at me. Love was being torn from me. You and countless others were leaving me.

Me. Me. Me.

I do not minimize the depth of pain that loss has held for me. I simply have learned to hold it differently, more consciously. I have learned to understand that all of us have, are, and will experience multiple losses during the duration of our lifetime. Though they are experienced by our personhood they are not personal. Life takes nothing from me. Regardless of what others may do I am always at choice as to how I interpret their actions. I am always at choice as to whether I take things personally or from a more wakeful, impersonal perspective.

Hence, my friends: freedom.

I have reached a point in this human adventure where I know that there is nothing left that I can lose that I cannot choose a conscious, impersonal relationship to.

Yes, there will be pain.

Yes, I will experience it at a personal level, even as I allow the impersonal to govern my responsiveness. And responsiveness is always rooted in freedom. Key to that freedom is not making losses about me.

“Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose.”

I used to hate that quote.

Now I love it.

I love it because I know a felt experience of it.

The past decade has been particularly filled with losses. Deaths of many kinds. People leaving in droves, for many reasons known and unknown. As the spouse of someone leaving incrementally on a daily basis, I am up close and personal with loss.

I am up close and personal with loss, yet I am not mired in taking it personally. That realization is how I cut my losses. How I stop the hemorrhaging of me interpretations. How I silence the wailing of why this is happening to me.

It isn’t.

All this loss is not about me.

It is happening within me, yet not to me. Not personally. I am not being tormented by a punitive life, even when I am left by punitive people.

Freedom. Nothing left to lose. Cutting my losses. Choosing my relating.

Loss will continue to visit my experience, and my freedom is the fortitude that loss itself has taught me to utilize in my relating.

And the one thing I can never lose is my sense of self that rises above the fragile me.

COLORING MY WORLD

“COLOR MY WORLD WITH LOVE…”

I smile now as I recall the near despair of being asked once again to sing that song at a wedding.

I spent several years of my youth as a freelance wedding singer. I do not know how many nuptials I supplied the soundtrack for, but it was a lot. Some of the people I knew. Many I did not. I mostly enjoyed the experience, and it helped me build a college fund that as a son of a sole-supporting mother I needed.

This was during the early 1970’s until about the mid-1980’s. Songs came in and out of wedding vogue, but a couple endured that entire period. One was “The Wedding Song.” This was for me one of the most monotonous songs ever written. No matter how much I tried to sing some life into it, it always felt flat. I surmised in my teen years that if marriage was anything like this song, I wanted no part in it.

The second most requested song of this time was “Color My World.” It was recorded and became a huge hit for the band Chicago. I truly did love and enjoy performing this song. At least for the first fifty or sixty times. In the later years when someone would call and request my services for their wedding, I would hold my breath when I asked what song or songs they wanted me to sing. I eventually ceased lending my voice to these sacred events because I just could not sing The Wedding Song or Color My World one more time.

Not one more time.

I share this somewhat silly recollection because I recently heard Color My World in a waiting room of a medical establishment. I had not heard it in quite literally decades. I felt a mix of remembered dread yet also sweet nostalgia. As I was in a somewhat anticipatory state awaiting a medical diagnostic procedure part of the lyric touched me in ways that I had not experienced them before.

As I waited and as I listened to the lyric, I felt an expanded awareness around how I am always coloring my experience of my own internal world. It may seem as if the external world of circumstance is what is creating our moment-to-moment experience. We are so often caught in the illusion of out-to-in relating. We confuse cause and effect, and we suffer from this illusion.

The truth is that it is our interpretation and narrative about our circumstances that is always coloring our world. It is awareness of this fact that is our key awakening regarding how we get what we get. It is quite simple. It is a matter of staying vitally aware and interested in the dynamics of our embodied aliveness. We are each energy fields and that energy is always moved by the narrative and meaning that we are applying. In consciousness, commentary is everything.

It is because we say it is.

Literally.

Our commentary is largely what is coloring our world.

As a former wedding singer, I know that marriages come and go. Marriages begin and end. A marriage is radically different from a wedding. No matter how beautifully I may have sung the songs it did not ensure the quality or the duration of the marriage.

There is one marriage, however, that can never be put asunder. And that is the union of will and word. Commentary and color. Narrative and effect. Story and suffering.

Life is a cosmic orchestration, and we are always composing our score. This does not suggest that we can control circumstances. Far from it. It does mean that we may choose how we name, frame, and claim our experiences. We can color inside or outside the perceived lines. We can use primary or pastels. We can paint boldly or softly. Each day is a masterwork that is open to our own interpretation.

I will never sing at another wedding. There will not be another variation of The Wedding Song or Color My World coming from these lips. No.

Yet I have never been clearer that I am always coloring my world. My experiences are up to me. It is my commentary that creates my context. If I want my world to change it is up to me to change my wording. To alter my narrative. To own the art of conscious story telling.

And to take that lyric one step further I am choosing to color my world with love. To tell love stories and to emit love energy. To love my often-feeble, fragile little storyteller. To love my past and to love what is seeking to be as me. To love being love in this often-loveless world.

We can never divorce the power to co-create our own experiences. It is intrinsic in our Sourced nature. Not only can you color your own world, in fact you must. You are and you always have been. Life is a palette, and you are the artist. Color consciously. Color intentionally. Color passionately, vibrantly. Color with courage and boldness. It is your world. Your commentary. Your part is to color.

And for the sake of all, color your world with love.

FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE

The truth of the matter is, that well worn section of traditional wedding vows was not a part of ours.

And while it was not vowed it has certainly been true.

On June 7th, 2010, I did something I never dreamed I would be legally allowed to do.

I got married.

Now, at the time I had to go to Massachusetts to do so, but I legally married a man as unlikely a choice as was the likelihood of being able to do so. We legally wed in the pergola at the center of the small town that my husband grew up in. His elderly father and several members of his family looked on as a justice of the peace officiated our simple ceremony. We had added a space to speak our own vows to each other, but the officiant forgot so we were hitched without those. The next month we had a larger though not legal spiritual ceremony in our home state of Florida. We were able to speak our vows to each other at that observance. It remains the most memorable part of our service for me. It was not legally binding. But it was beautiful and meaningful and witnessed by many of our closest friends.

And we did not vow “for better or for worse.”

As I type this missive the day prior to our thirteenth anniversary I reflect upon the years and experiences we have faced together. There have been wonderful times for sure. There have been several profound changes and challenges. There have been better times, and there have been times that seemed to be for worse. Losses. Life threatening illnesses. Career changes and endings and new beginnings. The best of both of us has been called forth. And truth be told, so has the worst. As strained as we have felt at times there has never been a moment that we questioned the continuation of our union.

While we did not speak the other oft repeated vow “till death do us part” has never been in question.

Donald has been for me a clear and vital part of my spiritual unfolding. I knew from the beginning that it was a sacred appointment. I guess all our connections are. Yet there are some that are clearly part of our Souls emergence. A coming together for the purpose of pattern resolution and alchemical growth. There are people we meet that we deeply know will lead us to an advancement of our earth curriculum.

Donald has and continues to be that for me.

And now, as many of my readers know, we face together the neurological disorder that is happening in Donald’s brain and most certainly in my heart. As the condition worsens, I am called to become better at how I manage our lives, and everything related to being a fulltime caregiver. While I had no inkling in that Massachusetts pergola that this would be our future here it is. That was our wedding, and this is our marriage.

I did not consciously choose this. Yet now I find myself choosing how to deal with it on a daily and even momently basis. I choose to become better at how I respond and how I relate. I choose to forgive myself when I am thrown into reaction, and skillful relating seems unavailable. I choose to stay true to the wholeness of me, that I may be true to the wholeness of my husband.

And he is still my husband. I love him as he was. And I love him as he is.

There are ways in which he is not the man that I married. Yet I also know that the same is true for him. I am not the same. Illness, loss, and circumstance have changed me. Not that I am worse. I do not frame the changes in that way. Nor do I frame the changes in Donald as a worsening of who he is. The same kind, gentle, sensitive man is here with me. His physicality is greatly affected for sure. There is cognitive decline. But there is also that smile. The occasionally witty retort. The adoring gazes. Even the rascal-like innuendos. All beautiful constancies of the man to whom I said I do. And to who I will always say I do.

Candidly I have some ugly moments these days. And some kind and skillful ones as well. I am better and stronger spiritually than ever before. Though it seems illogical somehow worsening times have always made me better. More compassionate. Merciful. Spacious. Fortuitous. These thirteen years have made me a better man. Even though in ways I am facing the worst of times.

So, we did not say “for better or for worse” on that wedding day thirteen years ago.

Nor did we say, “till death do us part.”

And yet both are true in vital, practical ways. My marriage is a high spiritual practice. It is a workshop in loving more and judging less. It is a PhD in how to be better in the worst of times. It is a gymnasium in self-care so that I may better care for him.

For better or for worse, Donald. Until death do we part.

Happy Anniversary, my love. I am more because we are.

I do. And I always will.

INTIMATE PERCEPTION

“That’s just your perception.”

Dismissal landing.

Ouch.

Well, yeah.

Connection interrupted.

I had shared something from a deeper part of me when the above retort was delivered in reaction. I use the word reaction purposefully as it did not feel like a response. It felt as if the person with whom I was sharing could not or chose not to find an internal place that would open to fully receive what I was sharing.

Perhaps they could not access a file into which they could place my communication. Perhaps it was too tender a piece of my heart to deal with in that moment. Perhaps it was too dissonant with their own perceptual network. Whatever the reason it was dismissed with the wave of a psycho-spiritual truism.

“That’s just your perception.”

It dismissed what I had shared. It distanced communicator and receiver. And it discounted me and my current experience. The connection was severed, at least in that moment.

Now let me be clear that it indeed is always my perception that I am dealing with and seeing through. Everything is received and processed from the level of perception. The dynamic relationship between perception and projection is a vital part of awakening consciousness. Awakening does not involve ridding us of perception. Awakening involves knowing what our perceptual system is, and how we are applying it in any given moment. That is what frees us from projecting out our disowned perceptions, which is a sure way to block healing and strain relations.

As we honestly share our perceptions in a safe and compassionate space, we begin to create more and more space between perception and the witness of perceptions. We give voice to them as a way of confessing what we are experiencing. How they are received and listened to is crucial to the healing process. Dismissing, discounting, distancing never has a healing affect. Neither do psycho-spiritual truisms. Listening from a space that recognizes and embraces perception as an evolutionary dynamic engages both communicator and listener in a holy space of union and transformation.

I write this not to judge, criticize, or condemn the deliverer of the admonition.

I write this in gratitude that my awareness and dedication to full and present attention and listening has been made deeper as a result of the interaction. I am more committed than ever to knowing that everything that anyone shares with me is indeed that person’s perception. My commitment is to listen in such a way that let’s people know that their perceptions matter to me. Regardless of what I think about what they are sharing, that they are sharing is what is most important. I dedicate myself to staying acutely aware that I am listening to their perceptions through my own perceptual lens. There is always bias. Being aware of that creates freedom in my heart and spaciousness in my mind. That freedom and spaciousness is what I offer as I listen and stay present.

Connection matters more to me than perception.

Yet we cannot remove perception from connection. It is all a part of our ever-evolving expansion of learning to grow in acceptance, honor, dignity, compassion, and love. Your perceptions have a place in my heart because you have a place in my heart. They may indeed be “just your perceptions” but they are a vital part of you. And I don’t want you to be anything other than “just you.” Perceptions and all.

I have come to recognize and embrace that my subject matter and writings have a somewhat limited appeal. That is, of course, just my perception. It is supported, however, by empirical evidence. So, whether you think this applies to you or not I invite you to listen carefully and dig deeply. Look for ways you may not receive people at their own perceptual level. Look for how you might apply dismissive labels. Look squarely at reactions that may create a disconnect, if only for a moment.

We are here in the realm of story. Of perception. We all project onto others at times. It is how we live and grow. And it is a high and holy opportunity to support each other in that growth. You don’t do that by dismissing another’s experience. No matter how misguided you think it is. Afterall, that is just your perception.

Perception and intimacy are not mutually exclusive. They go hand in hand. Heart to heart. I will intimately listen to your perceptions because you matter to me. All of you matters to me.

And because you matter, I write and share my experience. I understand it is just my experience. I understand that you may or may not even read it. If you do, you will read through your own perceptual lens. Through your own bias. And that matters to me too.

But then, it’s just my perception.

PRIMARY PURPOSE

“I don’t have a purpose anymore.”

The aftermath of open-heart surgery was not nearly as impactful as how that statement landed in my chest.

I took a deep breath. I looked into those eyes and saw the sincerity and I saw the sadness.

This man that I love so deeply. This man that has graced this planet for more than seventy-five years. This man who has helped so many people in so many ways. This man who has done so much. This man who has given so much.

And now this man cannot do what he used to do. He cannot do the simplest of tasks. He cannot reach out to help or give to others. And so by contrast he feels he has no purpose.

I perceptually understand where he was coming from. I also understand he was coming from a faulty premise.

He had thanked me for doing something, and I authentically responded that doing for him is part of my purpose. I meant that. I feel that. I celebrate that, even when it feels difficult or overwhelming. What I do not feel is that my ability to do for him is my only purpose. What I do not feel is that his inability to do for me lessens in any way his purpose. Our expression of purposes has shifted. Yet it does not get to what our primary purposes are.

“I don’t have a purpose anymore.”

I did not correct or seek to change his statement. I held his gaze as I deepened down into my own internal pain-filled response. I waited until authentic words filled my heart and made their way quietly through my tender voice.

“Sweetheart, your adorable, sweet, loving self is your purpose. Your purpose is to spread the beauty that is you to others. You bring joy to so many by simply being who you are. That is your purpose.”

He seemed to take it in and let it land. At least to some degree. Knowing him he will grapple with the notion that what he is, is his gift to the world. It is often said that we are the last ones to know. I believe that is true for my beloved. I guess that if he walked around trying to be adorable, he would only be annoying. It is the natural sweetness that emanates from him that makes him so infinitely appealing.

The exchange reminded me that the primary purpose for any of us is not found in what we do. Our purpose is not diminished when we do less, any more than it is augmented by doing more.

Our primary purpose is to love.

Our primary purpose is to let every single moment of our lives be an opportunity to be, to give, to share the love that we inherently are. We know that this is true because we never feel more resonant than when we are streaming love. Holding a space of love. Listening and speaking with love.

I have had a relatively busy day. That fact does not make me feel more purposeful.

I have consciously infused much of what I have done today with love. And that is what makes what I have done today feel very purposeful indeed.

And so, my darling, I understand that being able to do radically less than you used to do is making you feel less purposeful. I hear you. I feel your heart. I honor what you are experiencing.

And I beg you to reconsider.

Your sweet, loving, adorable presence makes you purposeful in ways transcendent of anything you could or cannot do. You bring joy with that incomparable, radiant smile. You tenderly touch and open hearts by simply being that wondrous, one of a kind you.

And you, dear reader. Yes, you.

Let this missive serve as a reminder that what you do does not make your life purposeful. It does not make you more or less valuable. You do not need to earn your worth.

Your purpose is simply to be the love you are. The love you intrinsically are. The love you already are. Know that, and then do what you do from that knowing.

To live a life of love is to live a life of purpose.

The love you already are is non-negotiable. It is your birthright. It is your purpose for being here. And it never fades.

No matter how little you do.

DREAMS THAT AWAKEN

“What did you dream of being earlier in your life?”

There are questions that stop a conversation before they initiate one.

I was having dinner with my husband Donald and a dear friend the other evening when the preceding question arose in my heart and came out of my mouth.

“What did you dream of being earlier in your life?”

I will not share in this public forum the answers that were given after a somewhat stunned silence. It was a rich, beautiful, meaningful conversation that continues to sing within my being. Most of my readers know that my beloved Donald has Lewy Body dementia, though he remains cognitively high functioning. Yet it was clear that while there is a level of forgetfulness for him dreams are always remembered. Many things can be taken from us but not the memory of what was virtually vital, moving, exciting.

I have shared before that most of my earlier dreams never actually came true. At least not in the way I thought they might. What did happen and what is crystal clear to me now is that the pursuit of my dreams led me not to their actualization but to what was more in alignment to my Souls purpose. Going after my dreams led me geographically to places where exactly what I needed was available and attainable. I met the people who would be most instrumental in helping me to see what I needed to see. I learned the exact right skills I needed to learn. There were opportunities that would have only opened in seemingly unrelated situations.

I had a lucid dream when I was a small child that changed my entire life. It was truly a revelation. Without going into details, I went to bed one person and was jolted awake by a dream, awakening as a truly different person. Even as a child I knew I would never be the same. I knew at a deep level that I would never fit into my family or cultural structure. I knew I was born for something different. What is perhaps most striking about this occurrence was that I was not afraid. The sense of aloneness in terms of my path felt right and true.

It has always felt right and true.

That was the truest dream of all for me. Oh, I had exciting dreams of what was possible. I had a level of talent that I cultivated and honed. I thought it would lead me to a life of accomplishment, even fame. Fortune. Awards. None of that really happened. And now I understand that all of that would have been in the category of booby prize.

I giggle to myself when I ponder that I am glad I never really made something out of myself because then I would have had to maintain that. I would have endured the pressure of trying to stay relevant. It would have been a constant striving for the next job.

I was never meant for that.

And so, my dreams were a map to a life beyond my dreams.

That does not mean I did not feel disappointed or discouraged. It does not mean I did not grieve what I thought was in store.

I did grieve. Indeed.

And that grieving was an essential part of the path to a deeper, broader fulfillment. I picked up the pieces of my broken dreams and formed a whole new vision for what was possible for me. Of what was essentially and authentically my part in this Masterwork called life. I recollected my talents, gifts, abilities and asked to be shown where, when, and how I might use them on behalf of something greater than myself.

I became clear that much of my dream for status, fame, fortune was in reaction to never feeling like I was enough. I did not grow up with almost any approval or affirmation. I wanted applause to drown out the condemning voices so prevalent in my head. I wanted bright lights to shine upon me because I did not yet know the Light that was meant to shine from within me. I wanted to stand out from the crowd because I secretly felt I didn’t belong anywhere and with anyone.

Just as that dream-revelation of my childhood jolted me awake the loss of my goal-like dreams gradually led to an awakening that never would have happened if I had realized the surface life I was dreaming of.

The stage lights would have obscured my inner light. The cheering would have drowned my inner voice. The striving to remain relevant would have distracted me from the true calling of my Soul.

I am certain that there are people for which that would not be true. They can have the applause and the awakening. And I am clear that would not have been the case for me.

I am clear that my dreams led me to my greatest joy and most wondrous fulfillment. And that happened because they did not come true. In not coming true they led me to a life that has had a lot of struggle yet also a vast amount of overcoming and subsequent service. I have never fit in. And I belong to myself in ways that are beyond my dreams.

And so dear readers, “What did you dream of being earlier in life?”

And did those dreams come true?

And whether they did or not to what did the pursuit of those dreams lead you?

May you know, dear ones, a life beyond your wildest dreams.

May your dreams awaken you to what you were always meant to be.

OUT OF THE CRUMBLING

My first message of this new year may not at first seem hopeful.

I assure you it is.

Systems everywhere are crumbling.

The status quo is failing because it is no longer sustainable.

The old order has passed away, never to return.

There is chaos, energetic devastation all around us.

Individual lives are crumbling just as is the collective consciousness. Those are not two separate things. They are one. Or more accurately they IS one. We are holographic beings. What is in the whole is in the One.

What is in the Whole is in the One.

There is a Cosmic crumbling of the old order. There is chaos. There is disaster. There is darkness and there is devastation. I invite you to stay alert because energetic artifacts are flying all about. Religions are dying. Systems are dying. Governments are dying. Groups and societies of all sorts are crumbling and disintegrating and dying.

And amid all of that scariness and messiness is perhaps a greater potential than we have ever seen or known. And this is why I for one have great hope.

Nothing is crumbling or dying that doesn’t need to go. What is outmoded is appropriately being outcast. We are not losing anything. A new reality is coming into being. And it is a bumpy process. That is just the way it works.

I am beholding a massive crumbling that has been occurring in my life circumstances for the past few years. Enormous seeming losses. Multiple rejections, if I choose to frame them that way. A reordering in almost every area of my living. And what has not begun to actively crumble is definitely showing cracks.

I am grateful to be in a place in consciousness that sees it all for what it is. A shifting, a reordering in consciousness. I know that it is in service of my evolution. I do not fear it. I truly do not. I am moving with it. I am up to the task. I have great faith from direct lived experience. I actively live in a Universe that supports my highest unfoldment. I follow Its promptings. When something starts to crumble, I blow it a kiss and say goodbye. No clinging to what no longer serves. I did that for decades. I do not do that anymore.

I am enhanced by the knowing that as what is in the Whole is in the One my personal crumbling and rebuilding has a direct influence on all living beings. I have an impact on the entire collective Field. This is true for all of us. I just choose to own it and live actively from it. I do so gratefully, faithfully, wakefully, and consistently.

So, I say let it all crumble! Let it all fall. Most of it was no longer working anyway. We are meant to evolve, grow, and change. We can only do that if we let go of what was. The Cosmic consciousness is creating a void and it will fill it with something far better. We are simply asked to cooperate. To stop trying to hold together a crumbling world. It fulfilled its purpose. And something new beneath is what is causing the crumbling.

And so, my first blog of 2023 is one of great hope: systems everywhere are crumbling. Things are falling apart. A great purging is in process.

Let it happen.

We are in this together. We are each a part of the same whole. We are holons who are called to live on behalf of the whole. Let’s be bold and brave, courageous as we crumble together.

Something wondrous is coming forth. I can feel it. These are faith-quakes we are feeling, and that is okay. Trust. Rely on something greater than the fear-based self. Say goodbye to what no longer serves. And say hello to what you as of yet cannot see.

Out of the crumbling is coming a whole new order of living, giving, serving. We are going to see a higher level of human expression than we have ever seen. I know it to be so. Take my word for it. Or not. Either way it is the vision I am holding. For myself and for all living beings.

Out of the crumble, a whole new world.

Bring it on.

WHAT I AM NOT

I am in an even more than usual state of introspection.

That most certainly includes a heavy dose of retrospection.

The holidays and the pending end of a calendar year often invoke those states within me. While the holidays increase the level of activity for people in my vocation, they also always compel me to desire increased time in non-doing. This can for sure cause some tension. I do not resist the tension. I just go into it, knowing some needed fodder is emerging.

And so, my state of introspection has been deepening, as has my retrospective exploration.

Memories have been arising that are accompanied by many varied waves of responsive energies. Memories from early childhood. Memories of holidays and people past. Memories that take me by surprise, and many that take my breath away. Memories of when Christmas had an intense magic to it. Memories of lights and sounds and gifts and tastes. Images of trees and manger scenes, frosty windows and visible breath. Letters to Santa and Sunday school pageants. I have laughed and I have cried. I have regretted and I have celebrated.

Retrospective introspection. Even more than usual.

As I contemplate my interior and surf the waves of grief and of joy, I reflect on what my lifetime has been about. The patterns. The blockages and the places that have always seemed to flow. The people who have uplifted me, and the people who have put me down. The events, circumstances, relationships that were and are significant.

I reflect on so many losses, starting at an early age. The decades have indeed been punctuated by losses. Significant, life changing losses. While human beings naturally lean away from and avoid loss, I have been gifted to learn to lean into them and seek to glean the gifts I somehow knew they contained. As a result, my many losses have been meaningful. They have been expanding. They have helped to cultivate resilience, fortitude, tenacity, and steadfastness. I have deep clarity around how much I have learned from these repeated losses. How strong I have become from my myriad goodbyes.

And now, at another holiday and end of year season, I am amid yet another intensified period of introspection and retrospection. I am in the middle of what could be a slow and long goodbye. Anticipatory grief is my subtle yet persistent companion. And I am strong, resilient, stable enough to lean into it without becoming it. I nod it good morning and I kiss it goodnight. I see it as both personal and pattern. It is familiar and it is new. It seems ancient, and also now.

There are many things that I have become as a result of a goodbye punctuated lifetime. I am beyond grateful for most of those things. I perhaps have more bruises than some. I can be more withdrawn than most. I have scars. Oh my, I have scars. Yet with all the wounds there is one thing I have not become. This is perhaps my greatest source of appreciation in terms of what I could have become.

With all of the hurts and losses, I have not become bitter.

I am not bitter.

I do not write these words from a surface type of awareness. I have gone deeply into an intentional introspection around this. I have led with my heart into a retrospective deep dive into how my losses have shaped me. In what ways they have made me more closed, and in what ways I have chosen to be more open. I have intimately touched those bruises and scars. I have attended to them without regret or evaluation. I have gained clarity and insight as to what meaning a lifetime of loss has gifted me with.

I am better as a result. I am not bitter.

I could easily have become bitter.

I am not.

I am bruised it is true.

And I am better.

I have been made better by goodbyes, not bitter. That gives each loss great meaning. It allows me to know my tears have cleansed my heart while also watering the garden of my consciousness. I do not fear loss. Mine or yours. I may wince, but I do not run away. Doors can be slammed in my face, yet my heart remains wide open.

Every loss has become a gain.

And so, this holiday season there will be little outward celebration as I attend to added responsibilities as a fulltime caregiver that also works fulltime. I remain open as I attend to my attending. I do so while being intensely intimate to my interior, my past, my present. I embrace it all from a spacious betterment that has expanded beyond bitterness.

I am grateful for my proclivity toward introspection. For contemplation. For deep dives into consciousness and emotional fluency. For the memories sweet and tragic. For Christmases with much and Christmases with little. It has been a beautiful, magical, painful, sometimes regretful, always wondrous journey. Adventure. Loses and gains, I have searched, and I have found meaning in it all.

And, best of all, I am not bitter as a result. For better and for worse I have become better.

And for that I am better than glad. I am blessed.