Musings

News Flash!! This is my musings page. I hope you'll enjoy reading about my adventures on the road of life.

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Continuing to Follow and Staying in Love - No Matter What
(Starting Again)

In September of 2004 I wrote an article, Following - No Matter What: Stopping (see archives). Here I am again, still listening and following, whether it feels exciting or heart breaking. Big times.

I am so incredibly grateful these days for the deep-seated belief I hold that everything (when listening to that Inner Voice and following it) is always for the best. I am very relieved to feel that I know (even while knowing that I really know nothing at all) that what I hear as my Truth is best for all even when I can’t see how that may be so at the moment.

And so here I am once again. This time, I admit, after so much “Kicking and Screaming” (‘Infinite Possibilities’ CD), at another crossroads in my life.

I have just started my training as a United Centers for Spiritual Living minister. In about four or five years, this assuming I remain on this path, I will hold my Masters in Consciousness Studies. This alone is a dream come true for me!

But I have resisted this for about ten years! I kept thinking, “I really am already doing what I imagine I might be doing once I completed this training anyway. So why do it?” Right?

Well, the reason came to me in January. Because God says so! Duh!

Spirit has been calling me to this for about fifteen years now. I simply had been thinking, in the past ten or so, that this was a distraction…an off-course diversion that would serve no other purpose than to delay my other career dreams and creativity.

But like so many of those things that I have experienced as “a calling,” it simply would not shut up and go away! (Trust me. I tried to make it do so.) And so, here I am, in this new beginning.

And so I continue to “say a tender ‘yes’ to everything that comes to me,” (as written in the chant ‘Tender Yes’ from my Will Work for Transformation CD). It has, from years of practice, become the only way I am comfortable. For this, I am also grateful. I do sometimes feel like a victim of God, but only for brief moments before I notice that that is where I am going and then find it pretty darned funny!

For I fervently believe that if I listen and follow, I shall continue to live a life in heaven, greater and greater Good. But I do have to listen and I do have to follow!

And if I do not, I will be in Hell. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve done that.

And so I answer the call once again. I invite you to do the same in whatever area of your life that you hear that little voice inside guiding you. If you’re like me, you might need to kick and scream a bit before the perfect timing shows itself as your commitment. But is now the time for you?

In the face of all evidence that might support my fear and belief that the Universe might mislead me, It really does know a little more than I do… I have a friend who recently told me that he struggles with surrendering to God’s will because he feels certain that God simply doesn’t see the big picture. He knows that he needs to maintain control in order to make sure the Universe gets all the details right.

This is what I see I’d been doing. It’s pretty silly. And so today, I trust that my God, this Infinite Presence which I am, sees the big picture and has my back. Again. Still.

My love and Gratitude and Blessings to you as you listen and follow, no matter what.


Ordinary Transformation

These days though, being a transformation addict, I have a new level of desire for presence in the now. And from all of this, I am gifted with regular growth experiences, transformations.

I love myself more and more fully, more sweetly and more deeply. Like magic, as I do so, my beliefs about what is fitting or deserving or simply appropriate for my life, as my life, change. And it feels like magic how my life seems to get better and better!

And I chug along, growing myself. At least that's been my perception.

Every once in a while, though, I experience is a massive and sudden transformation: an entirely new awareness. Today was one of those days for me.

It was not an unusual day in any recognizable way until "that moment." I think it is often true that those sudden experiences of substantial new awareness come in the midst of the most ordinary of circumstances. Ordinary transformations, if you will.

This morning, I awoke to the task of final preparations. I was leaving California to head to Hawaii. This, I am very grateful to say, is not actually unusual for me. I live in both places (one at a time, actually) and travel back and forth regularly.

The day began smooth and all was well. Then my flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles was delayed. It was fine at first. I was entertained chatting away with two charming guys, teachers from outside of Chicago. One was a jazz drummer and IT/Technology instructor, the other a graphics teacher. It was a joy to be with them and I was not aware of any worry or concern in my mind.

Then I got on the plane. I began to notice that I was fretting, trying to figure out what might happen if I missed my next flight, likely the last of the day which would get me to Kona. I would catch myself doing this and then I'd say a prayer, consciously turning my attention: "Love is flowing ahead of me and making my travels perfect." I was willing myself to trust. So I watched as I went around in that dance of worrying and then willing myself to a faith in the greater Good. Round and round I went. Then it suddenly struck me, like a bomb going off in my consciousness.

"I do not habitually, truly, and deeply trust God or Source. If my mind is busy trying to foresee anything that might go wrong so that I might be able to prepare for it, then my mind is assuming that the Universe is NOT a safe place!"

This was simple logic. Aware of the fear that was directing or inspiring the planning, controlling ideas, I became aware of the lack of faith that all might be well regardless! And if this is what my mind is busy doing, I must not be trusting. It seemed clear that this thinking and a deep faith that all is well and shall be well could not coexist.

Of course, everything is relative. I certainly trust the universe WAY more than I ever have before in any other time in my life! And my awesome life is a reflection of this.

And yet there I was, basically planning for the possibility of missing my flight. And struggling to get myself back to peace.This struck me so deeply that I could barely contain myself. I felt a deep grief in that moment.

All those years pretending and imagining that I (the smaller me, if you will) was managing things and making sure everything turned out alright. All those years of planning, attempting to predict and then avoid, every possible experience I might want to avoid. All the while, in doing so, focusing my attention there - on all the possible things I did not want to happen! While claiming that I am a master of awareness, who understands the basic spiritual principle that the way to create more of anything in our lives is to focus our attention on it.

Hello?
Ahhhh!

There is a stirring deep within me. I am grateful to see this exhausting old pattern. I am still grieving and yet I do recognize this - quite clearly. It is my answered prayer! I have been claiming peace. But perhaps it is Peace that is claiming me, after all.

So once again, I walk through a normal day and experience yet another ordinary transformation. When we turn our attention to practicing awareness, we can discover the most amazing things!

And once again, I thought I knew myself, but alas, a new land has been discovered. A new world has come into view.

I am so very grateful, yet again. I am so thankful for the central focus of my life, the practice of awareness and of personal transformation. I am grateful that it is ordinary, for my experience of it and the transformations (and the blessings) it brings, to me, are nothing short of extraordinary.