must we again be crammed like cattle in the birth canal?
every vestige of the old clings and clutters
like intoxicated flies of autumn that will not be swatted away
they weave listlessly
landing near to our noses and teasing with the momentarily unattainable
our feet stuck in the syrup again

oh, shift!
we know we are but an instant away
the land of the promised tangoes toward us
only to pull back sharply in a volte-face
a sea change poised in oscillating sway
renders us restive and incomplete

oh, shift!
the vibrational backhoes rev their engines
they have arrived to carry away the sweepings of unlived lives
clear slag heaps of ancient flotsam and jetsam
of runious choices and decisions of invalidity
is my closet not yet empty of the remnants of reconciliation?

transmutation is a bittersweet pill marked by rhapsody and lamentation
supernal spiraling and plummeting freefall
we hang on tenterhooks decaying to the core
while the chrysalis pulses in deconstructive readiness,
quickened by impending genesis, the final molting tickles our tongues
wends its way through a helical dance of evolution
and urgently entreats us to be patient once more.

oh, shift!

I began this piece back in July and found myself stumbling upon it this morning and bringing it to completion. These words contain great power for anyone who speaks them aloud. If this energy resonates with where you are now, you might also want to visit (or revisit) “prayer for radical forgiveness,” which resides in the right-hand sidebar in the list of “pages.” As in much of my work, the “you” in this piece may indeed represent a part of yourself that is ready to release and heal.

clearing prayer for personal sovereignty

To the one who bulleted my tender arroyos with the rat-a-tatting of buckshot spray,
I invite you to consider how the weapon was placed in your hand
Who gave you the sharp command to fire at will,
And why you acquiesced without reflection

To the one who laid at my feet a bundle of thorns beribboned by knotted raffia,
I suggest you ponder gently the origins of your wounded heart
The ancient inklings of your foundational fear
And your penetrating need to remain outside the margins of healthy attachment

To you who projected onto my illuminative scrim
a blistering repertoire of gaping wounds,
I offer you a lightsaber of Forgiveness
dipped in a river of uncoiling Compassion

To you who tore into my soft underbelly with rusty and jagged swordplay
intent on inflicting unremitting pain absent the bliss of final annihilation,
I thank you for the opportunity to strengthen the invincible core of who I Am

To the one who feigned shock and astonishment when the mirror of truth
was raised squarely to your visage of affectation and scowled discontent,
   Who retreated because you refused to offer access to Love 
when it pounded at your door
Who beat back the arrival of Contentment
when it arrived cloaked in naught but a pearly sheen of Peace,

I invite you to turn your attention inward and halt your ragtag march
to bludgeon every supposed exterior enemy along your path

And I release here and now,
into the willing and outstretched arms of a Just and Loving universe,
My unholy attachment to your pain-riddled accusations.

May Blessings and Joy embrace you in every moment
May LovingKindness guide your every step
May we all choose our highest expression
and let Love lead the way.

You can pray
Or be the prayer

Sing
Or be the song

Ask the searching questions
Or live the unmistakable answers in every moment

You were placed here for a purpose beyond all purpose
A hope beyond all hope
You are the very breath of Creation
And the unfolding of Eternity

Nothing is about you
And everything is

Nothing is certain
Save the unequivocal certainty of the here and now

You own nothing because you are the All
Need nothing because within you lies the completeness of never-ending Love
And the promise of humanity’s everlasting freedom

You can talk the talk and walk the talk
Until that unmissable moment that you become the talk

You are the message, the prophecy,
 The incantations and the psalms
The ritual is your beating heart
The absolution, the blood coursing through your veins
Your eyes speak the benediction with every blink

No longer must you see yourself
a lowly pawn in the grand game

No longer need you wait, candle in hand,
For the apparition made manifest

The temple lies within you!
Through your holy mouth enter the willing
And return the newly born.

your regrets and disappointments,
let them go
missteps and infelicities,
cast them aside
indiscretions of the past mean nothing now
and if you insist on lugging them along
in some ersatz act of Sisyphusian heroics
your feet will fail you

and you may never arrive

leaking baggage is no longer de rigueur
as proof of your wounded eccentricities,
the weight of these badges has inspissated your soul!
elevate yourself
let each sodden sack tumble over the transom

these millstones are no longer yours to carry

place your struggle on the ground before you
and walk away
bundle your ancient shame in a canvas bag
loosen it from your shoulder
and drop it on the doorstep of Creation

it is none of your business who picks it up

do not look back,
retrain your gaze
the old holds nothing for you now!
you need not watch in morbid fascination
as it sputters and spins itself out of existence

your eyes were given to see so much more

divest yourself of the accumulated wreckage of life
and its propensity to drag  you to the dungeon,
the light of all that is good and true
sweeps the endless horizon in illuminative glory,
searching out the intrepid spirit
that lies beneath your ragged heart

prepare to receive the outpourings of love

Wow!

A lot of people are in the thick of it right now — not only dealing with economic turmoil and loss, but also working on deeper levels to clear their lives of anything that no longer serves them. There’s more clutter in your life than what you see in your closets!

Fact is, though, not all of us have the basic tools for disconnecting from friends, professional associates, family members, jobs, housemates, and others who might have been part of our past, but don’t seem to be a fit for the new lives we are now actively creating.

So, here’s a handy guide to disconnecting from others with integrity, grace, and more than a modicum of compassion for all involved.

1. Be clear about your intentions.

Revenge, guilt, vindictiveness, spite, or a desire to even up the score, will not ease your journey into “The New.” Instead, act from a place of non-judgment. Accept that your time together has reached a point of diminishing returns; that every interaction now feels like you are dragging a carcass of rotting meat through a slime-infested sludge pond. Honor what has come before. Acknowledge the shared hopes and dreams; lessons learned; love exchanged. Be grateful for the good times, the not-quite-so-good-times, and (of course!) the heinous, painful, unremitting times of conflict and struggle that brought you precisely to where you are today. You have no intention of heartlessly hurting anyone! Your greatest desire is to move forward into a life of greater contentment, joy, peace, and prosperity — and you want the same for others.

2. Let your heart be your guide.

How do you feel about this person, this relationship, this organism that you call “us”? You can still love and respect someone yet choose to withdraw your energy. If the relationship feels stilted, contrived, dead — and it sucks you of your light and energy — let it go. If you groan at the sound of the other person’s voice or the sight of that familiar name on your email or phone — let it go. If you begin to develop new relationships at a higher frequency, and are uplifted and nourished by them, move without hesitation toward what lights you up! Don’t agonize over the weeks, months or years of the past: Where do you want to head right now — and who do you choose to accompany you on this leg of the journey? You have every right to make that choice: Make it from your heart.

3. Summon the courage to speak your truth.

You can do this! When you unabashedly speak your truth, you offer a precious gift. How others elect to receive that gift is entirely up to them. If they go into fear, that’s their choice. If they take it personally and sink into old, dysfunctional patterns of response, that’s their choice. More than anything, the truth yearns to be told. Say My life is very full and rich with other things now. Say It doesn’t feel appropriate for us to spend time together. Say It’s not about you; it’s about me… I’ve changed — and your energy no longer feels resonant with mine. Simply speak your truth without blame, without judgment, without lengthy explanations or endless discussions that lead you nowhere except right back where you started. Trust that it is safe to speak your truth: The greater risk may indeed be in ignoring, repressing, or denying it.

4. Maintain your momentum and resist the backslide.

Truth-telling can feel like butterflies in your belly and fear racing throughout your body. You may feel your breath clutch in your chest, or feel faint. It’s not because you’re doing something wrong — it’s the release of energy that has been trapped, blocked, locked away for an eternity! The rush can frighten, paralyze, or profoundly empower you. Again, the choice is yours. The reactions of others may throw you off kilter; old urges to explain, to convince, to manipulate, to shrink into nothingness, may rear their ugly heads. Stay the course. Disengage where appropriate. Remember your intention; check in with your heart; continue with courage. You are laying down new pathways that, in time, will become your default modus operandi. As you do, you shift your own ways of being while you also shift the whole of existence. Once your truth-telling muscles limber up, you will find an unexpected strength and power within.

5. Honor and embrace the old, the new, the now.

Every iota of your beingness deserves love and honor. Every person you call into your sphere has a distinct role to play and deserves recognition. Sometimes, the hardest people or patterns to release are the ones that assisted you most of all (whether through means joyful or painful). Where would you be today without them? As your process of evolution unfolds; as you traverse your inner cycles of life, death, and rebirth; the lines between The Old and The New will blur. The impulse to chart the lines of coming and going will diminish — and you will dance with abandon in an unceasing Now.

I  pledge to continue to awaken, to grow, and to serve
as the hands, heart, mind and spirit
of God – by whatever means I am called.

If you want to move forward with your journey, now is the time for embodied expression. Come out of your cave; leave your meditations and rituals behind; and jump into a potent engagement with the world around you!

At every turn, say Yes! to whatever lights you up — and simply say “No, Thanks” to situations, people, or places that feel annoying, irritating, or just not right. Really, it can be that easy — as well as excrutiatingly difficult!

If you have been faithful to the work of “being whole now,” there is a vast and glorious new world awaiting at your feet.  If you’ve still got some inner work to do – some more releasing and clearing – there are many people who can assist you, including some in the sidebar on this blog. What are you waiting for?

If you continue to hold on to old visions and wonder why nothing is coming together – you may not be quite as open and prepared to surrender as you believe yourself to be. Detailed laundry lists of what you want, where you want it, how you want it, and and who you want it with — are no longer as appropriate as they once were. Take a single baby step in the direction you want to go – and stop obsessing about all the details in between.

Have you taken action steps? Have you overridden your fears and old attachments when a new, golden opportunity presented itself? Or, is there still a wide gulf between your talk and your walk? Have you continued to predicate your life decisions on money and a prehistoric view of security — even as you claim to be living the principles  of Universal Laws? Have you read all the books, attended all the workshops, and intellectually discussed myriad philosophies and approaches to living a magnificent life — yet have stopped short of embracing these energies into your actual, physical beingness?

Trust me, I have slogged through times high and low, and have crashed against the ceiling of my own bliss time after time for decades, even lifetimes. I have called in support when I needed it – or more often, I simply hunkered down and blasted my way through alone. Along the way, I was judged, chastised, misrepresented, praised, and adored. You might be, too, but don’t take it personally.

When friends invited me to manifestation circles and goddess rituals and monthly visioning gatherings and meditations, I declined time and again. I was filled with the experience of doing life:  planting seeds, developing proposals, creating new circles of community, and shedding old, unproductive ways of being. I have long maintained that there is no physical or mental work as challenging and rigorous as the inner and outer work we undertake as evolving souls.

Your path, of course,  is your own — and may bear no resemblance whatsoever to mine. But just for informational purposes, here’s a bit of what’s been happening for me:

The other day, I volunteered for 16 hours, helping feed firefighters and other emergency personnel battling a 3,000-acre wildfire licking at the edges of the small city in which I live. All because when I was called to jump in my car last spring and volunteer for The Salvation Army at a tornado-ravaged site a hundred miles away, I leaped into service, trusting that gas money would show up to get me there over the space of two weeks!

This past month, I discovered an immediate sense of belonging in a tiny, rural community four–and-a-half hours away, and am beginning to create a business and gathering spot there with support from an elder couple I met over Thanksgiving — a synchronistic result of my spontaneous choice to attend a holiday retreat at a New Mexico  inter-denominational conference center I learned about from some women I met in Cozumel, (Old) Mexico — where I found myself in November through a series of amazing miracles borne out of connections developed in the early 1990s and dormant for years. Never would I have been able to devise such an intricate plan, but that’s where the astonishing efficiency of the Universe gets to shine!

After six months of being home-free by choice, and answering post after post on craigslist, interviewing others for possible house-shares, migrating on a weekly or daily basis to housesitting jobs, road trips, or friend’s couches, I closed out 2008 by finally locating a home base situation that perfectly suits my needs. Along the way, I bounced from elated to weary, clear to questioning, yet I held out, trudged on, until my heart and spirit cried out in a resounding “Yes!” and I knew I had arrived exactly where I am supposed to be for now. Had I fallen prey to desperation, I surely would be less content today.

When my father passed in early November, I resisted the strings of guilt and misunderstanding heaped upon me by family members who live their lives from a wholly different operating system than I do. I maintained my connection with my Dad at higher levels, shared exquisite moments with him even as his soul had begun to leave his body, and connected with the experience as befitted my expanded journey. Pulled between obligation and deeper knowing, I stayed true to my path and now continue to exchange infinite love and support with my father, absent the limitations of the physical body.

Face it: You know what is not working for you right now — even if you don’t know where you would rather be.  Taking even a tiny step away from what feels unmistakably wrong, is a step in the right direction.

If you feel a knot in your stomach or clog in your throat or pain in your ass when you review your longheld ideas, plans, or goals, heed what your body is telling you! Disengage and become involved somehow, somewhere, in something that refreshes and invigorates you.

Get involved with your community, or go find a new one. Freely offer your gifts and talents — without sinking into the muck of the compensation question. Build or create something from the ground up – physically, metaphorically, or artistically. Do something that frightens you, that you have resisted forever. Just Do Something!

I have for years found great resonance with the “energy alerts” of Karen Bishop,who hangs her hat in my own beloved Southwestern US.  Her previous website, “What’s Up On Planet Earth?” was frequently spot-on with my own experiences. Even while speaking of the spiritual ascension process, she comes across as grounded, practical, and very much in tune with the process of bringing heaven to earth in your own life.

She’s got a new website, including updated messages called WINGS; you can go to www.emergingearthangels.com here.

What are you waiting for? Get up and move…

Even though be whole now is not yet a year old (like me, my blog is a Piscean), the start of this sure-to-be-unforgettable new year is a good time to unearth and recycle some memorable posts from 2008.

Here are a few of my favorites, based on a purely non-scientific selection process.

1. I never tire of watching diva India Arie sing the James Taylor classic, The Secret O’ Life. Every word speaks directly to my soul. Maybe yours, too? Click right here and enjoy!

2. My poem, I Had Forgotten, But Now I Remember, came through after a particularly momentous breakthrough session with intuitive healer/midwife of the soul Dawn Knapp.  Choosing to remember may just be Job #1 on the path to wholeness: find the poem here.

BTW, you can learn more about Dawn’s work over here (www.dawnings.org).

3. In the post, ordinary oracles: the tao of automobiles, I donned my robe to give uncannily accurate automotivology readings. If you’re stuck in neutral, seem to be going backwards, or have a tendency to veer off the road, check out this post. Personal readings still available, although they now come with a request for donation.

4. I could never forgive myself if I didn’t include my prayer for radical forgiveness in my list of favorites for 2008.

5. Intelligent inspiration for writers with new resolve to write! Here is a reprise of my 20th-century essay, voice lessons: finding your inner writer.

6. Rumi’s expression of Divine love never goes out of style! Click here to visit (or revisit) my post, this Rumi poem & video ought to be rated R for Ravishing!

"Starting Over" by Cathy Woo

Seattle-based artist Cathy Woo contacted me after I featured art by another artist of the same name — and, of course, I fell in love with her art! Visit this Cathy Woo’s studio (and learn more about the concept of Zen Dots) by clicking right here.

Say Hello To the New,
To opening doorways and glistening portals
To picking up a broad brush and painting a portrait of the ultimate You
To stepping into your place on the circle with courage and joy
And surrounding yourself with others who bravely choose to do the same.

Say Welcome Home to the parts you may have lost or forgotten along the way
To your deepest knowings: You know what you know!
Find your way to the places where you become heady with belonging
Where the sun and moon and soil speak to you by name
Where there is time and space to do and be everything absent the strain of achievement
Where the relationships that have hibernated in the deepest burrows of your heart
Emerge into the golden light of a beckoning Spring.

To the blank slate begging to be splashed with the hues and tones
Of your most vibrant dreams, say Howdy!
To the unfolding mystery, say Welcome,
To your inner yearnings – the ones that could never be quelled -  say Now!
To every tiny heart-tickling inkling that feels like Love
Say Yes! and Yes! and Yes! and Yes!

Say Goodbye to the old,
To tired stories that prevent you from diving into the Unknown as it calls your name
To people who pull you down and away from your true embodied power,
Who spew their pain and torment in the direction of the light yet refuse to look within
To rolling the stone up the mountain day after day
Only to wake up and do it all over again,
To that which simply does not work for you any longer
That sucks you of your inspiration and joy
That stands with arms folded over barely breathing chest
And keeps your every joy but inches beyond your reach,
Bid Adieu.

It matters not what has come before
Who you were five years ago, five months, five minutes
What you felt was true and real, what hollow promises you made
Or what reality you inhabited,
All is ready to fall away, to scatter and
Be carried off by a gently cleansing breeze
Do you not deserve this fresh and glorious beginning?
Are you not ready to greet the liberation of your aching spirit and soul?
All in favor…
Say Hello to the New.

I will not tell a lie: I have been be-bopping around the house to the 5-minute video, I Am A Magnet to Money.

It’s fun. It’s got a disco beat. And it makes me happy. What’s more, after singing the tune for 3 days, I received a check from a very large federal agency that I had anticipated would take many weeks or months to process.

When it comes to the Law of Attraction or Manifestation or Co-Creating Your Reality, how you walk your path is up to you. Just sayin, though, this one’s bound to make you smile.

In case the video doesn’t show up, here’s the youtube link. The video was created by Shane Belceto at PersonalDevelopmentS; the opening credits also include California-based motivational musician Michele Blood, whose site can be found here.

If  this subject interests you and you want to taste a different flavor, check out my previous post linking you to the Bryan deFlores Money Tree of Life meditation.