My Last Post?

Well, all my hundreds of thousands of readers (and listeners to my blog radio show at www.blogtalkradio.com/isitjustmeor), I want to let you know that this may be my last post.

Now for those of you hundreds of thousands of readers and listeners who also followed me on my first blog, www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com, I know you have read this declaration from me before. I closed www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com once too (only to re-open it a week or so later before it naturally closed itself).

But it feels different this time.

Since I returned from my second trip to San Francisco (to retrieve my heart), I have spent a bit of time trying to find the right fit for my re-claimed pulsating mass of love in the once familiar space left vacant in my Irish body by my heart's unexpected and extended stay at the San Francisco Hilton in Chinatown.

And, even though my heart is safely nestled in its bed and seems to fit just dandy, we don’t seem to be speaking the same language anymore. (Perhaps it prefers Mandarin or Cantonese now?)

We (my heart’s desire to write and I) have lost the fluency, the ease and the bodily resonant vibration with the words of English. Words and writing them on paper doesn’t sing to me right now. It doesn’t lift me to my cliffs. It seems foreign, not of me, external to who I am.

And I ache to feel the joy, the wonder, and the gratitude of it again.

I don’t mean to put any responsibility for this on my heart. After all, I was the one who left it in San Francisco and took several weeks to realize it wasn’t pumping in my chest cavity or consciousness anymore. While it sat in San Francisco, abandoned, I chalked up the emptiness I felt around writing to feeling misunderstood and shot down at the writer’s convention. I thought I had lost my confidence.

I am now afraid that I might have lost a lot more.

At the same time, I recognize that I have spent the past seven weeks in a universally super-sized intensive study program with Barbara Marx Hubbard and a group of fellow evolutionary travelers. I know I am not the same woman who began study with that group when we entered the chrysalis together seven weeks ago. I recognize I am living in a liminal state…the state of between…I am not who I was, but I am also not yet who I will emerge to be. Much like a caterpillar in it’s chrysalis, suspended somewhere between caterpillar and butterfly…not enough of my caterpillar is left to escape the chrysalis and go back to life as it was and not enough of my butterfly is formed to spread my beautifully vibrant Kelly green, sky blue and wavy red wings and gently soar into my new incarnation.

Honest to G the Father, while writing this I had a startling revelation…

Perhaps letting go of the Caterpillar Me means also letting go of the Writer Me.

The pain of letting go of parts of mySelf that I no longer need or want is difficult and sometimes excruciating, but when the the journey is completed and the pain is gone, deeper integration and more profound understanding of mySelf are welcome rewards. That self-generated and magnified light at the end of the tunnel is what keeps me moving through the pain.

But (someone please tell me), where is the motivation to move through letting go of parts of mySelf that I absolutely love and adore? Parts of myself that are shiny and new and that transport me to peace and joy and my beloved God-view?

Do I have to give that up too?

Is Evolving Metamorphosis the surrender of it all? "Good" and "bad"?

And, if that answer is "yes," most importantly to me right now is this.

If a caterpillar has the instinct, faith, intuition and trust to follow its inner evolutionary guidance, enter the chrysalis as one being and emerge from it totally unrecognizable to itself and the world...

Why don’t I?

Lady-In-Waiting

Seems like all I do is wait.

Please bear with me. I know this probably sounds arrogant, but I have been waiting for people all my life to catch up with me. Those “people” would be my family of origin and the families I created in marriage (the first AND the second time). Here I am (generously) putting on my personal brakes instead of taking flight and following my Heart’s Desire because I am (generously) waiting for everyone else to grow wings (and the balls to use them).

Yes, I know…arrogant.

On the other hand, I don’t think I am the only person on the planet who feels or has felt this way. There are probably a gaggle of women (and a slew of men) out there who agree with me. Perhaps, especially those women of a certain age who grew up as I did in the patriarchal society of the 50’s can resonate with my experience. They, too, could have personal recollections of their mothers and grandmothers routinely giving up their individual, unique identities to become partnered wives and stay-at-home mothers more out of societal expectation than personal desire.

With the women’s movement in the late 60’s, a lot of us woke up to the possibility of a different kind of life. In Fall of 1971, my junior year at Boston College, there was a mass exodus of women out of the Schools of Education and Nursing into the Schools of Business, Arts and Sciences, and Pre-Med. Why? Because we were finally (after much ado about something) allowed admittance to those historically male-only majors.

At the same time, the long-standing paradigm of going to college with the goal of finding a “good” husband was covertly active even in 1971. I don’t think I am alone in spending a lifetime trying to balance doing for others and doing for self, but personally I never wanted to fly solo, without my family, my peeps, my support. So I looked for a suitable husband (twice), and waited for them to catch up with my level of desire.

I’m still waiting, and I’m getting tired of them holding me back.

I met an old feeble-looking woman a few weeks ago. By the looks of her, she could be anywhere between an extremely aged 60 and a relatively youthful 95. At first glance, I pegged her for a victim. It was something about the way her head hung off her neck as if it weighed one hundred pounds. Something about her body language just said, “Pity me.”

The room in which we had our encounters had its own unique ambiance. It smelled as if something was rotting, making it almost impossible to take a deep breath. A small sliver of light came through an open door, but the boarded up windows encircling the room were caked with what must have been decades of congealed and hardened dust and dirt.

The other oddity in the room was the large number and assortment of chairs that were strewn about: a high chair, a toddler seat, an old fashioned classroom chair attached to a desk (with an inkwell!), and several other random assorted sitting devices including the old weathered rocking chair this ancient-looking women was perched on.

I am embarrassed to admit that I had little pity for her. “Sorry, Honey,” I thought to myself, “your decision” because who else but a self-appointed victim would stay in a place like that when there was an open doorway four steps (or less!) straight ahead?

Well, once again, apparently, that would be me.

Because as I thought those words, she raised her head to me, and I recognized my own blue eyes, but charged, electric, and alive. Her gaze grabbed me by the pupils, and refused to let me go. She has more energy, more magnetism, more purpose in those eyes than I can find in my entire body.

I’m sure you’re all way ahead of me and know this already, but I must say that even after several meditation encounters with this woman, I was shocked to learn this morning that…

She is the embodiment of my Heart’s Desire, my Soul’s Calling.

While I have spent the last almost sixty years being uber-responsible and uber-busy fixing, manipulating, and controlling other people’s lives so I can finally stop waiting for them..

She has been waiting for me.

Yes, my friends, by the looks of my high chair, my toddler seat and more, my Heart’s Desire has been (generously) waiting for me to stop using everyone else as an excuse for avoiding my life so I can finally grow my own pair of wings (and the balls to use them).

All she wants to know is this: How much longer does she have to wait?


(Thank you Elizabeth Claire)

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

Right off the bat, I apologize for not being in contact for so long, but I lost my Voice. What happened was this:

In 1952 just around this time of year, my mother was reclining on the couch with my father and suddenly felt a sharp pain under her ribs (over and over again). She said to my father, “If I didn’t know better, I would swear that I’m pregnant, and the baby is kicking.”

My mother had already had multiple pregnancies (my older brother and I the only ones taken to term). Leading her to believe that when it came to pregnancy, she knew her body…intimately. So, she ignored the feeling, chalked it up to gas, continued to watch “Your Show of Shows,” eat her butter pecan ice cream, and put it out of her mind.

One month later, on Christmas day, she gave birth to my brother.

Several factors played into her not recognizing she was pregnant: 1) My mother realized, in retrospect, that she had gotten pregnant with my baby brother shortly after having me,and she had gotten pregnant with me right after giving birth to my older brother; Therefore, 2) she was still carrying a lot of previous baby weight; 3) My brother was a very tiny baby (a mere 5 pounds); and 4) Let’s face it…It was the 50’s and the medical community was not as savvy as it is today.

All the while my brother was busy growing and blossoming in my mom’s womb, she went about her business of taking care of an infant daughter and an eighteen month old son, totally unaware of her new baby boy’s growing presence.

In 2009 just about this time of year, I began feeling an inner impulse, a universal kick in the vicinity of my solar plexus (over and over again). I have given birth to several creative projects in my life. I have multiple master’s degrees. I have acted in film, on television, and on stage. I experienced pregnancy at the age of 41 and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Leading me to believe that when it came to creativity, I knew my inner process…intimately. So I ignored the feeling, chalked it up to gas, continued to focus on creating projects outside of myself, and put it out of my mind.

One month later, two days before Christmas, I gave birth to www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com and my first blogpost.

Several factors played into me not recognizing I was pregnant with new possibility: 1) I realized, in retrospect, that I had indeed been asking for a stronger connection with my real Voice; However, 2) being that I am an actor, I thought that the Voice I was asking to be connected to was my speaking Voice (a written Voice was no where in my awareness); 3) My first blog was very tiny (a mere 5 lines), and 4) let’s face it…I was in my late-ish 50’s and not as savvy as I am today.

All the while my Voice was busy growing and blossoming in my co-creative and uniquely universal womb, I went about my business of taking care of my infant transforming consciousness and an eighteen year old son, totally unaware of my new Voice’s growing presence.

However, once I was startled into the birth of that first blogpost, I joyfully birthed many more. I was (and still am) in love with the posts that emerged from me. Each post’s desire to teach me and to (hopefully) help others as we travel our paths to Evolving Selves literally transported me to blissful heights within myself that I had never experienced before.

Like a mother bathed in the miracle of her newborn baby, I fell in love with each and every blogpost Offspring I birthed (all 90 + of them!).

Then, like a negligent mother, I left Them all in San Francisco.

On November 12th, I caught a flight north to a “Writing for Change” Conference in the City of the Golden Gate. The conference was meant for writers who have something to contribute to the evolution of the universe and the agents, editors, and publishers who love them. Naturally I went to the conference with my Beloved Offspring, excited about the opportunity to show them off and bask in the glow of others recognizing their radiance.

One editor told me my writing was (yes, I am quoting here because editors love that!) “Hilarious but neurotic and adolescent.” He wanted to know who the character was that was writing the posts. He helpfully suggested I think about taking on a 14 year old persona of Charlie Brown’s long lost love, the curly red-haired girl, Margaret.

WHAT??!!

I departed the conference dazed and confused and, in packing, left my Beloved Offspring at the Hilton in Chinatown.

And, honest to God, it is at this very moment of telling you my story that I realize why his comments about my Voiced Beloved Offspring threw me into such a tizzy that I forgot to bring them home. The way his comments landed in my body has been difficult to process and release, but I am grateful to him for his point of view.

Because if he had not said that to me, I never would have embodied the sweet vulnerability I feel and the love I have for this process of evolving. My stories are communicated via my universally unique, and perhaps, adolescent and neurotic Voice, yes,

But they are birthed through my Heart…

No wonder I feel so empty…

I left my Heart in San Francisco.

Sorry, but right now I need to leave.

I have a north-bound flight to catch.

I Babysat Jesus

I’m going to assume that if you are reading this sentence, you have already read the title of this post. Therefore, I am going to further assume you have concluded that I have gone completely off my rocker (or my Cliffs).

And I might just have to agree with you.

If you read my first blog, (and I certainly think you should!), you may recall that I wrote about three previous JC visitations (although in the first visit, I did not realize it was Him). He made his fourth visit to me last Saturday morning. I think He decided to come because I had posed this question to the Universe:

“What is my One Mind, my Unique Heart and my Connected Soul’s Desire?”

To my complete and utter surprise, He appeared and said (in that Dr. Spock cool mind meld kinda way He loves to use), “Illumination. Light. Presence.”

My response was, “Can you tell me what You mean by...…….?”

Then He was gone.

This was the third time He has done that to me. Now, I recognize that He’s probably just a tad bit busy with keeping his finger on the pulse of the world for His Father and everything, but I really hate it when He does that.

Honestly, I am getting just a wee bit frustrated with His (uninvited) Appear, Drop a Few Enlightened (but unexplained) Words, and Disappear Act. Who does that? Is it just me or does that kind of behavior strike you as just a tad bit rude? Is Divinity an excuse for lack of manners? Not in my holy book. And who raised this Guy anyway?

Apparently I did.

Because later Saturday afternoon after His Disappearing Act, my son, his father, and I drove out to the desert and each had a session with a Doctor of Psychology and his partner, a Master Hypnotist/Clinical Hypnotherapist. Among the things I discovered was that I had lived in the Essene community approximately two thousand and ten years ago, where I took care of my cousin with whom I lived.

I babysat Jesus.

So now I wonder…is that the reason He feels He can show up in my living room without a gentle knock on the door of my consciousness, an invitation to take a peek at my soul, or a simple "Got a minute?" Is that why He saunters in, shines His Light on my face, mind melds with my brain, drops a few words in my mind, and leaves without an explanation or a proper “Nice chatting with you” and “Goodbye?”

It would certainly explain his familial entitled popping in (and popping out).

The next day, I shared this Essene babysitting discovery with a friend of mine who is very skeptical about anything related to past lives and especially the whole “I babysat Jesus" thing. And I have to be honest and say that I also find the concept difficult (if not impossible) to accept.

At the same time (I tried to explain to my friend) His visits have their own unique flavor, feel, and fulfillment, and I can’t deny the fully embodied reaction I have when He comes into my space. I have described it before. The room becomes Illuminated; I feel His Light on my eyelids; It penetrates through them directly into my Mind; Light and Warmth fill my entire body, I radiate the Presence back to Him, and my soul overflows in a flood of tears and a gratitude that is beyond anything else I have ever experienced.

It is more real to me than the chaise I am meditating on.

And when I began to explore our two thousand (plus) year old relationship while in the desert last Saturday; I had the same uncensored response.

All that being said, maybe it really doesn’t matter if I physically babysat Jesus two thousand years ago or not.

Because what is undeniable to me is the Illumination, the Light, and the Presence that resonates in my One Mind, Unique Heart, and Connected Soul's Desire when He enters my Consciousness.

And, right now, that’s infinitely and divinely much more than enough for me.




If you are interested in reading more about my close encounters of the JC kind, please go to www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com and look for posts entitled “The Metaphor, The Muse, And The Magician,” “Betwixt and Between,” and “Salsa Dancing With JC.”

Time To Rake The Leaves

My father was very particular about the outer appearance of our New England Colonial home. He regularly engaged in the hard work of necessary duties (commandeering my brothers when they were old enough): shoveling snow off the front steps and sidewalk in the winter, planting flowers and caring for the new grass in the spring, mowing the lawn, cutting the hedges, and sweeping the sidewalk in front of our house (who does that anymore?) in the summer, and raking and burning the leaves in the fall.

One of the things I loved most in fall was the day my dad decided the side yard had become an ocean of fallen leaves that he could no longer tolerate. It was time to rake it up. The moment he finished raking, we kids were allowed to run across the yard as fast as we could and jump high into (to my child-sized eyes) the enormously gigantic and colorful mounds of crackly softness. The colors were so beautiful that I wanted to meld with each one of them: deep russets, browns of all shades, vibrant yellows, bronzes, and golds.

Once in a while there were some green leaves there too. I always felt sorry for them. It seemed to me that they were born too late to enjoy the fullness and excitement of the spring and summer and died well before their time on earth was done. One year I actually, but unsuccessfully, attempted to Elmer-glue three of my favorite green leaves back onto the tree.

Once our leaf play was concluded (that is, when my father told us to “get the hell out of the leaves”) the next big excitement was going into the house, getting potatoes, covering them securely in aluminum foil, and placing them very deep in our leaf pyres. You see, way back in the day, people were allowed to burn leaves.

Our leaf-inspired igloo quickly became our potato–enhanced fiery teepee.

It took every ounce of patience we had to wait until the fire completely died out and we were allowed to recover and devour the yummy and delicious foil covered treasures left behind. (It was worth the wait. Best potatoes ever!)

With all the thinking I have been doing over the past few days since I posted about my resistance to looking at what is between my son and I and with the help the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles yesterday (thank you Reverend Michael!), I decided that what happened between my son and me a few days ago was right on schedule.

Because fall is the perfect time to notice the fallen and no longer useful between my son and me, rake it all up, and let it burn.

The problem with that is that the space where the beautiful, inviting, and familiar relational dynamics once stood becomes empty. Yes, maybe there are beliefs and ideas I have about our relationship that are dead and no longer serve their purpose, but individually I have grown to love each and every facet of their individual and unique color, texture, and smell.


And honestly, I just don’t know if I am up to the hard work it requires to collect all that we have discarded into one enormous and colorful mound when I am accustomed to the comfort and ease of picking up any one of the beautifully dead dynamics and admiring it simply because it used to be alive in our relationship.

And it is especially difficult not to pick up the still vibrant and, in my mind, pre-maturely perished without trying to somehow re-attach it to our shared tree. Even Super Glue wouldn’t do it.

However, spending a childhood experiencing seasonal changes and living in the unique environment that each season brings with it, I have learned a little something about birth and death through the story of nature.

Like my childhood friends, the Maple and the Oak trees, I will take comfort in knowing that just because some of the dynamics between my son and I withered and died doesn’t mean the roots of our relationship have perished as well. I’m going to trust that there is freedom in the acceptance of what has fallen away, in the gathering and honoring of what once was, and in the release of it back into the universe.

The empty space left behind by the fiery cleansing may feel strange, maybe even awkward and uncomfortable, but it can also provide us with a spaciousness where something new can bud and blossom between us.

And if we are trusting and patient enough, I am betting that once the fires have subsided and made way for the new, we will uncover a few yummy and delicious aluminum foil covered treasures.

The Eve of the Wandering Dead

Am I the only one who hated Halloween as a child? It terrified me. The thought of dressing up in costume pretending to be someone else held as much appeal as biting into a live rattlesnake. Seeing my friends in costumes was scary enough but when people who I couldn’t identify called me by name, laughed that Halloween-Dracula laugh, and demanded I give them candy… or else…well let’s just say it was pee my pants time. I didn’t like the idea of costumes depicting frightening fantasies, “coming back from the dead” to haunt those of us left on the planet, or the deliberate attempt of others to scare the bejesus out of each other, or the whole go to stranger’s homes and ask for candy thing.

I didn’t like seeing people in “benign” costumes either. Even those gave me the creeps.

So, thanks Mom, but NO I don’t want to be Snow White for Halloween.

To complicate Halloween for me, the following day is a holy day that was celebrated in my very Irish very Roman Catholic diocese. We honored All Souls Day that, if I remember correctly, falls the day after Halloween. Somehow in my little girl mind I decided that the church sanctioned this fear fest called Halloween or All Hallows E’en as the Irish call it, because it was somehow a warm-up to All Souls Day.

I concluded that Halloween was simply the rehearsal for the real All Soul’s Eve to come on the following night in which actual Born Again Dead Souls returned to participate in some kind of a planetary reunion. For years I went to the required early morning Mass with my family and prayed that no lost soul would knock on my door that night.

All I could do was hope that Newport was too small a place to hold that big of a party.

Yes, I know I am big on my happy, bouncy, loosely curled red hair, my cornflower blue eyes and my freckled skin. I adore making an incredibly big deal about my Irish heritage, but All Hallow’s E’en followed up by the main attraction, All Soul’s Day, was one Celtic Catholic tradition that I just didn’t want any part of.

My mother’s Irish roots are in County Cork, and my dad’s are in County Mayo, one of the homes of the Druids. Ireland’s October 31st back in the day was the holiest of the Druid’s High Holy days. November 1st was considered the New Year, so All Hallows E’en was basically New Year’s Eve. However, the Druids didn’t drink champagne or toss their scribed resolutions into a great big community bon fire to usher in the New Year. Instead, what they did was drink wassail-like beverages from giant-sized tubs and engage in a practice of predicting what the next year held in store for them by observing the behaviors of four and (yes) two legged captives who were tossed into the Druid All Hallows E'en sacrificial fires.

And, no, these practices were not a lively topic of conversation in my childhood home, but my deeply embedded Irish DNA has traditionally gotten just a wee bit restless around this time of year.

I’m not sure what any of this means from my cliffside God view, but two things are clear to me.

I still don’t like Halloween and I probably (at this stage of the game) will never care for it.

And that being said, I will open my door 267 times tonight and give out candy to those who do.

Happy Halloween.

Real Simple

Okay, I admit it; I didn’t “accidentally” fall off the cliffs yesterday. I dove in with a force and a swiftness that, upon reflection, has left me reeling.

Actually, my son dove in first, and I happily (and without a second’s reflection or hesitation) assumed the diving stance taught to me when I was 7, bent my knees, raised my hands over my head, and propelled myself off the cliff after him (performing an amazing lay-out on the way down, fyi).

I had a fantasy when my son was young that I was the World’s Best Mom. I felt completely at home with the requisite accoutrements of my World’s Best Mom status: sparkly tiara, glittery sash, and Queen (Mary) Elizabeth gloves (so I could accurately perform the royal wave). For 16 ½ years, I was paraded through small towns and big cities. I happily agreed to personal appearances, autograph signings, and generally gracing my adoring subjects with my astounding presence and World’s Best Mom talents, skills, and abilities (all the while avoiding paparazzi on bad redheaded hair days). It was, I must say, quite the life.

That is until 18 months, 4 days, 12 hours, and 58 minutes ago, when behaviors my son began engaging in rattled me off my throne. It was then that my sparkly tiara slipped off my head shattering it into a hundred irrevocable pieces, my glittery sash ripped up the back (and not on the seam), and I lost track of my Queen (Mary) Elizabeth special hand waving gloves.

Next thing I knew there was an invitation to join AARP in my mailbox along with a six month subscription to the Real Simple Moms Club.

It broke my heart.

I had to admit it. I never was and am not now the World’s Best Mom…not even close.

I reluctantly filled out and returned my subscription form to the Real Simple Mom’s Club (and promptly tossed the AARP materials in the trash…as usual).

Now this stripping of my World’s Best Mom outer vestments did not come about in the wink of a majestic eye. The last 18 months, 4 days, 12 hours, and 58 minutes have been an increasingly challenging time for my son and me in navigating our relationship. However, something came to a head yesterday morning. Specifically, my son and I had “words.” We both said angry things that we had never said to each other before. I am ashamed to admit it, but I totally lost my ability to contain my upset, anger, and disappointment, and I verbally lashed out at him in a moment of reaction (hence the dive off my cliffs).

My son and I, once it was over, looked at each other…stunned. Neither of us had any idea where the upset came from nor the magnitude with which we both expressed it.

Suffice it to say that yesterday was a day my very own real simple moment was served bountifully to me with a side of confusion in, bewilderment about and inklings of other as yet unrecognized fantasies about me, my son, and our relationship.

This morning I got up and read the passage “The Immediacy of Salvation” from A”S”CIM after a day yesterday of trying to understand and make real simple sense of what the hell had happened with my son. As is usually the case after reading that book, I got a real simple glimmer of an idea.

What I learned from reading this morning was that my son and I carry a complicated mixture of positive and negative feelings about our individual selves, each other, and our current life situation. And these feelings create perceptions and beliefs that may or may not be true.

I think that is all real and simply human.

Problem is I didn’t (and still don’t) want to look at it. It is feeling very similar to the resistance I had to looking in the back of the boat several weeks ago. So I am thinking that there is some part of my great big stinkin’ black amorphous ego that survived the sun and its deadly ultraviolent rays and that’s what reared its angry tiara-less head yesterday.

And, what causes real simple human problems, I think, is doing exactly what I am doing right now…avoiding looking at what I don’t want to see.

All that being said, I still don’t wanna look at it.

But I know deep down inside that the truth of our relationship can be revealed to us by allowing a real and simple look at what is there between us…all of it.

Real simple but, for me at the moment, not real easy.

My Own Personal “Calgon Take Me Away” Moment

I was in a wee bit of a tizzy yesterday. I had a phone call that I wanted to be super-y duper-y centered for so I could stay on the cliffs instead of letting myself kinda sorta "accidentally" fall off (which, as you know, I have kinda sorta done before). I meditated early that morning and focused on this upcoming phone interaction. Lo and behold, I received one of those special unexpected meditative gifts. For me that means an experience of being transported to a new level of understanding by the weaving together of images and ideas I had already been thinking (and blogging) about in tandem with a brand new idea that allows me to experience these things I have been pondering in a new, whole, and more integrated way.

What happened was this:

First, I recalled a blog I had written on my previous website entitled “I Need A Hug” at www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com (You should read it!). It was a tongue-in-cheek, fun blog written about something very very near and dear to my heart…the giving and receiving of what I call “head hugs” with our children. As I said in the blog:

Those hugs we parents give and receive when our little one is up in our arms. Child gently places head on shoulder. Parent gently rests head on child’s. To me, there is nothing more sweet and unique to our species than the act of cradling our child between the divine consciousness of the human mind and the love of an open heart.

Second, “The Gumby Challenge” popped into my mind. "The Gumby Challenge" is a blog on this very website. I'll give you a couple of minutes...go ahead and read it if you haven't already.

Don't worry. I’ll wait.

I hope you see that in “The Gumby Challenge” I was struggling to figure out a way to be in the daily activities and interactions of the world without being invested in the conflicts and drama of the world. Physically being of the world, while living on the cliffs of Higher Consciousness. I call that living, not in the either/or, but LIVING IN THE "AND."

Last, my unexpected and divinely inspired thought recalled something from my childhood. When I was a young, I often saw a television commercial in which the uber-busy, uber-stressed, and uber-responsible housewife finally allowed herself a few precious minutes of relaxation submerged in a bathtub full of a bubble bath soap called Calgon. The tub was always shot horizontally in front of a large window through which could be seen a bucolic and never-ending expanse of green fields covered with endless colorful flowers. The now serene housewife reposed languidly in her cherished bathtub, her left arm and hand relaxed and dangling over the rim.

Bliss and contentment were finally hers.

The tag line, “Calgon take me away” always filled my small self with questions. What was the point of sitting in a tub when she could be out running and playing in the flowers? Who is Calgon and why is he/she going to take her away? How can she go out with no clothes on? Won’t she be cold? Embarrassed? Won't she miss her children?

But most importantly...

Where does she want Mr/Miss/Mrs. (No Ms. It was the early 60's after all) Calgon to take her away to?

Fast forward to yesterday morning’s meditation prior to the phone call. I started with two thought threads placed side by side in my mind. The thoughts were (1) I wanted my heart space to be open, and (2) I wanted to speak to my phone mate from a Higher Self. “Hold on a minute!” I blurted out loud, “Isn’t that LIVING IN THE 'AND'?” And then a few seconds later, “OMG! Isn’t that what I call a Head Hug?”

In that moment of the super-y duper-y weaving of threads, I became that blissful and contented woman in the tub. God, the Higher Consciousness, the Greater Field of life, the (let’s face it) Ultimate Calgon Creator, transported me to my own personal Calgon Take Me Away moment.

Because once again, I was gently reminded; I don’t have to search for anything or figure anything out.

It is here LIVING in my body, in my memory, in my consciousness.

Bliss and contentment were finally mine.

LIVING IN THE "AND", I placed the land line receiver on my shoulder and gently lowered my ear to the earpiece, cradling it between the divine consciousness of my human mind and the love of my open heart.

I made the call.

Happy 22nd Anniversary?

Here’s my question…Why do we use the word “anniversary” to commemorate the day of a wedding AND the day of a death? Could the feelings each day engenders be more of an emotional dialectic? In my book, anniversaries are not for talking about the day someone or something, that you loved (and still love) very (very) much, died.

The word “anniversary” is happy; it’s a cause for celebration; it’s a room filled with joyful people drinking great champagne, eating chocolate cake stuffed with raspberries and topped with a rich lip-smacking chocolate ganache, and dancing cheek-to-cheek (as closely and slowly as possible).

Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus uses words like: “feast day, festival, jubilee, red letter day, hoopla, hullabaloo” as synonyms for "anniversary." Not one single hint, utterance or syllable to even indicate death, loss, or grief.

So I ask again, “WHY?”

This year, as has been the case for the past twenty-two years, I had the occasion to celebrate the anniversary of my marriage back to back with the anniversary of my father’s death. Two of the biggest and most important milestones in my life that occurred within two days, fourteen hours, and two minutes of each other. My son’s dad and I were married at 1 pm on October 15, 1988, 22 years ago this past Friday, and my father left this plane of existence for his next big adventure at 3:02 am on October 18, 1988, 22 years ago today.

My father’s death has been hard on me every year, but some years have been harder than others. I remember every second from the moment I realized we needed to call an ambulance to take my father to the hospital, to the last thing he said to me and I to him, to the last man who came up to me after the funeral and said, “I’ve known your father my whole life.” I replied to him, “So have I.”

After that everything is a blank. All I remember of that first newly wedded year is the feeling of powerful tidal waves of grief that frequently and unexpectedly took control of my body, anytime and anywhere for absolutely no apparent reason.

Therefore, I assumed that the first October 15th anniversary after I had left my marriage would initiate a similar barrage of tidal waves albeit perhaps for only a day or two. “This,” I thought to myself, “is gonna be one ‘wet’ anniversary.” Surprisingly, it went by fairly painlessly. Maybe I was still in shock at the realization that I had walked out on 24 years (5 living together and 19 married).

So, naturally, last year, I expected all the floodgates to break loose. Didn’t happen. Dry as a bone.

This year? Both the loss of the marriage and the loss of my father hit me like those reminiscent grief-propelled never ending tidal waves, your basic oceanic one-two-combination punch to the heart.

But WHY did it happen this year of all years?

Maybe I thought I was out of striking range so I put my emotional guard down. Maybe I wasn’t thinking about protecting myself from a left uppercut to my Grief Center or a right hook to Regrets Central as I had been for the past two years. But this weekend felt like the Universe was holding me against the ropes and hitting me below the belt…punch after punch, wave after wave, over and over again.

WHY?

I decided to answer myself by saying, “Because now it is time.”

For some stinkin’ reason, this year was the year the little Dutch boy decided to pull his finger out of the Grief Dam over my broken marriage perhaps creating a new level of resurgence of the grief over the loss of my father.

However, contrary to popular opinion (and my own tendencies) I am not going to try to find any other answer to the “Why?” question. I am just going to let it be what it was and is.

I am learning to let go and trust the flow without trying to control the current.

Good for me.

Yes.

Happy 22nd Anniversary.

As Far As My Eye Could See

So the Universe decided not to take me up on my generous offer to be quietly exited off the planet.

Instead, I found myself sitting right back in my boat. In the fog. I was relieved to see that my amorphous shape was nowhere to be found. Without me there to shade it, slather it with SPF 75 or nurture it and justify its existence in any way, I imagine the exposure to the illumination of its blackness quietly dissolved it like the Wicked Witch of the West’s ultimate and final “I’m melting!” a la The Wizard of Oz.

Monday two very important things occurred although I did not realize their importance at the time. (I was too foggy) A very dear friend mentioned that because of the conflict I was going through with my previous teacher, I was sitting on the cusp of a potentially wonderful opening to experience “an unprecedented soul connection” with her. The second thing that happened was that in doing some research on soul connections, I came across a website that described a Third Eye meditative technique.

It was Tuesday (5 days after my very own Freeway meltdown in the car) before I decided to take a brief gander (out of the corner of my eye) at A”S”CIM. I read a section entitled “Perception and Choice” (pg 523). For the past several months, I have been struggling with the idea of “sensory perception of the eyes” as opposed to “Seeing.” A”S”CIM talks about “Seeing” a lot, and I have not been able to figure out, on an experiential level, what “Seeing” is all about. I get the concept, but the actual tangible experience of it has been illusive. Furthermore, according to A”S”CIM this ability to “See” rightly is not necessarily a skill to be developed, as much as it is a choice to be made (which, honestly, also confused me).

When I arrived at work later that morning, I sat in my car in the parking lot and attempted to lift myself out of the fog. I reclined back in the driver’s seat, closed my eyes, and envisioned a new kind of relationship with my teacher. Those words “unprecedented soul connection” rested in my consciousness as I closed my two physical cornflower blue eyes and followed the processes from the Third Eye meditation I had discovered on the web. I suddenly found my Self at the top of my cliff with my former teacher sitting across from me.

So many things converged at that moment as my meditatively activated Third Eye took in the 360 degree expansiveness of my (new and definitely improved!) timeless eternal view. I knew that a world of physical bodies was engaged in the daily activities of life on terra firma down below us while this connected, real, and authentic meeting of the One Mind was going on at the same time in the world above the human experience. I opened my Eye even wider and saw that there was an individuated world of One Mind, an illuminated sea of souls, past, present, and future as far as my Eye could see.

There is a world that exists and functions just fine, thank you very much, on the earthly plane. And there is a world that exists and functions just fine, thank you very much, way up here on my (yours, our) cliffs of God consciousness.

I am not alone “down there,” and I am, most definitely, not alone “up here.”

I was overcome (and still am)…with joy and excitement but also with the gravity of the importance of the choice before me, and the faith required to make it.

This Is My Easy, Breezy, Beautiful Kind of Cover Girl Life (At The Moment)

Strap on your seatbelts. It’s time for another whack-a-doodle ride.

I recognize that I have a strange inner process, but I also recognize that it is probably no stranger than anyone else’s.

My process seems to be this:

• Have conflict with someone I care about deeply
• Fight feelings of desperately wanting to annihilate that person (because they “started it” in the first place, and I am feeling desperately unsafe with them and in my own skin)
• Get pissed off at God, the Universe, the Greater Field of Life.
• Label God, the Universe, the GFL “Liars” and “Cruel” (repeatedly, loudly and with much vehemence)
• Throw any “spiritual” book I may be reading (or is innocently in the vicinity) across the room
• Vow never to meditate again
• Cry (okay…sob uncontrollably) on and off for hours
• Live in a limbo fog for the next day or two (or three or four)
• Return to reading A (Stinkin’) Course In Miracles (A”S”CIM)
• Return to meditation
• Experience a profound vision that pushes the edges of my consciousness to new (kinda whack-a-doodle) places and fills me with light and gratitude
• Start all over again

Completely exhausting.

I have to admit that I have had several conflicts lately. One (or two) with my son and one (or two) with one of the leaders of the transformative program I recently left. And you know what else? I am beginning to own that any conflict I have or feel is ultimately between the old ego driven me and the newer "take the high road" Me. And that was my easy, breezy, beautiful kind of cover girl life on Thursday.

On Friday, I was still so upset about the rash of conflicts that came my way that on the way to Santa Monica (while stuck in unbelievably bad traffic…even for LA), I started ranting at God, the Universe, the GFL. I made it clear (in no uncertain terms) that I have:

• given up on my journey (again)
• recognized all this spiritual stuff as “Bulls*#t” (again)
• lost faith in everything including myself (again)

and, although I had no intention of hurting myself or anyone else,

• asked the “powers that be” to take a glance at the chapter entitled “Mary Elizabeth Barrett” in the Universe’s bestselling tell-all super duper book, This Is My Life and simply scan ahead to my future demise because if there is a heart attack or death of natural causes somewhere out there in my distant future, just do us both a big favor; Give it to me now. Thank you very much (again).

Excrutiatingly painful.

This is my easy, breezy, beautiful kind of cover girl life (at the moment).

Welcome to it.

Isn’t That Special?!

I don’t remember if I have mentioned the book, “A Course In Miracles” in this blog. I think I may have. I did talk about it a few times on my previous blog.

“A Course in Miracles” is the most jarringly honest and truly revolutionary book I have ever had the presence of mind to struggle through, because literally every time (and I am NOT exaggerating [for once!]) I struggle with a conflict and ache to blame others, attack, strike back, the LAST thing I want or think I am capable of doing is attaining any sliver of enlightenment. However, it has never failed, that in the middle of conflict, when I open up to my daily read in this stinkin’ book… the passage is exactly applicable to what I am going through at the moment.

And I am most often not happy with the awakening. I will admit that I have had a variety of reactions to those days (like today) when I receive these messages. In the past, I have closed the book with a loud and extremely meaningful slam, or shoved it across the table, or yelled F&*%K YOU (out loud) at it, or lobbed it across the room, or stuffed it in a drawer (sometimes all of them one after the other).

Today I threw it out the window.

I had a very important decision to make, and I struggled with it for a very long time while perched on my cliffs. I stayed in the process until I was sure that I made my decision, not from fear, but from a desire to support my own personal well-being. When I finally made the decision, it felt good and right for me.

In the end, I chose to opt out of a transformational program for women that I submerged my Self in for the past sixteen months. The program I went through was an excruciating but ultimately liberating one. I confronted, let go of, transformed, released, AND found, developed and embraced parts of myself that I never thought I could release or never knew I had within me. And, for various reasons, I was sure it was time to move on.

Until I read my daily passage in this stinkin’ book.

“It” was in a section titled Specialness as a Substitute for Love. What “it” said was this:

Look fairly at whatever makes you give your brother (or sister!) only partial welcome, or would let you think that you are better off apart.

You see, I made the decision not to continue in a course of study that I believe in with all my heart, mind and soul because, in all honesty, I was concerned that the two leaders of the program were incapable of seeing me, dealing with me, talking with me, teaching me devoid of their own misperceptions about me.

In other words, I based my decision, at least in part, in how I thought they would see me…

instead of basing my decision, in full, in how I see them.

So, I sat for another several days to try to tease out if this revelation was guiding me to go back into the work and focus on my seeing them in a “Higher” point of view?

Or was it waking me up to the insight that it is never about how I think others see me?

It is always about how I see them.

In the end, all my musings affirmed my original decision to pursue other avenues of growth, but I did learn something else in the process…

I am not “special,” and neither are you.

But our function, the reason each of us incarnated on this planet in this moment in time, is.

The Parent Trap

I spent the morning climbing back up to the top of my cliff. I fell off and landed on a ledge about 10 feet below. I laid there for a long time trying to decide what to do. Part of me wanted to get up and start back to the top, but an old familiar part of me fought back. It wanted me to move to the edge and, oh so slowly so no one would notice, roll over just enough so that gravity would take over and pull me back into the black abyss of me (if it’s still down there in the boat). Then I could claim no responsibility for falling, and I could hide out in those deep dark secrets acting out in my old ways of being…completely out of control, living the vida loca powered by my very own personal hericane.

It took three hours, six minutes, and thirty-seven seconds to climb the 10 feet that I fell from back up to the top of the cliff. And, in taking in that larger perspective at the top with fresh eyes, I noticed a tendency I have had since my son entered early adolescence (coincidentally just about the time I started to lose control of his every waking second). It happened again today, I feel into the trap. Maybe those of you who are parents and caretakers get this.

My son blew me off my cliff with a look, or a gesture, or was it the mere hint of a whisper? I don’t remember. All I remember is that we had an unpleasant interaction, and the next thing I knew I was falling backwards.

I know what you’re going to say…”He’s a teenager. What do you expect? He’s angry, fearful, and more often than you probably like, focused on doing the absolute least he can get away with. That’s being an adolescent.”

I know what you’re going to say…”You’re a single mom. What does he expect? You’re angry, fearful, and, more often than you probably like, focused on doing the absolute most you can get away with. That’s being a parent.”

Sometimes my son doesn’t “get it” the way I think he should. He is an only child and although he did not grow up in a house with money to burn, I (when his dad and I were together) gave him absolutely everything we could of the non-material kind. Being an only child, he never had to share attention, praise, or love with a sibling, compare his report card or his playing ability or his handwriting to a brother, yell “Front seat near the door, I call it” before his sibling had the chance to utter a syllable, or give in and go to The Little Mermaid because it was his stinkin’ baby sister’s “turn” to pick the family activity.

Let’s face it…for an only child, life can be pretty good.

On the other hand, getting all the focus had its own set of problems. We always knew “who did it;” there is no other body of the sibling variety to provide interference or share the humiliation when the glaring trumpets of parental disappointment sound loud and clear; and there is no one share a bedroom with, lay in bed and commiserate about how much dad and mom suck as parents.

Let’s face it…for an only child, life can be a little too much like nano-scopic surgery.

Sometimes his dad and I don’t “get it” because we both grew up in homes where the giving of love, attention, or anything other than our basic physical needs was overshadowed by other priorities.

Let’s face it…for any child, growing up can be pretty tough.

So maybe we overdid it. Maybe we fell into an all too familiar trap. And, maybe our over-giving, our over-involvement, our big fat overdoing of just about everything related to our son is an attempt to give to him of course, but maybe it is just as much about giving all of that to our inner under-nourished, under-attended, under-loved younger selves.

Maybe all along, all we are doing is trying to re-parent ourselves, fill the gaps, feel the reciprocity of a functional family gifting and receiving love.

Maybe that’s all any of us parents can ever do.

Gimme A Head With (Red) Hair

I think I will eventually end up living in one of the cities I have already lived in: Manhattan, Washington D.C. or Boston, or back in Newport, R.I. where I grew up, or even Paris. And while I feel completely at home in those cities, there is a more important reason to move to one of them.

My hair loves living there. (Being of Irish decent, my skin also loves those cities.)

And when my hair is happy, I’m happy too because when my hair is happy, it is soft and bouncy and wavy, curly, flow-y. It’s the humidity and the moisture in the air that causes it to be so. Irish people just aren’t meant to live in dry, desert-infused locales. In these arid climates, our hair and our skin cry out for help, but, alas, no tears can accompany our pain. They have all been dispatched in a vain attempt to resuscitate dust-filled epidermal pores and parched hair follicles. It is a known scientific fact; genetically, physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, we Irish require that hint of moisture in the air to be fully who we are from the inside out.

But in an effort to be completely transparent about my reason to move back to high humidity, sudden downpours, and thunderstorms; it makes my Irish skin happy, yes, of course, but, frankly…

it’s all about my happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair.

That being said, this next amazing disclosure may shock you. Even though I grew up in a moist climate, I hated my happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair. People called me “Red” (I have a name, please use it!), “Ginger” (ugh!), and “Carrot Top” (seriously my hair is RED not orange!), I felt like an oddball, a freak of nature, something to dip into blue cheese dressing.

I even dyed my hair blonde (ish) for years.

It was not until much later (okay, like 15 years ago) that I really started to embrace my happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair. And, guess what? Slowly, over the past 15 years, red hair has become all the rage! Have you noticed that a disproportionate number of women, all of a sudden, have red hair? I remember house hunting ten years ago, and a realtor said to me very enthusiastically, “My goodness! You are the FOURTH redhead I have had in here today!” To which I smugly replied, “Yes, but I bet I’m the first natural one.” Seriously! People started to notice my red hair with awe and admiration! Even the midwife at my first appointment during pregnancy with my son exclaimed with joy, “Well, you really ARE a redhead!” (Yes, the curtains match the drapes. Thank you very much.)

In my previous blog, www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com, I talked about my happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair…a lot. It is the one of a couple of physical characteristics that I now enjoy having the most. I don’t understand how you blondes or brunettes experience life because I am not a member of your clan, but I can report from a redheaded point of view that there exists a secret society of men who devote themselves to redheaded women (I call them the Redheaders). I have noticed that for them, it doesn’t really matter how old the woman is or what her body size and shape is, as long as she has red hair; she has their attention. I used to distain those men for their single-mindedness, but now I revel in it.

You want to smile at me? Open the door for me? Get a can of Campbell’s Cream of Broccoli off the top shelf at the supermarket for me? Go for it! I am all about being served.

At the ripe young age of 59, after coming of age during the Women’s Movement, working tirelessly at asserting my independence, and brazenly displaying my obviously enviable super-human and Benihana-like precision and skill around self-care, I am finally all about getting some attention for my happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair.

So I am sure you can imagine my horror and dismay last June when I and my climate-induced happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair spent some time in Paris with a very close female friend. We (my red head and I) went into the trip with our cornflower blues eyes wide open. We knew we were in the (friendly) competition of a lifetime. You see, my friend is a STUNNING piece of God’s workmanship and, Honey, she can teach all of us a thing or two about putting ourselves together head-to-toe (and back again). So, here’s the advice we would have given you back in June about going anywhere fashionable with a woman like that…

Stay home.

It was quite a blow to traverse the streets of Paris with her and notice all eyes on her deck. The lack of attention was embarrassing. Hellooooo? Happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled redhead dans la maison!

Okay, honestly, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her either, so really what else could I expect?

I returned from Paris a sadder but wiser girl, however, more importantly, I got it. It’s not about who embraces my amazing happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair. It is about how much I can allow myself to own, and brazenly display my love of my Self, my happy, soft, bouncy, loosely curled red hair, my Irish skin, and my cornflower blue eyes…all of me fresh and dewy from the inside out.

BTW, my friend and I are planning another trip to an, as yet undetermined, but amazing and fashionable locale.

As a final note, I still want to move to a more genetically agreeable climate, but as I am writing this, the most astonishing thing just occurred. Those of us in southern California are experiencing, at this very moment, a bit of the miraculous in the form of the extremely rare (and to my redhead) extremely welcome California thunderstorm.

I am going to interpret that as an invitation from California to please stick around for a while.

What I Really, Really, Really Want

On Sunday, two things converged in my consciousness resulting in my post, “Home Sweet Home.” First, I realized that it has been almost exactly one year since the wildfires destroyed much of the area where my son and I had lived a mere 4 months prior. Secondly when I looked out the window that opens up to my porch, I noticed that Lonci (my 90-year-old Hungarian landlady) had gifted my son and I (yet another!) cut rosebud from the section of her beloved rose garden that lives outside my bedroom and living room windows.

I found my Self filled with gratitude for my home and the people in and around it.

I am still on the cliffs of my consciousness, but I have stopped worrying about how to be Gumby (in a red wig). I recognize that this is where I live now. This is my new internal home. I have absolutely no desire to leave.

I have also come to understand that I created my internal home on the cliffs in much the same way that I created my environment within my Lonci home: slowly, patiently, and with a deep knowing that what I desire to manifest in my home is already there waiting for me to discover through relationship with others.

When I began to furnish my Lonci home, I was aware that I wanted comfortable and beautiful pieces to surround me, and that I wanted them to somehow come together from a variety of sources creating a universal feeling of home that was unique to me. I didn’t want to buy “sets.” Honestly, I didn’t even consider buying anything new. Not because of the expense but because (and maybe this is the New Englander in me) I revere (no New England pun intended) furnishings that have a history. To me, there are few household items as special as those that have been touched, loved, used and infused with the hearts, minds, and souls of others.

I furnished my home with pieces that I love from the people who love them.

Similarly, I know that my recently discovered internal cliff home is a universal experience uniquely furnished by my new willingness to enter into relationships with others where love is offered and exchanged. Just as the safety, clarity, and gratitude I feel within the walls of my Lonci cottage generate love of my home, of the people in and around it, and of the world I see outside my windows; the Self that I experience within the walls of my bodily home is learning to experience a world generated from the window of my soul.

In my search for a new home, why did I really, really, really want to have

1. Lots of light
2. Lots of fresh air
3. A feeling of warmth, a feeling that “love lives here”
4. A feeling of being surrounded by feminine energy
5. Big enough for my son and I and our friends?

Because from the window of my soul, I now see that they are the things that I really, really, really wanted to have in my Self.

Home Sweet Home

I’m not sure if this is whack-a-doodle or not, but I can honestly say it is all true.

A year and a half ago, my son and I lived in a cute little cabin high above the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in California. I used to meditate very early every morning, often while it was still dark, outside on the porch. I absolutely loved the serenity, the peacefulness and the beauty of the location.

During January 2009, I experienced several weeks of meditation where images of raging fires came to me. Thinking I knew how my mind works (everything is a metaphor to me), I began to go into inquiry about what the fires might mean symbolically: Was I enraged about something that was coming into my conscious awareness? Was I “on fire” with a new passion about to be released? Was my fiery red hair out of control and in need of a haircut?

As I pondered these options over several days, my visual images became aural. Yes, I started hearing voices, or more accurately, I started to hear one insistent voice…everyday…for a week. This voice told me that fires “were coming” and that I “needed to physically move.” (Yes, my friends…welcome to my world of my inner knowing correcting my conscious mind.) This was no metaphor. I needed to go.

As nutso as it may sound, I decided to go with my inner knowing and, despite my love for my current locale, look for a home in the foothills.

I scoured Craig’s List on an hourly basis; I devoured the local newspaper everyday, I “lived” on on-line home rental sites. I finally found a home (still in the mountains but closer to the foothills). I loved it. It was perfect. All was arranged with the new landlord until I went over to give my first month’s rent and deposit. He told me that he had rented it to someone else. You see, I had some credit issues that I was very upfront with him about, but in the end he decided I was too much of a risk. I was heartbroken. I really, really, really thought this was “my home.”

In resuming my search, I decided I needed a strong vision so I could focus more on what it was that I really, really, really wanted in a home. Here is my list:

1. Lots of light
2. Lots of fresh air
3. A feeling of warmth, a feeling that “love lives here”
4. A feeling of being surrounded by feminine energy
5. Big enough for my son and I and our friends

It was back to Craig’s List, the newspaper, and the on-line sites. Nothing…for weeks. I had just about given up hope and resigned myself to the fact that my meditative thoughts were, frankly, just a wee bit coo-coo when, suddenly, I looked up and saw “it” while I was sitting in my car in a strip mall parking lot waiting for my son. "It" was tacked to a telephone pole. “It” was a half-sized piece of paper on which was a brief handwritten description of a home rental.

Who posts For Rent signs on telephone poles anymore????

Since my son was going to be late, and I had nothing else to do, I called the number. A woman answered and described the house to me. Two bedrooms, one bath, the square footage (more than my cabin), lots of light, her childhood home, new windows, the street address (a GREAT neighborhood!)…hmmmmm. It sounded promising! It had the potential to satisfy everything I was looking for in a home or so it seemed. I was VERY intrigued.

Then she told me the price.

It was $600 less than what I had been paying?? And my credit problem? (a long disputed issue with the electric company, which barred me from getting an electric bill in my name, so I had to convince my potential landlord to use their name and include the electricity charges in the rent).

This house??? The electricity was included in the rent.

Now, I’m thinking to myself, I know the area this house is in, and rents are far from cheap. This house is significantly below the current rents in that area. Therefore, I told myself, either this place is a DUMP or she is bullsh*&%ting me about just about everything to do with the house. With very low expectations and not a lot of hope or excitement, I decided to go ahead and see it.

When I met Ava outside the house, there was an immediate connection with her, and when we entered the space, there was an immediate connection with the house. It had absolutely everything I wanted.

There was one caveat. I had to get the approval of Ava’s 90 year old Hungarian mother because she owns the house, and, oh yeah, she lives in the back house on the property. We walked back so I could meet her, and the moment Ava’s mother (Lonci) and I laid eyes on each other; we embraced with the kind of love reserved for family members. We had each other from “Hello.” I didn’t know, at the time, what it was about me that she responded to, but I knew exactly what I was responding to in her…

She is the spitting image of my mother (with an Hungarian accent).

Ava’s Hungarian-speaking older sister was also there visiting from Hungary. She responded to the interaction between her mom and I by standing close to me, smiling, looking into my eyes, stroking the entire length of my left arm (over and over again), and speaking to me in Hungarian as if I could understand her perfectly. I was surrounded by the feminine energy I asked for. I felt totally and absolutely bathed in love.

My son and I moved in a month later (May 2009), and I have lived in this home with these women and with my son (happily and gratefully) ever since.

Oh, and four months after I moved, the home I “left” and the home I “lost” to a “more qualified” tenant were both in the fire zone when the wildfires hit.

So, in response to the question, “Who posts For Rent signs on telephone poles anymore????” To me, the answer is simple.

God.

I Can See Clearly Now (The Fog Is Gone)

I came out of a fog this morning and realized the hericane was over.

I am still on the cliffs, but I feel strangely at peace and unafraid. Both of my parents are very strongly present in my consciousness, and, there with them, I feel an extended family behind and all around me made up of persons from my past, my present, and my future.

And, (batten down the hatches ‘cause I’m gonna say it) I feel God with me for the first time since I was a little girl.

My amorphous black blob is still in the boat below me but it looks strangely out of place and pathetic. You see, I realize now that every time I looked down from the cliffs those days before the fog lifted, I saw a magnified version of my boat and my amorphous me as if I were looking through a high-powered telescope. I saw it as grotesquely large, isolated, alone, dead in the water, an overpowering and sole form of life in a vast, magnificent, and beautiful but empty ocean.

As I look down now on the fog-less expanded visual field, I see that the regatta (that I was so afraid was taking place without me) was here all along. My relationship with my amorphous-ness had created a veil, a mist, a “pea soup” (as my mother used to call a thick fog) through which nothing was visible and every second was (justifiably) filled with a vigilant concern for potential danger. The fear that resulted from my black amorphous fog put me on constant watch at my marine GPS station for small craft warnings, gale winds, and more. So much so that everything else in the world receded into the background and disappeared behind the veil. I interpreted each ramming or collision as a deliberate attempt to attack me without warning when, in reality; my fellow travelers were probably just as surprised and frightened as I.

I understand that despite the pronouncement from my black amorphous self that it was the manifestation of my deepest, darkest fears and despite the fact that that its presence filled me with terror, “it” was the sole relationship I trusted to accompany me on my journey…

My very own, very personal frenemy.

As I look down from my cliff perch, I can recognize how the Greater Field of Life, inclusive of the past and present and future of humanity, is the soul relationship I can trust to accompany me on the remainder of my life’s journey.

With the Greater Field of Life, I am not alone, nor am I being attacked. Therefore, I have no need to attack back or be on constant collision watch. I can now navigate these friendly seas and skies knowing that the universe has my back, the universe has my present, and the universe has my future. It’s a new and comforting feeling to co-captain my life with a clarity and connectedness to all that is.

Yes, my friends, I know that God has taken up residence in my small vessel.

And I know that He/She/It has taken up residence in yours too.

The Gumby Challenge

As I sit here on the cliffs and look down at my human self in the boat, a plethora of thoughts stream through my mind.

“I look so pathetic down there all alone in my boat.”

“It’s a big ocean; where is everybody?”

“Why aren’t there any other boats around?”

“Is there a regatta going on somewhere that I wasn’t invited to?”

However, at the moment, the most important thought for me is…How can I stay rooted in this Self point of view, this expanded consciousness, and, at the same time, reconnect with the part of my self which I left in the boat?? The part that exists in the ebb and flow of the main stream of life?

And to be honest, I don’t even know if that me in the boat is:

a. a part of Me
b. an aberration of Me
c. a transformable Me
d. a mini Me
e. none of the above

I feel disconnected from my human self up here, but not disconnected enough to leave this God Self I have discovered. Problem is that I don’t know how to gather up my God Self and bring It back to watery terra firma with me. I don’t know how to live in the ocean of devotion with humanoids and maintain my centered, peaceful, and (dare I say) spiritual perspective.

Like most of you, I have experienced peak moments where It all comes together with the internal stretch, the expansion of self to Self…those moments of awe and wonder and miracle that we all experience on occasion and look back on for the rest of our lives. I think it is possible to live that experience on a daily basis. Therefore, I am hesitant go back, raise the sails, and get on with my life without first anchoring into some kind of beginning awareness that I am navigating from a place that will eventually blossom into a full-time, full bodied mind/body connection: Me connected to me.

I wonder; is it possible to physically extend myself from my cliff Self to my boat self and remain on the cliffs? Can I stretch enough to generate a connected, whole and integrated fountainhead of flexibility, extension, and expansion with all of humanity and the Greater Field of Life via a deep, unbroken and fully integrated connection with my Greater Me and my human version of me?

Does any of this even make any sense?

Sense or non-sense, until I know how to deal with that me in the boat, I’m going to stay here and practice spiritual yoga by stretching through time and space while holding my position to remain faithful to the universal unknowns.

In the meantime, just think of me as Gumby (in a curly red wig).

Sun, SUn, SUN Here It Comes!

It’s been 16 days, 15 hours, 9 minutes and 43 seconds, and the sun is finally starting to come out.

Yes, I ‘m still here on the cliffs. My mom finally said her goodbyes and left to get ready for her birthday party. I’m not worried. I know she will come if and when I ask.

I gotta say, I am really enjoying being way up here on my home cliffs. I’ve learned (and nothing against gurus), why some of them stay on the mountaintops, and we have to make the trek to them. Yes, the trek is probably the point for us, but I also have to say that life is easier (albeit a bit lonelier) up here. Sitting in my new and improved guru-ish perspective without the internal and external pulls and pressures of the world “down there,” even yours truly could probably come up with a couple of catchy universal pithy statements (perfect for bumper stickers) about how to live in the world (especially when I’m not doing it). It just strikes me as a little “Do what I say, not what I am not crazy enough to do.”

We all know how difficult life can be in the world. Even one-on-one relationships can be a challenge depending on the circumstances, but if that was all we had to deal with – navigate our lives one person at a time – it wouldn’t be too bad. Line up and take a number. Next!

It’s the immersion back into life and life’s mainstream of relationships where it gets tough for me. Juggling multiple relationships with multiple personalities at multiple times with multiple results for me often multiplies out to sketchy success.

If I am recalling correctly, it was on the Bill Moyers interviews with Joseph Campbell (that amazing PBS special called The Power of Myth) that Campbell said the real hero's (or heroine's) journey doesn’t lie so much in the challenges of that trek up the proverbial mountaintop to our intended transformation; the hero(ine)’s journey is returning home back to a life that probably hasn’t changed all that much AND staying IN the transformation.

I have the fortunate opportunity of being in a profoundly transformative process while being deeply related to an amazing group of women who intend the highest and fullest flourishing for ourselves and each other. I know I can rely on them to keep me in this new perspective after I have left the penthouse and returned to the ground floor.

Despite that, however, I think I am going to stay up here a little while longer. I need to give this perspective, this calmness, this peace, this expansive me time to penetrate through my epidural pores, absorb into the calcium in my bones, sink into the nuclei of my cells and re-absorb into its pre-assigned place in the matrix of my DNA.

God View re-acquaints with God Self.

The seas are calm; the skies are blue; and all is feeling pretty right with me and the world.

Sun, Sun, SUN. Here it comes! (and not a moment too soon!)

The (Third) Eye of the Hurricane

It’s wonderful to be with my mom. I miss her. The last time I saw my mom was in January of this year right around the anniversary of her death. She’s been gone now almost 12 years and with her birthday coming up tomorrow (she will be 88!), I appreciate her coming to help me move to higher ground. I am especially grateful because (knowing her) she still needs to buy a new dress and matching spiked heels for dancing, and save some time to torment my dad by taking an excruciatingly long time doing it.

As I sit here on the cliffs around the Drive with my mom, I feel calm, safe, and loved. What a relief to feel connected to my mom and released from my current internal hericane-like elements, to be able to see a horizon that was not visible to me while in the storm of myself, and to recognize the potential of self-radiated sunlight behind those storm clouds.

When I was a child, I loved hurricanes because of what they offered me. It was fun to challenge the weather by boarding up our bay windows. It was a major treat to be allowed to buy more than one comic book at a time. And, it was really cool reading those comic books by candlelight.

I depended on my home in Newport for its strong foundation, its horsehair and seaweed wall insulation, and its sturdy roof over my curly red head to remain intact while the winds and rains made its way through my town. Maybe it was naïve, but I had absolutely no doubt that my home would remain intact.

But hurricane season was much more than that.

Our three story Colonial home on Ayrault St, which was often (for me) a place of sadness and confusion, became a place alive in silence, electric in the expectancy of something much bigger than me or my family or my current circumstance, and a charged deeply cushioned and unfamiliar comfort knowing that, no matter what, my house would weather the storm.

I loved hurricane season for giving that to me.

Now as I sit here on my internal higher ground with my mom, I feel that same sense of protection, but this elevated perspective also allows me access to seeing that the safety and the silence and the expectancy and the charge I feel is not generated solely by myself or the structure of my internal or external home.

I can see how the Greater Field of Life navigates the storm by entering the flow with it. The trees, ancient, experienced, and deeply rooted in the earth stand as sentinels of protection simply by remaining rooted while simultaneously giving way to allow the winds to travel through them. These very cliffs prevent great washes of waves from overflowing to the homes behind them simply by doing what cliffs were created to do…stand their ground and offer no resistance.

Similarly, I now see, my dependable inner home is generated by being in the con-current flow of relationships: with the part of my Self which my third eye of the hurricane gives me access to, with other loving relationships I have co-created on this planet, and with the Greater Field of Life.

And simply (though not easily) doing nothing else.

Hericane Season

I love the rhythms of water, salt water, Atlantic Ocean salt water, Atlantic Ocean salt water that surrounds the island town where I grew up, Newport, Rhode Island. Google Image it. It’s beautiful.

When we were young, my brothers, my mother and I were beach bums. My mother started taking us to Third Beach at Eastertime and every possible day after that at 3:00 p.m. until school was out for the summer. During the summers, we arrived everyday at 7:30 a.m. (a bit later on the weekends) for our daily swimming lessons. We spent the entire day there. Often my father would join us after work for a cook-out or clambake on the beach.

My brothers and I spent every second in the water. Ever swim out to a raft in the middle of an ocean in the reflection of a moonbeam? (so our parents could keep a head count)

Heaven.

I live in California now, but growing up in New England, I learned to resonate with the rhythmical changes the ocean evolves through as it cycles with the seasons.

I’d say that right now my ocean of inner devotion is experiencing what we used to call Indian Summer…that transition time between summer and fall. The water is often the warmest it has been all summer but the tides change drastically. The waves take on a power from further out to sea and that power carries it, like huge castles of sand, sea and foam, to the coast. Those warm and wonderful Indian Summer waves originate from very deep in the ocean. As the individual tidal vibrations rise to the surface, they join and morf into a beautiful never-ending cacophony of pounding surf. For a child who summered at one of the more sheltered beaches, being tossed and thrown about by that force was a fun and exciting wrap-up to the summer.

On those days of high winds and dangerously active waves, my mother packed sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies and drove us not to the beach, but to the cliffs around Ocean Drive. We sat warm, snug and safe in the car, ate our lunch and, from a higher and more expansive view, experienced the awesome power of the surf.

She would remind us that often those waves ushered in something more ominous and dangerous…hurricane season.

Since this black amorphous me has (generously) released itself from the darkness and made my acquaintance, I recognize that its inherent shapelessness is actually fluid and respondent to the vibrations that are deeply active in me just as the ocean swells respond to the tides and currents at the bottom of the sea.

And, I am just now coming to know, the locus of control of the various shapes my amorphous me takes is most often just as difficult to pinpoint as the beginning of a new wave.

I have felt my own internal “hericane” season approaching the last several weeks because of at least two encounters where I had every intention of being vulnerable and transparent but just couldn’t accomplish it. In preparation for these conversations I recognized that fear was moving deep inside me. I ignored it, and my amorphous me stepped in to raise a storm of protection.

It is still active and taking everything I have not to further react, not to go into blame, not to do everything possible to completely annihilate the exposed, coastal homes of those in front of me.

It is a very old feeling to be sure, but one that has not arisen from the depths of my oceanic floor for almost a year. I used to call it “my train.*” Now that I have been told by “my black amorphous entity” that its presence represents a compilation of my deepest darkest fears, I have also recognized that this part of me is a shape shifter with an infinite cacophony of inner swells and waves.

To attempt to find a source for this or any upset is as elusive and impossible as trying to contain one of those wonderful, warm, wild Indian Summer waves in my hands.

In an effort to get a bigger perspective on this storm, I am, for the time being, dropping anchor, leaving my amorphous mate in the boat, making sandwiches, and meeting my mom in the car on the safety of the cliffs.

I hope she remembers to bring the chocolate chip cookies.


* To chronicle my “train” adventures go to www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com

I Gotta Have Faith

I kinda sorta (unintentionally) misrepresented myself…over there to the right of this post where I wrote an explanation about the title of this blog. At the end I wrote that I planned on using experience, intuition and faith to guide me. And while I absolutely 100 super duper percent had every intention of doing so…

I kinda sorta forgot about faith.

Faith that despite my fear of looking in the stern, my truth is there all lit up and waiting for me. And it is up to me to center my Self in that.

The realization of it hit me like a bolt from out of the blue. I'm, honestly, not sure I even know what faith is or what having faith means, but I decided I already must have it (whatever "it" is). So I tried to feel faith right there beside me (with courage as my wing woman on the other side) and have an encounter with the gargoyle-ish monster.

In the meditation that followed, I turned around, walked to the stern, and sat on the floor of my lifeboat so that he/she/it and I could look directly into each other’s eyes (it was still under the rear bench). After several clunky, awkward and, yes, fear-filled minutes (I think for both of us) our eyes tentatively connected with each other. He/she/it told me that I was looking at my deepest, darkest fears about myself and others, but it could not find the thoughts to articulate any more than that.

I asked it to come out into the light so we could sit on the benches and take each other in with our eyes. It obliged me. What emerged from under the bench were two clear and vibrant eyes surrounded by a black, amorphous, undefined shape.

I had absolutely no idea what to make of this entity, and since it was having trouble telling me anything further, I accepted that we would not be going any deeper in our discussion for today (at least we were eye to eye…it’s a start).

At the same time, I started growing very concerned for both of us because the sun was quite bright and we were sitting vulnerable and unprotected. My Irish skin can’t take that kind of sun exposure and my counterpart was (excuse me for saying this ) basically a black blob…not good either.

After I finished putting SPF 75 on myself, I leaned over to put some on my new sailing partner. The touch of my hands on its “face” brought all my senses to life. I could smell and taste its hot decaying breath, hear the rattle of its inhale and exhale, see the blackness and decay of its skin on its now revealed form, and feel rough calluses all over its body under my fingers. But, most importantly, I felt its sadness and feelings of complete and utter abandonment…by me.

This isn’t a he, a she, or an it. This is a me: a compilation of all those ugly, or unacceptable, fearful human parts of me that I don’t want to own, so I pretend they don’t exist.

My heart went out to me. Without a second thought, I reached across the seemingly cavernous divide between us and put my arms around my deepest darkest fears.

Fear Factor

I’m going to admit right at the top that I am processing from my head now cuz I need to let my thoughts sift internally from the top down through my body (before I turn around).

I envision something scary behind me, and to be honest, a few days ago I did sneak a quick peek. Whatever it was had crouched under the wooden seat at the back of the boat. There was something looking up at me, but all I could see were its eyes. Those eyes sent chills up my spine and infused me with so much fear that I had to turn away.

Today, after thinking about that experience, I wonder if fear has been having its way with me. Is it possible that whatever is in the stern is actually benign, harmless, possibly friendly, maybe even full of fear itself, and it is my fear that is perceiving it as a gargoyle-ish monster?

Is it all an illusion created by my fear meeting its fear?

Am I seeing this gargoyle-ish monster because I am afraid?

Or am I afraid because I see this gargoyle-ish monster?

And how is this gargoyle-ish monster seeing me?

Only problem is I have to get up the gumption to turn around again and honest to G look at it without my fear which I fear is now running willy-nilly through my body.

Yet, if I don’t get a handle on my fear, how can I trust that anything I experience is reality?

See I told you I was in my head.

I’ve watched the television show Fear Factor twice (it made me too fearful so I never watched it again) and, from what I could see, the competitors were presented with increasingly more difficult (and let’s face it, dangerous) challenges as they attempted to overcome their externalized fears to win a boatload of cash.

I wonder if anyone has ever considered a television show where we had to face our fears in our own personal internal world? To win what? Our real Self? Sans illusions?

Is that what I am afraid of?

Fear Factor.

The only thing that keeps me in this sometimes terrifying game is my intention to secure a boatload of me.

That’s something I can begin to get my head around.

Turn, Turn, Turn

I didn’t do it. Turn around that is. I was too afraid. I kept telling myself that I would do it later when I had more time or more interest (or more courage). However, we all know what happens when we continue to ignore what is knocking on our door, tapping on our shoulder or breathing down our necks.

It eventually bites us in the ass.

My stubborn insistent refusal to turn around has, perhaps, cost me a relationship (possibly with one of more of my beloved Mastery sisters). Without going into a long-winded story, let’s just say that I wrote an email that was my honest to G feeling. I meant it to be generative but I wrote it from a place within myself that I was blind to (because it was behind me in the stern and I couldn’t find the courage to look it in the eyes).

I didn’t turn around because I was afraid of what I was going to see about myself. And from what I could hear of the slow deep inhales and exhales behind me, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. Honestly, it sounded downright grotesque …a living breathing gargoyle.

And it wouldn’t stop talking to me with its breath.

Its breath was daring me to turn around. Its breath was taunting me with its smell. Its breath was steamy, hot and sharp on the back of my neck as it electrified my spine. Its breath rolled and rasped and coughed and sputtered like a big engine waiting for the brake to be released.

It was full of its own terrifying power, waiting for me.

Knowing that I felt small and tiny and boneless.

So I let this part of myself do what it has done many times in the past. I allowed it to wear down my resolve and courage and Love for myself and all things. Then it snuck up on me when I was busy adjusting my sails, or looking desperately for an escape or surrendering into its incessant, insistent, insipid breathing.

It silently, skillfully, and without my conscious awareness took me over.

I wrote the email, clicked on the Send button and let it fly unfettered to its appointed destination. The response to my email was immediate, sure and swift.

And I was broken by the experience of being categorically silenced and being seen as someone who undermines and sabotages.

I was deeply confused. So I went back to the email, read it again, and crumbled into bonelessness. My grief about what I had said in my unconscious but all-consuming state was more than I could bear alone.

I turned, not around, but in. I turned in, to my Self, and asked Love for help.

The L Word and the G Conversation

Just to be clear, NO. I have not turned around to see what is patiently waiting for my attention in the stern of the boat. To be honest, I am just not ready to look. Although, let’s say that I have an inkling or two what is back there (which is why I don’t wanna turn around right now). I will do it…when I am ready.

A few days ago, as I was typing a post, I was conscious of asking myself why I have been capitalizing the word Love in my posts. I realized that I had no conscious idea as to any specific reason; it just felt right, so I did it. I decided to trust my Self, continue to capitalize “Love,” and let the reason come to me when it was ready.

The reason was, apparently, ready this morning.

This morning, as I was continuing my reading in A Course In Miracles about love (the non-capitalized kind), my eyes skipped ahead for a second…and I saw it, “Love”…capitalized and everything! I excitedly backed up a bit to see what preceded it. It was the word “God’s,”

“God’s Love.”

Uh-oh.

I had no idea that asking the universe questions about the capital L word would lead to the capital G conversation.

Yes, I recognize that I have mentioned the G word in a couple of my blogs on my previous blogsite. And I know that I have openly talked about my encounters with the Magician Himself, Mr. J.C. Furthermore, I guess I have to know that I deliberately used the word God in the title of this blog because I wrote it.

So, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that in my reading I went to “the God conversation”. However, I, honest to the G word, never ever in a million years expected (or wanted) to go “there.”

It does make me wonder…is it possible that there is a difference between love (of the human variety) and Love (of the God kind)? And if there is…what is It? What does It look like? Feel like?? How do I know It when I see It? Feel It? Touch It?

WAIT A MINUTE, (I scream in fear) I am a former Catholic for God’s sake and an Irish one at that. According to the nuns in my 6th grade Catechism class, I will be crucified for even asking to be invited back into the company of the Big G after leaving of my own volition.

In all honesty, I am a bit afraid (okay terrified) of where this new development may lead me. All I know is the human kind of love. And while it (at least for me) hasn’t been all that it was cracked up to be, it kinda sorta works for me just like it kinda sorta works for most of my global peeps on the planet.

The capital L word has suddenly taken on a bigness, a hugeness, a magnitude that feels humanly impossible to contain…like trying to swallow the sun and let it shine through my feeble human container vessel.

And at the same time, I am, in this moment, completely in touch with the knowing that I long to do it, and I long to do it now.

And, more honestly, if I really let this idea that what I am moving towards (and frankly I am moving towards it or at least my boat is [with me in it]. I somatically felt the current shift and my focus was taken in a whole new direction this morning) so if I let it all sink (!) in, I have to admit that I am super-duper terrified to turn around and look in the stern.

At the same time, I am, in this moment, completely in touch with the knowing that I have to do it, and I have to do it now.

Ready or not here I come.

I’ve Got A Tiger (Among Other Things I Think) In My Tank

My personal vessel has been dead in the water of my internal ocean, and I have been wondering… “What’s up with that?“ I have honestly felt like my ship is weighted down, and I have been trying to figure out why.

I have done everything that I know to do.

I have set my intention, asked the question (I Wanna Know What Love Is), strapped myself to my Captain’s chair in anticipation of yet another Nor’easter ride through the turbulence of a perfect storm, fixed my sights dead ahead, and patiently waited for the universe to offer me conflict to navigate through so I can find the right course to steer me in the direction of my answer.

What I have gotten is nada, zip, bupkis: no opposing tradewinds steering me in irreconcilable directions, no other “traffic” on the seas to create territorial conflict over shipping lanes (even though I have the feeling this is a busy trade route), not even a storm to toss me about and get my juices going (but I am kinda happy about that one).

I will say that I have been reading A Course In Miracles daily and the universe has, of course, graced me with its miracles. Wouldn’t you know! All the reading I have been doing since I asked "the question" has been about Love, so I gotta give the universe that one. But I have not been able to really sink (no pun intended) into anything specific that I have read as a way to move me forward.

Until today.

This morning I read something that would have stopped me dead in the water if I weren’t dead in the water already. This is what I read:

Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it is necessary to seek for what is false… If you seek love outside yourself you can be certain that you perceive hatred within, and are afraid of it. (Pg 338)

To add to the impact of this declaration, I have also recently finished reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

If you don’t know the book, Life of Pi is the story of Pi, a young adolescent from India, who, through tragic circumstances, finds himself in a lifeboat for 6 months, one of two survivors of a thwarted trans-Pacific crossing. The other survivor (whom Pi rescued), Richard Parker, and Pi share a 26 foot lifeboat built to accommodate and stocked with supplies for 32 people. It is the story of their struggle to survive. Oh, and one other important point...

Richard Parker is a three year old, 450-pound Bengal tiger.

So today, I started thinking….I bet the universe put that book in front of me so I could finish it before I read today’s passage. The universe is telling me that my ship is being weighted down by a “What” not a “Why.” The universe is asking me, “What form of my own personal 450-pound MEB tiger (or, God forbid, an assortment of lions, tigers, and bears) has been patiently waiting for me to notice it in the back of my boat?”

Crapsticks. If I want to get moving, I gotta turn around and deal with whatever is there.

Crazy

All I can do is tell you the truth…and you and Patsy Cline will have to decide if I should take up space in the nearest psychiatric facility.

I had another one of those whack-a-doodle mornings.

This morning, while reading one of the sections in a chapter entitled “The Holy Instant” in A Course In Miracles, I came across the sentence, “You (meaning moi) don’t know what love is.”

Well, hello! No kidding! I wrote a whole friggin’ blog about it almost two weeks ago (www.theyearoftheboy.blogspot.com “I Wanna Know What Love Is”). Since then I have pretty much been patiently floating in the ocean of devotion to my new North Star intention waiting for the winds to gently propel me in the appropriate direction.

Seriously! It would really be helpful (and save me precious floating around waiting time) if the universe could keep better track of my blogs.

Anywhooo…the words literally leapt off the page. Aside from being just a tad bit annoying (why rub my face in it?), my non-egoic response was something along the lines of “ Since I have already asked the question, and I am getting confirmation that I have no idea what Love is, I guess I am on the right course.” I decided to meditate on it (for the billionth time in the past two weeks).

As I have mentioned before, I often meditate aloud. I talk to the universe, God, the Greater Field of Life. It’s just what I do. This morning, I let anyone who happened to be listening know that I am ready to shed what no longer serves me or others, I am ready to radiate out to others and look for the radiance in them, all of them in the Global Family (that would be you).

In other words, I announced, “I really, really wanna know what Love is.”

A soon as the words exited my mouth, I felt His presence at the foot of my chaise. Today, I didn’t open my eyes not because I was afraid of Him, but because I sensed that something miraculous was about to happen, and I wanted to take it in sans mes yeux.

As it happened when He made his debut in June, I first felt an intense light making its way through my eyelids followed by its anchoring in my body. His radiance penetrated my skin from the inside out, creating an all-encompassing swaddling of my body in light and warmth. He cleared away any darkness that I held within. My radiance responded and exited my epidermis from every pore. I was saturated in this co-created radiant space and energy that was so magnificent and simple and freeing that it immediately brought me to tears.

J.C. and I had a brief conversation in that cool kind of mind-meld Dr. Spock way that we had used before. His message was “Feel this. This is Love.”

Yes, at the same time all of this was happening, I did have the sense that I was perched (in the teeniest tiniest way) on the brink of “Do I need to be committed somewhere?” But I have to tell you, it felt so stinkin’ good that I didn’t really care.

If this is what crazy in universal Love feels like…bring it on.