Illuminating the Darkness

As I was driving to “work” (which is now Sage Wellness, a pretty sweet place to use space!), I was quieting my mind and focusing on the next thing I was going to be doing, leading a meditation class. I was reflecting on the times we were in, namely the Presidential election, which was to be held the following day. And a large bumper sticker popped into my line of sight on the car in front of me: “You Ain’t Seen Nothin Yet.”  I smiled to myself, as I am now accustomed to these messages coming in funny places. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but I had a feeling that it meant that Trump would win.

Now, you may be thinking, that’s great, but here we are, stuck with this seemingly horrible situation. Rocketed into the dark ages. Haven’t we come so far already to be set back so much? Didn’t we work so hard to overcome racism, sexism, xenophobia, climate-change denying and basically every other “ism” that Trump seems to embody?

Well, we have. We have come so far as a society, as a consciousness. Same-sex marriage is legal and will soon be completely accepted. Very soon, it will become widely accepted for people to be born as one gender, and decide to become another (in my experiences with entities from the higher realm, they are all androgynous). We have made leaps and bounds in our views about race and not worrying about the color of skin. The Millennials, whatever generation is behind them are more open-minded than we could have ever imagined. The generations that are being born today (including my own children), are here, I believe, to help us heal. To ask for and receive forgiveness (have you noticed how much we have to learn from the Native people of our lands?). To teach us how to love unconditionally. Children now will grow up in a culture of humans (for the most part) that takes acceptance as a given, that knows why meditation is so important, and that cares for and nurtures the Earth in ways that it hasn’t in thousands of years.

This is the flaring of the candle before it is extinguished. The last hurrah of the old, broken and dying system of greed and capitalism. Trump’s election is our dowsing of cold water to wake us up in the morning. It is our unpleasant shock. It is our call to action. But not just action of “fight against.” It is an action of “building towards.” And as the wise elder Joanna Macy says (I was just at her transformative gathering this past weekend in New Mexico), we must begin to do things differently this time.  The old yelling about what we don’t like in the current President (didn’t we already do that with all the Bushes?) is not enough anymore. This time, we must approach things differently.

We must look into our inner selves to guide us. Our intuition. Our inner knowing. It is a real energy that can provide us exceptional guidance in our lives, and for our planet. And it is not just a “well, yes, that would be a good thing to do” thing anymore. This new approach is imperative for our survival as a human race, and for the Earth’s survival. We must stop this pattern of destruction. And we must awaken to the fact that we have been programmed, yes, programmed, through thousands of years in a system based on profit, greed and destruction of the Earth, designed to keep us from understanding our true Higher selves. A system that has no respect for life of any kind, that is based on much illusion and deception (even people that we might believe are out for our best interests may mostly be attending to the interests of corporations). A system that has used public schooling to get us to think inside and only inside of a box, oppressive workplaces to keep us feeling small, drugs to sicken us and increase our dependence on pharmaceutical companies, and mass media (television and even some modern technology) to keep us living in fear and numbness. Yes, folks. It’s all coming out of the woodwork, now!

This is a call to us collectively to come out of our slumber (it has been an eons-long slumber) and face the truth that saddens so many of us (myself included). It's kind of like learning there is no Santa Claus. Remember how that felt? Well, eventually we all accepted it.. so it will get better. For me, I have gone through the grieving process when I started to connect the dots. And we all will go through our own experience with grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression… and then acceptance. You may go in and out of each phase. Take a moment, right now, to notice which you may be experiencing now. I still continue to ebb and flow through each. (We will explore these emotions and more tomorrow, on Inauguration Day, at the invocation/meditation event I’m hosting called We Choose Love.)

I had not yet shared this publicly with such vigor, as I knew that the time was not right. But the time is now. This is our chance. We can take back power as consumers and refuse to buy from companies that harm the Earth, other humans or animals. We can buy from socially and environmentally-conscious companies that we know are doing their best to be what my friend Seth Leaf Pruzansky calls “conscious-preneurs” (and he is one of them with his company Tourmaline Spring!). We can stand up for what we believe in (remember what Martin Luther King and Gandhi did with peaceful, loving non-resistance?), but also learn to have compassion for, and even forgive, our “enemies.” Forgive them, for they know not what they do. Well, maybe sometimes it seems that they know and just don't care, but on a subconscious level, they may not understand the impact they have. They rationalize (ever heard of the unfortunate term “collateral damage”?) and may honestly believe that they are doing the right thing. When your primary motivation is power, as it for many in control (for now), you will always be led astray. When your primary motivation is love, as its many, many people who are healing, and leading, and teaching (just go to alternative sources to learn about them), you will work to bring light to the darkness. May more of us bring light to what has been in the dark for so long. May it fuel us forward in our paths to co-create a world that we are proud to pass on to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. We care for them too much to allow this to go on any longer.

One last thing, before I leave you. I understand more and more that my work in Soulful Work Intuitive Consulting is to help assist people in listening to their true, Higher selves. I do this in multiple ways, as you know. Articles, blog posts, workshops, etc. And classes (my first live class is starting next week) that mimic the transformation I have experienced in my own life to a place I never could have imagined several years ago. Hope you'll join us if you’re interested in evolving to a place of healing, truth and purpose in your own life.)

In the words of that incredible visionary and spiritual leader, Martin Luther King Jr,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

The Holy Names We Often Avoid

We went to a concert, the Magic of Christmas, the other day that we regularly attend as a family this time of year. As always, it dazzled and inspired. Aside from the Hallelujah chorus, one moment stood out to me from the others. And that was from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" (sung here by Johnny and June Carter Cash in a lovely rendition).

I have heard this poem, and sung the song, many times over the years. But this time a particular stanza spoke to me in a way it had never before:

And in despair I bowed my head;

"There is no peace on earth," I said;

"For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

God is not dead. Or is he (or she)? In this poem, Longfellow was grieving the destruction (which affected his own son) of the Civil War. He had lost his wife due to a tragic accident. But he found higher source to comfort him. 

Through the bells, which “pealed more loud and deep,” echoing the celestial sounds from the heavens, Longfellow took solace in knowing that justice, love and compassion were still alive. That goodness would win in the end. That even with so much tragedy in the world, the light always prevails.

That last stanza has inspired me to such a great extent that I have written it on my vision wall in my bedroom. In this time, when so many of us fear what lies ahead of us in the world, we can look to a higher source of guidance to help us through (if you want to hear more of my thoughts on this, check out this recent interview on a local radio show).

Do you need to call this higher source God? Not if the term doesn't work for you, of course. For so many, the word God has been misused to the point that many of us (myself included at one point in my life) have found it difficult to listen with an open heart to people who talk about God all the time. I used to think, “they are religious, probably close-minded, and want to proselytize to me. They’re just trying to tell me I should believe the way they do.” And I would instantly judge them and stop hearing the message they were sharing.

Until now. I know that something has shifted for me since I used to not be able to read or hear the words of a wonderful spiritual teacher, Marianne Williamson (and a fabulous book, The Law of Divine Compensation). Too much God and Jesus language, I believed. But the words don't bother me anymore. Now, they lift me up.

So I have decided to reclaim the word God. While attempts to avoid using the word for so many years worked for a while, in my spiritual quest for higher guidance, I have found myself wanting to refer to the Source of all love in one simple word. “Universe” doesn’t quite encompass it all for me. “The Divine” often works, but doesn't always fit.

As it turns out, I have decided that I am now okay with talking to God. And here’s another secret for you. I even talk to the one wise person who I was so tired of hearing about for years and years, who is revered in so many religions, and who is much misaligned, much misused. Jesus. After several life-changing experiences with a figure I now understand to be Jesus, I can’t deny the presence of this Ascended Master (how I choose to refer to him) in my life, as a spiritual teacher and model of pure unconditional love.

For whatever reason, these words are now working for me. I have come full circle since I was a child, saying The Lord’s Prayer before bedtime with my mother. 

How do you feel about these words, God and Jesus? How do these entities play into your life (or not)? I'd love to hear your comments below the blog posting.

May you have a blessed holiday season, whichever holiday around now you choose to celebrate, if any at all. May it be a time of love, generosity, forgiveness and light.

And I look forward to seeing some of you more in the New Year. Maybe in the free virtual class, or in a whole bunch of smaller workshops in what looks to be a busy first month of 2017! (And by the way, if you’re thinking about resolutions already, here’s a little incentive: I’m doing a year-end discount on an in-person 8-week class in January, but only until 12/31/16)!

In quiet contemplation,

Rachel

Please Forgive Me.

Forgiveness. We often hear the word but kind of brush it aside. Yeah, yeah. We think: yes, of course. Forgiveness is a good thing to do, I do that.

But do we really? 

We don't really like unpleasant feelings. And exploring the need to forgive often brings up some not-so-fun feelings that we often try to avoid.  We don't want to think that we need to ask for forgiveness, forgive someone else, or, the most difficult task of all, forgive ourselves.

Why is this so important? Well, even though forgiving someone or asking forgiveness is just a good thing to do, it actually can have a large impact on our energetic selves.

There is much to be angry about these days. And even afraid of. But is that getting us to the place where we really yearn to be? Is it building toward a future we long for, or is it merely fighting against a future we fear?

When we hold onto emotions like anger, fear, guilt or resentment, we create stuck energy in our bodies. This might be on an individual level or on a collective level. How many of us are scared, and angry, about climate change?  Or shocked and fearful about the current political climate in the U.S.?  In our own lives, we may have lingering emotions from a person we interacted with, in a negative way, in our lives. Maybe we hurt them, even unintentionally, or maybe they hurt us. 

In our own lives and on a global scale, we tend to want to avoid feelings we don't like. Instead of exploring them and working through them (which can take time.. and not many of us seem to have a lot of that!), we tend to file them away, hoping they will eventually disappear. But they don't. And over time, with enough of these interactions, we build up a store of gunky stuff in our bodies.

So we can make a choice. A simple choice that we are ready to move on. I recently offered a live guided meditation around the theme of Forgiveness which you can listen to at your leisure. Channeling our subconscious is an incredibly effective way to release the past. We can start by forgiving ourselves, first, since our external experience comes naturally as an extension of our internal experience. Then move on to forgiving another, releasing a long-held grudge or any false story that is no longer serving us (or the other person). Next, we may choose to reach out to the soul of another and ask for their forgiveness for a disservice we have done (directly or indirectly) to them. Sometimes asking for forgiveness means reaching out in reality to another, but sometimes it doesn't. Ask your inner self for guidance around what to do. 

If you'd like to see what asking another forgiveness looks like on a larger scale, this video of veterans, led by Wes Clark, Jr., asking Elders at Standing Rock for forgiveness for the history of atrocities committed by the U.S. government against Native Americans will stir your soul. We may witness and hear about more moments like this in the coming months and years.

Forgiving ourselves and others is only one piece of the larger and ever-evolving puzzle in our quest to find what fulfills us. 

"There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love." - Bryant H. McGill