37 Days asks us to Stop Doing Insigificant Work ...

"Why have we made a silent, unspoken agreement to not do significant work in the world?

I am tired of having long, endless, polite conversations about discrimination and hate. I am tired of executives who keep asking me for the "business case" for diversity as if another notebook of statistics will finally make them pay attention like the other 120 notebooks of data have not. I am tired of going to meetings to hear about the state of our communities relative to race or other diversity issues only to hear talking heads present illegible PowerPoint bar charts about disparities in graduation rates between blacks and whites.

Good lord, don't we know all this already? Raise your hand if you are white and straight and would volunteer for the rest of your life to be treated as people of color and GLBTQ people are treated in this country. If your hand isn't raised, then you know we have to do something about the discrimination GLBTQ people and people of color--and others--face DAILY. If your hand isn't raised, then you know this is going on and you cannot pretend not to know any longer."

and she led me to this...

I only have one fear for my son going to New York City for college - hate crimes. He's been extremely privileged to have never experienced a negative response to his being queer. We live in a community filled with people who are evolved enough to appreciate diversity and to stand up against hate, as well as teach their children to do so. But I know it is highly unlikely this blessing will continue through his entire adult life. The reality is that gays are targeted for violence regularly, and our public policies like Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the refusal to grant legal gay marriage and other civil rights contribute to this violence.

Ellen's right about asking people to become conscious of how humor is used to deride queers (and other minorities) in our culture. It's something we all have to consciously commit to changing. This is where accountability falls on all of our shoulders.  This is where our straight allies like you come in and why I will continue bringing queer education activism into this blog in hopes of inspiring this community to take action.

Well, if you're a regular reader of this blog you already know the answer: I have for more than 12 years, and always will, march for queer civil rights, until we have achieved full equal rights under the law. I have also marched for peace, but I feel my queer activism has a much more immediate impact on my local community.

The first time I marched in a Gay Pride Parade was before I even knew I was bisexual. I was escaping from the christian fundamentalism I had been brainwashed with in my youth and as a born world-changer I just thought it would be right to march as soon as I understood the reality of queer rights in America. I intuitively knew how important straight allies are to this modern civil rights movement and I ended up on the front page of the newspaper. I discovered my love for women and came out later that year.

Now marching is not just about me or the greater community, it's about my son, too.

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

-Marge Piercy

P.S. I have yet to meet a Marge Piercy poem that hasn't touched me deeply. Her novels are wonderful, too.

Have compassion for everyone you meet,
even if they don't want it.
What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicism
is always a sign of things no ears have heard,
no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there
where the spirit meets the bone.
--Miller Williams

Wow, the last two weeks have been a whirlwind of transformation, bothin within me and in the world around me. Since meeting the new woman in my life, my spiritual life has suddenly taken on a whole new dimension. Well maybe not new, but it's bigger, deeper, stronger than it's ever been before. It's as if something clicked inside of me all of the sudden and all the resistance I had to furthering my relationship with the Divine and surrendering to a true mystical relationship just disappeared. Old habits that I clung to have fallen away. New habits that I've wanted to intitiate but resisted are now easy to take on.

I realized that I've been putting off a full commitment because I was afraid of true surrender. I have surrendered in the past and although it is a wonderful experience, it's also unsettling because the positive transformation is balanced by a burning in Kali's Fire, burning away fear and illusion in the biggest possible ways. I am flying between extreme highs and lows right now as I adjust to the full opening of my heart. My greatest fears arise as I face the potential of a true opening to Love in all of its glory.

At lunch, I was reading Eat, Pray, Love, which is as good as everyone says it is. The particular passage I read touched me in such a way that I just exploded with a spirit of gratitude and wonder, so much so that I cried as I prayed a gratitude prayer of "thank you, thank you, thank you" over and over again for God leading me to this new opening of myself. My senses are heightened. My connection to All That Is is becoming a constant presence in each moment.

I think what is happening is that all the evolution of thought that I've experienced the last couple of years is becoming a an experiential awareness of Oneness. This woman I've met is open to her own experience of Godness more deeply than anyone I've known. Just experiencing her presence, both in words through email and in person, brought my experience of my own Godness to the surface. Relating to each other with that Divine Awareness makes my heart chakra spin and light up in a way it never has before (that's the only description even close to adequate for the physical/emotional/energetic experience that takes place where my heart resides inside my chest). When we are together in the same space I feel as if my heart is wrapped in a gentle string of warmth that pulls my heart towards hers.

I have no idea where this new friendship will lead. We are both overwhelmed by the bigness of it all, the bigness that we mirror in each other. And we are both aware that we have tendencies to get lost in other people when we love, so we want to be extremely careful that we are strong in our own foundations before we are carried away into whatever potential the Divine has in store for us. I have no expectations, just gratitude for the shift that has taken place in me and a sincere desire to go where the Divine leads.

She has also introduced me to a local spiritual community that I didn't know existed that happens to believe everything I believe about humans (and all things in the Universe) being manifestations of God in the world. This in itself is life changing since I have been on this path alone for the last year and half.

I am excited about where this is leading me. I feel a sense of adventure again.

I found the passage below to be deeply relevant to my understanding of art and culture. Art, in my heart and mind, is for making a difference in the world. That so much modern art is focused on form, technique and aesthetic is unsettling to me...what's the point?

"I believe that literature and art are crucial in evolving/intensifying consciousness, creating new forms of complex awareness and adding subtle dimensions to human experience. The struggle for women's liberation for instance was voiced in hundreds of years of fiction - Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, etc - which laid the groundwork for a social transformation in the status of women. Etc for Dickens and Blake and the awareness of industrialism as a destructive force. I agree that artists can be "the antennae of the race" and the conscience of the species.

However, it is in the nature of art to keep changing, as human consciousness changes. "What is art" is different for each generation - if you reduplicate the style or form of past art, it is not really art in my view but more like craft or self-expression, which is not bad but not transformational in the same way art is.

So we are now responding to radically different conditions than people were before, and the nature and potential for transformative work has also changed. We seem to be in a transition between the bourgeois culture of the last few hundred years - with the novel and lyric poem as its expressive forms - and some other form of social existence that would naturally create different expressive forms.

When I look at the function of contemporary lit and art, mostly it seems to be having a regressive effect, reinforcing the old forms of bourgeois identity with sentimental identifications with the ego. I am very concerned, right now, with the seeming incapacity of most people in our culture to awaken to the dire urgency of our present situation, and to move from passive contemplation to active engagement. I feel that not just individual works but the entire construct of the contemporary art and literary worlds are functioning as another pacifying and distracting mechanism - someone may read a novel about war and cry, but that doesn't translate into organizing to stop the wars we are now waging. It sometimes seems to me that forces have conspired to depolitize culture and make it socially irrelevant."  Daniel Pinchbeck

I was cleaning my room and read through a journal I kept last year. I was amazed to find that one of my dreams-to-create is a collaborative art project that has the potential to affect change  in my community. At the time, I was thinking of visual art, but now it occurs to me that I have made my dream come true by being a part of The Laramie Project production our Pride organization is sponsoring. We had auditions last weekend and I was suddenly struck with the reality of how deep this play touches people. Being a part of this creation will touch and transform my life in many ways, allowing me to bring all of my gifts into play. As stage manager, I will bring the necessary balance of structure and management needed (serendipitously, the director needs someone exactly like me). But as an empath, this experience has the potential of allowing me to use my empathy in relationship to everyone involved in bringing this tragic story to life. There is an opportunity for tremendous growth if I allow my heart to stay open.

"...I think that the truth of art allows us to take a microcosm, a tiny thing...and let it stand for so much else. But the artist needs to know a great deal more than she or he is necessarily going to put into the work of art. The artist needs to have reflected on things that may not go into that poem. There's a work of constant reflection on one's own consciousness and on the conditions of life that surround the ... images...It seems to me that it is the responsibility of an artist to move out from our own necessarily circumscribed lives into the experience of others whom we don't know and might never know, and in doing this to experience what we could never have experienced ourselves... " Adrienne Rich being interviewed by Bill Moyers in The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets

I just watched this astonishing TED talk from Harvard-trained brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, about our brains, who we are, how we can choose to experience the infinite and bring peace into ourselves and the world. She is so passionate, nearly bringing herself to tears with the story of her stroke experience and being conscious of losing the connection to the left half her brain and how that took her to an understanding of the energy of life that we are. The site says, "It drew a huge standing ovation in the first session of the conference and, by general consensus, counts as one of the most memorable TED talks of all time." I heartily agree even though I haven't watched them all. This is one of the most incredible talks I've ever witnessed in any forum.

I shared it with my children and my son was deeply moved because he is equally scientist, philosopher and artist at heart, so someone bringing the science of the brain into a talk about experiencing our infinite nature really touched him.



On another note, concerning my own choice to consciously stay in the presence of the Infinite, the woman who turned my world upside down the last two weeks has decided to choose her fear over the bigness of what we've experienced and has told me we should go our separate ways, not even be friends. I am in shock and heartbroken, because whether or not we could have been more than friends, I thought I had found a member of my spiritual tribe for this leg of my journey. I thought I had finally found a local friend who could speak my language and share my passions for mysticism, creativity, and an intuitive experience of life. And I think I did, I believe that's why God brought us together, but the little thing we call free will determines what happens when God brings two people together. Each of us are given the choice to love or fear and many of us choose fear over and over again. But I know I cannot be broken and am choosing to remain in my awakened, open  and loving state. Kali's Fire keeps burning and burning away the fear and illusions. God is calling me and I will not turn my back again. My tribe is out there, being drawn to me as I write this, and we will find each other one day. There are, there must be, other people in this world who want to experience the fullness of love when two people relate to the Divinity in each other as friends or lovers. I will find them, or they will find me, when the time is right.

PS It occurs to me that some of my tribe may actually be in my life now but I have not been open enough to recognize them. It'll be interesting to see where this new openness leads.

My browser shut down on me earlier so I can't credit the proper Gaian for leading me to this essay but someone did lead me to it today and it is wonderfully serendipitous! This is what I've been feeling as possible the last two weeks: two human beings capable of connecting through their Godness to one another first and foremost and with utter consciousness that they are connecting/communicating/merging as God meeting God. I know it is possible. I can feel it down to my bones. I experienced it, briefly, but long enough to know now what to pray for, what to invite into my life.

I am actually an Andrew Cohen skeptic. I believe he has the right ideas, but he is a flawed Guru and one that does not appeal to me whatsoever in that capacity. But I keep loose tabs on his/WhatIsEnlightenment's progress because there is certainly big Godness coming from there. What he/they is right on with my own understanding of human consciousness and evolution. I just don't jive with they're seeking it. (It's much the same for me with Ken Wilbur and the Integral community that surrounds him.)  

"I'm just on the eve of leading a nine-day retreat on Enlightened Communication...To put it in theological language, if I may, it's about what happens when God talks to him- or herself! That is, it's what happens when two or more individuals awaken to what I call the Authentic Self and begin to communicate from a part of the mind/self/soul that transcends the individual and collective ego. That's when the same energy and intelligence that initiated the creative process 14 billion years ago begins to talk to itself. And what he, she, or it is interested in is how human beings at the leading edge can consciously create the future...

The manifest expression of the living God is the felt urge to become-that same original utopian impulse behind the first cause that miraculously is beginning to awaken to itself in the light of our own evolved consciousness. This emerging ecstatic compulsion is the Authentic Self in you and in me. Those of us who earnestly find ourselves compelled by the promise of a new future and a higher context for human life will find an infinite source of energy and inspiration when we discover how to ride on the wings of the Authentic Self."
Andrew Cohen

What a timely question for me personally...

My renaissance is the fullness of awakening that is taking place in my Heart, Soul, and Spirit right now. I am opening to a full on engagement of the Divine. A mystic isn't just something I seek to be or feel called to, it is now what I am. The seeds of learning that were planted over the last year are bursting open and reaching for the Light in order to bloom into a whole new experience of life. I am so excited to see what shape the flower of me takes this year among the other flowers in God's garden.

It's funny, I keep thinking of that old Mervyn's commercial with the woman at the door saying, "Open, open, open" over and over again. The call to opening is so urgent in my heart's ear. The love and the opening I feel far surpass any fear and resistance that still exist within me.

As this spiritual awakening unfolds, I believe I will be sharing much of it here because I don't have someone in my daily life to share it with. I know I will be witnessed by the glorious souls that are my Gaia friends. And I imagine my journey may resonate with at least some of you. My Godness seeks to connect with yours. : )

I attended service at the Center for Spiritual Living again this morning. It was not easy choosing to go back since I knew the woman who just severed our connection would be there. She is the one who introduced me to the space/community last week. I could have chosen fear/doubt/contraction, or just to avoid the awkwardness of being in the same space. But the Universe gave me every possible prompting and guidance that I am meant to be a part of that spiritual community, even through the part of Oprah's and Tolle's conversation that I watched last night. For one, I was touched by the music. I have always been drawn to soulful musical expressions of love to the Divine. I was in the choir in every church I attended when I was young. Song and God have always gone together for me. Also, last week's service was about creativity and the teacher used passages from The Artist's Way. She couldn't have chosen a more perfect message to assure me that I had come home to a place where I could share my creative Divinity with other conscious souls. Today's message was about the Gifts of the Divine and she read passages from Random Acts of Kindness. If you know anything about my generosity/kindness art project, you can imagine how assured I feel I made the right choice to go today, to stay connected to the Divine calling that brought me there. It's as if she was writing those messages just for me. So I went despite my nervous stomach and chose to stay in a place where it was about Me and God connecting to one another through the sacred energy cultivated by that community; because as Tolle says, it is easier to make the connection and transformation when we are with other human beings holding space for it.

I did send an inquiry into a local group listed at the Oprah/New Earth site last night as well, so there may be other experiences of spiritual community locally for me. I am amazed at how my social anxiety has suddenly dissipated!

While I was preparing myself to go I came to the realization that what the woman chooses is between her and God and truly none of my business no matter what  feelings, intuitions and even judgments may arise. I also realized that I can continue to love her and hold space for her growth as part of my community whether we ever speak again or not. Physical interaction is not required for love when you are in the place of Oneness.

I am amazed at how well I am handling the turning of the wheel the last two weeks, the sudden highs and lows of opening fully to the Universe. The truth is, this woman manifested my greatest fear -- that no one wants to love the bigness of me or that those I love will choose fear over love in response to me. I have had so many people in my life, in fact nearly every one I have loved other than my exhusband and my best friend have turned away from my love and bigness in fear.  (Of course, I've had my own ways of choosing fear over love as well. I am poignantly aware of the mirrors I was given.) So you can imagine how much of a shadow this cast over the last two weeks as I trusted that God brought us together and stayed open, even when intuition started warning me that she was retreating. I just kept choosing love and am choosing it even now. The Love I feel is so much bigger than the fear and resistance. I absolutely refuse to make myself smaller again, to retreat into the fear. God is at work and that's all there is to it.

I did a relationship Tarot reading last weekend with my Osho Zen deck, trying to understand the energies at play. The card representing my mind was The Fool. I was/am guided to set aside my thoughts and fears of humiliation and just walk into the unknown, to be a Fool for Love, and not romantic love, but the fullness of Love that we humans are capable of. I chose to be the Fool these last two weeks and I will continue choosing to be. This is what surrender is.  This is what my lesson is right now. I cannot be broken even by those who call to my heart and then shut down to me. It isn't personal. It isn't about me. It's about their relationship to the Divine and the callings of their own heart. It's about their own journey to Love and the fears they must find the courage to face...or not. I have nothing but compassion and love for them all, every soul that has ever turned away from the Godness in me and themselves.

I suppose this is a part of the path for every person who chooses to reside in their Godness. People will turn away. Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King were all murdered because they scared people so deeply with the ways they resided in their Godness. We live in a world where most people seem to be choosing fear -- whether the fear that creates war and violence or the fear that stops them from experiencing the fullness of Love in all of its manifestations in their lives, creating depression, anxiety, apathy and separation. Those of us who are courgeous enough to choose to live in our Godness as much as we are capable must frighten the heck out of most people.

I am also acutely aware of the areas of my life where I've been choosing fear and contraction and need to shine the Light of Love the brightest. My biggest frustrations a few weeks ago were the situation of living with my ex and the stagnation in my work. Now I see both situations in a completely different light. If I am to be truly open to Love, I must be open to the love my ex continues to give me instead of shutting down against it in guilt and shame for breaking his heart. I've realized that I have held resentment against him and not fully forgiven him because I have not fully forgiven myself and I resented myself for getting into the relationship in the first place. I resented myself for letting his fears imprison me through my lack of boundaries in my empathy. I must forgive us both and move into the place of friendship that God desires for us as co-parents and journeyers. (Eat Pray Love, which I was prompted to buy last week because I saw it on her back seat, helped me see this. The gifts I was given in these two weeks are truly too many to give words to.)

In my work, I need to return to the spirit of service that drew me to non-profit work and the Agency in the first place. The details do not matter if I stay present to the spirit of service in me and make myself available in any and every way that God asks of me through my work. And I can see how necessary I may be in the coming months. We are about to move into a new building, bringing four different locations/departments together. It will be a time of tremendous change, which is where I thrive. I am good at holding space for transformation.

I've been so focused on what I need to DO in order to make changes in my life. I knew intellectually that I needed to reside in a BEing place, but now it's experiential. Now I feel it like it's my own skin. I am God. I am Love. I am Service. I am Generosity. I am Kindness. I am capable of holding space for all souls on this miraculous journey as I am called to when my heart is open and surrenders.

The blessing for me right now is that the more I surrender, the more at peace I feel as God bombards me with messages of support and guidance for each step I take. I am experiencing the magic of Divinity's Guidance again, seeing messages everywhere I turn that support this time of rapid expansion. I am on the right path.

Thank you for listening and sharing this experience of God as us with me.

"The essence of life is that it's challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100 percent healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest."

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

It's that time of year when high school seniors start receiving their college letters. My son hasn't really had the time to worry about admissions once the applications were done in January. Besides his regular coursework, he laid out the school magazine, just finished the school year book  (he did the layout/design for everything but the senior pages) and now he is preparing for the upcoming IB tests. He is also tutoring the junior class in science and his own class in math for the upcoming tests (yeah, even though he's in a charter school filled with smart kids, he's still the smartest in math and science--he has an uncanny intuition in those areas and seems to be able to teach it better than the teachers).

I am so incredibly proud to announce that so far he has already been accepted into the film/art programs of three four universities of the six he applied to...Columbia, NYU, University of Southern California, and UCLA! I am so incredibly proud. I am beyond-words happy that all the hard work he has done, and his natural born talents, are being validated in such a tremendous way (as well as the hard work I have done to raise him into a healthy, passionate young adult). And happy that he has choices; that he is not limited in any way. He can choose his entrance into the adult world based on his passions and his intense desire to learn. Although he will major in film/art/writing (he wants to write and direct his own films, as well as write several fantasy novel series), he will probably also minor in science because he has an insatiable hunger to understand the way the world works.

If I were a gambling woman, I would bet that we will all see his name on a successful book or film in less than 10 years. He has immense talent as an artist and writer that hasn't even been challenged or properly trained yet. I am so excited to witness his flight into the world. I know college will bring immense growth, not just in his passions/talents, but in his consciousness, in his relationships, in his understanding of himself and his place in the world. He has already become so much and he has really only just begun.

"Our longing for the eternal kindles our imagination to bless. Regardless of how we configure the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, that place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of life's journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now." - John O'Donohue, *To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings*

Just wanted to share this lovely and serendipitous quote that made it's way into my email inbox today. I never thought of blessing as a way to call Oneness upon person. Puts The Conspiracy of Blessings in a whole new light.

Oh, lordy, did this little poem I found on a favorite blog touch me deep, deep, deep just now...

*

Don't

Surrender

Your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more

Deep.



Let it ferment and season you

As few human

Or even divine ingredients can.



Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so

Tender,



My need of God

Absolutely

Clear.



-- By Hafiz

I am not sure how else to create the sense of closure that I need, so I release this into the Universe and hope that it is felt, if not read or heard.

My son introduced me to Kate Nash and this song tonight. I was struck with how simply, beautiful and raw it speaks some of what I'm feeling right now...

But speaking from my own heart...

Tonight I walked at the marsh as the sun was setting and the full moon rising. The moment you described to me a week ago was exquisite, even though you were not there to share it. I breathed the chilly air deep into my lungs as I walked and noticed the rich, sweet scent of a pink flowering bush, a sign of spring. My senses have become more vibrant since you. I watched an otter play as he dove for crabs. I marveled at the sparkles of water droplets from this morning's rain still sitting on the blades of bright green grass. Have you ever noticed how many shades of green there are in the natural world? I found Presence when I closed my eyes and took in the symphony of the birds. And I thought of the song you helped awaken in me, the song of Life, the song of Love, the song of Being.

I walked by the bench we sat on when we were there and realized that was the first moment I felt you retreating. I wonder that I should have noticed the signs, should have been more aware of how scared you were. Was there something more I could have said to alleviate your fears? Or did I say too much? No. I have to trust that my openness, my authentic sharing from my place of Presence was just right. After all, it was only my first time.

I sat down on the bench by the still water and let myself feel the sadness that we will not walk together again, or talk together again, knowing that it cannot break me, it is not me, it's just an experience I am having.  An experience that is inspiring growth. An experience that is woven into my full awakening.

You gave me so many gifts in our short time together. You inspired poetry in me. You inspired me to want to be more of my God Self, to commit myself fully to this path I've been hesitating to fully engage.  By opening to you I opened to Guidance and a deeper experience of Divinity. And you introduced me to the spiritual community I've been hungering for.

You have touched my life profoundly. Even though I only knew you for two weeks in the world of form, you will be in my heart forever.  You inspired me to open fully to Love in all of its magnificent splendor.  God gave me a gift in you and every word and experience we shared. I can only hope that you experienced a gift in me as well.

Thank you for being You, and giving me a piece of yourself to carry in the pocket of my heart as I continue to walk this path on my own. We are always together in Oneness. 

Today is the first day since this radical transformation in me began that I haven't consciously stayed in Presence through out the day. A huge part of the transformation that is taking place in me is that every time I've strayed from Presence I've been conscious of it pretty quickly and brought myself back through various tools I've learned (for instance focusing on my inner energetic body or aliveness, or reading something that focuses my consciousness on Presence). There were moments that didn't happen today. I am faltering in my consistency, allowing playing my roles in day-to-day life to take over.  I seek to be kind to myself about this, but I also fear slipping back into old patterns. I don't want to lose all I've gained.

This is urgent for me because as our production of The Laramie Project approaches, I know that I must be able to maintain Presence if I am to keep myself from getting lost in the emotional experience everyone is having as they embody this tragic story through my empathy. I don't want to shut down to protect myself. I want to maintain openness, but I must be in touch with my center consistently in order to do so. Otherwise I'll be stressed and a detriment to the group experience.

...

On the other hand, to balance this post with goodness, I had an amazing conversation while in Presence with my son last night. He is going through some intense transformation of his own right now. He's opening his heart in ways he hasn't before. He's had a tough time with emotional attachment because of our early years together. I definitely wounded him. Not only did I bring a lot of people in and out of his life his first five years, creating chaos instead of security, I also wasn't emotionally connected to him as a mother. I met his physical and learning needs, but not his emotional needs. He practically lived with his best friend's family for much of that time. It took a lot of work on myself and my relationship to him over several years to bring him back to me. Now we are very, very close. He always comes to me when he needs to process his life experiences, which he does with remarkable insight for a 17 year old. Eckhart Tolle said in the second conversation with Oprah--while talking with a 13 year old reading and understanding the book!--that our children may not need to experience the hell on earth that many of us did in order to achieve awakening. They can experience it earlier without trauma because we embody the awakened experience as an example to them.  

One of the very lovely things he shared with me last night is that he recognizes how I held space for him to grow into himself without any agenda or expectations of who I thought he should be. He thinks this is part of why he's been so successful in school and well rounded in those successes (creative, intellectual, emotional and service-oriented). Compared to his friends' experiences, he can see the immense value in holding space over dictating what a child does or does not do.  I never pushed him to do or be anything, I just gave him opportunities and supported his exploration of all his talents and passions, even the ones I couldn't relate to like video games.The most I did was share appropriate aspects of my own journey to model for him my pursuit of consciousness and tried to teach him tools to work with his difficult thoughts and emotions. I let him make his own choices about how to express himself and spend his free time, within reasonable limits of course. I let him have his own journey, shadows and all. And he can already see how that gave/gives him space to figure himself out and find the pursuits that make his heart sing.

I thought he'd be at least in his 20's before he recognized the aspects of parenting that I got right. It's nice to get this affirmation and recognition from him now.  : )

What I have learned most from having my heart broken is that I cannot truly be broken and that openness to love, whether received or rejected at the surface by the intended recipient, is all that matters. The more I open, the more Love I experience. Because we exist in Oneness, love cannot truly be rejected. Because we exist in Oneness, I can continue to love and feel love from those who choose not to relate to me in the world of form. They are a part of my Awakened Heart forever.

My entire life experience, filled with hundreds of temporary form relationships, has been leading to this awareness. I’m excited to see what experiences come to me now that I have overcome my greatest fear.

"If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders." Andrew Harvey

It seems there are moments of my life, as there are for many people I imagine, where music both touches and expresses the deep well of emotion that swirls beneath my surface far better than words ever could; and the Universe leads me serendipitously to songs I didn't even know would turn me upside down and inside out at the specific moment they cross my path. 

I came upon this in one of my favorite blogs this afternoon. I didn't think anyone could do this as well as Jeff Buckley, but I am tearfully surprised...



How could I ever forget how moved I am by the Godness that is KD Lang?




Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

Before a live performance of this song in a different youtube video, she talks about how feeling like you're not quite sated is a human condition.

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE: "If you place a fern under a stone, the next day it will be nearly invisible as if the stone has swallowed it. If you tuck the name of a loved on under your tongue too long, without speaking it it becomes blood, sigh, the little sucked in breath of air hiding everywhere beneath your words. No one sees the fuel that feeds you."

BILL MOYERS: "The fuel that feeds you." What is it?

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE: I think for many of us it's language in the sense that language can carry us to understanding, and connect us to things that matter in our lives. For those of us who trust poetry and the power of linkage that poetry gives us. It's a way of--sitting quietly with words and--letting us--them lead us somewhere.

BILL MOYERS: So "the fuel that feeds you" is the power of words?

NAOMI SHIHAB NYE: I think so. Those power of words, and a faith in the power of words. That words can give you something back if you trust them, and if you know that you're not trying to proclaim things all the time, but you're trying to discover things.

A little girl said to me, last year, "Poetry has been eating all my problems." And I said, "What do you mean by that?" And she said, "It just makes me feel better when I read it, or when I write it." And I think that's been true for many people in this country."

*  *  *

Two Countries

Skin remembers how long the years grow when skin is not touched, a gray tunnel of singleness, feather lost from the tail of a bird, swirling onto a step, swept away by someone who never saw it was a feather. Skin ate, walked, slept by itself, knew how to raise a see-you-later hand. But skin felt it was never seen, never known as a land on the map, nose like a city, hip like a city, gleaming dome of the mosque and the hundred corridors of cinnamon and rope. Skin had hope, that's what skin does. Heals over the scarred place, makes a road. Love means you breathe in two countries. And skin remembers--silk, spiny grass, deep in the pocket that is skin's secret own. Even now, when skin is not alone, it remembers being alone and thanks something larger that there are travelers, that people go places larger than themselves. Naomi Shihab Nye

*  *  *

The Art of Disappearing 

Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

As I ponder the transition into Spring this weekend (of which I am already poignantly aware both in the sensory world around me and in my inner world) and the metaphorical journey of Christ from death to resurrection, I take a cue from Sera Beak and ask myself what needs to die in order to be reborn?

Is there anything greater within myself that I can allow to die than the deepest fear I've ever held? The fear that I will never be chosen to love by those that I desire to love or already love. The fear that the deeper I travel into my own Divinity, the further the chasm grows between me and those fear-full souls that the Divine brings into my world for a moment, a week, a year, but never a lifetime. The fear that as I claim my bigness, my intensity, my enormous passion, I will intimidate or overshadow or just be too damn weird for anyone in the world of form to embrace. The fear that whispers how I need to protect myself, keep myself small, hold myself back, and certainly never open up fully to another person because they will always reject me if I reveal too much. The fear that restrains the Fool in my heart, the playful girl who wants to blow bubbles and give people magic wands with poems attached, and adventure into the unknown of living kindness, generosity and creativity in every moment of every day while surrounded by cynicism, heartache, repression and other people's fear. The fear that represses my Divine Expression in order to maintain the status quo.

See, this is what I've realized in this last turning of relationship events in my life...I have always felt this amazing potential for human relationship. I have always tasted the possibility of Divine interaction through the bodies, minds, hearts and spirits of human beings. It was always there at the edges of every friendship, every lover interaction. And I craved it, so much so that I often focused on trying to make it  happen instead of what was actually happening between me and the other. Or I put up defenses because I couldn't believe anyone else could feel it , or even if they did, they didn't want to go there with me. And I was afraid of the immense vulnerability required to be in that place of openness because I believed I could be broken.

I now understand that my immense capacity for empathy is really just an expression of Oneness. I can feel other people's emotions because I am in touch with and wrapped up in the energetic thread that connects us all. And it doesn't matter how the other person responds to me, or whether they can feel the connection, it's still real and right and so very, very good.

Now I have experienced what it feels like for me to relate completely from a place of Love, how deeply good and right  it feels to remain open and just groove with the experience of energy flowing from me to the other and back again without expectation or fear or even concern for what will happen in a future moment. After experiencing this, how could I ever close down to it again? How could I ever convince myself that living in fear is somehow better? Instead, I want to learn how to stay in this place all the time, with every single person I interact with...my children, my friends (both in the world and here online), my coworkers (including my self-centered boss), my Pride Board, and even the people who are only a momentary surface connection in the world of form as I do what needs to be done to survive (grocers, bankers, etc.). Yesterday, when standing in the bank line, instead of letting my thoughts wander, I focused on feeling love and blessing every person there, whatever their story might be. I want to remember to do that every time I go into the world. It seems the best, easiest way to stay consciously in Presence. When I drive, I can bless every other person on the road. When I walk at the marsh or the park or the beach, I can bless every other walker. What better way to consciously remain in the moment of Now?

Is there any greater rebirth than my full engagement in a mystical relationship to the Divine and its Presence in the world of form? I don't think there is. I think it will naturally be the source of every other positive change that takes place in my life as I maintain Presence in body, heart, mind and spirit. I believe my resurrection has already taken place, the old skin has been shed, and now I am learning how to embody this new skin.


*  *  *

To be consistent with this weekend's musical theme, what better song could express the deepest appreciation of being Alive...

Today my shadow came out to play and took me into a sad, tuned out place for a little while. Gratefully, bringing awareness back is as quick as having the intention. A few deep breaths and an open mind brings the tinglies of the inner body and Oneness.

Yesterday I woke up to some mighty resistance against maintaining a conscious connection to Oneness and Presence. My ego tried to convince me it's too much work to maintain all the time and just getting through the day isn't so bad as long as I don't descend into worry about the future (I spend very little time in the past). I almost gave in, but decided to try and inspire myself with a little reading instead, at least to give myself something good to think about if I was going to reside in thought. It almost didn't work, until I took the opportunity in the shower to be present to the physical sensations, which brought me into a more centered place and it flowed from there.

This is what I'm learning about maintaining Presence right now...I am in it much more than I ever realized. When I am at work and have things to do (as opposed to not having something to do and struggling to use my time productively or at least avoid boredom), I nearly always operate out of presence as service, which may be the source of my unusual efficiency. I don't waste time spacing out or thinking about other things or chatting with people. I am very in-the-moment with my tasks and when I'm not, it's usually a conscious choice to focus on something else. The one area I can use more presence is in interaction with other people. Although I am easy going, I could bring more intention into nurturing good relating with my coworkers.  Although I am available for any task requested of me, I could bring more attention to how I speak to people and acknowledge/honor their presence.

This is also true with aspects of home life. I am present when I am cooking. I am present to my children most of the time they engage me (and I'm working at giving them full attention when they interrupt me). I am present most of the time I write or interact online (other than kid interruptions, where I'd like to find a way to shift back and forth from one to the other as necessary). I am present when creating. I just need to bring more presence to my friendship with my ex.

I actually don't have that many parts of the day where I have the space to get lost in ego based thought. My potential over-thinking times are when I get ready in the morning, when I'm driving, when I'm shifting from one task to another at work (or don't have a task to focus on), and when I'm between activities in the evenings or on the weekend (or when I'm too lazy/resistant to do something during those times).

So it seems I have been experiencing living in the now as a natural part of living a conscious life. I just didn't frame it as such until now.

"If I had the influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over 
the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in 
the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last 
throughout life, an unfailing antidote against the boredom and 
disenchantment of later years, sterile preoccupations with things that are 
artificial, and the alienation from the sources of our strength."
- Rachel Carson, *The Sense of Wonder*









 
I just realized the first, and most vital, paragraph of this post was screwed up, so I'm reposting...   
 

As a mother, this question has always been incorporated into my parenting choices, although
not so much looking to the future as how to teach them to be conscious in/of the moment. As my son acknowledged recently, allowing and supporting my children to grow into the people they are, without preconceptions or expectations, as I simultaneously, and as transparently as is appropriate, model my unique journey towards consciousness, is the very best I can do. I am very honest about my own journey with my children, especially when it affects them. I speak and live the language and experience of consciousness and awareness all the time. When I offer guidance, it is from the place of acknowledging what I have learned in my own life and that it may not apply to their understanding of the world, or they may decide to take a different approach. They are on their own journey and it is not my place to take their shadows, fears or mistakes from them. I can only offer unconditional love, the tools that work for me, and suggestions for healing. And it is vital to acknowledge where they are in their own evolution, both in stages of development and the shape of their unique journey. A 12 year old and 17 year old are not capable yet of bringing the same awareness to life as I am at 34. I must remember that they are exactly where they are supposed to be, even if it hurts to witness their growing pains.

There are very few rules or restrictions in our home. Treating ourselves and each other with respect and participating in caring for our shared space are really the only rules we have. As such, the only conflicts in our home take place when there are issues about chores (complaining, forgetting or not putting the time and attention into doing them well), or there is disrespect between siblings (which is 90% of all conflict), or between parent and child. One of the reasons my ex and I are not compatible co-parents in the same home (although I will never come between the relationship he has with the kids) is because he is parenting from a conditioned/traditional place. He set himself up for a troubled relationship with the children by holding to those old ideas (expecting things to be done a certain way, taking it personally when they don't agree, or not giving them space to be messy, loud children), which causes more negative interaction than positive. I actually have very little conflict with my children, and it continues to lessen as I become more open to accepting the parts of them that are difficult for me to understand. For instance, my son’s humor seems to me to be sadistic, but his dearest friends like him just the way he is, so who am I to say my perception is right and his/theirs is wrong? I can only ask that he be aware when something that is funny to him is perceived as harmful by his sister, who does not perceive his humor the same way his peers do, and to stop when that line is crossed.

I am confident that my son is prepared to face the future and go out in the world on his own this year. Whatever mistakes I have made are minor in comparison to the remarkable gifts that my form of parenting have nurtured in him. Because I was so terrible at mothering the first five years of his life and am aware of the dysfunction I could have created, I can see and claim how living a conscious life, especially as a parent, contributed to his evolution. He is emotionally strong, capable of managing his emotions when they become overwhelming (which is a big deal because he is highly sensitive and often raged when he was overwhelmed in the past).  He is insightful into people and brings wisdom to his friendships as they journey together. He is fiercely passionate and confident in his intelligence and creative gifts. He is an independent thinker, a totally comfortable-in-his-skin nonconformist. He has a strong sense of service and contributing to the greater good of his community. He is disciplined (much more so than I). And he has a powerful vision that he is already manifesting by getting into the college of his dreams. I am so very, very excited to witness his further expansion in the coming years.

It may seem that I’m overly expressive of pride in my son and myself right now. But if you have any idea of what I came from, how completely I’ve overcome the extreme dysfunction of my own childhood and mental illness of my young adult life, you would understand that this is the most significant accomplishment I will achieve in my life and I am only honoring the immense beauty of what we’ve created together. He inspired me to be who I am now. Although parenting my daughter is just as important, she came after the transformation began and didn’t suffer the wounding by me that he did. I almost broke him and sat in the crucible of Kali’s Fire as long as it took to help myself and him be whole. I feel that deserves all the honor and recognition I can muster for it.

I love that I'm finding so much serendipitous corroboration of what I imagine is possible in
relationship between two awakened souls...

From Rob Brezny’s book Pronoia: 

"In Joseph Campbell's vision of myth, the hero is typically a solitary male who renounces 
intimate companionship to pursue his glorious, arduous quest. Along the way, sporadic 
help may arrive from an ineffable muse or deity.

There are alternative scenarios for the hero's journey, but Campbell underplayed them. 
In the tantric tradition, for instance, a seeker's connection with a beloved human 
companion is essential to his or her spiritual inquiry. Some early Christians described 
Jesus and Mary Magdalene as equal collaborators. Sufi mystic poet Rumi may not have 
actually made love with his teacher Shams (then again, he might have), but it's clear the 
two men sought divine communion together, not through lonely solo work.

Some modern teachers have broken from Campbell's narrow perspective. The quest for 
illumination, they say, can thrive on the challenges of loving and living with an actual person. 
In John Welwood's *Love and Awakening,* the author reimagines relationship as an 
"alliance of warriors" devoted to awakening each other's "holy longing.""

Yesterday I posted a quote by John Welwood from another source and decided to go take a look at who he is and what he writes. I am really drawn to his ideas about relationship. This is what I want relationship to be for me in the future...

From an article on his site, Intimate Relationship as Transformative Path...

"Those of us who are struggling with questions of love and commitment today are pioneers in territory that has never been consciously explored before. It is important to realize just how new this situation is, so that we do not blame ourselves for the difficulties we face in our relationships. In former times, if people wanted to explore the deeper mysteries of life, they would often enter a monastery or hermitage far away from conventional family ties. For many of us today, however, intimate relationship has become the new wilderness that brings us face to face with all our gods and demons. It is calling on us to free ourselves from old habits and blind spots, and to develop the full range of our powers, sensitivities and depths as human beings--right in the middle of everyday life...

 

If we are to cultivate a new spirit of engagement in our intimate relationships, I suggest that we need to recognize and welcome the powerful opportunity that intimate relationships provide--to awaken to our true nature. If relationships are to flourish, they need to reflect and promote who we really are, beyond any limited image of ourselves concocted by family, society, or our own minds. They need to be based on the whole of who we are, rather than on any single form, function, or feeling. This presents a tremendous challenge, for it means undertaking a journey in search of our deepest nature. Our connection with someone we love can in fact be one of the best vehicles for that journey. When we approach it in this way, intimacy becomes a path--an unfolding process of personal and spiritual development.

If form and feeling, earthly duty and heavenly romance, have been thesis and antithesis in the historical dialectic of marriage, the new synthesis we can now begin to contemplate is: marriage as a conscious relationship, which joins together heaven and earth. . .

Love is a transformative power precisely because it brings the two different sides of ourselves--the expansive and the contracted, the awake and the asleep--into direct contact. Our heart can start to work on our karma: Rigid places in us that we have hidden from view suddenly come out in the open, and soften in love's blazing warmth. And our karma starts to work on our heart: Coming up against difficult places in ourselves and our partner forces our heart to open and expand in new ways. Love challenges us to keep expanding in exactly those places where we imagine we can't possibly open any further.

From the perspective of bliss or security, it seems terrible that relationships confront us with so many things in ourselves we would rather not look at. But from the perspective of path, this is a great opportunity. Intimate relationships can help free us from our karmic entanglements by showing us exactly how and where we are stuck. When we live alone, it is often easier to remain blind to our habitual patterns because we live inside them. A relationship, on the other hand, provides a mirror that heightens our awareness of all our rough edges. When someone we love reacts to our unconscious patterns, they bounce back on us and we can no longer ignore them. When we see and feel the ways we are stuck, in the context of a loving relationship, a desire to move in a new direction naturally begins to stir in us. Then our path begins to unfold. . .

If our heart is like a flame, our karma or conditioned habits are the fuel this fire needs in order to blaze brightly. Although the burning of old karma creates great turbulence, it also releases powerful resources within us that have been locked up in our habitual patterns. As these start breaking down, we gain access to a wider spectrum of our human qualities. All the most universally valued qualities--such as generosity, tenderness, humor, strength, courage, or patience--allow us to be more fully human, by enabling us to meet whatever life presents. Each of these resources allows us to engage with a different facet of reality. The more of them we have access to, the more we can embrace the whole of life--in its joys and delights, as well as in its difficulties and sorrows. . .

THREE LEVELS OF THE PATH: EVOLUTIONARY, PERSONAL, AND SACRED

The path of conscious love has three different, interrelated dimensions. At the collective level, it has evolutionary significance. Centuries of imbalance between the masculine and feminine ways of being have left a deep scar in the human psyche. No one can escape the effects of this wound-which pervade both our inner and outer lives. Inwardly we experience it as a split between heart and mind, feeling and thinking, tenderness and strength; outwardly it manifests in the war between the sexes and in the mindless ravaging of nature that is endangering our planet. Until human consciousness can transform the ancient antagonism between masculine and feminine into a creative alliance, we will remain fragmented and at war with ourselves, as individuals, as couples, as societies, and as a race.

Developing a new depth and quality of intimacy in our relationships today is an important step in healing this age-old rift and bringing together the two halves of our humanity. As we begin to move in this direction, intimate relationship takes on a larger purpose, beyond just survival or security. It becomes an evolutionary path--an instrument for the evolution of human consciousness.

Secondly, as a personal path relationship involves moving through our individual barriers to openness and intimacy, contacting deeper levels of our being, and gaining access to the full range of our human resources. By helping us become more fully available to the creative possibilities of our life, intimate relationship refines us as individuals and can transform us into more awake, fully developed human beings.

Beyond that, the love between intimate partners presents a sacred challenge--to go beyond the single-minded pursuit of purely personal gratifications, to overcome the war between self and other, and to discover what is most essential and real, the depths and heights of life as a whole. Through helping us heal our alienation from life, from other people, and from ourselves, relationship becomes a sacred path. I don't mean to suggest that a relationship in and of itself is a complete path that can substitute for other spiritual practices. But if we have some aspiration and dedication to wake up to our true nature, along with a practice that helps us do that, then in that context, relationship can be a particularly potent vehicle to help us contact a deeper level of truth.

In this light, the difficult challenges that couples encounter in joining their energies together are not just personal travails. They are also invitations to open ourselves to the sacred play of the known and the unknown, the seen and the unseen, and the larger truths born out of intimate contact with the great mystery of life itself."

"The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: it's in the being. When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I'm caught in an unstable situation. Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability." --Ram Dass

One of the aspects of myself that I had only really begun exploring when I met my ex-husband is polyamory. I am drawn to the polyamorous community because there is an openness of loving, even in friendship, that resonates with my desire to connect authentically with other people. I believe we can love multiple souls at the same time, in many different ways, and that being open to genuine love always leads to more love. There is no shortage of love, nor need to feel that one has a limited supply to give away, or to receive from others. The Ethical Slut, one of the best guides to polyamory on the market, talks about starvation economies...the idea that we are conditioned to believe there isn't enough of anything, from food to love, for everyone. Jealousy comes from the feeling that something is being taken away from us and given to someone else. If we can get over the conditioning that there is not enough and that we must compete to the detriment of others, then we find that being open to loving creates more and bigger love, it grows exponentially. There truly are no limits to loving.

I also believe touch is vital to a well rounded life and our society has too many unspoken rules about whom and how we can touch based on our relationship dynamics. If you're in a committed relationship, then you're not supposed to touch anyone else of the gender you are attracted to in any way that could possibly be construed as intimate, which is just so silly. I'm certain much of our cultural anxiety and depression comes from a lack of caring touch in people's lives. Within the polyamorous community, there is more acceptance of touch of all kinds. I'm not just talking erotic touch, but cuddling, playing/tickling, massage, and friendly touch of all kinds.

I gave polyamory up for the stability of marriage because he was too fear-full to explore it until the very end. I won't judge whether that was the right or wrong thing for me to do, it just was. But now that I am experiencing this tremendous opening my heart, I feel drawn to polyamory again, in a much deeper, richer, healthier way than before and I believe it is something that I will not compromise again.

What I'm learning about myself right now is how far I've come since I was single 7+ years ago. Back then I was ruled by an abandonment complex and so tired of single parenting that I was desperate for someone to share the joys and the burdens. Nearly every relationship was potentially "the one."  I know this is what drove some people away from me. I wanted so much for someone to choose me that I pushed and prodded and passive-aggressively manipulated to try to create a "permanent" connection. Although there was some genuine relating without those unhealthy patterns in a few of my lover relationships right before I met my ex, the desperation was always just beneath the surface.

Now I'm finding that there is no desperation at all, not one iota, as well as no inner push to find "the one." I am entirely secure and whole unto myself. I don't need a "partner" to have a happy and fulfilling life, I already have one that is becoming more joyful every day. I just need love in my life. And I can just enjoy loving in any form that it arrives, instead of trying to fit into a box of what is "supposed" to be or what I think I need to be happy.

And this is what is positively amazing to me...after being isolated for seven years, and then having a year and a half of transition time in which I was building new friendships but not achieving the level of intimacy I desired, I suddenly have this influx of potential new friendships and relationships in my life now that I have opened this last month, as well as a social calendar. I guess that's what it took to let the Universe know that I'm truly ready to bring my tribe into my life. I went from having no other soul but my ex-husband show interest in me over the last 8 years, to being approached by and dating two different people in the same month! And there are other possibilities on the horizon as well.  But it isn't just lover relationships that are coming my way, friendships with people I've already known awhile are deepening. I had a friend call me for relationship advice last week, someone I was building closeness with but hadn't crossed over into this-is-a-person-I-can-call-when-I'm-falling-apart, which is a lovely friendship intimacy unto itself. It felt good to be trusted with witnessing and sharing my perspective on his difficult experience and to grow closeness in that way.

This openness is so positively amazing on its own, that I had no expectations of making deeper connections so quickly. I just love how I feel bringing Presence and an awareness of Oneness into my daily life. It is fulfilling, satisfying in itself.  I understand this is the law of attraction--in its true nature--at work. I just wasn't approaching it from that perspective and thought I'd have months of waiting/working/building before I would experience the fullness of relating that I desire. Part of me wonders how it could have taken so long for me to get here because it seems so ridiculously simple now, but I see how even though I understood Oneness intellectually, I was not living it experientially. Fear kept some mighty walls around my heart, and my walk was not reflecting my talk. Now I have broken wide open and washed away the walls that kept me separate from the love God wants to bring into my heart and experience.

I am so very, very happy.

"I want to love you without clutching,
appreciate you without judging,
join you without invading,
invite you without demanding,
leave you without guilt,
evaluate you without blaming
and help you without insulting.
If I can have the same from you,
then we can truly meet and enrich each other."
~Virginia Satir

The simplest answer is that we need Awakened Leadership. We need leaders who have taken on the conscious journey, have built a strong connection to their Power as Divine Spark, and lead from Presence as opposed to ego and the need/desire to have power over others.