6- Surrender's Gift

6- Surrender's Gift

But for a brief and tumultuous second marriage, I had been a single mother for more than a decade.   Acutely aware that my ‘picker’ was broken, I vowed to remain single until I got that thing fixed!  For many years I had been on an intense journey into personal growth.  As an adult child of alcoholism and rampant co-dependency, I had addressed my family of origin, embraced my inner child, healed the woman who loved too much, balanced my inner masculine, and found the goddess within.  I not only had the bookshelf to prove it, I had a counseling certification to boot!  Working toward my license, I was determined to be the kind of counselor that had done my own work!  Not to mention, the kind of woman that would never again be attracted to needy men.  And while I was sure of what I didn't want I had no way of knowing what I would find in complete surrender.

I was in the middle of the living room floor, rocking back and forth, my arms tightly wrapped around me.  The loneliness had gotten to such an excruciating level that I could no longer keep the tears at bay.  I was beyond sadness.  I literally ached with physical and emotional pain.  My two young children tucked into their beds, I knew the only remedy was to embrace the emptiness that wanted release and cry it out.  Several months before, I had moved into a picturesque farmhouse in the middle of a few hundred acres.  A dream come true, I guess living that dream had amplified the loneliness of not having a partner to share it all with.  

Loneliness aside, in many ways my life was the best it had ever been.  In fact, someone special to share it all with seemed to be the only missing piece.  I actually loved being independent and on my own. I was an artist and a writer and valued my alone time when the demands of motherhood, work, and school weren’t tugging at me.  I guess this was just the night that it all came to a head.  So many years of doing everything alone while raising two beautiful children, was finally taking it’s toll.  What few friends I had were married, and I was never one for night life and partying.  For the most part I was happy under my blanket of stars in my eighty year old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere.  Falling asleep to the sound of crickets, waking to the birds singing, was my kind of music, and walking through fields of wildflowers was my kind of adventure.  Nothing however, could have prepared me for the adventure the next morning would bring.

Allowing myself to cry the loneliness out the night before had resulted in a peaceful nights sleep. I awoke to my favorite summertime melody of birds as the breeze wafted through the open bedroom windows.  There is nothing like the peacefulness of the country to soothe a weary soul. Warm sunshine and a gorgeous Saturday morning reminded me of all that was good in my life and coaxed me out for a walk through a pasture I had yet to explore.  I got dressed and headed out knowing that  the kids were good on their own and I’d be within shouting distance if needed.

As I waded through the tall pasture grass I reflected on the synchronistic way the farm had come to be our new home, and my gratitude for all that it had brought us.  The property had three fishing ponds on it and because the surrounding pastures were leased to area ranchers separate from the property we occupied, we got to enjoy horses, cattle and sheep without being responsible for their care.  The house itself was one of those great old places with 14 ft. ceilings and massive windows that were designed to allow for great cross breezes throughout every room. When we moved in I had explored the place from top to bottom and found a great antique walnut bed in the attic that I refinished for my son’s room with the landlords permission.  Beautiful vintage pieces found their way into the house as I scoured tiny shops and garage sales, and in no time it felt like home.  Of all the places I have lived, before or since, it has remained my favorite. Long before  'Law of Attraction' teachings were popularized I had intuitively used those principals to step into the life I was living here with my children.  It felt amazing to actually walk within a reality I had spent so much heart-felt emotion imagining.

Walking deeper into the pasture I noticed a small rise in the distance and what looked like old iron fencing that had fallen in a bent and tangled heap.  Curious, I moved toward the area, climbing the gradual incline through the thick grass.  To my surprise I found myself surrounded by what seemed to be a long forgotten family cemetery.  Because I am one of those strange beings that happen to love old cemeteries, I was fascinated by my discovery.  I walked around the fencing and through headstones that ranged in dates from just before the turn of the last century through the mid-1900’s.  Some were ornate marble works of art with precise engraving and designs carved into them. Others were crude blocks of cement with a single name that had been scratched into the near dry concrete.  Some were in German and some in English.

Reading the headstones I could decipher, it was evident many generations had come to rest in this hallowed ground.  What was also evident was the human drama that had been played out upon this land.  Some epitaphs suggested young women had died in childbirth, and there were many children’s graves.  Seemingly taken by fevers and various epidemics, in one section several siblings were clustered together as one by one the dates revealed they had lost their battles.  I was greatly moved by the bittersweet, and devastatingly sad epitaphs.  As a mother myself I could only imagine burying one child after another only weeks and sometimes days apart.  The grief was as palpable as if the parents themselves surrounded me. Pushing aside the encroaching weeds and tall grass that covered much of the engraving, stone after stone became a math quiz as I deciphered the years between birth and death dates.  The lack of longevity was apparent among those buried there. Only occasionally would I find someone past their sixties.

At the center of the mound, shade from a large tree blanketed the grave sites. Leaning against it, I looked out across the surrounding beauty of this land.  In every direction, rolling hills and aging trees seemed to bare witness to a history I could only imagine.  Moving to the edge of the cemetery, away from the stones and out past the fencing, I stood on the rise and gazed down at one of the ponds in the distance.  I was filled with thoughts of all those that had come before me. Their hopes and dreams of family life, love and accomplishment, as well as their joys and sorrows were not so different than mine.  My mind wandered to the the Native Americans who once occupied and had been driven off this land long ago, the settlers that had followed them, and later the immigrant farmers. First generation Americans born and buried here filled my mind as down through the years I moved closer and closer toward my own time. Gratitude filled me as I became profoundly aware of how blessed I was to call this wonderful place home.  With healthy children, loving family, dear friends and work I was passionate about, I felt rich beyond measure. All hardship and loneliness fell away.  Something inside me knew my life had purpose and that I was aligned with a type of unseen guidance.  In that moment, just as I had given into the loneliness the night before, I gave in to the intuitive wisdom within me.  In an act of absolute surrender I raised my face to the sky, closed my eyes, and with heartfelt sincerity whispered, “If it is your will that I be alone for the rest of my life, I accept that.”  I had turned my will and my life over to a power greater than the small personality self that I, all too often, believed myself to be.

In a sudden sweep of all consuming expansion that I can only describe as timeless suspension, I was shifted into a state of revelation beyond this world.  Freed from my limited physical aspect, I became awareness itself!  It was as if the universe had been stilled.  I was, at once, everything and nothing at all.  I was literally at one with all that had come before me and with all that would ever follow.  I was limitless, unbound and expansive beyond measure.  I was in everything and everything was in me.  Understanding filled me, as absolute truth replaced perception.  In that very instant I knew beyond any doubt that this palpable wholeness was and is who I am…who we all are.  Not separate beings, struggling to survive, but limitless oneness, complete and whole. I was experiencing my own higher minds awareness in magnificent, multi-dimensional expansion. Then, just as swiftly, I was back ‘inside’ my limited, physical state of being.  But the message continued and revelation unfolded as it gently showed me what I have come to know as ‘the extraordinary nature of ordinary life’. Shaken and awestruck, I looked down and discovered that I was unknowingly straddling a crudely etched concrete marker, nearly buried in the ground. It bore a single name….my name!

In disbelief, I stooped to run my fingers slowly across the letters of my last name.  Tears filled my eyes and I knew that a part of me had just died on that spot and was forever buried.  I also knew that I would never be lonely again.  I was forever changed and this change had been birthed by way of such complete surrender it was beyond any decision or mental exercise.  From the moment I released all the pent up sorrow and struggle, and allowed myself to collapse in a heap of tears on my living room floor the night before, to the moment I was moved to turn my tiny will and my limited life over to the will of All-That-Is,  I had unknowingly stepped into a state of complete and total alignment with the rest of me…my higher/expanded self!  My surrender was met with an expansion into the Oneness that it is, as the tiny aspect that I believed myself to be died. My awareness had expanded and I knew I was now living from a completely different perspective.  I no longer needed a partner to be complete.  I was complete.  I was whole.  I was changed.  Everything became more alive for me because I was more alive.    

Two weeks later, the man who was to become my husband walked into my life.  So matched were we, that only thirty-nine days passed from first date to marriage.  He loved my farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and my story of how I had surrendered the will of my personality so that my higher/expanded aspect could prepare me for someone like him; a mystic, a shaman and a teacher like none I had ever known.  Surrender’s gift is that it introduces us to who we truly are, and then it aligns us with people, places and timelines that are waiting for our expanded awareness.  From there we can move deeper into the expression of all that we truly are.   Phil opened doors in my mind that I didn’t even know were there.  He gave me the freedom and encouragement to walk through every one of them and he delighted in the gifts I found there. I gave him love and appreciation and just enough prodding to encourage and validate the gifts in him he was unable to see.  Skeptics may discount my experience and nay-sayers will give no credence to the notion that my surrender brought Phil into my life.  But I will always believe that our’s was truly a match made in Heaven; surrender’s gift! 

7- Creative Intervention

7- Creative Intervention

Phil provided the foundation for me to dive deeply into the larger questions of life while pursuing my creative side.  Not only did he love being surrounded by the energy of an artist, he truly enjoyed the long philosophical discussions and spiritual questioning I constantly brought to the table.  In our marriage we were truly best friends and I had never known this in my life.  We  also loved working together and were one of those rare couples who preferred to be together all the time.   Frustrated with my blocked creativity, I once told Phil I felt like I needed to waste 100 canvases to just get past the feeling.  His response was to agree, support me in creating a proper studio, and promptly fill it with canvases and whatever else I needed to break free of my limitations.  This was quintessential Phil! However, neither of us could have known the stage he was setting for the mystical experience that would birth my journey into what I have come to call Creative Introspection.

In the early days of my new marriage I continued my introspective work, dredging up those issues I felt were limiting my life.  It was hard work and it estranged me from my extended family as I delved into childhood issues that threatened those unwilling to explore the past through a functional lens.  This was taking an emotional toll on me as I came to terms with the family dynamics that had contributed to my feelings of abandonment and shame.  My spiritual mantra of ‘Lead me into all truth.’ was painted across every aspect of my life and it served me well even though it disconnected me for a time from those I loved.  

One night I awoke in the wee hours of the morning.  Pitch darkness surrounded the beautiful old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere that Phil now shared with us.  Having leased the place sometime before meeting Phil, he often teased that he married me for the farm.  We loved the place and its quiet, peaceful surroundings.  As I slipped from bed, making my way through the darkness like a blind woman who knew every nook and cranny of the room, it felt as though something beyond me was moving me along.  I knew I wasn’t wide awake but it seemed like I was being led as I experienced myself from two points of view; subject and observer.  

I entered the new art studio which was just off the bedroom, and began to set up one of the new, larger canvas’ for painting.  Still in this strange, unfamiliar state of being, I watched myself fill a pallet with oils paints and marveled at the colors being chosen.  One part of me was curiously watching what another part of me was doing, but the two aspects were only slightly connected.  I had never experienced anything quite like this before and it intrigued my curious nature so I trusted it.  I was not being ‘taken over’, I was experiencing an expanded state of awareness and being.  

Hours flew like minutes as a painting filled the large canvas I had placed on the easel.  Only the morning sun streaming through the studio window alerted me to how much time had passed.  As the sunlight and the awareness of time shifted me, I was suddenly wide awake, fully integrated and absolutely astounded at what had happened.  Unable to take my eyes off the painting, I backed toward a small sofa in the room as huge waves of deep emotion rippled through me.  I simultaneously laughed and cried from the depth of my being at the realization that I was being healed.  A flood of energy was moving through me as I stared at the painting which had also come through me.  In every way the painting was symbolic of the journey I had taken through life.  As I stared at it, it functioned as a sort of archetypal life review.  It spoke to me from an energetic level validating every emotion and every wound I had ever suffered.  It brought forgiveness to everything I ever held against myself and it freed me in ways impossible to explain.  This energetic exchange went on for about a half an hour as everyone else slept.  It left me refreshed and reborn somehow.  Renewed, I felt a freedom I had never experienced in my thirty-five years of life.  What was this that had transpired in the dark stillness of the night, I wondered.  What spiritual connection was there between creative energy and self-realization?  My head was swimming as Phil emerged from the bedroom.  

I could hardly contain myself as I shared with him what had happened to me.  We made coffee and talked for hours as we sat before the painting in my studio.  He had no more answers than I, but he could see the change.  It was obvious, and he could feel it.  My pursuit of an art career was shifted that day.  Now I was propelled to understand the connection between creativity and spirituality as it applies to self-realization.  My life’s work in psycho-spiritual healing had now merged with my lifelong creative impulses and I began to see everything I had ever created in a new light.  Songs that had simply come through me, volumes of poetry that had written themselves and gotten me through some of the most difficult times of my life were suddenly understood in light of this energetic experience.  

Using creative energy to spiritually understand ourselves and heal was now my focus.  Over time I was guided to the realization that creativity can serve as a healing conduit because we are creative energy incarnate!  Therefore, when we direct our focus to the larger questions in life, (Who am I, Where did I come from, and what am I doing here?), opening a creative avenue is like opening a portal through which our answers can flow to us…from us; our higher self!  From this day forward my art and my awakening were inextricably tied.  The answers that flow through the end of my paintbrush and pen have profoundly moved, inspired and awakened me.  While I have won awards and had opportunities to pursue a traditional career in the arts, those arenas never captured my passion.  Spiritual awakening and enlightenment was always at the forefront for me.  That it merged into my unwavering creative indulgences has been a gift beyond measure.  But that is what life gives you when you give yourself to life rather than the distractions of life; gifts beyond measure.

Some refer to creative experiences like these as channeling.  I myself once accepted that term for lack of understanding what was really happening.  Today I realize that I was simply tapping into a frequency of my own infinite being which allowed for higher exchanges of information to come through.  There is quite a difference between giving oneself over to ‘another’, as one who channels does, and aligning with one’s own higher aspect.  The first sets up and continues the idea of separation and dependence.  The later is freeing and revelatory as it connects oneself to their infinite nature.  I have experienced again and again how creative energy serves as a wonderful conduit for connecting to one’s higher-self.  When I tie this to my personal quest for ongoing enlightenment it never fails me.

8- Poetic Justice

8- Poetic Justice

Writing has always been a creative outlet for me.  I love the way words can be shaped into short poignant arrows that get straight to the point while carrying an emotional impact.  This naturally attracted me to poetry and song lyrics. Having grown up in a musical family with relatives of some note in the industry, learning to play the guitar and write songs was as natural to me as gardening is to a farm family. Poems and lyrics seemingly flowed through me as if I was merely an extension of the pen in my hand.  Of course, I only wrote when I was moved to do so and this tended to be during times of inner reflection or personal distress.  Writing was a comfort as much as a joy.  Only in retrospect did I come to understand it as a powerful portal for tapping into the higher/expanded awareness that I am!

In my mid-thirties the profound metaphysical experience I wrote about in the story Creative Intervention introduced me to the nature of creative energy itself as a portal for illumination and healing.   Because of this experience I came to understand my previous writings in a new light.  Sprinkled like fairy dust across my life, the transformational energy of the things I had written years before in the form of blank verse, had soothed and comforted me through broken hearts, dashed hopes and shattered dreams.  Inspired words had led me away from devastation and awakened me to insight and revelation.  I can’t emphasize how bewildering it was to look at a finished writing and wonder where the words had come from.  For years these poems simply appeared on pages as if I was taking dictation.  Retrospectively I realized this was no small thing and I began to intentionally use creative energy to understand the deeper meanings of life.  

Eventually I directed all of my creative pursuits to spiritual awakening and personal understanding.  Those around me, seeing my artwork,  always urged me to take it into the world, make a career of art and promote myself.  For a long time I was conflicted about this.  I knew I was an artist because I simply couldn’t avoid the impulses to hone my skills and create.  But I had no real desire to make a career in the arts.  The larger complexities of who we are and what we are doing here never leave me.  I am quite amazed that this doesn’t gnaw at the very fabric of most individuals, but acutely aware that it doesn’t.  How seemingly gifted and bright individuals can get so involved in a world that they don’t even know the origins of beyond myth and story truly amazes me.  Science has a ridiculous protocol that focuses on solving the riddles from within the riddles themselves, and religion is so blinded by it’s agenda based origins that it can’t even see the deities it worships are as conflicted as the worshipers themselves.  What came through my conscious engagement with creative energy were validations and illuminations that moved me closer and closer to the answers I personally sought. Interestingly they also flowed with wisdom to ensure I didn’t put my findings on others.  The poem, Out Of The Woods is a good example of that.

OUT OF THE WOODS
We are not
wandering together
lost in a dark, dense wood.

We are,
each of us,
the dark, dense wood
in which we are lost.

The sooner we stop listening to
those calling from the edge
of their perceived freedom,
the sooner we will discover
our own.

It is an inner path....solitary
but with common perspectives
that fool many into believing
it is a shared journey.

Unfortunately, knowing this doesn't mean
I am out of the woods yet....
but remembering it keeps me from
calling to you from the edges.

I share this little piece to emphasize two things I have come to realize.  First, using symbolism to illustrate my perspective, I hold that there is only one self awakening from a dream or notion of separation, but there are as many journeys as there are individual points of view. In other words, all of the individuals in my human experience, including myself, are in reality, fragments of the one self we all share, each holding different perspectives.  We are not suppose to all think alike because we each bring a different perspective.  Sharing and embracing the differences in our perspectives facilitate an opportunity to heal the one self of all it’s misperceptions.  But this is the really cool part, and the second thing I want to emphasize, when I awaken my personal misperceptions through compassionate non-judgement, I awaken from the dream of separation altogether, regardless if anyone else does or not!  Because the dream of separation doesn’t really exist!  I have come to realize that my enlightenment is not contingent upon anyone else awakening.  This is why, as the poem says, there is no benefit in calling to others from the edge of my awakening.  It is of no benefit to me in spending my time focused on the dreamers or the dream!  If I were writing this book, creating inspirational artwork, or teaching classes believing that you needed me to awaken you, I’d be spinning my wheels.  Anything I do inside the dream of separation because I believe it is my calling to heal the dreamers, is the dreams trick to keep me spinning in the belief of separation.  If instead I write and teach as part of my own awakening process, my focus is on awakening, period.  When I awake, the dream disappears and separation no longer exists. 

I do not creatively express myself for recognition or following.  This is why a career in the arts never called to me.  I create because creative energy is a powerful tool for aligning the physical and non-physical aspects of my being for the purpose of personal growth and enlightenment.  I follow the inspiration to write and teach about my experience because writing and teaching are portals for my own awakening.  As I share my inward journey I am as curious to know about yours.  But not to compare and argue which is right or wrong!  Rather to revel in the midst of a fellow traveler healing yet another aspect of the one self we each represent.  In this we get to enjoy the dream together as we joyfully shake ourselves awake from it.  

I have found that aiming my creative energy toward the deeper questions of life and my personal conundrums always leads to resolution. This is the type of creative community I’d love to see emerge, instead of one focused on awards, recognition or getting lost in the distraction of making ‘stuff’.  But that will only emerge the more we tire of the dreams we spin and long for deeper understanding.  I played in those arenas of awards and recognition enough to experience this crossroads and it ushered in a huge turning point in my life.

As an artist encouraged to participate in the art world, I saw how it functioned.  How it keeps the dreamer focused on the dream.  Recognition, awards, accolades and accomplishments are powerful voices calling out to a limited self-perception.  This is true of all systems in the dream world, not just the art world.  At one point there were two voices in me vying for attention.  One wanting to be validated within the dream of this world, and one that longed to awaken me from the dream of this world.  I knew if I chose the art world I would be feeding the voice that lived within the dream; the ego.  I saw how insidiously the art world fed this voice, moving the individual between various degrees of success or failure.  Wrapping individuals up in reaching for more, better, best.  I saw the class system at work as well.  The leaders and the followers.  It was a grand game and one I could see myself doing well in if I focused my energy there.  If I fed the voice seeking recognition and accomplishment it would indeed flourish. I had already experienced a taste of it and it was certainly captivating.  But I didn’t want to be held captive.  I also knew that if I did focus my attention there, eventually I would not be able to hear the voice attempting to awaken me from the ego’s dream; freeing me from captivity.  I had to choose which of the two voices I wanted to follow.  

The choice wasn’t difficult but it was isolating.  The art world was a huge, exciting community for those driven to create.  The spiritual community focused on awakening from the dream of separation is not only minuscule in comparison, but it is also not necessarily aligned with an artistic community.  So, for a while, I did my own thing while occasionally playing with others in the art world.  Then I dropped the art world and purely focused my creativity on my own awakening.  

I believe the art world, like all systems in the dream serve those within it.  Those playing there will only stay as long at it does.  It is like church or anything else for those truly on a spiritual journey.  We only stay as long as we are being fed.  Asking myself what aspect I was nourishing made all the difference in my choice.  Respecting creative energy enough to hone incredible skills, then focusing that energy as a tool for accessing a portal for illumination and healing is the path I have most enjoyed.  It is the one I share because I learn and awaken as I do.  Writing, painting, sculpting and stitching are the lenses I use to peer deep into the mystery.  What I find there are always aspects of illumination waiting to be born.  I have been told repeatedly that when it comes to spiritual matters there are some things we just can’t know.  I have come to realize that is because there is not a ‘we’, there is only an ‘I’.  It has been my experience that when I focus my creative energy toward a spiritual truth I want to know, the answer is always revealed!  I have also come to understand that this is the truth ‘we’ must each discover for ourselves.  

9- Photo-realism

9- Photo-realism

Despite the mystical experiences connected to my spiritual journey, I had never researched or entertained any kind of paranormal explorations.  Not that I avoided them…they just weren’t on my radar.  Despite my own mystical experiences, I was a clinician who primarily believed in addressing the here and now with the here and now. But an antique photo in a tiny shop would expand that understanding, proving that the ‘here and now’ also holds the ‘there and then’.  

Each time I put the antique photograph down and walked away to explore other things in the tiny shop, I felt myself unexplainably drawn back to the woman in the portrait.  In those days there was something about old things that called me.  Along with my sister and girlfriends I often perused dusty old shops and antique malls, and this day was no different.  These places resonated with a kind of timelessness that we each found captivating.  Our homes were furnished and adorned with treasures from such places.  For me it was not so much a shopping adventure as an appreciation for the craftsmanship and beauty that I feel has all but disappeared in our modern, make-shift world of the instant and disposable.  But my attraction to this particular photograph had nothing to do with any of that.

For some time I had been collecting antique cabinet card portraits of women for a Women’s Issues class that I was scheduled to teach.  I had planned to use such images to connect the students of today to the energy of women in earlier times.  However, I never expected to connect so deeply to an image myself.  Having more photos than I needed, despite the attraction, I put the photo down and left the store with my sister and girlfriend.  Halfway down the sidewalk I was compelled to return to the shop and the photograph.  As I picked it up and looked into the depth of the eyes staring back at me, I was completely captivated and clueless as to why.  But to free myself from the pull, I marched straight to the counter, purchased the seven dollar obsession and tucked it into my purse.  That was that…or so I thought.

All day long I felt the urge to take the photo from my purse and look into her eyes.  Time and again I found myself staring into them as if they held some great mystery.  I even asked those with me if they got any vibe off the picture and they both denied any kind of draw what-so-ever.  My sister further commented that she didn’t even find the woman particularly attractive.  This threw me because I found her to be quite captivating.  It wasn’t that she was a beauty, but there was an undeniable strength and presence about her that I found compelling. 

That evening I sat with the photo and wrote whatever came to mind as I imagined the life of the mysterious woman from the turn of the century.  Alone on my sun porch, I fashioned a character study of sorts that was impossible to verify, but verification wasn’t what I was looking for.  I simply wanted to understand what was calling me to this image so I wrote whatever filled my thoughts.  The things that came spoke to a strength of character and her determination to be heard and unrestricted in an age where women had very little freedom and even less voice.  The message was one of self-knowledge with regard to her personality; a quiet type of inner-strength that was unmistakable in her presence.  Not foreboding or arrogant in any way,  I felt she held a kind of self-awareness that was purposeful and directed, without ego yet very centered.  

A few days later I had the image copied and enlarged so I could frame and display it prominently in my home.  I knew this was very unusual behavior but I just went with it.  I intuitively felt the need to ‘be with her’; to have her share my space.  Fortunately I lived with people who didn’t question my quirky ideas or spontaneous notions.

It was the early nineties and we had a nice apartment just outside of Dallas, Texas.  I say this to emphasize that there wasn’t anything in our area of the bible belt that openly addressed the paranormal.  Quite honestly, despite the mystical experiences connected to my spiritual journey, I had never researched or entertained any kind of paranormal explorations.  Not that I avoided them…they just weren’t on my radar.  Despite my own mystical experiences, I was a clinician who primarily believed in addressing the here and now with the here and now.   But the woman in the photo, unbeknownst to me, had come to show me that the here and now held more than I realized.  Being all that existed, the ‘here and now’ holds everything!

A few days after finding the portrait and writing down my thoughts, I randomly turned the TV channel following a local home-school program my son had just finished watching.  An interview type talk-show I had never heard of caught my attention.  This episode featured a detective who used the services of a psychic to assist in finding missing persons.  The detective, a credible sounding, middle-aged man, introduced the psychic and sang her praises with regard to her assistance in his cases.  Curious, I watched the interview through to the end.  When an invitation to call the number on the screen reached out to anyone with a story they would like to share about the paranormal, I found myself jotting the number down. 

Not only did I know nothing about the paranormal world at this time in my life, I had certainly never entertained the idea of calling a television show, much less a psychic!  But there I was, only minutes after the show aired, dialing the number. Hoping to get information for contacting the psychic, my mind was questioning my actions even as I watched them unfold.  I had no idea why I was calling to connect with a woman on a TV show in California simply because I was obsessed with a photograph I’d found in an antique shop in Texas, but there I was.  Imagine my surprise at being told that the psychic actually lived only three hours from my home!  For Texans, that’s a day trip! Without missing a beat, I called, she answered, and the synchronistic breadcrumbs continued to fall into perfect alignment.  As it turned out she was in my area twice a month seeing clients.  Needless to say, I scheduled an appointment.

On the phone I was careful not to give anything away.  I told her that I had seen her on the TV show, and being a counselor, I wondered if she had ever assisted in that field in some way.  She said she had and we agreed to discuss the possibilities when she was in town. Two weeks later I waited outside the office she used when she was in town.  The photo tucked inside my purse, I thought about how I was going to approach the subject.  When it was my turn to see her I found the woman to be just as she was on TV.  Warm, friendly and very approachable.  After introductions and pleasantries the two of us went into the room she used as an office.  We sat across from one another at an empty table, but for a small cassette recorder next to her.   I reached into my purse, took the photograph out and said “I was wondering…”.  Before I could finish my sentence the woman reached to take the photograph from my hand, and upon touching it she gasped slightly, drew it to her and hit the record button and said, “This was you in a past life.”  I sat speechless and suspicious until she began independently stating much of what I had written after finding the photo….and then some.  I’d probably taken it all with a grain of salt had her reading not been so close to the things that I had intuitively written.  However,  I had never even remotely considered a past life connection.  In those days I didn’t even think in such terms.  Since then however, I have had three other very gifted psychics confirm the connection and I have no doubt they were honestly telling me what they saw. 

While it is fun to imagine that I actually connected with a photograph from one of my own past (parallel) lives, that has never been what most astounded me.  Connecting with that photograph in such a profound way marked a trajectory that opened me up to a much larger picture of life.  After that experience and hearing about the possible connection, my studies turned to exploring life as an ongoing continuum rather than a single appearance.  Weather she is indeed one of my own past/parallel lives, I don’t know.  However, those who knew me during that time can certainly attest to how strongly her energy influenced my life, and the doors that opened up for me following our uncommon introduction.  I eventually began to explore past life regression.  I assisted a friend in unraveling and validating her young son’s comments about the lives they shared prior to this one.  And my world view expanded far beyond the limits of my five senses.  

I came to understand that we simultaneously project our eternal essence into many incarnations at once in various dimensions.  These fluctuate along bands of frequency and actually influence one another across what we experience as time and space.  I’ve learned that shifts in awareness which I experience in this life literally impact other lives that the larger self is projecting which I’m not even consciously aware of and vice-versa.  I have also been shown that our life is not one of continuity.  We are not limited to a chronological continuum of experience, but do indeed seamlessly pop in and out of experiences according to our perception and focus.  I have felt sudden shifts and become aware of literally shifting from one timeline to another without needing to experience the gradual steps I could have used to get there.  This awareness continues to expand in me as does my understanding of it.  It is these kind of lessons I enjoy exploring and dissecting.  The world I experience today is far from what meets the eye and this has made life quite an adventure.  One that was prompted by a photograph experienced along two timelines which crossed in the eternal now.

The enlarged framed photograph is still in my home and long ago I painted a portrait of the two of us.  Together we are more than I was alone and I feel a kinship to the energy that reached out to me in such a profound way.  Understanding that we all exist beyond the limitations of time and space is what matters most.  When we live from that awareness we open ourselves to infinite possibilities in the seemingly here and now.  The captivating woman in the photograph ushered that awareness in for me. I am both grateful I followed the intuitive nudges that led me to her and forever changed because of it.  

10- The Illusion Of Reality

10- The Illusion Of Reality

At fifty-six, my father, husband and girlfriend of twenty years were in various stages of terminal cancer.  As I walked this intimate journey with them, the gifts and insights I received were innumerable. I attribute this to a practice Phil and I had embraced for about three years.  Using a mindset of compassion and non-judgement with regard to all experiences that arise in life,  present moment awareness is heightened. Due to this we discovered a complete shift in our experience of life itself. As the primary caretaker for my rapidly declining husband and girlfriend, I was thrust into an expansion of that shift.  While the people in the world around me went on as usual, I no longer shared their experience of it. The collapsing of  timelines, and synchronistic experiences became as much a part of life as the air I breathed.  I literally watched the differences between my experience of ‘reality’ and theirs, as if it was being played before me on a stage.…because, as Shakespeare had written, indeed it was.  

Living in the continual awareness of what is truly important and what is mere distraction was life changing.  When the people I loved were nearing the end of their physical incarnations, and as one by one they passed, a kind of awareness set in as to the true nature of this thing called life.  The normal comings and goings of everyday-ness were more evident to me as I watched the world scurrying around in distraction and routine while I was enveloped in a heightened sense of present moment awareness.  A dear friend of ours, Ed Rubinstein, once wrote a book titled Waking From The Trances Of Everyday Life.  It spoke to the mindlessness of habitual ‘doing’ in ordinary day-to-day living rather than living from a state of presence while attending to those same tasks.  I found myself acutely aware of this phenomena. I was living within a kind of slowed down state of hyper-focused awareness where time was ticking forever away, while the people interacting with me didn’t even seem to notice.  Caught as they were within their own trances of everyday life, two very different realities co-existed side by side, only appearing to share commonalities.  We all drove our cars, ate our meals, slept in beds, walked the same halls or sidewalks, even discussed many of the same subjects, but our realities of what was transpiring in those moments couldn’t have been more different.  This fascinated me and I began to not only experience, but understand the concept of ‘peace amid chaos’ and the teaching “peace that passeth all understanding” more than I ever had.

Instead of living along a timeline of fear and dread as a soon-to-be mid-fifties widow facing the loss of my beloved husband, father and friend, as well as my home and income, my experience was quite different.  Instead of life pulling at me from all directions, I was free to focus on my very ill loved ones. I stood amazed at the peaceful and meticulously guided experience my husband Phil and I were both having as we lived out his last weeks at the hospital.  Spiritually centered in a thought system based in compassionate non-judgement and presence for years, together we each experienced what we considered heightened results of those efforts as his passing grew close.  An ever-flowing stream of synchronistic experiences seem to provide whatever we needed whenever we needed it, and struggle was not even a blip on our radar.  Other than the weariness of living in a hospital week after week, we were free from tending to all of life’s necessities as one by one they were either eliminated or addressed through no doing of our own.  In fact, many things that would normally need attention during the illness and after the passing of a spouse, had been eliminated the week before we even learned Phil was ill.  This is what I refer to as the collapsing of difficulties along timelines due to our practice. This, in my experience, results from an attitude of acceptance and non-attachment in regards to life experiences.  Over and over I experience the peace that unfolds as I curiously approach life without judgment or attachment to outcome, simply witnessing what it holds rather than resisting or struggling against it.  Even as I reflect on such events to share them here, I am in awe at the ease with which the road ahead of us was prepared even  before we knew it was coming.

With Phil long past retirement age, and as spontaneous as we were, it wasn’t until the lease on our condo neared renewal that we decided it was retirement time.  Having always envisioned an RV lifestyle, we decided to move in that direction. Upon hearing our plans, my daughter unexpectedly suggested that rather than paying a heightened month-to-month condo fee, we should move into her guest room for a few weeks while we hunted for our RV, so we did just that.  Within a week we sold or donated most of our possessions, put my art studio in storage, and moved out of the condo. Since Phil wasn’t going to give notice of his retirement until we found our RV, a week later, when a routine examination revealed colon cancer, we still had the full coverage from his insurance and he was still gainfully employed.  Therefore, we had almost no bills, no property that needed tending, our finances were intact for the remainder of his life because his salary continued, and I was not left with the expenses of an RV I would not be using.  Add to this that I was able to live between the hospital and my daughters guest room, which made everything very convenient.  Even the choices Phil was able to make from the hospital with regard to structuring his retirement income were informed by his terminal diagnosis.  Those choices eliminated any remaining bills I would have been left with and provided me with a small monthly income to fund my expenses while taking care of my girlfriend for the next two years.  This would not have been the insurance or retirement structure we’d have made had his diagnosis come even one week later.  As astounding as all this was, it didn’t end there.

As Phil and my father’s passing was bridged by less than a day, even the window of time I found away from Phil’s bedside in those last days, to visit my father before his passing, was filled with a blessing.  A kind of coherency rare in my dad’s last days was granted the morning I visited.  And while my visit lasted only a few hours before I was unexpectedly called back to an emergency situation with Phil, we said all that we needed before his transition.  Even after Phil’s passing, everything was so perfectly aligned that I was able to spend the time necessary to care for my girlfriend as she battled her own terminal illness. Because all of my worldly and personal responsibilities had been synchronistically resolved, it was impossible not to marvel at these amazing results I attribute to the daily practice of compassionate non-attachment which Phil and I had embraced for so long. But before I move on from sharing the collapsing of difficult timelines, I want to share perhaps the most profound result of all Phil’s experiences during this time.

As if facing the end of one’s life isn’t typically jarring enough, exiting through the painful conditions associated with colon cancer is not an easy path.  Unless, like Phil, one had spent years playing a conscious game of ‘Don’t Make It Real.”  Borrowing a phrase from the ACIM (A Course In Miracles) community, Phil and I had spent the last three years helping one another view and respond to the world as a projection of the mind, and therefore not ‘real’ in the sense that most experience it.  Seeing everything in the physical world of form as a reflection for our own benefit of awakening from thoughts of separation, we helped one another get out of the perception based conditioning of our thoughts; those automatic responses of believing the minds projection and the results such thinking produces.  For years we reminded each other, numerous times each day, to step away from the divided mind of perception and into the whole mind of compassionate non-judgement.  This practice brought us into present moment awareness like no other.  We got to the point where just the phrase “don’t make it real” could almost instantly shine a light on any situation, lifting the heaviest burden or pulling us out of intense frustration.  We laughed at ourselves often as we found one another emotionally snagged by the things in life that we were ‘making real’.  We marveled at the way this ‘not making it real’ game really seemed to lighten or shift our experiences. Our world filled with synchronistic wonder as this practice freed us from the cycle of cause and effect and collapsed difficulties along timelines.  This proved true even along the timelines we were unknowingly moving toward.

I first received the diagnosis of Phil’s cancer in the hallway just outside an exam room where he was resting from a colonoscopy. Upon sharing this news with him I took his hand and immediately asked him if he was scared.  He smiled, saying no, and that he wasn’t going to ‘make it real’.  We agreed!  We weren’t making light of the news, we simply weren’t afraid!  On the contrary, we knew that walking through such a circumstance using the practice of compassionate non-judgement would be profoundly opportunistic on our path of awakening.  And since spiritual awakening had become the center of our lives for many years, we simply continued the practices we had found, opening ourselves to the mystery unfolding before us.

The staff tending to Phil at the clinic came in and out of the room with lowered eyes and consoling words, sharing their sadness about the diagnosis. Each time one would leave the room Phil commented and repeatedly pointed out to me how the staff’s response to the situation was so conditioned that they couldn’t even see that we weren’t in fear or disbelief.  So conditioned to the beliefs they held about the news of a terminal diagnosis, they weren't able to be present to the very people they were attempting to console. It was then that Phil and I knew we would walk through what was ahead of us together, in the same kind of peace-filled awareness bubble we had played in for years.  A bubble of awareness that most of the world couldn’t see. We weren’t in denial.  That is not the nature of the ‘don’t make it real’ perspective. We had simply conditioned our minds to see beyond the programmed illusion of separation that ensnared most.  Completely aware of the physical prognosis of the diagnosis within the illusion, we were intimately connected to the reality beyond this illusion of separation which the diagnosis had also brought, and therefore completely free of fear!  As time went on and Phil’s illness progressed it was sad to watch the suffering of loved ones who only felt the ‘reality’ of impending loss.  Personally, we knew this to simply be a time of transition; a glorious time that truly should be celebrated as one steps into an expansion of themselves free from physical limitations, having completed the mission their incarnation facilitated.

Through surgery, and conditions arising from the surgery, through living at the hospital almost day and night for eight weeks, and being given various and ever shortening time frames for survival, our peace filled bubble of expanded awareness remained around us.  While I was often physically exhausted, from living at Phil’s bedside and checking in on my girlfriend when I could, Phil and I were most always in good spirits.  Alone in his room we would often talk about how amazing it was to experience ourselves actually living the awareness we had come to realize and reaping the results in this time of heightened circumstance.  It is easy to think you are growing from your spiritual perspectives when things are going smoothly.  But when the road gets rocky you get to see the degree to which your beliefs and experiences align.  We were amazed how natural it was to continue to live from our heightened awareness as Phil literally lay dying.  Phil would visit with loved ones and friends that came by, and when asked how his attitude was so upbeat, he would share his excitement about the adventure ahead of him in terms he felt they could understand. “I’ve spent my whole life wondering about the spiritual world and now I’m going to experience it first hand!” he said to one friend.  “Why be afraid?  We don’t die!” he would exclaim.  This was quintessential Phil.

Apart from high spirits Phil was also virtually pain free throughout his entire illness.  Rarely if ever on pain medication, he remained alert and truly ‘with us’ until he slipped quietly away in his sleep the night we brought him home for hospice care.  Having since watched the stark contrast of my girlfriends long and harrowing struggle with the exact same illness, and her painful lingering as she held tightly onto her body in her last days, the differences that an awakening mind like Phil’s experienced was again magnified for me. So different was his experience through his illness and transition that it is impossible to know just how much of it to contribute to his practice of compassionate non-judgement.  However, I can honestly say I have never heard of such an ease filled and almost completely drug-free presence associated with anyone passing from colon cancer.  I personally credit much of Phil’s experience with his practice of compassionate non-judgement and the difficulties that were collapsed because of it.  As for my own experiences I am certain they were aided by this practice.

A day or so after Phil transitioned, a profound thought dropped into my awareness.   It was deeper and more substantial than normal everyday thoughts that run through my mind and it caught me completely off guard.  More like a statement of fact, it carried more weight than the words themselves and was accompanied with an expansion experience beyond-the-body.  The thought was this,  ’If Phil is dead, then I can’t really be alive.’  A profound shift instantaneously arose in me and the concept of illusion that is taught in esoteric scriptures literally expanded in my awareness.  I instantly grasped a new level of understanding with regard to the physical world as a projection of the mind.  A confirmation was extended that there truly is no such thing as life (or death) as we define it.  There is only awareness…eternal awareness.  I have come to realize that this is what we are, and this is what we expand into more of upon our passing.  As we exit the limitations of our physical experience, we expand into more of that awareness, which we never truly left, but only imagined leaving in our illusion of separation. From there, if we have evolved our consciousness enough to move beyond the planes of matter, energy, space, and time we can align directly with this awareness.  For Phil and I, this evolution was practiced through compassionate non-judgement.

Because I had been wrapped in an uncommon cocoon focused on what is referred to as ‘end-of-life’ scenarios multiplied by three, I had been experiencing huge doses of this awareness for quite some time.  The comings and goings of the world around me continued to mirror stark contrasts between my reality and the hum of a distracted, unawakened reality.  Experiencing the ease of the timeline associated with Phil’s passing and how everything was divinely guided also magnified my years of practicing compassionate non-judgement, and not making things ‘real’. Giving our personal power away to those things that we grasp onto as ‘real’ limits us from our limitless, eternal nature.  Having been able to embrace the world as a mirror of the fragmented mind, even through Phil’s illness and passing, I had fostered a new level of awakening.  In truth, Phil was no more dead than I was alive….not in this physical form of illusory projection anyway.  We are both beyond those small concepts of life and death.  Knowing this allows me to approach life differently than if I buy into any ‘form’ as who I am.  The freedom in this doesn’t divorce me from the responsibilities I align with in my incarnation or remove me from tragedy.  It does however lighten this for me and moves me from one experience to the next with grace and gratitude. The opportunity this world affords me to choose love and compassion at every turn connects me deeper to my true essence. I have come to realize this as a gift beyond measure.  While I am only practiced at it and not perfect, I have come to realize that it is this attitude that moves me closer to true Self-realization.  

11- Good Grief

11- Good Grief

Even with an absolute understanding that life is eternal and that we can stay connected to our loved ones after transition, acclimating to the physical absence of someone you have spent the better part of your life with is tough.   The grief process is just that…a process.  Even for those with heightened intuition or obvious experiences that we remain connected, there is a necessary period of grief.  As Barbara Brennan’s work shows, energetic cords literally connect us to one another.  The deeper the connection, the stronger the cords.  At the time of a loved ones passing these energetic cords are literally severed.  Appropriately experienced, grief is the way of processing this separation and initiating the return to individuation. Good grief is a necessary energetic release expressed through the emotions.  Suppressing these emotions is as unhealthy as drowning in them. Unfortunately, many do get stuck in the most difficult phases of grief and do not process the energy necessary for healing.  For that reason I want to share an uncommon practice which not only transformed my grief but illuminated my world. 

Following Phil’s transition, from time to time an overwhelming sensation of profound loss would completely encapsulate me.  Anyone who has lost someone very close to them experiences this aspect of grief.  Unfortunately what is more uncommon, is something I experienced in the midst of these episodes of despair.  As suddenly as the overwhelming emotion of grief would come upon me, it would be lifted from me.  It was as if some invisible force literally removed a heavy blanket drenched in the weight of sorrow from around me.  Often my tears would stop in midstream.  The emotion wasn’t replaced with another feeling or thought, the heaviness was just lifted from me.  As a trained counselor and trained reiki master I knew the value in letting the emotion flow whenever and wherever it wanted to, so I wasn’t repressing the intense emotion.  It was quite literally being lifted from me.

The first few times this happened I was perplexed.  Alone in the guest room I was occupying at my daughters, I would occasionally burst into sobs that would cease almost as soon as they started.  Not because I was choking them back, but because the deep grief out of which those cries arose would unexplainably evaporate, much like a dream upon awakening.  All that I was ever left to deal with unaided was a gentle sadness that was manageable and natural.   

After a while, this phase was followed by another which was not only welcomed, but deeply intimate.  A soft introspective kind of energy began to stay with me.  It was a type of tenderness that would emerge as I began speaking about Phil or tending to the business at hand following his passing. It would sometimes include tears or tender emotions, but it had a sweet energy attached to it and I simply allowed it as it arose.  In the presence of a stranger or with friends I was quite comfortable aligning with this energy.  Much like an emotional reverence for all that we had shared in our life together, it was, in many ways, my initial avenue for remaining connected to him.  If I had to describe a feeling associated with this connection it would be an intimate gentleness or tender sweetness that only I could experience.  It was born out of our unique relationship and all that we had invested in it over the decades.  It was Phil, wrapping his presence around me.  This was good grief!

It was this connection that inspired me to write letters to Phil at the end of each day.  Just as one would write and mail a letter to a loved one without expecting an immediate reply, these letters extended my connection to him because it focused my mind in our eternal connection.   Where our thoughts are, our emotions follow.  I realized that the more I stayed focused in the present moment, bringing to it all that I desired, the more I aligned with the signature or essence of who or what I desired to connect with.  This was demonstrated through the letter writing.  Of course, I also talked to Phil all the time as if he were physically beside me.  We had loved our life together.  It was a quiet, simple life and because we were both such introverts, it was mostly solitary, which we enjoyed.  We had one another and were deeply connected in our intimate aloneness.  The type of shorthand that grows between spouses is palpably absent when one transitions before the other, and nothing prepared me for the space this left behind.  Talking to Phil and writing the letters each evening greatly filled that space for me.  Eventually he would reach through time and space and connect with me in ways that touch me even in the remembering.

Early widowhood was not something I had anticipated and after a while I found myself wanting to connect with others who could relate to it and sort of walk me through it.  Hospice kept reaching out offering grief support, but my experiences weren’t reflected in those groups.  I tried reaching out to an online support group for widows and widowers in hopes of sharing my experiences but I soon found out that no one in those groups was having the kind of experience I was.  Many were in deep grief…for years….stuck in that feeling that would be lifted from me almost as soon as it would arise.  As I tried to explain my experiences, the forums reflected that no one understood.  There simply was no framework for them to relate to what I tried to share.  Even among widows, I was without a community in my widowhood.  That’s when I intuitively knew that my experiences were the result of the compassionate non-judgement awakening practice Phil and I had used for years….and one that we had made a game of practicing together in the years before his passing. 

This practice stemmed from studying a variety of esoteric, psychological as well as scientific perspectives. Over many years I had pieced together a practice stemming from Eastern thought, Western channeled material, shamanic practices, as well as psychological and scientific theories I felt led to explore.  Each of these disciplines were teaching much the same things from different perspectives, and sometimes from a religious framework I didn’t personally feel the need for.  Together they formed a foundation of awakening through compassionate non-judgement with regard to life scenarios.  This brought an uncommon ease to life that I had not experienced prior to this practice. 

Having had many mystical experiences, the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung first captivated me.  His teaching around the subjects of projection and deep introspection had a huge impact on me.   Then came the Taoist and Buddhist teachings of non-duality, and self-inquiry which fit perfectly into the Jungian framework I was exploring.  The work of pioneers like Eckhart Tolle, Bruce Lipton, Larry Dossey and the like also influenced my understanding. Next came channeled material from various sources along with the teachings from A Course In Miracles and the Hawaiian tradition of Ho’Oponono.  It has been my experience that exploring the teachings that show up in response to my ongoing sincere request to be ‘led into all truth’ is my journey to Self-realization as source-realization. I literally follow the guidance placed before me, weighing it as I go for resonance and then trust where it leads.  In this way I have not gotten bogged down in any ‘path’, tradition, religion, philosophy or dogma.  Instead I have been able to grasp what served my truth-quest while remaining open to further lessons.  I do not adopt beliefs!  Anything I believe…and I mean anything, can greatly limit the communication between my larger aspect or higher wisdom and my physical expression of self.

There are many sources and avenues to explore, and these are just some of the ones I was guided to piece together based on my experiences.  I have come to understand the value of expanding intuitive awareness for the support it lends my own higher mind guidance.  When I nurture this connection it grows.  When I allow myself to be externally guided, this connection diminishes.  Creativity is one conduit for nurturing this intuitive connection.  It has always fostered an avenue through which guidance can speak to me and teach me.  Outside material then appears in a timely fashion to serve a supporting role to the intuitive nudges I experience.  Traditional meditation has never spoken to me.  Its passive nature is not my preference for journeying nor do I experience it as an avenue for truly moving into Self-realization. 

In a nutshell, this is my practice;  I understand that everything is a projection based on individual perceptions.  Therefore, I take responsibility for mine, choosing to see everyone extending either an extension of love or a cry for love.  This helps me move away from judgment. I can then embrace whatever emotionally triggers me as though it is simply a reflection of something I have the unique perspective to heal.  From my individual perspective of duality or separation, I take full responsibility for what I am projecting into my awareness, then bring that situation into the healing energy of compassion.  This transmutes (converts) any ‘negative’ energies that were triggered in me, dissolving them and shifting me toward a state of non-dual wholeness.  This heals the fragmented aspects in myself as an individual, and energetically contributes to the healing of the collective.  My experience is that this process also shifts and collapses difficult timelines and, as it did for me, greatly reduces suffering in those times of grief or loss. From this perspective I am opened to further guidance from my higher wisdom and led into all truth, which has been my focus in this lifetime.

We have been conditioned in western society to associate the length of one’s grief to the depth of one’s love.  My hope in sharing the way my grief was seemingly supernaturally lifted because of the practice I had used for years, is that others may benefit from such a practice or from the resources I used.  I would also like to validate the awakening aspects involved in such practices.  Phil and I both felt that our journey through his unexpected illness and terminal diagnosis was greatly cushioned because of our shared practice of compassionate non-judgement. We also felt that a loving marriage fostered a thriving survivorship.  We spoke of this before his passing and I can still recall his loving countenance and peaceful assurance that following his passing I would be okay.  I believe I am doing our marriage of twenty-two years proud by carrying forward all that he gave me.…and continues to give.  His presence in my life following his transition has been unquestionable.  In life, we knew ours was the road less taken.  I know that is still true as I continue my journey.  It takes me places I find impossible to share with those who simply can’t relate to that which is beyond the physical plane.  This doesn’t make me special, it just places me in the minority as one who has consciously undone much of my programming in an effort to experience self-realization as source-realization in this lifetime.  I share my stories in an effort to share myself, my journey and my experiences with any who might also desire such realizations.  There are lots of areas of my life I haven’t mastered, but grief is not one of them. I hope sharing my experiences helps those looking to end the suffering that often accompanies the loss of a loved one.  One of the truest teachings I have ever personally experienced came from A Course In Miracles (ACIM) and it goes like this…. “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

12- Staying Connected

12- Staying Connected

Unexpectedly widowed at fifty-six, a series of beautifully guided, synchronistic events, had me living at my daughter’s home just prior to, and following, my sweet husband’s untimely passing.  A few weeks before his transition, knowing it was close, Phil and I made an agreement to stay connected.  Our beliefs supported this idea though neither of us knew just how we would pull this off.  Therefore we decided he would be the one to let me know just how that was going to happen once he ‘settled in’ beyond the physical.  

Several weeks after Phil’s passing I was writing one of my evening letters to him in my journal.  This was a practice I had started after his transition to ease my grief and move into a new way of being with him.  It really seemed to help me find ‘us time’ to share my day with him.  But it wasn’t a two-way street and I really wanted that.  Since we had agreed before his passing to keep in touch,  it dawned on me to give him a symbol to use to let me know he was around.  Dragonflies had always been a personal totem for me and was even the logo I used for business in the form of my initials.  This seemed the perfect symbol.  As I wrote the letter telling him to send me dragonflies if he was around, I also wrote how difficult this might be since I was most always inside.  Not long after I put my letter away the phone rang.  Lo and behold, my three year old grandson was put on the phone to tell me about his new temporary “dwagon-fwy”  tattoo.  I laughed and cried and excitedly shared the news with everyone.  Phil was in touch!

Lighter and happier, the next day I shared the news with a girlfriend as I accompanied her to an appointment.  As we sat together across from the man she was seeing, he began questioning me rather than my friend.  I explained that I was just accompanying her, but still he asked me a bit about myself and my work.  As I explained my work, a look of excitement came over his face and he reached beneath the table he was sitting behind, pulled out a rather large book and said,  “Oh, you have to read this!”  A huge dragonfly illustration adorned the cover of the book he held up, and my friend and I could hardly contain our amazement.  The book, as it turned out, addressed many of the esoteric based questions I had been asking my late husband about in the letters I wrote each evening.  This was not only his way of answering the questions, but of saying hello once again.  I know this, because as I went to purchase the book that evening, the edition now available had a new cover….without the dragonfly!  Had I not gone with my girlfriend, I’d have never seen that edition let alone been directed to it for some of the answers I sought.  I have since learned how our loved ones can inspire our thoughts in order to align us with such synchronistic events.  This is exactly what Phil had done!  And he wasn’t through yet.

All of a sudden I began hearing from my family about their own unusual dragonfly experiences.  My mother, who had become widowed only a day before me, had a dragonfly visit her patio daily that she had never encountered before. This went on for a good week or more.  My sweet niece, for the first time she could recall, not only had a dragonfly appear at her home, but it perched itself on her shoulder, which she couldn’t wait to tell me about.  Dragonflies randomly appeared to my daughter and my grandson’s mother around this time as well.  But no dragonfly dance was as profound as the one I experienced a year following Phil’s passing.

Prior to his transition, Phil had never expressed one bit of concern about my life without him.  When I would say how much I was going to miss him, he would simply reply “You’ll be fine.”   For twenty-two years we had done absolutely everything together and loved the introverted cocoon we had built around our life.  Imagining life without him was impossible.  But now, as I look back, I wonder if he intuitively knew something I didn’t.

About a year after Phil’s passing, I went to dinner with a man I had met through yet another series of profound synchronistic events.  Such alignments had become almost a way of life and I needed only to follow the clues scattered like breadcrumbs before me.  Seated at a window overlooking a lake, my mind turned to Phil.  He had loved the water and whenever I am near it he always comes to mind.   I suppose it’s natural, after a long marriage, to wonder if your late spouse approves of your life moving along with someone new.  Having had no doubt, that Phil had a hand in arranging our meeting, as I sat there I wondered what he thought.  At that very moment a huge swarm of tiny dragonflies arose from the lake right in front of the window where we sat.  Hundreds of tiny dragonflies circled and danced outside the window the whole time we were there.  For me it was Phil not only acknowledging his approval, but taking credit for the matchmaking itself, saying….  “See, I told you you’d be fine.”  

Dragonflies were not the only way Phil communicated.  One day, not long after the phone call from my grandson about his timely tattoo, I was in my bedroom at my daughters house tidying up.  I was talking out-loud to Phil as I always did, telling him we needed a better system.  Dragonflies were great for saying hello but I needed something more.  As I continued to talk to Phil about ways we could connect, I reached for the remote and turned on the TV.  Again, perfect timing!   Just as I turned on the TV a woman on the screen was demonstrating how one could use a pendulum to connect with their deceased loved one.  The series, which I had watched countless times, had never even remotely shown anything metaphysical….let alone a clip about connecting with a deceased loved one.  Phil had done it again, and so I reached for a chain that held beautiful handmade glass bead Phil had once bought me.

In the years since his passing I have learned how easy it is for our transitioned loved ones to inspire us with guiding thoughts toward things they want us to know or experience.  The pendulum proved to be a great tool for ongoing communication and greatly reconnected me to Phil on an emotional level in that first year following his transition.  I rarely use it to connect with him today as we are quite literally on a different wavelength and communicate differently.  However, I do use it, and have taught others to use a pendulum, to regain a physical connection to those who have transitioned.  I can’t tell you how many times I have held it and simply asked Phil to use it to ‘hold my hand’.  For us that means the pendulum will spin in a circle with quite an energetic pull as I hold it.  This worked like magic to lift my spirits in the first year following his passing, because the physical absence was so profound.  

Since Phil’s transition I have encountered three separate mediums who have connected with Phil and given me confirmation of messages I intuitively received from him, without me sharing the tiniest bit of such information with them, including his existence!  This initially helped me to trust what I was picking up.  The two mediums I spoke with after I met my new partner even stressed that Phil was taking full credit for having put us together.  I had also intuited this because of the synchronistic alignments that happened to arrange our meeting.  This made me smile and appreciate how he was even taking care of me from the non-physical.  Mediums are great for tapping the lower planes if you can find one with a good track record.  There are lots of charlatans however using something called ‘cold reading’ to appear to have a connection, so, if you are inclined to use one, do your homework.  But, trust me, there is nothing like having your own ongoing connection. Six years into his transition I experience Phil very differently these days.  A couple of years ago my new life partner became my husband, and while he fully embraces the connection I have to Phil, it has become much more subtle. It is my sincere feeling that this subtlety is how Phil honors the life I live today.