Reflections for 2010

Archive Index

---

For April!

I find the 3 days I backpacked alone in the desert were an initiation.  My liberation continues. These are just a few of my reflections lately.  I’m shedding a lot.  I just wish it included those last 10 pounds.  A  painting I have over my altar has finally told me what it represents to me, why I was attracted to buy it last summer. Here is a picture of it. (This is the small version -- click it to see the larger version.)

I’m closing a door, so another will open.  I’m making a vacuum, to be filled by something new.

 

The way…is no way.
The path…leads back to here.
Rumi knew.
The only way to arrive
Is by going nowhere.

I’m in a lull.
Nothing to wait for anymore.
I just keep cleaning the pot
That will catch the rain water
When it starts.

I feel a gentling of my spirit,
As if you are tenderly loving me, embracing me.
The grace that embellishes the dying
Just before they pass.
Laying still, smiling, peaceful.

You are the Ocean,
And always whisper in your surf
To the rivers coming toward you.

I searched to know about God.
I read and listened to many great teachers.
Their light was like the flashlight the usher waves about in the movie theater,
“Here’s a seat. This way!”
What I really wanted, was not to know of God.
It was to experience God.
No more pointing at the moon by me or others,
I desire the moon itself.

Freedom is my greatest responsibility to my soul.
It has little to do with what I’m doing or what goals I have showing up in my life,
And more to do with who I am.
My quality of pure being.
I am constantly trying to get my foot out of the snare of my past.
It holds me back.
I don’t need a foundation,
I need air currents for my wings!
Sometimes I shave my past off very close to the razor;
Even yesterday is gone already.
Even today.
And when I come to walk on the tightrope,
Even tomorrow is gone already.
The soul needs love, peace, beauty, compassion, joy.  Of course.
But what does the soul want?
Freedom!

As I went wandering in the forest today, not following any path, but knowing to go home is north, I thought:

Truth is like this. The way to truth is pathless. Ultimately, no one and no course of study will get you there.  There comes a time to leave the path and wander.  The North Star will always guide you back.

No, my friend, I did not fall apart because you weren’t here to care about me.  I fell apart easily when I decided to dismantle my self.  I just don’t need or want it anymore.  So much about it keeps me separate from my Source.  It’s like when a cold night grows warm, when the clouds roll in, and you are buried under way too many covers.  I am simply throwing off the covers now.  God will have mercy on me, and cover me up if I begin to freeze.

I’m taking off my seeker's shoes.  It seems I’ve been wearing them my entire life.  I’m placing them reverently on the window’s ledge, along with my empty pot.  It’s yet again empty.  I filled it many times, and then consumed the food within.  Empty is its natural, sacred state.

I’m climbing through to the other side of that window’s ledge, and heading across the desert with no shoes, and no canteen.  For the waters of life flow there continually, and I have no need to plan for my sustenance, or plan ahead for anything. No plans. I’m just going.

I am sailing away,
No moorings left,
Anchors thrown away.

In my rudderlessness
I find the freedom
I have always longed for,
And the love I never had, until now.
Take my hand for these final steps, my Love.
For you have had my heart all along.
My borrowing of your life and love are ending.
Take me back!

Wishing you safe journey in your transformation!

How I Made the World Stop for 3 Days:
A Woman Alone, Backpacking in the Painted Desert Wilderness
or
My Jesus Kinda Thing
(click the small images to see the larger ones - click your Back arrow to return to this page)

It was a liberating and transformational experience to be alone with myself for 3 days: no people, phones, television, music, books, just me and my Self in the desert. I guess I’d caught the White Mountain “mountain woman syndrome” when I bought a backpack for the first time in 30 years, and decided to head to the nearest wilderness area and experience” being”, as my book professes.

3 Days and 2 nights seems to be about the minimum vacation offered to you by many travel tours, and as with Jesus, it’s long enough that if any “demons” or serious issues are going to rise, to tempt you to be other than your true Self, it should happen. My biggest demon was a dust storm that hit with a vengeance, where I lay huddled in a ditch next to my backpack with my coat over my head for 2 hours. But the demon was quieted when I refused to let it ruin my day. “ It is what it is,” I told myself.

Mindfulness enters backpacking immediately, since every step is significant, when slipping on a rock or stepping in quicksand can be fatal. I was able to not think, but JUST BE quite a lot, simply observe and act. This cleared me of much monkey chatter thinking. Your thoughts are of where to put tent up, when to take tent down, what to eat, how much water do you have left. Simplified.

I purified myself and was in top physical health going in, but the mental purifying and cleansing came next. You are your own company, and you don’t want to be with a shithead. “Let’s see what doesn’t serve me anymore, what baggage I need to drop,” I thought.

I was illuminated in the stillness and beauty of The Painted Desert. No judgments. Just see who’s there. No stories. No drama.  I told myself I was very proud of me for being here (yes there are 2 of you, a Higher Self, and your self in the drama of your life). I observed what arose, and blessed it. After all, it has been my journey. I told myself I must cut the chains to what causes me suffering. There were ways of looking at things that were causing me suffering, and we are not meant to suffer. We are meant to be happy when we have the ability to change our lives, change our thoughts and behavior. I prefer to be liberated!

It took me two days to pack to Chinde Mesa. There are 53,000 acres of wilderness there, but like a beacon it stood to the north, so I was never lost. And you may have heard of the earth humming? Places in New Mexico and around the world have reported it. Heart Math’s Global Coherence Project has a website of actual scientific measurements of the earth’s sounds. She is speaking! It’s more like a high pitched sound through wires (no there were no wires for thousands of acres!) And the farther I hiked in, another sound was audible. Like distant, faint gears turning, very dull. I challenge you to go hear for yourself! The Ranger said no mines operate anywhere around. And that many cultures around the earth report a humming. And lay lines are being investigated. Thousands of years ago, gravity was thought to be magical, and magnetism was mysterious. Who knows!

All I know, is it was very comforting to feel the life in the earth out there. Of course She’s alive! Look at how she nourishes and comforts us. The ground I was walking on and the petrified trees are over 200 million years old. Humans lived there 13,000 years ago, the Anasazi, or Pueblo Ancestral People. I was indeed walking on sacred lands.

So the “liberating energies” of the Equinox did indeed free my body, mind and soul. I invoked the Creator, the Great Spirit, my nameless Source (oops. That’s a name!), my highest Self, the Oneness we all are, and I was transformed. I feel liberated. I feel like I left my cocoon behind, and only newness greets me.

ISN’T THIS THE REAL MEANING OF EASTER?

---

I hope everyone has spring fever! It's glorious! I've attached a recording of my voice, a little blurb I did while I was driving, on why Good Friday really was good, and how being stuck behind a slow driver for an hour became awesome.

You are a healer, simply by your presence, by holding a single-pointed predominant desire to serve the ALL. As your love for others grows, so does your light-energy. Since thoughts and intentions fly through the air instantly, you can bless everyone you pass or think about. Once your heart is healed, this healing will spread around the planet. Give it a try!

Be the Healer That You Are

There was a butterfly
that wished only for a moment
it would go back to being the chrysalis in the cocoon.
When Jesus was on the cross,
only for a few moments did he wish to be poured less than a full cup of his true blessings.
Transformation to Self is necessarily not the smoothest road.
So cry the tears you know not from where they come,
feel the pain of your heavenly wings sprouting,
relinquish with love your mundane desires, even for a better life, even for true love, even for life.
Lighten your heart of every desire but one…
to love and serve the All.

A true healer must be willing to leave it all behind,
to leave the level where they know not what they do,
and enter by the gate where what is known…
is the unknowable, the indefinable, the new territory.
But now, you have wings to see it!
Spread your still moistened wings, my friend.
That the sun may dry them and you can begin flying.
Step up to the plate to be the mighty healer you are,
with your every word,
with the light and love from your new radiant Self.

Let your presence light your own path now, and the paths of those you pass.
For you are the light now.
You are the beacon for the grace of God to pour through.
And there is nothing else to see,
no shadows anywhere.
In the clarity of the light you do not see the light because you are seeing from the light.

Don’t ever go back!
After a few moments of backsliding,
if you catch yourself wishing for dreams that never fulfilled
or ways uncompleted
or the cozy cocoon,
leave that cross behind you.
It’s too heavy.
Drop it.
Fly! Fly!
Push yourself out of the nest!
Truly belong to God.
Truly be free.
For the healing of the planet awaits your healed heart.

---