Dear Universe

Dear Universe,
As I sit here working on a project I never imagined I would be working on, I am in constant awe of

how you work.  Secretly, behind the scenes, with or without my assistance, you keep me moving forward.  I don't know who is at the helm of my ship besides me.  I don't really care.  I believe I have an angel, a companion, a God, a whatever it is, that is in my corner, rooting me on.  My biggest fan is someone I don't even know.  Or do I?

It got me thinking of the spiral. In my continued fascination with spirals, I find myself at the end of another year.  I will finish school in another semester and the path that led me to is another amazing one which has led me to apply for a MA in Rehabilitative Counseling.  I have been "counseling: in my work for too many years now.  I may as well get a few letters after my name to prove I can accomplish the task I have already been doing.  Again, the spiral.  I am spinning back to where I once was, but now at a different angle, looking at it from a different perspective. It represents continual change and evolution and the interconnectedness of all things.

I found myself back again, dealing with an assault from 2008.  I participated in a criminal trial earlier this month.  That experience has yet to hit the paper from my pen.  It is still brewing.  Again.  In a different way, from a different view, or a different consciousness.  This newer consciousness emanating from this wildly different year (I went back to school after a 10 year hiatus.) is expanding outward (and inward) as spirals do.  I read this yesterday about this kind of spiral movement:

And when one contemplates such an infinitely regressing movement one begins to appreciate that the words 'first movement' doesn't even begin to express the beginning - that it's all an endless beginning - it's all a one act play - an infinitely recursive and enfolding one act play. Thus the 'first movement' is everywhere you look And soon you'll look up and see the same thing in every thing you look at until your view of reality begins to shift and with it meaning itself will take on a whole new meaning and on and on and on - beginnings enfolding endings which enfold another beginning until there's no more beginnings or endings and you just are. -Robert McCoy

If you look at a spiral in motion, it appears that it is moving from the outside in.  And if you look closely at the center, it appears to get larger as it spins.  Interesting if you think of the spiral as inward reflection.  As more wonderful things move in, your center becomes larger,  I think you can also say that as things move out from the center, it also leaves space to allow your inner most ideas to grow.  The inner core stays the same as the outer grows in size.   Any way you look at it, growth is always occurring, like it or not!  You can see for yourself here: 

click here

So the same people, places, and things are always new, always beginning again.  From a different perspective.  You get to see them from all sides, angles, directions.  And sometimes, what you have been looking at for years starts looking different. So enjoy your life from all sides and angles this coming year.  I am excited to see what happens.  All I can do is jump on, strap myself in, and go for this grand ride of life.  Of course, my ride always consists of no brakes, just a wheel.  Which is very cool.  Happy New Year to every one!

Like a tunnel that you follow

To a tunnel of it's own

Down a hollow to a cavern

Where the sun has never shone

Like a door that keeps revolving

In a half forgotten dream

Or the ripples from a pebble

Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping

Past the minutes on it's face

And the world is like an apple

Whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind

-Sting

3 Seconds

In three seconds, her children’s lives passed across her eyes, passing through her shuddering body, down to her now paralyzed feet, unable to navigate the stairway down to the front door.

Who rings the doorbell at midnight?  Not the mailman, nor the UPS delivery or Orkin man, not the neighbor looking for a cup of sugar.  The only guests at her door at midnight are those in blue uniforms with steady voices.  She knows they don’t want to be here either.

In three seconds, she ran to the landing and froze, unable to will one foot in front of the other to maneuver the stairs that have now multiplied in number, making that trip down an endless, agonizing descent into hell, or worse, the dismal abyss of unbearable loss.  She can’t go down those infinite steps to a door that keeps moving further away, intensifying the three seconds into an eternity that it will take for what’s beyond the door to tell her that her life is over, that everything that went before has reached its untimely end, that she will never hear laughter again, except in those precious photos and grainy videos of piano recitals and pumpkin patches, graduations, locks of hair and never letting them out of your reach.

In three seconds the past is erased, the present is frozen, the future is uninhabitable.  She was hobbled in that moment.  She prayed to everyone and no one for those seconds back, for her breath to return, her heart to reboot.  She asked the universe to forgive every unworthy deed she had committed in her now useless life, making deals, selling her soul in return for those lost in three seconds.

As she steeled herself for what lay beyond the door, she heard her husband below.

“Doorbell’s working hon!”

The Universe Closes its Door to 2012 - Sat Chit Ananda

As the universe closes its own chapter on this year, I look at all it has done.  We all have great expectations of this world we live in.  We end up placing huge expectations upon ourselves at the start of each year and if we don't achieve those expectation, we fall back on the universe in blame.

I lost my job because of....  I broke up with so and so because of...  I was passed over for a promotion because of.. and so on and so on.  We blame everything else in this universe but ourselves.  I have done it myself.  It is hard looking within at our own foibles and lack.  But then again, we are looking at ourselves and the world with our egos which aren't really us to begin with.

This grand universe that allows us to live within, giving us air to breathe, land to live on, food to sustain us.  It asks nothing in return except acknowledgement of its existence.  We are all one within it, this massive collective conscious.

Imagine if this entire universal collective looked towards this new chapter in 2013 with only the expectation of love given outwards, beyond ourselves.  Imagine the moment at the stroke of midnight if we were all to hold it in pure love, pure bliss, pure existence.  Sat Chit Ananda.  This warm embrace of love would be glorious if only for that one moment.

Sat Chit Ananda is the Sanskrit phrase for truth or love, consciousness, bliss.  It is always there for us. When the mind unwinds and becomes calmer, Bliss, Love and Happiness naturally arise.  Imagine living this always.

All of the troubles, pains, fears, hatred that enveloped the world this past year;  all those that were let down, broken down, broken apart (me included); let them go this night, for good.  If all of that pain was embraced, loved unconditionally as we let it go and send it on it's way, imagine the peace that would follow.  The empty space left behind would be available for goodness to refill it.  We would allow Sat Chit Ananda to be revealed as it is always here with us.


My wish for myself and the universe is that unconditional love that heals the heart, heals the world. Imagine yourself within it now and always.  May this new chapter open you to infinite possibilities, dipped in love.  Peace.

This Garment is Wearing Well

This Garment is Wearing Well
An automatic writing piece from a meditation

Put back together what has come undone. The seams have opened before, you sewed them again. Then with wear and tear they opened again in a different place. And you sewed it back together again. Each time the seams get stronger.

The garment is not wearing out, it is wearing well. Each stitch uses a stronger yarn. This garment is fitting you better and better over the years. It has also gotten large enough for others to join you as they find their way.

The life you are stitching together is a piecemeal coat of wonderfulness. You world is under construction – again. But you are not alone and the garment, the life garment you are constructing will fit all in need; all those who are behind you. Light the way so they will walk easier, through a well-worn path with trees that reach out to each person at each juncture, each crossroad.

It is your path; it is their path. Their path is created from yours and will all become universal as one journey of many souls.

Oh, the Quiet of Mother Nature

Okay, who loves it when the snow first falls and all the noise of the world is buffered under a cover of fluffy snow?  Me! 

Even driving home in first night of the Blizzard of 2011 in Chicago, at midnight, after attending a spectacular, intimate Shelby Lynne concert, when there was few souls brave enough to tackle the roads; even after the stress of finding out that my son had arrived at the venue with no gas in the car, the quiet was deafening.  In a wonderful way.

In the white quiet, with the roads to ourself, blanketed in a snowfall, my stress lessened, my ears perked up to listen to the wind, the snow falling.  We left the radio off, we said nothing on our drive home.  Peace.

And the next morning, I woke to that peacefulness.  Unfortunately, it was quickly dashed as the roars of the snow blowers began.  And the scraping of the shovels on the pavement.  Mother Nature had decided it was time for everyone to stop and be still.  The schools were closed, businesses were closed, people were given a day off from the chaos of our too hectic worlds. 

And that appeared to be too much to take for some people.  The quiet for too long.  The need to be in contact all the time, engaged in human interaction. The frantic rush to clear the sidewalks, driveways and roads.  For what?  No one was going anywhere that day.  But the words I saw on Facebook and twitter were words of people who didn't know what to do with a time out from life.  Did they not realize that Mother Nature had given us this gift?

Or maybe it was a warning.  Slow down, enjoy life.  I saw it as both.  A gift of a couple of hours in the morning to listen to the quiet, to contemplate life and all it really has to offer without asking much in return.  I also saw it as a warning.  That we are messing with dear old Mom Nature and she is protecting her dear earth by blanketing it's wounds in a soft covering of snow.  Next time she might not be so "giving".  Unheeded warnings lead to larger and larger warnings.  Taps on the shoulder become bops to the head.  Life will make itself known to us regardless of whether we are listening or not.  We WILL listen at some point.

So, thank you, Ms. Nature.  For a short moment to pause, reflect and revel in the beauty you have created for us.

(My boys and I got outside to clear the snow as others were heading off to bed.  We played all day! )

Compassionate and Unique Leadership Skills

"When you act from the highest, you will not only feel the delight of such a connection but others will be uplifted in your presence and get a hint of their own Divine Light." I procrastinated AGAIN and missed out on an important opportunity and I am angry at myself about it. I wanted to attend the Women's Conference 2010 at Omega Institute this fall and I put off signing up for it till today. And it is sold out. Bummer. Big bummer. BUT, there is an opportunity to win tickets to it by answering the question, "What unique qualities empower you, as a woman, to be a strong and compassionate leader?" Wow, big question. And it has to be answered in 200 words or less. I started reading some of the answers and was overwhelmed by the creativity and profundity. I've written things on that topic in more ways than one so I decided to go back and look at some of the words I have written. And if I pray and ask the universe for help, maybe, just maybe I will be the winner. A friend was just given free tickets to go back to Medjugorje in Bosnia, where she was healed. She felt a need to go back and could not afford to go, so she prayed. And she received! I DO believe that the universe is waiting to help if we just ask. "Ask and you shall receive." So I am because I feel deep down that it is important that I go this year. Here is my answer to that question in 247 words. Hopefully they aren't counting. Unique qualities for compassionate leadership are really quite simple. Believe in your dreams. Ask for help and receive. Face your biggest fears. Take risks that you know will lead to greater things. Trust and empower the people around you; trust in yourself and your abilities; trust your gut; trust that moving forward includes hurts, failure, darkness, as well as growth and achievement; trust that NOTHING is static, NOTHING ever goes as initially planned; trust that not knowing everything at all times is OK; life is unfolding as it is meant to. Let go of all preconceived notions - they will hold you back; let go of limiting behaviors; to "let go" is to fear less and love more. Accept yours and others flaws, intricacies, gifts, beauty; accept that you have no control over the universe and it will guide you. Become to others the same role model that moved you to greater things. Impart the wisdom you've learned to others moving along those same paths you once travelled, helping them to reach the level of inner comfort and outer freedom you yourself have found. If we envision a world where women support each other and help each other find their place in an ever-changing world, then we can become the change we want to see.