MARIA MAGDALENA

Today we celebrate my mother-in-law‘s 90th birthday. Her actual birthday is 1/30/30. Today, on this day that we celebrate this milestone in her life, I remember the gift that she is to me. Not only did she give birth to the man that I married but she has been like a second Mama to me ever since they moved in across the street when I was in the third grade.

Maria Magdalena, or Maggie as I have always called her, recently stayed with us for 10 days. Her presence was a gift. I had projected that I would lose my space and my opportunities for silence while she was staying with us. And the truth is I have written several blogs and I can only do those when I am sitting in the silence. That tells me my practice of silence is paying off. I entered the silence while engaging with her and Raymond to write and publish my blog. My goal has been to accept and be the silence in whatever situation I find myself not just when I’m alone. Not only was I able to do that because of my practice but because of Maggie’s comfortableness with the silence in herself and her willingness to be present with me in the silence. I also went deep into the processing old fears and old belief systems. Something I normally only do when I am alone. I found space in our silence. We coexisted beautifully. I have a newfound appreciation for her and her experience of life.

At 90, and with her memory an issue for her, I marvel at her resilience.  I marvel at her willingness and desire for connection. I marvel at her trust. She trusts us with her well-being she trusts us to respect her. She trusts us to love her and care for her. I marvel at her adaptability. I marvel at what she does remember. And what I noticed is that while she may remember a trauma or two from her life, she mostly remembers the love. The stories she loops on are ones filled with love and laughter. She loves to tell me the one where she caught my sisters in her kitchen “borrowing“ eggs. They thought she was at work. She surprised them. She giggles as though it is happening right now and she remembers how big their eyes got when she “caught“ them.

She tells me she has forgotten so much but the bits and pieces she remembers bring her such joy. She loves when I tell her a story I remember about her and my son, Cory. And sometimes that sparked a memory for her that she then shared with me.

One night when she was with us my husband played his role as RJ the DJ as we created a playlist for her 90th birthday celebration. It was such fun to see her remember and sing along to “If you’ve got the money honey, I’ve got the time“, Green Grow the Lilacs, Crazy, as well as many others. She remembered loving to dance but my father-in-law not liking to go back-and-forth ( meaning fast dancing of the time). He preferred the slow ones where he held her close.

On this, her 90th birthday, I honor the gift she has been not just to me but to anyone blessed by her presence. Having grown up across the street from my future husband she has been a part of my life since I was in the third grade. She has almost always been a part of my landscape. But I don’t believe I ever really appreciated her until my son Cory was born. She rushed to our side in Hawaii. And from that moment on I knew I could count on her. She and my father-in-law, Jack, often traveled to wherever we were stationed to be with Cory so that I could go on a replenishing retreat. They would go ahead to a new duty station and paint and repair a home for us to move into while I drove across country.

When we moved back to New Mexico, Cory always knew he could call his grandma for a ride if I were not available. She has been a constant in my life. As precious as my own mother. She has always been there for me, for Cory, and of course for Raymond.

I am grateful that we can be there for her now when she is the one who requires support. I am grateful for the lessons she has taught me throughout my life.

When I think of my mother-in-law the word that comes to mind is devotion.

  She was devoted to her husband of 68 years. She is devoted to her faith. She is devoted to her family; her children, her grandchildren, her remaining extended family. She is devoted to connection; often wishing to call extended family.

She has visited us many times and in all our locales and we lived with her for four months when our home was being built here in New Mexico. But this “visit “to our home for 10 days was a revelation and a delight.

I am grateful for the help you have been to me over the years Maria Magdalena.

I am grateful for the lessons I have learned through the interactions we have had over the years.

I am grateful especially for the insights I garnered from the days spent with us recently.

I am grateful for being loved by you. I am grateful for the opportunity to love you.

Happy Birthday!!!!

GATEWAY TO SILENCE

This morning as I finished writing my morning pages (as recommended by Julia Cameron in the Artist Way, which she calls taking out the garbage), I noticed my body unwinding especially around the neck and head area. And then I noticed the Silence. The Blessed Silence. As the heater clicked off the Silence became palpable. I love this Silence. This stillness that tells me all is well. This Silence where there is no agenda. I am not asking for anything. I’ve emptied myself through my journaling of my worries and my desires, my pettiness, my anger, my fears. And finally I notice the Silence. I notice the stillness. I notice my body slows down, my movements slow down, my writing slows down.

Each movement, each stroke of the pen deliberate. Intention embedded into every stroke, in every thought being conveyed. I love this time/no time for it appears to stand still. 

In the Silence, I feel my body unwinding in between the moments of writing down my insights. Silence is my therapy. Silence is vital to my well-being. I strive to bring this Silence into my interactions with people. Sometimes I’m successful. Too often I fail. I get caught up in being heard, being acknowledged – both mine and their need.

When I notice and embody the Silence and the gifts it brings, it is my intention to always carry this in my being. It is why I “practice“ being in the Silence. It is like anything I choose to practice, the more I practice, the better I get at it

I once heard Kris Carr (Crazy, Sexy Cancer) say,  “worrying is like praying for what you don’t want to happen”. The Silence allows you to step away from worry and into acceptance which then allows peace and trust to enter the playing field. Not because I demanded it but because I surrendered my agenda to the Silence. And in that surrender was the possibility of something new. Perhaps the situation did not change but my perspective may have and that is EVERYTHING! That is a change agent. Only by confronting our own beliefs, fears, challenges and bringing them into the Silence can we affect change in ourselves and in others.

Our beliefs, our fears, our challenges are noisy. They create an incessant chatter. Ever try to sleep while worrying about something? Don’t you just want to scream, SHUT UP!!! Yeah. I know. I understand. I have found that the best thing for me to do is get up. Write it down. All of it. Verbally vomit on the page. For some of you it may be to turn on your favorite music and dance it out. For some of you it may require a paintbrush or colored pencils and getting it on paper. Then in that moment, the moment you lay down the pen, turn off the music, put down the paint brush, that moment, notice… Notice the Silence. And in that Silence notice what it is you are experiencing in your body. Listen to your breath. Listen to your heartbeat. Listen to the blood coursing through your veins.Notice the still small voice within. Notice if you are still holding tension. Just notice. Be with that tension and watch it dissipate into the Silence.

Notice that through your willingness to lay your burdens down at the Gateway to Silence that instead of projecting them onto those you love or those you don’t know on social media,  a space is created for something different. Perhaps an idea or a solution will burst forth in this fertile soil of Silence. Perhaps you will feel a sense of peace and acceptance. Perhaps the Silence will inspire compassion for yourself and for others. Who knows the limitless possibilities waiting to be noticed when we choose to enter the Silence and leave the chaos at the door. Perhaps that still small voice becomes a roar, a wealth of knowledge and information. Perhaps all you notice is the quiet. Perhaps that is the gift.  Whatever it is, in the Silence, you'll know it when you hear it.

DRUMMING

Just finished drumming. As I drummed today my intention was to send healing to someone I love in Washington DC. As soon as I put my focus on DC, however, I found myself joining an ongoing drumming circle. There were drummers from every indigenous culture on the planet, the Americas, the Aborinal people, the Africans, Europeans. All cultures were represented. And more were arriving each moment I was there. I was initially taken to each of the monuments and war memorials. I saw ancestors of every race and color and tribe holding space, drumming and dancing. It was awe inspiring.

I was told to envision and hold the vision of all world leaders with the shaft of loving Light flowing through them from top to bottom and bottom to top, a continuous circular flow. This light extending deep into the earth and up and out into the stars and beyond. Hold this vision not just for the leaders of the US, but for leaders and those involved with decision-making all over the world. Every country. Every being on the planet. All peoples, all animals, all plant life. All of it. Hold this vision. At the end, I saw drummers drumming on every continent on earth. I saw the Earth enveloped in the Love and Light of this focused drumming and visioning.

Pick up a drum and join this ethereal drumming circle at anytime of the day or night for five minutes, for an hour, or for however long you feel called to drum. And if you don’t feel called to drum try to hold this vision of a shaft of loving, healing Light piercing through the physical bodies of our elected leaders our unelected leaders, those from other countries and of course imagine the same shaft of light enveloping each and everyone of us.

As I finished drumming and sat in the quiet, I saw the Earth surrounded by drummers, dancers, healers. I felt calm and at peace. I felt what this focused drumming and visioning can do for me personally.

As the song says, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me...”

And so it is.

SACRED BREATH

I created this piece over 15 years ago. It represented my Humanity within the context of my Divinity. I see that it still does. I love how Spirit is making my artwork fresh for me in present time. I am looking at my pieces with new eyes. They are almost a foreshadowing of not only what was important to me at the time that I created it, but how important it would become as I progressed on this journey called LIFE.

Take a Sacred Breath

Breathing, it’s something we take for granted until something brings our awareness to it. It’s one of those functions, such as our heart pumping or our digestive system kicking in, that we just assume will work. We do not give orders for our body to perform these functions, it just knows without conscious direction on our part.

It’s ironic that for a good portion of my life my work has been bringing people into a state of awareness through their breath. Through Rebirthing, massage, Reiki, any body modality I’ve practiced, the breath was at the center. And now, the Sacred Breath is at the center of my life as I live with the awareness of the narrowing of my arterial system leading from my heart to my lungs.

I am hyper conscious of my breath and my heart because I need oxygen upon exertion and my heart rate lets me know when my heart is struggling to oxygenate.

Take a Sacred Breath

Jeff Foster ( www.lifewithoutacenter.com) posted a beautiful piece entitled Victory at Gesthemane and a video from YouTube called Jesus in Gesthemane (https://youtu.be/VyKDoivRdlo). The message “take this cup from me“ speaks to me on so many levels. It’s a statement I thought about a lot when I was first diagnosed. It’s one I consider as I watch my loved ones and my clients as they suffer through their end-of-life time. It’s a cup I’ve not wanted to drink from so many times in my life and yet, I have, over and over again since childhood. That cup that I mistake for poison has invariably turned out to be the source of birthing yet more Love and Light in myself and out into the world.

Take. A. Sacred. Breath.

 I think back to the birth of my son and if anyone had told me, “your son will be born with the birth defect Spina Bifida.” I would’ve said, “Oh no! Not me! I can’t do this. Take this cup from me.” And I would have missed out on the most extraordinary event of my life. I would have missed out on bearing witness to my heart living outside of my body. I would have missed out on a love so great, I don’t have language for it.

As Jeff Foster so eloquently states:

 “We are all Jesus in Gesthemane. Jesus is a metaphor for Consciousness itself, and it’s passing identification with form.”

He continues:

“Nail me to the Cross and break me! In other words, break me open to Love, Oh Mystery (that I Am), and destroy the false in me and reveal my true nature”.

If you’re still with me, Take. A. Sacred. Breath.

And let those words and their meaning land in your heart.

A small group of us from our Souls Awakening group participated in a healing circle last night where we asked for healing for several people but one person in particular came to the forefront of our circle. This person is in Hospice and currently laboring to birth himself back into the Light from whence he came and where he will once again become aware of his wholeness and wellness. I am sure he wishes “this cup be taken” from him as does the family that he so cherishes.

The healing we received with visuals and songs was so incredibly powerful and beautiful. We were reassured that his journey is opening him and all of us to the Love that he is and that we are. We were shown a Rainbow Bridge that he must cross and an Inbetween where his loved ones can walk with him to the Rainbow Bridge and where his loved ones are waiting for him. He is so loved and he is never alone and neither are we. All of us in the healing circle were so moved by this incredible glimpse into the Mystery.  And at the same time we are saddened by the suffering our friend is experiencing in this birthing process. We hold Sacred Space for this Birthing of Light on both sides of the veil.

Take. A. Sacred. Breath.

I am overwhelmed this morning with the synchronicity of events that transpire when we open to receive the gifts Spirit has for us and are willing to share with others. It opens the door to more synchronicity, more healing, more connection, more love.

Shortly after we had our circle we noticed that during our circle a family member had posted a picture of a bridge. Synchronicity. Someone posted The Rainbow Connection, a song with significant meaning for me personally. It is the ringtone on my phone for my son even though he is 38 years old. He was born in Hawaii (the land of rainbows). I decorated his nursery in rainbows (no baby blue for this baby). Even made a changing table in the shape of a rainbow. Rainbows have come to mean that a significant event is about to transpire. I was birthing a being of light disguised as a baby in a broken body. He was the most whole person I ever encountered. I am grateful of the Rainbow Bridge symbol in our healing last night for I have come to recognize that we are continually birthing the Light of who we are. As we learn and grow and change our perspective or our experiences change them for us, they are but opportunities for birthing more Love. I am touched by the synchronicity of birth and death (which is really birth) and a symbol of hope in the form of a rainbow to remind me of the Sacredness of it all. In the art piece posted with Birthing the Light you will notice that Cory’s face is painted in the colors of the rainbow. He has always been our Rainbow Warrior.

Healing does not always mean cure. Healing means opening yourself up to your experience and accepting your experience and allowing yourself to receive the Love that you are and sharing THAT. It means that those witnessing our suffering have the opportunity to open up their hearts to their experience of bearing witness and caregiving and in doing so honor their pain and are broken open to receive and experience more Love, more healing, more connection, more of the Light of Love that they are.

Take. A. Sacred. Breath.

The Sacred Breath allows me to “digest” the information being given to me. Digestion, another one of those parasympathetic functions we take for granted until it’s not working so great either. Alas, that will have to wait for another blog post.

So Take a Sacred Breath and allow yourself to digest this information. This art piece had a lot to say and I’ve thrown a lot at you today. The eyes on this mask are made of Divine Triangle shaped mirrors. I pray that when you look into my eyes you will see reflected back to you the incredible Light of Love that you are.

Remember that whatever cup you may be drinking from in this moment, it is an invitation into the Great Mystery. It is breaking you open into remembering the totality of who you are. Remember, YOU are the Light of Love made manifest in human form. Give thanks for EVERY Sacred Breath you get to take. You are so very loved and you are never alone.

Take. A. Sacred. Breath

🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈🌈

BREATHING SPACE

It has been just a little over a year since I was diagnosed with Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension Group 1 caused by Scleroderma, an autoimmune disease I was diagnosed with over 25 years ago.

In this past year, I had to come face-to-face with my limits. My pain limits, my energy limits, my tolerance limits. I have had to face the idea of my mortality and what that looks like or how I desire that it be knowing that in the end I won’t have the control I so desire and must surrender to what it will be.

However, to the degree that I do have control, I have made my wishes known to my family, my friends, to my doctors. And so I am at peace with the idea of leaving the physical. Actually, I’m much more comfortable with that idea than the one in which I live a much longer life.

Interesting isn’t it that dying feels more comfortable than living? I ask myself why that is. I don’t exactly know that answer but what I do know is that living has most often felt difficult for me. I think I’m afraid to feel pain and yet this past year I have endured an incredible amount of both physical and emotional pain.  I tell myself I’m not strong enough to live with or endure what the future holds and yet my history tells me that is a lie because I have risen to every single challenge with which I have been faced in my life.

Is it that I trust what comes next much more than I trust life in the body? Perhaps. For I do. I have a rich, powerful connection with Spirit. I trust it. I know that when I am no longer in the body I will be free to just be the love that I know I am. I trust that knowing. I believe in my knowing for it comes from my deep relationship with the Divinity that resides in this physical body I inhabit as Raven.

At times my human and my spirit have felt at war with each other. My human body believing it knows best, my soul patiently waiting for me to catch up. My soul creating breathing space for me to access my Divinity.

What this past year has taught me is to inhabit this breathing space. This space created by my soul in order to feel the pain, the fear, the anger that comes with living life with a terminal diagnosis. Actually to living life period. The truth of this past year is that in spite of the pain, the meds, the fear, I lived my life more fully than I have in a long time. I traveled, to prove I still could. I scheduled healing sessions with clients to show myself I was still me. I did not let this diagnosis define who I was as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, healer, artist.

I was as present as I could be in the moments that made up this past year. Whether I was writhing in pain in the sanctity of my healing space, giggling with my Soulsister’s or at the bedside of my son while he was in the hospital, I was present. I was breathing, I was loving, I was living.

And really that’s all one can do when faced with life in all its forms.

Breathe
Be present
Live Love Laugh Cry Rage Live Love Laugh (Repeat)
Give thanks for the whole package

And THAT leads me to a space of feeling limitless in a limited space.

VISION

I’d like to share a little bit about the art piece that accompanied my first blog posting. I guess it’s now associated with Birthing the Light. For me, when I created it over 20 years ago, it represented my Universe. The faces are casts of me, my husband and my son. I now know what I could not know when we first came together, first as a couple and then as a family, but which I learned after Cory‘s birth. What I learned is that we had come together to help each other remember the Light of Love from whence we came and to which we shall return once this earth walk is over. We came to be cheerleaders for each other. We came to remind each other of the great souls we are regardless of what our vehicle represented to us and to others. We came to represent the shining examples of Love we are at our core in spite of any wounds we carried or trauma we had endured.

This particular piece hangs over our television in the living room of our home. A family portrait if you will. I find it interesting that it hangs over something that has such power to move us, sway us, upset us. A television, if we are not careful, becomes our “tell-a-vision.” I like that above that hangs a symbol of my true vision for this life. It is a constant reminder of my priorities, my devotion to the Divine, my family, my Universe.

I recently took a month off of social media and “tell-a-vision” to give myself a break from all the negativity I was absorbing from the divisiveness that is our political and spiritual discourse. And I came to the realization that the tool is not the problem. It’s what I tune into that determines my experience. So Spirit whispered in my ear, once the chaos had calmed, that these tools could be used to send messages of hope and love and remembrance. It reminded me that I could create and hold a space through my social media that honors all people, all religions, all genders, all abilities.

I have always considered myself a cheerleader for others. I’m usually in the background encouraging people to remember who they are and to step into their power. That is my intention for this blog; to be a cheerleader not just for you but for myself as well. My work as a healer, specializing in processing trauma from the body, was to create a safe space for my clients to access and heal their trauma. I pray this becomes a safe space and that we learn to create that and spread that! Just as hate and vitriol can spread so can love, acceptance and tolerance. This is the ground I wish to stand on. This is my vision.

Vision seems to be the buzzword for 2020. I’m seeing it everywhere. My niece gave me an amazing gift for Christmas of a ticket to Oprah’s VisionTour2020. An experience I will cherish because I will be going with her, my niece and a dear friend. I realize now that whatever ups and downs I’ve experienced, wherever the wind blows me and mine, my vision has held steady right above my television overriding anything I might see, hear or be absorbing from the boob tube. My Birthing the Light Universe Mask waits quietly and patiently as does my inner voice for me to remember...O yea! I am the Light of Love made manifest in human form. I choose to be the best representative of the Divine I can be while in this perfectly imperfect body. And so it is.

BIRTHING THE LIGHT

The dark road I have been traveling, this desert dweller that I am, has given birth to a great new vibrational frequency of light filled love.

How am I feeling? I realize I have spent 30 years asking that question in my journal and commencing a dialogue not just with my human body but with the soul essence that I am endeavoring to embody more and more of each day. Who knew that union with the Divine Triangle, the Holy Trinity included that oh so important question? Who knew that the feelings that I was always so ashamed of because  I have been told they were bad, were the very ticket to enter into the Wholeness  of who I am. So I acknowledge that I am a spark of the Divine Triangle, the Holy Trinity, the Universe, God, the Quantum Field (call it what you will for it matters not) in human form. I can feel my feelings with the intention of processing them in order to create space for me to embody and birth more of the Light of Love that I actually am.

Such a simple tool yet so difficult to accomplish because we get trapped by blame, shame, guilt, anger, fear. It isn’t that we need to suppress these emotions but that we need to remember who we are and say, I see that I am birthing more Light in this moment of pointing the finger. How do I support myself? I start by saying I forgive myself for forgetting I am the Light. If someone is pointing at me, I say, I see that you are birthing Light right now. How may I support you? And then and only then can our actions come from a place of love, a place of remembrance.

The car crash, the family drama, the chaos of the holiday season, it is like a big bang of new understanding for me. In processing my feelings with my brother,  I got it. The pain in the jaw, the chaos that began on the day before the winter solstice culminating in a message from Spirit on the 26th, all of it finally made sense.

It started with me finally feeling the Being of Light that was coming through. If I need a name for it it is an advanced version of Brother Jesus. Of course it is. When the reason for the season is Brother Jesus. However a much more advanced version than I have ever received and shared.

After I broke through and brought through the first wave, I said to Rich “wouldn’t it be cool if we could sit around and do this with the family? I mean help each other bring through Light in this way. With the understanding that the chaos is up in order to make room for the Light to take its place.”

“What if...when someone is screaming, I could say, I see you are birthing the Light. How can I support you? How can I help you?”

What if...When someone is shouting and pontificating and in self loathing, I said, I love you. I’ve got your back. How do I support you? Phew! This is a big light you are bringing into the world. What if… What if? What if… When I told you that I HAVE been asking for help, instead of being defensive, you said to me, I see that you are birthing light. How may I serve you? What if...I said back, I see you are birthing more Light too. How can we help each other?”

About three weeks ago I asked Spirit, while I was in meditation, how to deal with the anxiety and fear I am feeling over the polarization of our country and this is the answer.  I was asked to go on a media fast in order to silence the chaos long enough to hear. I have been responding with fear, anger and anxiety when the truth is that the players on the world stage are birthing more of the light that they are, they just have forgotten that they are the Light.

The Light they are, perhaps even unconsciously, trying to birth is huge. My response, our response needs to be, how do I help? How do I serve this big, incredible birth of Light that is trying to manifest in each and every one of us on the planet at this time?

I am not just an End Of Life Doula or soul midwife helping to transition others from the physical back into the wholeness of who they are, but I am also a soul midwife helping those in the physical to remember and embody more and more of the great Light of Love that they are while still in the body!

It bears repeating, We, collectively, not just doulas holding space for those transitioning back to Source, are soul midwives birthing Light into the physical!!

So while I cannot, at this time, literally say to someone, Oof! I see that you are birthing Light. I CAN hold that consciousness in my being and not allow myself to get pulled in to the chaos of another being. Birthing is messy business. It does not always look pretty.  It is, however a holy act and we best honor and support ourselves and each other by remembering that WE ARE that great Light of Love.

When I can hold this consciousness, it frees me from the need to respond with anything but the Love of Light that I am! It releases me (human me) from the need to respond with hate, anger, fear, or the need to rescue or fix.  I remember that I am a great soul having a spiritual experience as are they!!

So yes, with this realization, I envision a time when I can see me in a group setting saying to someone, oh I see you are laboring to birth more of the Light of who you truly are into this dimension. How can I support you? I am already practicing it with people who can hear and understand this question when I ask and especially with those who can’t. It neutralizes differences and the need to fix and rescue. AND it frees me to just be the Light of Love that I came here to be.

As a doula I often think of myself as holding space for the process of merging back into the Light. What I am seeing, is that this is the process of holding space while merging with the Light while still in the body.

As I have integrated this teaching into my being in the days since the 26th when it first made itself clear to me, I am finding that it is an exquisite alignment with the Divinity that I am. I find myself being given new ways of saying it and living it.

Spirit reminds me that in those moments when I choose to blame or shame or be angry or defensive, the truth is I have forgotten that I am the Light of Love. I have forgotten that I am Divinity in the body. I have forgotten that the other person is the Light of Love. I have forgotten that the other person is Divinity in the body. I can live the message that the Christ brought. I can thank myself and the other person for this blessed opportunity to remember and birth more Light.

I can say to myself, I forgive me for forgetting that I am a representative of the Divine Holy Light in your presence. I can say, I forgive you for forgetting that you are a representative of the Divine Holy Light in my presence.  And, I can be grateful for the opportunity to remember.

This is not a license to abuse or be abused. This is recognizing it for what it is and choosing to not engage in the old, familiar pattern of conflict and polarization. Speak blessings on to yourself and others.

Choose trusted individuals with which to process your feelings for that is oh so very necessary, and then once safe,having birthed this Light, decide if you wish to continue in relationship with this person or gently walk away saying I forgive you for forgetting you are the Light of Love. Love at a distance. It works with yourself, the ones you love, strangers and right now in this political climate it works to remember that all the players are great souls having a human experience and that they have momentarily forgotten the Light of Love that they are. They have forgotten that they are the Holy Trinity in human form. Judge them not. Forgive them. Forgiving does not mean forgetting. Just as you might burn yourself on a stove you would not destroy the stove. You would forgive yourself and the stove for burning you but you would use it again more cautiously.

Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself for you are naught but Love itself made manifest in physical form. Remember to act from the space of union and alignment with the Divinity that you are. And remember that EVERY interaction is an opportunity to Birth more Light.